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Archive for the ‘Website Marketing’

Web Hosting Providers Helping You to Organize Your Email And Other Useful Tips

May 18, 2008 By: solarbluseth Category: Purchasing Help, Web Hosting Directory, Website Marketing No Comments →

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As your online business grows, it will become more and more difficult to handle emails due to their sheer numbers. More so, with SPAM and other types of unwanted advertising doing the rounds, a lot of your time may be wasted. The future will only see this trend rising. By implementing the following steps, you be able to prevent unwanted emails whilst not losing any important information.

Configuring your web hosting account to organize your email is the first step towards saving time and resources. Many of the top web host providers offer filtering software to filter out SPAM and other unwanted messages. You can configure these filters to suit your needs setting automatic acceptance of specific email addresses and emails with particular domain names.

Another tool offered by web hosting providers is a forwarding service whereby emails of different types can forwarded to a number of different email addresses.

There are lots of other techniques that will help you save time with your email accounts. Firstly, always make sure that you classify your contacts and give them email addresses that are relevant. Another good technique is to classify your inbox by making individual folders and manually transferring emails into them as they arrive. This can also be set to occur automatically by using the some of the email tools easily available. This will help manage your email in a much better and efficient manner. Akin to a filing, this system mirrors the traditional filing cabinet system and you will not lose your email.

Access to emails which have been classified correctly is easy and saves a lot of time, stress and energy. After your web hosting provider’s filter system has taken the first steps, filing away your email correctly by use of tools like Incredimail or MS-Outlook can further simplify your tasks.

File away, utilize all the tools at your disposal provided by your web hosting provider and get disciplined - you will have more time for things you like to do instead of getting lost in heaps of emails.

About Author

David Cohen is a co-founder of webhosting.reviewitonline.net which reviews the top 10 shared hosting providers in the industry.

Source: ArticleTrader.com

What is Shared and Dedicated Hosting?

May 14, 2008 By: solarbluseth Category: Purchasing Help, Website Marketing, Website Tutorials No Comments →

What is Shared and Dedicated Hosting?

There are many types of hosting accounts, so you need to put the research in to find the most suitable for your needs. You may be looking for a more complex hosting plan for your business or something simple to facilitate your small hobby site up - either way you can be sure to find the perfect package that will meet your requirements.

The main decision you will have to make is if you want shared hosting or dedicated hosting. Many people will begin with a shared hosting plan until they find their feet and their website becomes more popular. Shared hosting is where the server is split up into different partitions with each partition being sold separately. In effect, each website owner shares the same server with other website owners and will often share the same IP address. This could cause problem in relation to the speed of the website as the more information and data on the server, the longer it will take to process actions for all the websites.

Shared hosting is the most popular form of hosting due to its cost - shared hosting costs are far less that a dedicated server which appeals to everyone, especially if you are just starting out and haven’t seen the potential your website has to offer.

The major downside to shared hosting is that you have less control over the server and you will not be able to unilateraly change or perform tasks to server without the permission of the web hosting provider and the owners of the other sites that are stored on the same shared server.

Dedicated hosting is where you actually hire out your own server within a company. This means that your websites will be the only ones uploaded onto that specific server. The main benefit is that you be able to manage your privacy and security more comprehensively as your details will not be on the same server as anyone else’s. Often the upload and traffic limits are much higher because you are the only person the server has to deal with.

Along with these advantages dedicated hosting does have its downsides - the cost is much greater than shared hosting plus to effectively manage and maintain your server to your specifications, you may want to be located closer to your web hosting provider.

In conclusion, when starting out, it is recommended that you choose from a shared web hosting provider and as your traffic increases, switch to a dedicated host.

About Author

David Cohen is a co-founder of webhosting.reviewitonline.net which reviews the top 10 shared hosting providers in the industry.

Source: ArticleTrader.com

Google’s sandbox

April 30, 2008 By: solarbluseth Category: Web Design Help, Website Marketing No Comments →

It has long been rumored that when make certain changes to your website or domain registration that google will temporarily affect your ranking. Putting your site back into what they call the “sandbox”.

When you register a new domain you have to build up a reputation it doesn’t happen over night. You trade links, create new content, create a buzz around your sie. You work many hours building up your reputation.

Google keeps an eye on you see what you are going to do with your domain registration and hosting space. They periodically have their robots crawl your site. You usually have to submit a new site to them and tell them your site is ready to be crawled. If you do not tell them then they maynot stop by for about six months on average.

Changing domain registars or even contact information may affect your rankings. According to Google, valuable domains are often paid for several years in advance while doorway or throwaway domains are rarely used for more than a year.

Google also uses domain registration information to check the address of the web site owner, the admin and the technical contact

the stability of data and host company the number of pages on a web site (web sites must have more than one page)

Google claims that they have a list of known bad contact information, name servers and IP addresses that helps them to find out whether a spammer is running a domain.

In addition, Google may check the information of a name server in several ways. For example, good name servers might have a mix of different domain names from different registrars.

You should make sure that your web page content is optimized for Google. If your web page content is not optimized, all other ranking factors won’t help you much.

You might want to register the main domain name for your web site several years in advance to show Google that you are serious about your site.

Make sure that your web site is hosted by a reputable hosting company. When moving your site or registration check on the company. Is it blacklisted or marked as a spam webhosting company ? Do the have any affiliation with the BBB or any other watchdog organizations. You want your hosting company to be as honest as serious about their company as you are about your website.

Microsoft Expressions

January 04, 2008 By: solarbluseth Category: Hosting Glossary, Website Marketing No Comments →

Microsoft Expression Web, code-named Quartz, is a WYSIWYG HTML editor and general web design program by Microsoft, replacing Microsoft FrontPage. It is part of the Expression Studio suite.

Expression Web is focused on the needs of professional Web designers seeking to build high-quality, standards-based Web sites for companies[attribution needed]. It provides support for integrating XML, CSS 2.1, ASP.NET 2.0, XHTML, XSLT and JavaScript into sites. It requires the .NET Framework 2.0 to operate. Its sibling is Microsoft SharePoint Designer. Expression Web uses its own standards-based rendering engine, different from the browser-based FrontPage, which uses Internet Explorer’s Trident engine. [1] Microsoft claims that Expression Web’s rendering engine currently provides the most accurate standards-compliant rendering on the market, [2] especially CSS rendering.

On May 14, 2006, Microsoft released the first public preview version of Expression Web on their web site. On Sept 5, 2006, Microsoft released Beta 1. The major changes from CTP 1 are that nearly all of the old FrontPage bots and functions have been removed. On December 4, 2006 Microsoft released the final version, which can be found on the Expression Web homepage.

How to make money on the internet - Getting Started

July 14, 2007 By: solarbluseth Category: Website Marketing No Comments →

Well, that is a hard one to address, but I get the question everyday. So here we go. In order to make money you need a product to sell, or recommend. If you sell a product you are known as a merchant or vendor. If you recommend products you are known as an affiliate. The basic difference is a vendor has to keep stock, ship items, hire employees for various functions, and update the website. An affiliate usually does research, writes articles and recommends products from vendors. A vendor makes money when someone buys their product, minus the overhead. An affiliate, however makes money when someone buys a product they recommended. They don’t have to keep product. That can in itself be a lot of overhead.Next, you need traffic. If you don’t have traffic then no one is coming to your site to see your recommendations or buy your product. You can get traffic by blogging, trading links, advertising, word of mouth and more. You can come up with lots of creative ways to bring traffic to your website, you should research those ways and make sure they are legal and won’t have a negative impact on your site. She should also read the terms of service provided by the afgfiliate programs you join, they do have guidlines you must follow.

Be the guru. Be accurate and be consistent. If you want to get traffic and have repetitive visitors to your site, weather it be an ecommerce store, forum, or blog. Be honest and accurate, people will not return to your site or recommend other people if you are providing the wrong information. Writing a blog shows you don’t just recommend products you also know what your talking about.

Content is king. Writing in your blog on a regular basis with unique and topical issues will help the search engines bring you traffic. It will also bring your visitors back for more.

Internet Marketing Guide

January 21, 2007 By: solarbluseth Category: Website Marketing No Comments →

If you are considering launching a website for your business or entering the lucrative world of e-commerce by starting an online business, there are a few things you need to keep in mind in order to assure your web site’s success. Without taking the time to understand how the Internet and search engines work you will certainly guarantee that no one will see your site. The Internet is a whole new ball game when it comes to marketing. Invest a few minutes in making your website a success by browsing through the tips listed in the Internet marketing guide below.

Simply launching a web site and hoping the search engines will pick it up or that someone will stumble upon it isn’t a very effective strategy. The first Internet marketing guide step you need to employ involves your domain name. The domain name you select needs to be easy to spell, visually attractive and relative to your business. It can be very tempting to come up with a name that either includes a version of your own name or a cutesy or unique domain name (example: www.bobsuseddvds.com or www.gourmetkoffee.com) however the sad reality is that this type of combination is not very efficient for several reasons.

First, it can be a little difficult for the average surfer to remember, particularly if your name is a common name. Secondly, as in the example listed, you end up with too many of the same letters of the alphabet. This example has far too many of the letters S and D. Finally, you need to select a name that will stand out visually and that is easy to remember and spell. While the term ‘gourmet coffee’ relates to a specific business and is easy enough to remember, the unusual spelling of coffee could result in the opposite effect of what you are trying to accomplish. If the domain name you would like for your business has already been registered by someone else, consider using a different extension. Not every domain name needs to end in .com. There are other extensions available. Also think about re-arranging words or adding words to make the name unique and still easy to remember and spell. For example, while the domain name gourmetcoffee.com might already be taken; chances are www.gourmetcoffeeforyou.com probably isn’t.

You also need to give some serious consideration to how you are going to reel your customers into your site. Most Internet consumers do not surf to initially make a purchase. A large majority of your potential customers are looking for information. You need to be able to provide them with the information they want, for free, and then persuade them to purchase your product. Simple loading images of your products and listing prices won’t make very many sales. There are several Internet marketing guide techniques you can use to lure customers to your site.

Provide articles that relate to your subject. If you sell a variety of vitamin and mineral supplements, you could offer articles with information on the various benefits and uses of each type of supplement you sell. Make sure the articles contain a healthy quantity of the words someone would type into a search engine to look for information on that supplement and you’ve taken your first step toward search engine optimization. That wasn’t so hard, was it? Remember, the steps of an effective internet marketing guide is really composed of nothing more than thinking like the average consumer.

Jack Elmy’s web site provides information on the basics of creating business plans that get results and will help you succeed in your business, visit: http://www.900-business-plans.com

Internet Marketing Help

October 28, 2006 By: solarbluseth Category: Website Marketing No Comments →

Internet Marketing Help
By Jack Elmy

If you’re looking for Internet marketing help you’ve come to the right place. Below you will find several tips to help you navigate your way through the mystifying world of promoting your website and e-commerce business.

Internet Marketing Help Hint #1: Surveys: To find out what your customer thinks of your site try using a survey. A little constructive criticism can go a long way in helping you build a quality site that people are eager to visit and refer others to visit. There are very few other ways to find out what your customer really thinks, wants and needs besides a survey. If you’re concerned that people won’t take the time to complete a survey you can always entice them with something for free in exchange for completing the survey or even adding their name to a pool for a giveaway.

Internet Marketing Help Hint #2: Guestbook: Members of your target audience that are skeptical by nature want some reassurance that you’re who you say you are and that your product or service really delivers. Adding a guestbook to your site can help to reassure your customer by providing comments from others who visited your site, found something useful and were satisfied. If you are concerned that you might end up with rude or vulgar comments that hurt your reputation more than help, it is very easy to add a guestbook that allows you to preview any comments before they are posted. With this type of guestbook you have the control over whether to delete a comment or allow it to be inserted on your site. One bad apple doesn’t have to spoil the basket.

Internet Marketing Help Hint #3: Coupons: There is a significant portion of your target audience that are coupon clippers. No matter who they are, you can bet some of them can’t wait to get the newspaper and start clipping away. While this ploy won’t work for everyone, there are some people who can’t resist the lure of a bargain; saving a percentage off the regular price of a product or service. They will be more than happy to visit your site once a week to find out how much money they can save with the coupons you offer. If you’re concerned about taking a piece out of your profit try combining offers. Two for one or 10% with a minimum purchase gives you the flexibility of still offering a valuable coupon to the customer while making sure your profits don’t take a dip.

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Jack Elmy’s web site provides information on the basics of creating business plans that get results and will help you succeed in your business, visit: http://www.900-business-plans.com

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You have permission to publish this article electronically, in print, in your e-book or on your web site, free of charge, so long as you leave all links in place, do not modify the content and include our resource box as listed above.

Internet Marketing Guide

October 08, 2006 By: solarbluseth Category: Website Marketing No Comments →

Internet Marketing Guide
By Jack Elmy

If you are considering launching a website for your business or entering the lucrative world of e-commerce by starting an online business, there are a few things you need to keep in mind in order to assure your web site’s success. Without taking the time to understand how the Internet and search engines work you will certainly guarantee that no one will see your site. The Internet is a whole new ball game when it comes to marketing. Invest a few minutes in making your website a success by browsing through the tips listed in the Internet marketing guide below.

Simply launching a web site and hoping the search engines will pick it up or that someone will stumble upon it isn’t a very effective strategy. The first Internet marketing guide step you need to employ involves your domain name. The domain name you select needs to be easy to spell, visually attractive and relative to your business. It can be very tempting to come up with a name that either includes a version of your own name or a cutesy or unique domain name (example: www.bobsuseddvds.com or www.gourmetkoffee.com) however the sad reality is that this type of combination is not very efficient for several reasons.

First, it can be a little difficult for the average surfer to remember, particularly if your name is a common name. Secondly, as in the example listed, you end up with too many of the same letters of the alphabet. This example has far too many of the letters S and D. Finally, you need to select a name that will stand out visually and that is easy to remember and spell. While the term ‘gourmet coffee’ relates to a specific business and is easy enough to remember, the unusual spelling of coffee could result in the opposite effect of what you are trying to accomplish. If the domain name you would like for your business has already been registered by someone else, consider using a different extension. Not every domain name needs to end in .com. There are other extensions available. Also think about re-arranging words or adding words to make the name unique and still easy to remember and spell. For example, while the domain name gourmetcoffee.com might already be taken; chances are www.gourmetcoffeeforyou.com probably isn’t.

You also need to give some serious consideration to how you are going to reel your customers into your site. Most Internet consumers do not surf to initially make a purchase. A large majority of your potential customers are looking for information. You need to be able to provide them with the information they want, for free, and then persuade them to purchase your product. Simple loading images of your products and listing prices won’t make very many sales. There are several Internet marketing guide techniques you can use to lure customers to your site.

Provide articles that relate to your subject. If you sell a variety of vitamin and mineral supplements, you could offer articles with information on the various benefits and uses of each type of supplement you sell. Make sure the articles contain a healthy quantity of the words someone would type into a search engine to look for information on that supplement and you’ve taken your first step toward search engine optimization. That wasn’t so hard, was it? Remember, the steps of an effective internet marketing guide is really composed of nothing more than thinking like the average consumer.

—————————————————————————–
Jack Elmy’s web site provides information on the basics of creating business plans that get results and will help you succeed in your business, visit: http://www.900-business-plans.com

—————————————————————————–

You have permission to publish this article electronically, in print, in your e-book or on your web site, free of charge, so long as you leave all links in place, do not modify the content and include our resource box as listed above.

Choosing Keywords That Bring the Best Results

October 08, 2006 By: solarbluseth Category: Website Marketing No Comments →

Choosing Keywords That Bring the Best Results

by Karon Thackston © 2006

http://www.copywritingcourse.com

As a search engine optimization
copywriter, I’ve seen my share of keywords.

When working with me, clients choose their own keywords (or have someone
else choose them) and then send me the list to include in their copy. I must admit, sometimes I’m just amazed at
the selections I receive.

It’s absolutely imperative that
you make wise choices in the area of keywords.

Many people simply look at statistics.
Others go strictly on the most highly searched keywords from one
particular search engine. Still others
do no research at all and just guess.
While the first two can work in combination with one another, they still
don’t offer a complete solution.

From working with many search
engine optimization (SEO) experts, I have gathered a few tips on how to choose
effective keywords that bring results.

I’d like to share that information with you so you can improve both your
copy and your search engine positioning.

Narrow Focus

Choose keywords that have a narrow
focus.
The most common “mistake” I’ve
seen when selecting keywords is choosing those that are too broad. For example, one client sold cleaner for granite
countertops. One keyphrase that was
originally under consideration was “granite countertops.” However, as his SEO expert explained (and I
agree), people could be hoping to find information on almost any aspect of
granite countertops… installation, price, service, dealers, etc. This keyphrase was too broad and eventually
was discarded.

The same applies to geographic
locations.
A real estate agent wanted to
use the keyphrase “Richmond
County.” However, upon searching the ‘Net for this
phrase, his SEO expert discovered that there are at least three states that
have a Richmond County.
Instead, the SEO expert chose phrases such as “Richmond County, Georgia
real estate” to narrow the focus and ensure qualified traffic.

Applicable to the Page

Another common area where people
wane is in being determined to use keyphrases that simply don’t apply to the
page.
In one case I was asked by a
client to use the keyphrase “payment portal” on a page that had nothing to do
with that topic. At the time, that was
an excellent phrase to target, but it would have been quite a stretch as it had
little to do with what the site was about.

Just because a keyphrase gives you
the opportunity to be highly ranked doesn’t mean you should use it if it has
nothing to do with your site.

More Traffic or Better Traffic?

I see the battle between lots of
traffic vs. more targeted traffic just about every day.
Clients are generally programmed by Web hype
to believe you need as much traffic as you can get regardless of where it comes
from.

Most SEO experts I’m associated
with (and this SEO copywriter) believe you need traffic that will actually
stick around once they reach your site.

Why have tons of people coming to
your site if they will just leave after three seconds because they didn’t find
what they were looking for?
It’s better
to have fewer people - more targeted prospects - who are more likely to buy.

By targeting your keyphrases so
they are as accurate and focused as possible, you will gain the attention of
customers who are specifically searching for what you have to offer. While your
unique visitor or page view count may go down, your bank account balance will
likely go up!

Which words make *your* customers
buy? Let Karon show you. Boost your sales and your search engine positioning by
learning to write strategically created copy that hits a nerve and makes the
sale. Get the details now at http://www.copywritingcourse.com.

Creative Search Engine Optimization

October 08, 2006 By: solarbluseth Category: Website Marketing No Comments →

Creative Search Engine Optimization – A Case Study

Search engine optimization this and search engine
optimization that. You read and hear about it all day, but what about your
site? While there are plenty of articles providing useful information, this article
shows you how a real world example met with success. The point of this article
is to emphasize creativity when approaching tough optimization situations.

Problems for BusinessTaxRecovery.com

In November of 2004, our firm took on the seo marketing for
BusinessTaxRecovery.com. The site was being promoted through offline activities
and pay-per-click campaigns. No effort had been made to achieve high rankings
in Google, Yahoo or MSN.

Keyword analysis revealed that combinations of the root
keywords, “business” and “tax” were going to be difficult to attack. The
primary problem concerned government agencies with web sites. The IRS site, for
instance, had roughly 9,680 inbound links and an absolute ton of content. State
agencies weren’t far behind. The California
tax agency site had roughly 7,000 inbound links and, again, tons of content.

For a final nail in the coffin, the client informed us the
business was cyclical with the busiest months being January through April when
people focused on taxes. The site absolutely had to rank highly during this
period. We had two months to achieve results.

Gulp!

The Solution for BusinessTaxRecovery.com – 140,000 Hits

After staring at a Salvador Dali painting for a few hours,
we came up with a solution. It involved a combination of internal site page
focus, meta tag optimization, link exchange and massive article promotion. The
results produced 145,828 hits from January through April, with only 5,000
coming from the pay-per-click program.

The first step was to change the focus of the site from the
home page to the article page. Jumping the tax agency sites on keywords such as
business tax and taxes was impossible in two months, so we didn’t even try.
Instead, we decided to focus on the keyword phrase “business tax articles” and
bring people into the site through the article page. Meta
tags were optimized and a link exchange program undertaken. The key to
campaign, however, was a strong article promotion campaign.

Since taxes are confusing, it seemed obvious that an article
campaign focusing on tax information would meet with success. Boy, did it.
Approximately 35 articles were written, published and submitted to article
directories. Since the articles were timely, they were snapped up and
published. The articles produced direct traffic to the site as well as numerous
inbound links because of the link created in the article byline.

As for the search engines, we focused on everything but
Google. We expected nothing from Google because the major content and meta tag
changes would take six to eight months to show results per the usual practices
of Google. In reality, it didn’t matter. The Yahoo and MSN search engines
produced big time.

In mid-January, the site went to number 1 on MSN under
“business tax articles.” By the end of January, Yahoo was also listing it as
number 1. MSN started listing it at number 1 for “tax articles” in February.
The combination of these listings produced a significant amount of traffic,
conversions and a very happy client.

Can we go on cruise control now? No! With the end of the tax
season, the traffic to the articles page of the site has dropped by 75%. Nobody
is looking for tax information after April 15th, so this is hardly surprising.
The promotion of the article page was simply a short-term solution to a
difficult situation. While it should produce traffic during the first quarter
of each subsequent year, it is not a year-around solution.

Over the next six months, we will focus on the long-term
goal of jumping over the tax agency sites for keywords such as “business
taxes”, etc. It is going to take a lot of patience, but will eventually produce
a significant amount of business for the client.

Creativity is often the key to conquering seo situations.
Blindly slapping up new meta tags and links isn’t always the best answer.
Sometimes, a little pre-emptive consideration can yield amazing results. It did
in this case.

Halstatt Pires is with http://www.marketingtitan.com - an
Internet marketing and advertising company comprised of a search engine optimization
specialist providing meta tag optimization services and Internet marketing
consultant providing internet marketing solutions through integrated design and
programming services.

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