Why You Need Server Administration
While web hosting for basic users usually consists of shared IP addresses and hosting, many companies want their own IP address and require more storage space than the average web account provides. This was why dedicated servers came into being. However, it can be difficult to operate these servers, and someone needs to manage storage capacity, databases, balancing server load, monitoring the server and reporting on server activity. These tasks can all be handled by a server administrator.
Managed Hosting Tasks
Managed hosting is like dedicated hosting on steroids. Basically you rent a server as you would with dedicated hosting, but you don't have to manage it. The managed hosting company maintains the operating system and hardware; installs, updates and patches software; and monitors your servers, the network and data centers. This includes the management of databases and testing service packs and other updates to make sure that your network server is always up and running and up to date.
Managed Hosting Advantages
One of the main advantages of managed hosting is the control you get over what's on the server. With typical web hosting, you may be restricted to what the web host provides in terms of software and certainly in terms of reporting software. There may be restrictions on databases, domains and sub domains. None of that applies with managed hosting. You choose the applications and data you want on the server and someone else takes care of the fiddly technical details.
Another advantage of managed hosting is that they are cost effective for companies which need a secure infrastructure, a lot of technical expertise and 100 per cent uptime. Unless your IT budget is limitless, these can be costly if you hire your own staff, so managed hosting might be a solution. It's a good way to make sure that critical functions relating to security, data storage and monitoring are expertly handled without breaking the bank. Your managed hosting service will include back up of your data, security firewalls and much more depending on the company and level of service you choose.
AxisHost & WiredTree
AxisHost will set up and configure your server and will monitor the server response for FTP, SSH, HTTP, HTTPS, mySQL, SMTP and POP requests. The company will update and patch the operating system and control panel, install and support software, and install PHP, Perl modules, SSL certificates. It will provide data backup recovery. It will troubleshoot and repair server problems and there is a server outage phone number that operates year round. No fee details were available.
WiredTree's service includes hardware management, support for operating systems and software, server hardening, firewalls and spam prevention and the installation, security patches and updates and monitoring. Clients may also monitor their servers through a client interface. The cost of the service ranges from $139 to $299 a month.
ServerWizards & Contegix
ServerWizards monitors the server at five minute intervals year round. It installs and configures software, optimizes hardware, provides security patches and updates for control panels. There are remote backups and clients benefit from unlimited support tickets. The company supports a wide variety of operating systems and control panels. This service is $75 a month, with additional charges for server setup and extra security.
Contegix specializes in Linux and MacOS servers, with its managed hosting starting at $325 a month. This includes installing, managing, updating and monitoring software and security patches and testing service packs. The company has experience in a wide range of database applications and has a 100 per cent uptime guarantee.
XioLink & LiquidWeb
XioLink installs, manages, updates and monitors service packs and security patches and has expertise in a wide variety of database packages. It has a 100 per cent uptime guarantee and will look after hardware, operating systems, applications and infrastructure. It offers a 30 minute hardware replacement guarantee.
LiquidWeb installs, manages, updates and monitors service packs and security patches and has expertise in a wide variety of database packages. It offers a two hour hardware replacement guarantee and has a 2 hour hardware replacement guarantee. Their managed hosting services range from $149 to $364.
Managed Hosting Considerations
There are several areas to consider when choosing a managed hosting plan. You will need to look at the services that are available and see whether you can simply choose the ones you need or whether you need to take a hosting plan. Find out about their internet connection speed and type and how they maintain hardware and software. And find out about technical support. You can test this be contacting them with a query to see what response you get. Some managed hosting providers have round the clock live support – use this as one way to compare them. Finally, look at the monthly or yearly payment options for a rounded view of the value of a particular provider.
Price differences between managed hosts will depend on how much account management you need, the application support services provided and how sophisticated the hardware is. In general, there is a fixed monthly rate for the services, though many server administration companies prefer to provide a custom quotation based on your exact requirements. It is worth checking what is included in and excluded from your managed hosting agreement before making the final choice.
Choose & Register domain name
Why you Need a Domain Name
You may be wondering whether you really need a domain name. These days every serious business has a website and some people have popular blogs that also have their own domains. The answer is that if you intend to do business on the internet or attract an audience on the web, you must have a domain name. Without it, no one will be able to find your website and you won't be able to do business. That applies whether you are a large company or an individual selling your web design services. A domain name is the only way for you to establish a presence on the internet.
The domain name you choose can fall into a number of categories. Many companies choose a domain name that corresponds to their company name, such as Microsoft. Others choose a generic domain name that corresponds to the business they do, such as writing.com. Still others choose a domain name that is their name, a practice adopted by many freelance professionals.
Domain names are also useful because you can have a unique email address along with the domain. This might be important in your particular business. In addition to these features domain names can be used to improve the ranking of a particular website in the search engines, because it is possible to incorporate the keywords that people are searching for in the domain name.
While it is possible to get a free domain name, this will impair your credibility when doing business. Buying a domain name is not expensive, so make an investment in your business and get the right one.
The Best Kind of Domain Name
Domain names exist in a hierarchy. There are top level domains (TLDs) and second level domains. In an internet address, such as getwebhosting.com. The last part of the web address, '.com', is the top level domain, while the 'getwebhosting' is the second level domain. Think of it as a postal address, with the top level domain being the country and the second level domain being the state. There are two types of top level domains. Some top level domains are two letter country codes, such as 'jp' for Japan or 'uk' for the United Kingdom, while others are generic, such as 'com' for commercial organizations. Generic top level domains can be combined with country codes as well (for example 'gov.uk' for UK government organizations).
With all these permutations to choose from, it is important to get the right kind of domain name for your website – and this is all about the right top level domain. For most people, '.com' is synonymous with the internet. We have heard of the dotcom revolution, the dotcom boom and the dotcom bust for that very reason. However, because of that, it can be difficult to find a '.com' top level domain.
In order to decide on the right TLD think about your business and see whether there is a top level domain that matches it. If you are running a charitable organization, .org might suit you. If you are running an internet business, then you might prefer .net or .biz or even .info. Choosing top level domains of this type will tell people who visit your site what kind of site they can expect.
However, there is another option. If you are selling products in different countries, consider choosing a country specific top level domain. Research shows that most people feel secure doing business with a site based in their country. While this may just be a perception, it can help you to connect with people, so getting a .ca or .au top level domain might be useful if you are doing business in Canada or Australia. Don't worry, this does not mean having to set up multiple websites as there is software around that will handle localization.
How to Choose a Domain Name
In addition to the selection of the top level domain, you also need to think about the second level domain when selecting the perfect domain name. There are many approaches to choosing the right domain name. The right domain name may be your own name if you are a self employed business person, or it might be the name of the product that you intend to sell. It might even be a generic one that describes the business that you are in, though not many of those are available these days.
When choosing a domain name, think about your customers and choose a domain name that is easy to remember. Although your domain name can be 63 characters, keeping it short and simple will make it easier for people to remember your web address and find your site. Using hyphens or zeroes in the domain name are best avoided as people can end up mistyping the web address and going to a competitor instead.
There are many online resources to help you choose a domain name. In fact most of the web hosts provide domain registration services and tools that will guide you towards domain name selection. Many of these tools will also search for variants of the domain name that you want. It's also worth considering getting several domain names, perhaps with different top level domains, to leave room for future expansion. You don't need to have a website for each domain name you buy – in fact, you don't need one at all – so there's no harm in this sort of future proofing. It will help secure your brand.
How to Register a Domain Name
Once you have decided on your domain name you will need to register it. There are two options for this. Either you can do it through your web hosting provider or you can do it yourself. The web hosting provider option is simple, because your hosting provider will provide an easy way to search for and register your domain through an online form. And it probably won't be too expensive. However, there are untrustworthy domain registrars out there, so check ICANN's list of accredited domain registrars before parting with your money.
When registering a domain make sure that your name is on the records as the person registering the domain. You should be down as the administrator and contact person. And a key feature to get is domain locking which is a security feature to prevent your domain from being hijacked. After all, you wouldn't want to spend months building up your business only to have a hijacker upload questionable content to your site.
Check to see whether your registration information can be kept private and have a look at your WHOIS records to see who the primary contact is. Make sure there are no errors in this information – if there are, get your domain registrar to correct them as quickly as possible.
Remember to register your domain name for as long a period as you can afford. That way you won't lose it if you don't make the annual renewal exactly on time. And even if you only have a one year scheme there is still a grace period of up to 45 days before your domain expires. Don't take chances, though. If your registrar only allows a one day grace period, you could find that your goldmine domain has been sold out from under you.
You can also register your domain yourself through InterNIC (at a cost of around $70), by filling out a form with your name and address. Once you have followed the confirmation process you will have an NIC handle and can use this when registering a domain. Your ISP may charge a few for setting up the domain on their system, though even if you buy a domain through one ISP you are free to host it elsewhere.
You may be wondering whether you really need a domain name. These days every serious business has a website and some people have popular blogs that also have their own domains. The answer is that if you intend to do business on the internet or attract an audience on the web, you must have a domain name. Without it, no one will be able to find your website and you won't be able to do business. That applies whether you are a large company or an individual selling your web design services. A domain name is the only way for you to establish a presence on the internet.
The domain name you choose can fall into a number of categories. Many companies choose a domain name that corresponds to their company name, such as Microsoft. Others choose a generic domain name that corresponds to the business they do, such as writing.com. Still others choose a domain name that is their name, a practice adopted by many freelance professionals.
Domain names are also useful because you can have a unique email address along with the domain. This might be important in your particular business. In addition to these features domain names can be used to improve the ranking of a particular website in the search engines, because it is possible to incorporate the keywords that people are searching for in the domain name.
While it is possible to get a free domain name, this will impair your credibility when doing business. Buying a domain name is not expensive, so make an investment in your business and get the right one.
The Best Kind of Domain Name
Domain names exist in a hierarchy. There are top level domains (TLDs) and second level domains. In an internet address, such as getwebhosting.com. The last part of the web address, '.com', is the top level domain, while the 'getwebhosting' is the second level domain. Think of it as a postal address, with the top level domain being the country and the second level domain being the state. There are two types of top level domains. Some top level domains are two letter country codes, such as 'jp' for Japan or 'uk' for the United Kingdom, while others are generic, such as 'com' for commercial organizations. Generic top level domains can be combined with country codes as well (for example 'gov.uk' for UK government organizations).
With all these permutations to choose from, it is important to get the right kind of domain name for your website – and this is all about the right top level domain. For most people, '.com' is synonymous with the internet. We have heard of the dotcom revolution, the dotcom boom and the dotcom bust for that very reason. However, because of that, it can be difficult to find a '.com' top level domain.
In order to decide on the right TLD think about your business and see whether there is a top level domain that matches it. If you are running a charitable organization, .org might suit you. If you are running an internet business, then you might prefer .net or .biz or even .info. Choosing top level domains of this type will tell people who visit your site what kind of site they can expect.
However, there is another option. If you are selling products in different countries, consider choosing a country specific top level domain. Research shows that most people feel secure doing business with a site based in their country. While this may just be a perception, it can help you to connect with people, so getting a .ca or .au top level domain might be useful if you are doing business in Canada or Australia. Don't worry, this does not mean having to set up multiple websites as there is software around that will handle localization.
How to Choose a Domain Name
In addition to the selection of the top level domain, you also need to think about the second level domain when selecting the perfect domain name. There are many approaches to choosing the right domain name. The right domain name may be your own name if you are a self employed business person, or it might be the name of the product that you intend to sell. It might even be a generic one that describes the business that you are in, though not many of those are available these days.
When choosing a domain name, think about your customers and choose a domain name that is easy to remember. Although your domain name can be 63 characters, keeping it short and simple will make it easier for people to remember your web address and find your site. Using hyphens or zeroes in the domain name are best avoided as people can end up mistyping the web address and going to a competitor instead.
There are many online resources to help you choose a domain name. In fact most of the web hosts provide domain registration services and tools that will guide you towards domain name selection. Many of these tools will also search for variants of the domain name that you want. It's also worth considering getting several domain names, perhaps with different top level domains, to leave room for future expansion. You don't need to have a website for each domain name you buy – in fact, you don't need one at all – so there's no harm in this sort of future proofing. It will help secure your brand.
How to Register a Domain Name
Once you have decided on your domain name you will need to register it. There are two options for this. Either you can do it through your web hosting provider or you can do it yourself. The web hosting provider option is simple, because your hosting provider will provide an easy way to search for and register your domain through an online form. And it probably won't be too expensive. However, there are untrustworthy domain registrars out there, so check ICANN's list of accredited domain registrars before parting with your money.
When registering a domain make sure that your name is on the records as the person registering the domain. You should be down as the administrator and contact person. And a key feature to get is domain locking which is a security feature to prevent your domain from being hijacked. After all, you wouldn't want to spend months building up your business only to have a hijacker upload questionable content to your site.
Check to see whether your registration information can be kept private and have a look at your WHOIS records to see who the primary contact is. Make sure there are no errors in this information – if there are, get your domain registrar to correct them as quickly as possible.
Remember to register your domain name for as long a period as you can afford. That way you won't lose it if you don't make the annual renewal exactly on time. And even if you only have a one year scheme there is still a grace period of up to 45 days before your domain expires. Don't take chances, though. If your registrar only allows a one day grace period, you could find that your goldmine domain has been sold out from under you.
You can also register your domain yourself through InterNIC (at a cost of around $70), by filling out a form with your name and address. Once you have followed the confirmation process you will have an NIC handle and can use this when registering a domain. Your ISP may charge a few for setting up the domain on their system, though even if you buy a domain through one ISP you are free to host it elsewhere.
What is SEO?
Why is SEO important?
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the art of designing and writing a web page so that people will be able to find it when they search using search engines. Search engines are one of the main ways that people find information they are looking for. SEO is a way of telling search engines and people what your site is all about. There are two key areas to address.
The first is writing the HTML code for your web page so that search engine spiders find your content. Search engine spiders are not interested in Java, Flash or images. They are only interested in code and part of SEO is optimizing the code so that the search engines can find it.
The second part of SEO is writing the text that people will see so that it makes sense both to them and the search engines. So overall, SEO is using keywords (the words people use to search for your site) in a way that makes it easy for people to find the site.
This is important for several reasons. You may spend a lot of money on developing your website. If people can't find your site or they don't get what they expect when they find your site, then you have wasted that money.
What people look for
SEO is important because most of the people who buy products online search for the products and information they need through a search engine. If you have products or services for sale, then your site needs to be optimized.
However, the other fact about internet shoppers is that many of them only look at the first page of results in their chosen search engine. This means that you want to make sure that your website is in the top ten. This is another reason to make sure that you have done search engine optimization.
Not all search engines use the same algorithms (strategies for ranking sites) so a top ten ranking in Yahoo doesn't mean you will have the same ranking in Google or MSN Live. Instead you will have to use SEO techniques that work for different search engines. There are two options for handling your SEO needs – in-house SEO or outsourced SEO. Here are some of the advantages and disadvantages of each approach.
In-house SEO: Advantages and Disadvantages
If you're one of the lucky ones, you may already have someone in your company that knows all about SEO. This is not as simple as having learned it once upon a time. SEO knowledge has to be kept up to date so that web pages can be optimized to rank well even when search engine algorithms change. If you have someone in house with the necessary skills and up to date knowledge, this may be the most cost effective option, especially if you have a small or medium sized site. The advantage of using someone who is already in the company is that this person will know the goals, products and services in advance and will be able to hit the ground running when it comes to SEO. However, the disadvantage is that one person may not be able to handle all the needs of a large and growing site.
Another option is to hire someone to work in-house on optimizing your site. Ideally this will be an SEO expert and several firms use this option. You will need to spend time familiarizing this person with the business in order for them to be most effective. The advantage of this approach is that you get an individual with the right skills and knowledge who is focused on your project. However, it can be difficult to find the right person, as people with SEO skills are very much in demand and may not have time for your project. In addition, if the person then leaves your company, it might be difficult to find someone who knows the exact techniques used. In fact, you may have to start from scratch. There have even been cases where bought-in SEO expert was putting hidden links to his own business in the client's web pages.
Outsourcing SEO: Advantages and Disadvantages
Outsourcing SEO may be another option. This may suit large companies, or companies with large sites that require a wide range of optimization tasks. The advantage of outsourcing SEO to a firm is that you get access to experts with a variety of skills and up to date knowledge. You are also less likely to be in trouble if a single person leaves, as there will always be someone to pick up the slack. Outsourcing may also have significant cost advantages, especially if you go offshore.
Outsourcing SEO means that you will get people who are objective about the firm and who have a broad experience of many techniques. The firm may be able to provide related services that you might need, such as tracking and reporting functions. And because you may have several people working on SEO tasks, the improvement in your site's ranking can be rapid. Finally, if you are not happy with the results of the SEO tasks, then it is easy to get rid of the firm and hire another. Here are some examples of the services you can get from SEO firms.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the art of designing and writing a web page so that people will be able to find it when they search using search engines. Search engines are one of the main ways that people find information they are looking for. SEO is a way of telling search engines and people what your site is all about. There are two key areas to address.
The first is writing the HTML code for your web page so that search engine spiders find your content. Search engine spiders are not interested in Java, Flash or images. They are only interested in code and part of SEO is optimizing the code so that the search engines can find it.
The second part of SEO is writing the text that people will see so that it makes sense both to them and the search engines. So overall, SEO is using keywords (the words people use to search for your site) in a way that makes it easy for people to find the site.
This is important for several reasons. You may spend a lot of money on developing your website. If people can't find your site or they don't get what they expect when they find your site, then you have wasted that money.
What people look for
SEO is important because most of the people who buy products online search for the products and information they need through a search engine. If you have products or services for sale, then your site needs to be optimized.
However, the other fact about internet shoppers is that many of them only look at the first page of results in their chosen search engine. This means that you want to make sure that your website is in the top ten. This is another reason to make sure that you have done search engine optimization.
Not all search engines use the same algorithms (strategies for ranking sites) so a top ten ranking in Yahoo doesn't mean you will have the same ranking in Google or MSN Live. Instead you will have to use SEO techniques that work for different search engines. There are two options for handling your SEO needs – in-house SEO or outsourced SEO. Here are some of the advantages and disadvantages of each approach.
In-house SEO: Advantages and Disadvantages
If you're one of the lucky ones, you may already have someone in your company that knows all about SEO. This is not as simple as having learned it once upon a time. SEO knowledge has to be kept up to date so that web pages can be optimized to rank well even when search engine algorithms change. If you have someone in house with the necessary skills and up to date knowledge, this may be the most cost effective option, especially if you have a small or medium sized site. The advantage of using someone who is already in the company is that this person will know the goals, products and services in advance and will be able to hit the ground running when it comes to SEO. However, the disadvantage is that one person may not be able to handle all the needs of a large and growing site.
Another option is to hire someone to work in-house on optimizing your site. Ideally this will be an SEO expert and several firms use this option. You will need to spend time familiarizing this person with the business in order for them to be most effective. The advantage of this approach is that you get an individual with the right skills and knowledge who is focused on your project. However, it can be difficult to find the right person, as people with SEO skills are very much in demand and may not have time for your project. In addition, if the person then leaves your company, it might be difficult to find someone who knows the exact techniques used. In fact, you may have to start from scratch. There have even been cases where bought-in SEO expert was putting hidden links to his own business in the client's web pages.
Outsourcing SEO: Advantages and Disadvantages
Outsourcing SEO may be another option. This may suit large companies, or companies with large sites that require a wide range of optimization tasks. The advantage of outsourcing SEO to a firm is that you get access to experts with a variety of skills and up to date knowledge. You are also less likely to be in trouble if a single person leaves, as there will always be someone to pick up the slack. Outsourcing may also have significant cost advantages, especially if you go offshore.
Outsourcing SEO means that you will get people who are objective about the firm and who have a broad experience of many techniques. The firm may be able to provide related services that you might need, such as tracking and reporting functions. And because you may have several people working on SEO tasks, the improvement in your site's ranking can be rapid. Finally, if you are not happy with the results of the SEO tasks, then it is easy to get rid of the firm and hire another. Here are some examples of the services you can get from SEO firms.
Best E-Commerce Web Hosting 2009 Sites
If you are selling a product or service online then being E-commerce ready is essential. From taking orders online to processing credit card payments, a good E-commerce host should be able to do all this and more. Setting up an E-commerce site isn’t difficult these days, most hosts include everything you need inside your control panel such as shopping carts, quick start guides and video tutorials.
Best E-Commerce Web Host 2009 Price Setup Domain Disk Space Data Transfer Money
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Just Host $3.45 Free 1 Free Unlimited Unlimited Anytime
Just Host Premium $8.95 Free 3 Free Unlimited Unlimited Anytime
Just Host E-Commerce Web Hosting:
Most web hosting plans include a small handful of tools that make building an e-commerce site even easier. Just Host goes that one step further by dedicating a part of their help center to e-commerce which includes guides and video tutorials WITH VOICE!
Both of Just Host's plans are e-commerce ready (the Just Plan and Just Host premium). They also come with some great advantages that we have listed below.
Unmetered Web Space and Visitor Traffic
Unlimited MySQL Databases, Hosted Domains and Email Addresses/Space
Huge Library of FREE Scripts
REAL 24/7 Support
Anytime Money Back Guarantee
Free Instant Setup with No Strings Attached
Just Host's future is promising, they are expanding bigger and bigger each year and are featured in the number one placement of more review sites than any other web hosting provider.
Best E-Commerce Web Host 2009 Price Setup Domain Disk Space Data Transfer Money
Back
Just Host $3.45 Free 1 Free Unlimited Unlimited Anytime
Just Host Premium $8.95 Free 3 Free Unlimited Unlimited Anytime
Just Host E-Commerce Web Hosting:
Most web hosting plans include a small handful of tools that make building an e-commerce site even easier. Just Host goes that one step further by dedicating a part of their help center to e-commerce which includes guides and video tutorials WITH VOICE!
Both of Just Host's plans are e-commerce ready (the Just Plan and Just Host premium). They also come with some great advantages that we have listed below.
Unmetered Web Space and Visitor Traffic
Unlimited MySQL Databases, Hosted Domains and Email Addresses/Space
Huge Library of FREE Scripts
REAL 24/7 Support
Anytime Money Back Guarantee
Free Instant Setup with No Strings Attached
Just Host's future is promising, they are expanding bigger and bigger each year and are featured in the number one placement of more review sites than any other web hosting provider.
Best VPS Web Hosting 2009 Sites
A Virtual Private Server or VPS is basically a server partitioned into multiple servers such that each has the capabilities and appearance of being its own dedicated server. The benefit of course is you have a Dedicated type server for 1/4 of the price.
Best VPS Web Host 2009 Price Setup Dedicated IP Disk Space Data Transfer Money
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InMotion VPS - 256 MB $40 Free 2 40gb 500gb 90 Days
InMotion VPS - 768 MB $75 Free 5 80gb 1000gb 90 Days
InMotion VPS - 1536 MB $150 Free 10 160gb 1500gb 90 Days
InMotion VPS Hosting:
InMotion Hosting is our top choice for VPS hosting. Their VPS packages offer premium features including a full unlimited domain cPanel license, 24x7 semi-managed support, burstable RAM allowance and up to 10 dedicated IPs.
A critical benefit is InMotion lets you choose between an East Coast and a West Coast data center. This is unique and very popular with users seeking the fastest vps out there.
Plans Include:
Full Unlimited Domain cPanel License
RAID 5 Fault Tolerant Disk Space
Burstable RAM
Free Data Backups
Choice of Data Center Location
Individual Custom Firewall
SSH and Optional Root Access
Best VPS Web Host 2009 Price Setup Dedicated IP Disk Space Data Transfer Money
Back
InMotion VPS - 256 MB $40 Free 2 40gb 500gb 90 Days
InMotion VPS - 768 MB $75 Free 5 80gb 1000gb 90 Days
InMotion VPS - 1536 MB $150 Free 10 160gb 1500gb 90 Days
InMotion VPS Hosting:
InMotion Hosting is our top choice for VPS hosting. Their VPS packages offer premium features including a full unlimited domain cPanel license, 24x7 semi-managed support, burstable RAM allowance and up to 10 dedicated IPs.
A critical benefit is InMotion lets you choose between an East Coast and a West Coast data center. This is unique and very popular with users seeking the fastest vps out there.
Plans Include:
Full Unlimited Domain cPanel License
RAID 5 Fault Tolerant Disk Space
Burstable RAM
Free Data Backups
Choice of Data Center Location
Individual Custom Firewall
SSH and Optional Root Access
Best UK Web Hosting 2009 Sites
Most webmasters do not pay much attention in to where their site is hosted, whether it's in the US or EU people pay little interest in the physical location of a server and focus more on the price. The issue here occurs when you run into difficulties and your site goes down.
You may be left feeling miles away from help when your host is US based and closed for the weekend! The US web hosting marker is huge and it's always a good idea to help companies in your own country first especially in times of an economic crisis.
Best UK Web Host 2009 Price Setup Domain Disk Space Data Transfer Money
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Just Host £2.95 Free 1 Free Unlimited Unlimited Anytime
Just Host Premium £6.95 Free 3 Free Unlimited Unlimited Anytime
Just Host UK Hosting:
Web Hosting at Just Host is available in over 195 countries worldwide and is the UK’s fastest growing web hosting company. Being a U.S based web hosting provider, Just Host offers far more than other UK web host including unlimited web space & bandwidth.
JustHost.com has just two plans that includes many benefits such as:
Free Domain Name for Life
Free Instant Setup & ZERO Hidden Fees
Live 24/7 Phone, Email and Live Chat Support
ANYTIME Money Back Guarantee
For a somebody in the UK sometimes it is important to search for UK based web hosting and with offices in the UK, US & Australia Just Host is the perfect match for thousands of UK businesses and UK individuals worldwide.
You may be left feeling miles away from help when your host is US based and closed for the weekend! The US web hosting marker is huge and it's always a good idea to help companies in your own country first especially in times of an economic crisis.
Best UK Web Host 2009 Price Setup Domain Disk Space Data Transfer Money
Back
Just Host £2.95 Free 1 Free Unlimited Unlimited Anytime
Just Host Premium £6.95 Free 3 Free Unlimited Unlimited Anytime
Just Host UK Hosting:
Web Hosting at Just Host is available in over 195 countries worldwide and is the UK’s fastest growing web hosting company. Being a U.S based web hosting provider, Just Host offers far more than other UK web host including unlimited web space & bandwidth.
JustHost.com has just two plans that includes many benefits such as:
Free Domain Name for Life
Free Instant Setup & ZERO Hidden Fees
Live 24/7 Phone, Email and Live Chat Support
ANYTIME Money Back Guarantee
For a somebody in the UK sometimes it is important to search for UK based web hosting and with offices in the UK, US & Australia Just Host is the perfect match for thousands of UK businesses and UK individuals worldwide.
Best MySql Web Hosting 2009 Sites
MySQL Databases are usually used by advanced programmers but are also required when running Wordpress or PHPBB for example. If you have never heard of MySQL before then it is nothing to worry about
Best MySQL Web Host 2009 Price Setup Domain Disk Space Data Transfer Money
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Host Clear - Home $3.95 Free Free Unlimited Unlimited Anytime
Host Clear - Business $5.95 Free Free Unlimited Unlimited Anytime
Host Clear - Business Pro $9.95 Free Free Unlimited Unlimited Anytime
HostClear MySQL Web Hosting:
HostClear.com host thousands of business users worldwide who rely on their servers to deliver fast loading pages and super fast & responsive MySQL databases. No other web hosting provider invest as much into the speed and technology of their servers so if your website relies on something as critical as MySQL, look no further than HostClear.com
Unlimited Web Space & Bandwidth
Unlimited MySQL Databases
Free Domain Name & Free Instant Setup
Unlimited Email Accounts & Unlimited Hosted Domains
24/7 Phone, Email & Live Chat Support
Anytime Money Back Guarantee
For a powerful server with the capacity to power complex MySQl Databases, than Host Clear is the perfect choice!
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Host Clear - Home $3.95 Free Free Unlimited Unlimited Anytime
Host Clear - Business $5.95 Free Free Unlimited Unlimited Anytime
Host Clear - Business Pro $9.95 Free Free Unlimited Unlimited Anytime
HostClear MySQL Web Hosting:
HostClear.com host thousands of business users worldwide who rely on their servers to deliver fast loading pages and super fast & responsive MySQL databases. No other web hosting provider invest as much into the speed and technology of their servers so if your website relies on something as critical as MySQL, look no further than HostClear.com
Unlimited Web Space & Bandwidth
Unlimited MySQL Databases
Free Domain Name & Free Instant Setup
Unlimited Email Accounts & Unlimited Hosted Domains
24/7 Phone, Email & Live Chat Support
Anytime Money Back Guarantee
For a powerful server with the capacity to power complex MySQl Databases, than Host Clear is the perfect choice!
Virtual Private Server (VPS) Hosting
A virtual private server, more commonly known as a VPS, has much more power than a shared hosting account without the cost of a dedicated server. VPS technology allows a single computer to be partitioned into multiple exclusive environments. These "virtual" servers are very close to a dedicated server for control, flexibility, performance and security, but are closer to shared hosting in cost.
Like a Dedicated Server, VPS hosting can be managed and unmanaged. Cost wise, the managed will be more expensive, but can save you a lot of headache. Also, some virtual private server providers have a control panel pre-installed allowing for a seamless transition from shared to VPS. Some providers do not provide a control panel or you must pay extra. We recommend going with a provider that includes a control panel. cPanel is the best in this case.
When you are looking at a VPS, providers will allow you to use a certain amount of disk space, bandwidth, RAM and CPU. The RAM and CPU can be different. Some VPS hosting providers will limit the exact memory amount alloted to each environment while others allow for burstable memory over your limits to ensure your site will not break during times of high resource usage.
VPS hosting providers are known to handle CPU cycle usage of their accounts differently. Some providers offer an equal share of the CPUs while others limit the usage for each customer. Platforms that utilize fixed CPU allocations will be less flexible with overages.
Not all hosting companies provide virtual private servers and the level of personal support can vary greatly by company. Dedicated IP addresses, custom set-ups, and backups are all features that leading VPS providers should include. VPS hosting is a great solution for customers outgrowing their shared hosting capacity but are not ready to have their own dedicated server.
Like a Dedicated Server, VPS hosting can be managed and unmanaged. Cost wise, the managed will be more expensive, but can save you a lot of headache. Also, some virtual private server providers have a control panel pre-installed allowing for a seamless transition from shared to VPS. Some providers do not provide a control panel or you must pay extra. We recommend going with a provider that includes a control panel. cPanel is the best in this case.
When you are looking at a VPS, providers will allow you to use a certain amount of disk space, bandwidth, RAM and CPU. The RAM and CPU can be different. Some VPS hosting providers will limit the exact memory amount alloted to each environment while others allow for burstable memory over your limits to ensure your site will not break during times of high resource usage.
VPS hosting providers are known to handle CPU cycle usage of their accounts differently. Some providers offer an equal share of the CPUs while others limit the usage for each customer. Platforms that utilize fixed CPU allocations will be less flexible with overages.
Not all hosting companies provide virtual private servers and the level of personal support can vary greatly by company. Dedicated IP addresses, custom set-ups, and backups are all features that leading VPS providers should include. VPS hosting is a great solution for customers outgrowing their shared hosting capacity but are not ready to have their own dedicated server.
Bandwidth
Bandwidth (data transfer) is usually measured in gigabytes. A gigabyte is roughly one billion bytes. Each letter on this page is one byte. Images can take up a large amount of kilobytes (thousands of bytes), and file downloads can be several megabytes (millions of bytes) in size.
You need to realistically think of how much bandwidth your site will need. Unless your site has a lot of downloads or a large advertising push, it will be unlikely that you will need many gigabytes of transfer - 5 gigabytes should be enough. Any more, and you will just be paying extra for something to use. On that note though, you should be careful and make sure you always do have some extra bandwidth - many hosts charge $2.00 and more for every gigabyte of transfer you use extra. That can add up very quickly
Like most things, bandwidth is not created equally. There are varying degrees of performance delivered by carriers (the actual companies that provide the internet connection). One company may provide expensive, but super-fast connections while another could provide slow but cheap bandwidth. It is good to test it yourself by visiting the web host's page multiple times throughout the day to see how fast their response loads up. A slow loading website could be a sign of a slow and over-loaded internet connection.
Also like most things, internet connections can break. To ensure that your site does not go down, most hosts use multiple carriers for their internet connection. It is a good thing to look up a host's network of connection (usually found on its own or in the about section) and see that they have multiple connections. It is also important to note carriers designated as 'backup connections.' These carriers are only used when the primary connections go down. So while a web host might have a large network of internet connections, that does not matter if only a couple are actually being used.
Lastly, the size of the pipe should be noticed. The 'pipe' is the actual internet connection, and its size refers to the speed at which data is transferred. Just like a home connection can be 33.6k and 56k (which refers to the speed of the connection), internet connections are measured in Gig-E, OC3, DS3, and so forth. The faster the pipe, the more data it can handle, and thus usually the better it is.
You need to realistically think of how much bandwidth your site will need. Unless your site has a lot of downloads or a large advertising push, it will be unlikely that you will need many gigabytes of transfer - 5 gigabytes should be enough. Any more, and you will just be paying extra for something to use. On that note though, you should be careful and make sure you always do have some extra bandwidth - many hosts charge $2.00 and more for every gigabyte of transfer you use extra. That can add up very quickly
Like most things, bandwidth is not created equally. There are varying degrees of performance delivered by carriers (the actual companies that provide the internet connection). One company may provide expensive, but super-fast connections while another could provide slow but cheap bandwidth. It is good to test it yourself by visiting the web host's page multiple times throughout the day to see how fast their response loads up. A slow loading website could be a sign of a slow and over-loaded internet connection.
Also like most things, internet connections can break. To ensure that your site does not go down, most hosts use multiple carriers for their internet connection. It is a good thing to look up a host's network of connection (usually found on its own or in the about section) and see that they have multiple connections. It is also important to note carriers designated as 'backup connections.' These carriers are only used when the primary connections go down. So while a web host might have a large network of internet connections, that does not matter if only a couple are actually being used.
Lastly, the size of the pipe should be noticed. The 'pipe' is the actual internet connection, and its size refers to the speed at which data is transferred. Just like a home connection can be 33.6k and 56k (which refers to the speed of the connection), internet connections are measured in Gig-E, OC3, DS3, and so forth. The faster the pipe, the more data it can handle, and thus usually the better it is.
Web Hosting Scams
In order to help you avoid getting scammed by the unscrupulous hosts that do exist, we have tried to put together the 'tricks' used by such companies to ensnare you:
1.Unlimited bandwidth/space - it is simply impossible for a company to offer unlimited space or bandwidth to use. As hosting companies and their associated technologies are themselves limited (i.e. bandwidth or hard disk space), unlimited offerings are usually just an advertising gimmick. Often you will find clauses embedded deep within the company's terms of service contract that negate the unlimited offering. The clauses are usually arbitrary, such as excessive CPU usage will be grounds for account termination.
UnlimBand is a good resource to learn more.
2.No Contact - some hosts simply make it impossible to contact them! Even getting an email address so that you can get a hold of them can be a chore. Many cheap hosts prefer to keep communication down.
3.Long term contracts only - while cheaper plans may warrant an annual only plan, some hosts provide annual service exclusively. There is no guarantee that even though you have paid them for 12 months that you will get 12 months of service.
4.Domain Registration not in your Name - some devious web hosts, while offering to register you domain for you, legally register the domain in their own name! This means that if you try switching hosts, you will lose the domain name - legally it is their posession, and you have no claim on it!
5.No Money Back Guarantee - a host should fully satisfy your needs - if not, your money should be returned.
6.Complicated uptime Guarantee - some hosts hide behind their TOS with complicated procedures such as the customer having to report the downtime for any downtime. Be careful of this.
1.Unlimited bandwidth/space - it is simply impossible for a company to offer unlimited space or bandwidth to use. As hosting companies and their associated technologies are themselves limited (i.e. bandwidth or hard disk space), unlimited offerings are usually just an advertising gimmick. Often you will find clauses embedded deep within the company's terms of service contract that negate the unlimited offering. The clauses are usually arbitrary, such as excessive CPU usage will be grounds for account termination.
UnlimBand is a good resource to learn more.
2.No Contact - some hosts simply make it impossible to contact them! Even getting an email address so that you can get a hold of them can be a chore. Many cheap hosts prefer to keep communication down.
3.Long term contracts only - while cheaper plans may warrant an annual only plan, some hosts provide annual service exclusively. There is no guarantee that even though you have paid them for 12 months that you will get 12 months of service.
4.Domain Registration not in your Name - some devious web hosts, while offering to register you domain for you, legally register the domain in their own name! This means that if you try switching hosts, you will lose the domain name - legally it is their posession, and you have no claim on it!
5.No Money Back Guarantee - a host should fully satisfy your needs - if not, your money should be returned.
6.Complicated uptime Guarantee - some hosts hide behind their TOS with complicated procedures such as the customer having to report the downtime for any downtime. Be careful of this.
Domains
A domain is your identity online. It separates you from everyone else - once yours, as long as you keep renewing it, no one else may have it.
There are two parts to a domain - the domain name itself, and the TLD (top level domain) extension.
The most popular TLD is the .com extension - it is synonymous with online business. But due to its popularity, getting a good domain name with '.com' is hard - most have been bought and are not available.
Most TLDs have a meaning behind them - .EDUs are used by educational institutes, and .ORGs are supposed to be used by non-profit organizations. A domain with a TLD of 'co.uk' is very likely British-based. There are other TLDs too, such as .cc, .tv, and .tk. These are all associated with either a company or with a country.
Many hosts will register a domain for you if you do not have one (it must be available though). You need to be careful that the domain is registered in your name and not theirs. Also make sure that they are not overcharging - some hosts charge over twice the average.
There are quite a few companies that will register your domain for you. The biggest and oldest is Network Solutions, which is also known as VeriSign. Personally, we use and recommend GoDaddy. At $10.67 per year, they are much cheaper than Network Solutions ($35.00 a year), while offering better support and full features. We have a list of hosts that register domains for you.
For most domains, the minimum registration duration is one year. Some TLDs such as .US require a minimum of two years. However, most TLDs only require a one year commitment.
The information related to you when buying a domain is publicly available. It is illegal to put in false information, so your personal information can be traced back. If you are worried about that, some registrars like Go Daddy will register for you as a proxy - your information will not be public. Be prepared for some spam to be sent to that address.
Once you have registered a domain, as long as you remember to keep renewing it, no one will be able to take the domain. You may sell the domain to someone else (or even buy somebody else's domain), but no one will be able to just take the domain.
Having your own domain is very important for your business. It sets you apart from everybody else, and gives you a brand to work with.
There are two parts to a domain - the domain name itself, and the TLD (top level domain) extension.
The most popular TLD is the .com extension - it is synonymous with online business. But due to its popularity, getting a good domain name with '.com' is hard - most have been bought and are not available.
Most TLDs have a meaning behind them - .EDUs are used by educational institutes, and .ORGs are supposed to be used by non-profit organizations. A domain with a TLD of 'co.uk' is very likely British-based. There are other TLDs too, such as .cc, .tv, and .tk. These are all associated with either a company or with a country.
Many hosts will register a domain for you if you do not have one (it must be available though). You need to be careful that the domain is registered in your name and not theirs. Also make sure that they are not overcharging - some hosts charge over twice the average.
There are quite a few companies that will register your domain for you. The biggest and oldest is Network Solutions, which is also known as VeriSign. Personally, we use and recommend GoDaddy. At $10.67 per year, they are much cheaper than Network Solutions ($35.00 a year), while offering better support and full features. We have a list of hosts that register domains for you.
For most domains, the minimum registration duration is one year. Some TLDs such as .US require a minimum of two years. However, most TLDs only require a one year commitment.
The information related to you when buying a domain is publicly available. It is illegal to put in false information, so your personal information can be traced back. If you are worried about that, some registrars like Go Daddy will register for you as a proxy - your information will not be public. Be prepared for some spam to be sent to that address.
Once you have registered a domain, as long as you remember to keep renewing it, no one will be able to take the domain. You may sell the domain to someone else (or even buy somebody else's domain), but no one will be able to just take the domain.
Having your own domain is very important for your business. It sets you apart from everybody else, and gives you a brand to work with.
Sponsored Post Network Reviews
Sponsored post networks are marketplaces, where advertisers pay bloggers to write a review of a product or website. Sponsored post is usually the most profitable thing a blogger can do to bring revenue to their site. To be eligible for these sponsored post networks, your blog has to have a posting history and possibly some minimum ranking requirements.
I’ve been a longtime member of almost a dozen different paid blogging networks. There is only a few worth mentioning because many of them have lack of opportunities, or most of them are very low paying compared to the other networks. Below are the top 3 I’ve found, based on how much money they have earned me.
SponsoredReviews.com: They operate on a bidding system where you find opportunities and bid a price on it. The advertiser can accept, decline, or give a counterbid. The problem with this network is you usually have to bid on 10 to 20 just to get even one counter offer. Often that counteroffer is lower than you want too. Advertisers can also contact you first and buy a sponsored post, which you can accept or deny, but those don’t happen too often. Payments are done every 2 weeks by Paypal and there is no minimum required before payment.
Signup for SponsoredReviews.com
ReviewMe.com: I’ve recently been having good success for Review me. The better ranking your blog, the higher paying opportunities you will be eligible. If your blog has very few backlinks and low alexa, chances are you won’t get opportunities often and they will be all fairly low paying. Everyone with a blog should sign up because you’ll get some opportunities occasionally once your blog is approved in the system. After you accept a review, you get a few days to write it. Each sponsored post must always be 200 words minimum and declare itself as sponsored post in the post somewhere.
Advertisers can also find your blog in the marketplace and buy a review on your site directly, but that’s rare because there is thousands of blogs in their marketplace for advertisers to choose from. You can also display a review me badge on your site, where advertisers can click on it and buy a sponsored post for your asking price. Payments are done by paypal with no mimimum payout and by other options with a $25 minimum payout. Post approval has always been fast and payments on time.
Signup for Review Me.com
LinkWorth.com: The network is small so don’t expect paid opportunities to often from them. Once your blog is registered and accepted, you have to wait for the opportunities to come to you. You have a choice of a 70/30 or 50/50 profit split. I’ve found that the 50/50 allows me to get more opportunities. They have other things such as text link ad and banner ad opportunities, which is why I recommend signing up for them, so you have access to all these things even if you don’t get many sponsored post opportunities.
Signup for LinkWorth.com
BuyBlogReviews.com: This network works similiar to SponsoredReviews.com in which you bid on opportunities or advertisers can directly purchase posts from your blog. There is less opportunities and most pay less than SponsoredReviews.com, but its good to use multiple networks because SponsoredReviews.com is pretty competitive to get opportunities. BuyBlogReviews also has less stringent standards on keeping your blog in the marketplace to be eligible for opportunities compared to SponsoredReviews.com.
Signup for BuyBlogReviews.com
I’ve been a longtime member of almost a dozen different paid blogging networks. There is only a few worth mentioning because many of them have lack of opportunities, or most of them are very low paying compared to the other networks. Below are the top 3 I’ve found, based on how much money they have earned me.
SponsoredReviews.com: They operate on a bidding system where you find opportunities and bid a price on it. The advertiser can accept, decline, or give a counterbid. The problem with this network is you usually have to bid on 10 to 20 just to get even one counter offer. Often that counteroffer is lower than you want too. Advertisers can also contact you first and buy a sponsored post, which you can accept or deny, but those don’t happen too often. Payments are done every 2 weeks by Paypal and there is no minimum required before payment.
Signup for SponsoredReviews.com
ReviewMe.com: I’ve recently been having good success for Review me. The better ranking your blog, the higher paying opportunities you will be eligible. If your blog has very few backlinks and low alexa, chances are you won’t get opportunities often and they will be all fairly low paying. Everyone with a blog should sign up because you’ll get some opportunities occasionally once your blog is approved in the system. After you accept a review, you get a few days to write it. Each sponsored post must always be 200 words minimum and declare itself as sponsored post in the post somewhere.
Advertisers can also find your blog in the marketplace and buy a review on your site directly, but that’s rare because there is thousands of blogs in their marketplace for advertisers to choose from. You can also display a review me badge on your site, where advertisers can click on it and buy a sponsored post for your asking price. Payments are done by paypal with no mimimum payout and by other options with a $25 minimum payout. Post approval has always been fast and payments on time.
Signup for Review Me.com
LinkWorth.com: The network is small so don’t expect paid opportunities to often from them. Once your blog is registered and accepted, you have to wait for the opportunities to come to you. You have a choice of a 70/30 or 50/50 profit split. I’ve found that the 50/50 allows me to get more opportunities. They have other things such as text link ad and banner ad opportunities, which is why I recommend signing up for them, so you have access to all these things even if you don’t get many sponsored post opportunities.
Signup for LinkWorth.com
BuyBlogReviews.com: This network works similiar to SponsoredReviews.com in which you bid on opportunities or advertisers can directly purchase posts from your blog. There is less opportunities and most pay less than SponsoredReviews.com, but its good to use multiple networks because SponsoredReviews.com is pretty competitive to get opportunities. BuyBlogReviews also has less stringent standards on keeping your blog in the marketplace to be eligible for opportunities compared to SponsoredReviews.com.
Signup for BuyBlogReviews.com
Text Link Ad Broker Reviews
Bloggers are finding that selling text link ads on their website, is usually much more profitable than Adsense. Another benefit is they don’t clutter up a website and can be a way to sneak in additional income, without sacrificing the look of your site for further profit. There are a few text link ad broker services, but only 3 right now seem to be worth joining. In order to use these sites, a piece of code or plugin must be installed for tracking purposes.
Text-Link-Ads.com – They will manually review your site and based on your alexa, pagerank, and other factors, they will assign a price per link. You will be paid 50% of this(TLA gets 50% cut) per sitewide (or front page only) link sold per month. You can choose how many links you want to display per ad block(up to 10) and whether you want to pre-approve or have automatic approval of ads. Payments are done by Paypal.
Signup for Text-Link-Ads.com
LinkWorth – I haven’t received any text link opportunities from them yet as they are fairly small network right now. They have many other earning opportunities including sponsored posts for bloggers, so that’s why I recommend signing up for them.
Signup for Linkworth
TNX – With TNX you are saling a link per individual page (up to 4 links allowed per ad block). You earn based on the pagerank of each individual page a link is sold on. Unlike Text-Link-Ads.com, which just shows anchor text, TNX also includes a short text description along with it. This makes the links a little messier looking with TNX. You can choose to remove ads you don’t want before they go live, but it can be difficult and time consuming as there is many different ones on each page.
If you have a pagerank 0 site, you’ll probably make more with Text-Link-ads.com because they price it on more than pagerank. If your site has thousands of pages to make up for the low pay on PR 0 pages, then you might actually make more with TNX despite a zero PR.. Based on my experience, for the average site with a PR 2 or PR 3 site with 1 or 2 hundred pages, TNX will make you more than text-link-ads.com. Payments are done by Paypal or Moneybookers.
Text-Link-Ads.com – They will manually review your site and based on your alexa, pagerank, and other factors, they will assign a price per link. You will be paid 50% of this(TLA gets 50% cut) per sitewide (or front page only) link sold per month. You can choose how many links you want to display per ad block(up to 10) and whether you want to pre-approve or have automatic approval of ads. Payments are done by Paypal.
Signup for Text-Link-Ads.com
LinkWorth – I haven’t received any text link opportunities from them yet as they are fairly small network right now. They have many other earning opportunities including sponsored posts for bloggers, so that’s why I recommend signing up for them.
Signup for Linkworth
TNX – With TNX you are saling a link per individual page (up to 4 links allowed per ad block). You earn based on the pagerank of each individual page a link is sold on. Unlike Text-Link-Ads.com, which just shows anchor text, TNX also includes a short text description along with it. This makes the links a little messier looking with TNX. You can choose to remove ads you don’t want before they go live, but it can be difficult and time consuming as there is many different ones on each page.
If you have a pagerank 0 site, you’ll probably make more with Text-Link-ads.com because they price it on more than pagerank. If your site has thousands of pages to make up for the low pay on PR 0 pages, then you might actually make more with TNX despite a zero PR.. Based on my experience, for the average site with a PR 2 or PR 3 site with 1 or 2 hundred pages, TNX will make you more than text-link-ads.com. Payments are done by Paypal or Moneybookers.
Best Affiliate network
Affiliate networks allow affiliate marketers to quickly find and join multiple affiliate programs under one site. The networks handle all the payments and keep your personal information safe from the merchants. Affiliate networks help ensure adequate affiliate tracking and help you meet the minimum payout balance requirements. If you join affiliate programs seperately outside of a affiliate network, it may take months or years to reach the minimum payout balance in each program. Joining independant affiliate programs also puts you at each program’s mercy for payments and you may not even get payed as promised. There is also no way to know if they are accurately tracking your affiliate sales either. It is for these reasons that affiliate marketers prefer to join the majority of their programs through affiliate networks.
There are many different affiliate networks to choose from, it is hard to know which are the best without first trying them all. I have tried most of them and by far, Shareasale is the best one. They track their affiliates very well for compliance and will even show you a program uptime history. No other affiliate network does that. They also have datafeeds, coupons, and 2nd tier affiliate programs for participating affiliate merchants. There is plenty of affiliate programs across many industries. Every other affiliate network I joined, had some major flaw, but Shareasale seems to have all the features that an effective affiliate marketer needs, while still having a wide choice of affiliate programs.
Signup for Shareasale affiliate network.
There are many different affiliate networks to choose from, it is hard to know which are the best without first trying them all. I have tried most of them and by far, Shareasale is the best one. They track their affiliates very well for compliance and will even show you a program uptime history. No other affiliate network does that. They also have datafeeds, coupons, and 2nd tier affiliate programs for participating affiliate merchants. There is plenty of affiliate programs across many industries. Every other affiliate network I joined, had some major flaw, but Shareasale seems to have all the features that an effective affiliate marketer needs, while still having a wide choice of affiliate programs.
Signup for Shareasale affiliate network.
Sponsored Posts a Good Idea?
Many bloggers find doing sponsored posts very lucrative. Unless you have a really high traffic website, you will usually earn more from sponsored posts than Google Adsense and affiliate programs. You can often earn more in one review than what you earn in a month from Adsense.
The reason why advertisers pay bloggers a lot of money is because the links pass permanent pagerank value to the advertiser’s site. To the advertisers, paying 20 or 30 bucks for example, is a good deal because it’s passing pagerank and at the same time creating buzz on a person’s blog.
The major problem with sponsored posts is Google frowns on passing bought links without a nofollow. In fact, they are improving their algorithms constantly to help figure out bought links not using a nofollow. Many blogs have been reduced to a pagerank zero for doing sponsored posts. Keep in mind though that it appears to be a “vanity change” as bloggers still maintain the same ranking in Google despite a drop in pagerank. I believe Google wants to stop the selling of links by zeroeing out the number, without actually changing the search results. Another major con to sponsored posts, is they are really the quickest way to lose repeat visitors.
Despite the concerns of losing repeat visitors and being punished by Google, most will find they will make a lot more from sponsored posts in the end. Also, you won’t lose too many loyal readers if you are still providing fresh quality content, the key is moderation.
I’ve done many different sponsored posts across many different sites and by far my favorite is SponsoredReviews.com. The rules and the large amount of available opportunities available, has made it the most profitable sponsored post network for me.
The reason why advertisers pay bloggers a lot of money is because the links pass permanent pagerank value to the advertiser’s site. To the advertisers, paying 20 or 30 bucks for example, is a good deal because it’s passing pagerank and at the same time creating buzz on a person’s blog.
The major problem with sponsored posts is Google frowns on passing bought links without a nofollow. In fact, they are improving their algorithms constantly to help figure out bought links not using a nofollow. Many blogs have been reduced to a pagerank zero for doing sponsored posts. Keep in mind though that it appears to be a “vanity change” as bloggers still maintain the same ranking in Google despite a drop in pagerank. I believe Google wants to stop the selling of links by zeroeing out the number, without actually changing the search results. Another major con to sponsored posts, is they are really the quickest way to lose repeat visitors.
Despite the concerns of losing repeat visitors and being punished by Google, most will find they will make a lot more from sponsored posts in the end. Also, you won’t lose too many loyal readers if you are still providing fresh quality content, the key is moderation.
I’ve done many different sponsored posts across many different sites and by far my favorite is SponsoredReviews.com. The rules and the large amount of available opportunities available, has made it the most profitable sponsored post network for me.
Should I blog on free hosting?
The first thing you must tackle when starting your blog is whether or not you are going to use free blog hosting. You may have noticed some high traffic blogs getting away with using free blog services. I honestly believe getting a free blog is one of the worst mistakes you can do if you intend to be a career blogger.
Many think it is ok to use free blogging services because blogging is all about content. While with blogging, content and loyal readership matters, you have to have also a sense of professionalism to it. Having your own domain name means you are serious about your blog. It also means you are intelligent enough to learn how to put it on it’s own domain and hosting. If you are viewed as intelligent, people are more likely to read your blog and take it serious.
Having the ability to have your own domain name means it’s easier for a visitor to remember your site. It will also help you stand out from the millions of free blogs out there. The long term benefits of your own domain, outweigh the time it takes to learn how to set it up.
Having your own blog on your own host is also a control issue. You can modify your blog software to do so many things that you can’t do on free blogs. You also won’t be at the mercy of some 3rd party. You can’t even back up your content if they shut down your account on those free services. You will also own that domain name, which is like the brand name of your blog.
If you decide to do it on your own hosting, I recommend you register your domain with GoDaddy. I like them for domains for 4 reasons. First you have your own control panel, where you can go in and edit your nameservers, whois, and other things whenever you want. With some other domain registrars, you have to contact them for them to change nameservers. Second, they are a very large and established domain company, so your domains are safe in their hands. Third, GoDaddy has the best DNS server infrastructure and DNS servers often wind up being the bottleneck in handling large web traffic. Finally, they are always having a lot of sales on domain purchases or renewals, which has saved me quite a bit of money.
For web hosting, I highly recommend Hostgator. I host all my sites with them. Their servers are fast, their support is friendly, and all their plans come with Fantastico and Cpanel. Fantastico is great because with the click of the mouse, it can install all the free major blog, forum, shopping cart, gallery, mailing list, and content management system software. It will also automatically tell you when there is an update on the software and you can install an update with a click of a mouse. This is especially handy when you have multiple websites. Cpanel is the most common web hosting software administration software, so I recommend using a web host like Host gator to get familiar with using it.
Many think it is ok to use free blogging services because blogging is all about content. While with blogging, content and loyal readership matters, you have to have also a sense of professionalism to it. Having your own domain name means you are serious about your blog. It also means you are intelligent enough to learn how to put it on it’s own domain and hosting. If you are viewed as intelligent, people are more likely to read your blog and take it serious.
Having the ability to have your own domain name means it’s easier for a visitor to remember your site. It will also help you stand out from the millions of free blogs out there. The long term benefits of your own domain, outweigh the time it takes to learn how to set it up.
Having your own blog on your own host is also a control issue. You can modify your blog software to do so many things that you can’t do on free blogs. You also won’t be at the mercy of some 3rd party. You can’t even back up your content if they shut down your account on those free services. You will also own that domain name, which is like the brand name of your blog.
If you decide to do it on your own hosting, I recommend you register your domain with GoDaddy. I like them for domains for 4 reasons. First you have your own control panel, where you can go in and edit your nameservers, whois, and other things whenever you want. With some other domain registrars, you have to contact them for them to change nameservers. Second, they are a very large and established domain company, so your domains are safe in their hands. Third, GoDaddy has the best DNS server infrastructure and DNS servers often wind up being the bottleneck in handling large web traffic. Finally, they are always having a lot of sales on domain purchases or renewals, which has saved me quite a bit of money.
For web hosting, I highly recommend Hostgator. I host all my sites with them. Their servers are fast, their support is friendly, and all their plans come with Fantastico and Cpanel. Fantastico is great because with the click of the mouse, it can install all the free major blog, forum, shopping cart, gallery, mailing list, and content management system software. It will also automatically tell you when there is an update on the software and you can install an update with a click of a mouse. This is especially handy when you have multiple websites. Cpanel is the most common web hosting software administration software, so I recommend using a web host like Host gator to get familiar with using it.
How many sites should the average webmaster create?
One common question, especially among those new to creating websites, is how many websites should a person have? Well you have to look at many factors. If you have a huge advertising budget and are creating a online commercial store, then probably one or 2 should be fine. If you’re creating content driven sites such as blogs, directories, forums, then you probably want to create quite a few. The more websites you create the more income in the long run you can make. The most a reasonable person could handle is probably around 5 to 15, depending on how many hours you want to work and how frequently you want to update the content.
The internet is getting more saturated and you have to remember that a lot of webmasters, who started back in the 90’s, have now finished those sites and are working on new ones. So here you are in 2008 thinking 5 websites is a lot, whereas some already have 5 under their belt by the year 2000. So the only way to keep up with those people and get a equal piece of the traffic, is to work two or three times as hard to make up for your late start.
Another reason why it’s a good idea to create a bunch of websites is stability. If your depending on 2 or 3 content driven websites, a search engine algorithm change could shift your ranking and cause a huge dent in your salary. That is why I don’t suggest anyone quit their day job, until they have a really nice stable income, preferably across multiple websites. I think it should be more than three, across at least 2 very different topics.
If your just starting off as a webmaster, you shouldn’t worry about creating a bunch of websites, until you at least learned the ropes for a few months. There is a lot of things you learn about web design, search engine optimization, affiliate earnings, and other important and complicated things that take time to analyze and figure out on your own. If you make a bunch of websites, you will never really see it in depth, as if you had just concentrated all your energy on one website. Once you get the first site going and learn a lot, then you want to branch out. As you branch out and create new websites, you can replicate some of the things you found successful and avoid the things you didn’t. The first 6 months to one year should probably be your learning state and then after that you can go full steam ahead and create a website network.
The internet is getting more saturated and you have to remember that a lot of webmasters, who started back in the 90’s, have now finished those sites and are working on new ones. So here you are in 2008 thinking 5 websites is a lot, whereas some already have 5 under their belt by the year 2000. So the only way to keep up with those people and get a equal piece of the traffic, is to work two or three times as hard to make up for your late start.
Another reason why it’s a good idea to create a bunch of websites is stability. If your depending on 2 or 3 content driven websites, a search engine algorithm change could shift your ranking and cause a huge dent in your salary. That is why I don’t suggest anyone quit their day job, until they have a really nice stable income, preferably across multiple websites. I think it should be more than three, across at least 2 very different topics.
If your just starting off as a webmaster, you shouldn’t worry about creating a bunch of websites, until you at least learned the ropes for a few months. There is a lot of things you learn about web design, search engine optimization, affiliate earnings, and other important and complicated things that take time to analyze and figure out on your own. If you make a bunch of websites, you will never really see it in depth, as if you had just concentrated all your energy on one website. Once you get the first site going and learn a lot, then you want to branch out. As you branch out and create new websites, you can replicate some of the things you found successful and avoid the things you didn’t. The first 6 months to one year should probably be your learning state and then after that you can go full steam ahead and create a website network.
How to get Backlinks
In this article I am going to tell you everything you need to know on how to get backlinks because backlinks are a crucial way of building your site’s traffic up. Many novices think getting backlinks is all about direct traffic as a result from someone clicking on the actual link. However, that is the wrong way to look at it. When you get many backlinks from reputable sites, it will greatly benefit your ranking in the search engine, so you get most of your traffic from search engines.
In fact, if your website has high ranking in the search engines, people will probably find your website a lot more through a search engine, than through clicking your link on a high trafficked website. However, you must first have high ranking in the search engine and part of getting that, is building many backlinks. Building backlinks is a necessary part of high rankings in a search engine. Without dozens(or even hundreds) of quality backlinks, you will never get high rankings on competitive keywords you really want.
Nofollow and search engines:
Not all backlinks are equal. If the links use the nofollow tag or redirects, like a lot of sites do, they are worthless in the eyes of Google for passing on pagerank. The nofollow tag will be inside the a href tag. A redirect will be in the form of a dynamic url.
The reason why sites use nofollow or redirects is because in Google you give away a certain amount of pagerank through your outlinks on the page. Webmasters want to keep the pagerank flowing to their internal links, to keep those internal pages’ pagerank on their site high. They also don’t want to give their competitors an edge in the search engines by passing on “credit” to them too. So they nofollow everyone else. Most don’t realize that many forums and blog software automatically puts a nofollow in your signature and comment links.
Where to get hundreds of FREE backlinks?
1) Commenting on blogs that are part of the no “nofollow” blogging movement. Hint: This blog is a dofollow blog
2) Forum signatures that don’t have nofollows. Here is a list im keeping of DoFollow Forums
3) Link exchanges
4) Creating a network of your own websites and cross-linking (just make sure each site has different I.P addresses)
5) Submitting to SEO friendly directories
Anchor Text:
The text you use on the clickable link is Anchor text. Search engines use this as a way to rank your site for keywords. A few years ago thousands of people “Google bombed” George Bush’s biography page to the word “miserable failure” through the use of miserable failure as the anchor text. It is advised that when appropriate, mix up the variety of words in your anchor text once in a while. The reason for this is because Google knows that when 3rd parties reference your website, they won’t always use the same anchor text. If you always use the same anchor text Google, may calculate you as trying to artificially manipulating your backlinks.
If your anchor text is your website’s name, it may not be ideal for anchor text. For example, Dollars blog as anchor text isn’t that exciting to the search engines. Not many people search those words. A better choice of anchor text occasionally on my backlinks would be “blogging” or “making money online” or hundreds of other choices that are more popular phrases in the search engines. One problem with directories or link exchanges, you usually have to use your website’s name instead of anchor text.
Google and Pagerank & Link Juice:
As a general rule of thumb, the higher the Google pagerank the more valuable the backlink it will be. Google is the only search engine that weighs in Pagerank, but Google is the most popular search engine on the net, with 90% using it. As a result, it’s worthwhile to use it as a measure of backlink quality. One thing to remember, is if a site has high PR, but a lot of outgoing links on the page, less PR will be passed on per backlink, than if it had only a few outgoing links. This is often coined “link juice”.
One way vs reciprocal links:
One way links, instead of recipricol link exchanges is better seen by Google. I still think link exchanges are a great way to build backlinks and boost your rankings in the beginning, provided the backlinks are from older respected sites. If they are just from other junk or newer sites, then forget wasting your time and try othe ways to backlink build instead.
Link Velocity
You can even start to beat out higher PR sites in the search engines, if you have more backlinks and are more consistent building new ones long term. This is because Google sees a consistent supply of new raw backlinks called “Link velocity”, as a sign of a worthwhile site.
Backlink Relevancy:
Non-relevant website backlinks to your website are not as beneficial as relevant websites. But most important, is just getting the backlinks. Just get as many backlinks as you can, relevant or not. You probably hear a lot of supposed SEO experts saying that you should focus backlinks exclusively on related sites. In a perfect world that would be great, but many relevant sites may be hard to get because of limited websites or because they may be unwilling to do exchanges. It is often easier just to get a ton from unrelated sites and forget about relevancy.
A site getting links from dozens of unrelated sites and linkfarms, will outwin everytime a site getting much fewer and more relevant sites. I used to be concerned about relevancy, but from my own experience, relevancy is not as important as people think. A lot of non-relevant backlinks is always better than very few relevant backlinks. This is just a myth spread by people who are regurgitating it from what they heard someone else say.
Other Tips
Making comments on blogs who don’t follow the “nofollow” movement, is probably the most efficient way to build up a ton of good backlinks. Many of these bloggers also have high PR too. Do a search to find out what bloggers are following the do follow movement.
When signing up to a forum for the purpose of getting backlinks, make sure they don’t put a nofollow tags in signature links. Some forums automatically do this inside signature links, which would make posting there a waste of time. Forums aren’t very high quality backlinks because of the lack of subject focus and the high amounts of internal and outgoing links. However, it’s just another piece in your arsenal to easily get nice anchor text backlinks. Most forums aren’t indexed very well, so you may have to post a few times before even one of the links is picked up.
Creating a network of your own websites and cross-linking is an excellent way to get get backlinks. Make sure they do not share the same C blocks on the I.P address. Google will take notice of what you are doing if you do. Not only will you get direct traffic from each of your sites crosslinking to each other, but you can put those links in high visible spots making them usually more effective then link exchanges with other people.
Directory links can be low or high quality depending on the pagerank and structure of the directory. If you can get a one way link, that would be better than a recipricol exchange in the eyes of the search engines. Some directories use redirects or dynamic URL’s so you won’t get any credit. Don’t even bother submitting to those directories, even if it’s free. Directories are basically worthless if they won’t pass you any pagerank. You will not get any direct traffic benefit from most directories, with the exception of maybe Yahoo and Dmoz.
Getting a backlink from a .gov or .edu site in the past has been seen as more important than other TLDs. More recently, people have said there is no difference between domain TLDs. I tend to agree with that because like reciprocal linking, Google has caught onto people trying to game the search engines by purposely seeking .edu backlinks. To make matters worse, many spammers are using .edu sites. You probably in the long run would get more benefit worrying instead about getting a ton of new backlinks than a lot of time trying to get a few .edu. links.
Backlink abuse:
Google in particular, will factor in a lot about the quality of your backlinks. Rapid increases of backlinks, especially on newer sites, could actually work against your rankings in Google. Slow and steady ong term is the best. The older your site is, the less you have to worry, but you should never make it too unrealistic or else your site MIGHT drop out of the SERPs for a few weeks.
Paying for text link ads:
While building links one by one through the above methods can take you pretty far, buying links is the easiest and may be the only way to get you near the top. There are many webmasters out there that have such old established sites and/or have been buying links for so long, that you have no choice, but to do it yourself too. If you want to reach the top, you have to follow suit and do what they do. I recommend Text-Link-Ads.com to build natural looking links into other people’s websites. These links won’t appear to Google as paid links because they don’t come with any easy identifiable logo that a search engine can identify. Just make sure you don’t buy too many links at once and do not always use the same anchor text, so you can bypass some of the “filters” of Google.
In fact, if your website has high ranking in the search engines, people will probably find your website a lot more through a search engine, than through clicking your link on a high trafficked website. However, you must first have high ranking in the search engine and part of getting that, is building many backlinks. Building backlinks is a necessary part of high rankings in a search engine. Without dozens(or even hundreds) of quality backlinks, you will never get high rankings on competitive keywords you really want.
Nofollow and search engines:
Not all backlinks are equal. If the links use the nofollow tag or redirects, like a lot of sites do, they are worthless in the eyes of Google for passing on pagerank. The nofollow tag will be inside the a href tag. A redirect will be in the form of a dynamic url.
The reason why sites use nofollow or redirects is because in Google you give away a certain amount of pagerank through your outlinks on the page. Webmasters want to keep the pagerank flowing to their internal links, to keep those internal pages’ pagerank on their site high. They also don’t want to give their competitors an edge in the search engines by passing on “credit” to them too. So they nofollow everyone else. Most don’t realize that many forums and blog software automatically puts a nofollow in your signature and comment links.
Where to get hundreds of FREE backlinks?
1) Commenting on blogs that are part of the no “nofollow” blogging movement. Hint: This blog is a dofollow blog
2) Forum signatures that don’t have nofollows. Here is a list im keeping of DoFollow Forums
3) Link exchanges
4) Creating a network of your own websites and cross-linking (just make sure each site has different I.P addresses)
5) Submitting to SEO friendly directories
Anchor Text:
The text you use on the clickable link is Anchor text. Search engines use this as a way to rank your site for keywords. A few years ago thousands of people “Google bombed” George Bush’s biography page to the word “miserable failure” through the use of miserable failure as the anchor text. It is advised that when appropriate, mix up the variety of words in your anchor text once in a while. The reason for this is because Google knows that when 3rd parties reference your website, they won’t always use the same anchor text. If you always use the same anchor text Google, may calculate you as trying to artificially manipulating your backlinks.
If your anchor text is your website’s name, it may not be ideal for anchor text. For example, Dollars blog as anchor text isn’t that exciting to the search engines. Not many people search those words. A better choice of anchor text occasionally on my backlinks would be “blogging” or “making money online” or hundreds of other choices that are more popular phrases in the search engines. One problem with directories or link exchanges, you usually have to use your website’s name instead of anchor text.
Google and Pagerank & Link Juice:
As a general rule of thumb, the higher the Google pagerank the more valuable the backlink it will be. Google is the only search engine that weighs in Pagerank, but Google is the most popular search engine on the net, with 90% using it. As a result, it’s worthwhile to use it as a measure of backlink quality. One thing to remember, is if a site has high PR, but a lot of outgoing links on the page, less PR will be passed on per backlink, than if it had only a few outgoing links. This is often coined “link juice”.
One way vs reciprocal links:
One way links, instead of recipricol link exchanges is better seen by Google. I still think link exchanges are a great way to build backlinks and boost your rankings in the beginning, provided the backlinks are from older respected sites. If they are just from other junk or newer sites, then forget wasting your time and try othe ways to backlink build instead.
Link Velocity
You can even start to beat out higher PR sites in the search engines, if you have more backlinks and are more consistent building new ones long term. This is because Google sees a consistent supply of new raw backlinks called “Link velocity”, as a sign of a worthwhile site.
Backlink Relevancy:
Non-relevant website backlinks to your website are not as beneficial as relevant websites. But most important, is just getting the backlinks. Just get as many backlinks as you can, relevant or not. You probably hear a lot of supposed SEO experts saying that you should focus backlinks exclusively on related sites. In a perfect world that would be great, but many relevant sites may be hard to get because of limited websites or because they may be unwilling to do exchanges. It is often easier just to get a ton from unrelated sites and forget about relevancy.
A site getting links from dozens of unrelated sites and linkfarms, will outwin everytime a site getting much fewer and more relevant sites. I used to be concerned about relevancy, but from my own experience, relevancy is not as important as people think. A lot of non-relevant backlinks is always better than very few relevant backlinks. This is just a myth spread by people who are regurgitating it from what they heard someone else say.
Other Tips
Making comments on blogs who don’t follow the “nofollow” movement, is probably the most efficient way to build up a ton of good backlinks. Many of these bloggers also have high PR too. Do a search to find out what bloggers are following the do follow movement.
When signing up to a forum for the purpose of getting backlinks, make sure they don’t put a nofollow tags in signature links. Some forums automatically do this inside signature links, which would make posting there a waste of time. Forums aren’t very high quality backlinks because of the lack of subject focus and the high amounts of internal and outgoing links. However, it’s just another piece in your arsenal to easily get nice anchor text backlinks. Most forums aren’t indexed very well, so you may have to post a few times before even one of the links is picked up.
Creating a network of your own websites and cross-linking is an excellent way to get get backlinks. Make sure they do not share the same C blocks on the I.P address. Google will take notice of what you are doing if you do. Not only will you get direct traffic from each of your sites crosslinking to each other, but you can put those links in high visible spots making them usually more effective then link exchanges with other people.
Directory links can be low or high quality depending on the pagerank and structure of the directory. If you can get a one way link, that would be better than a recipricol exchange in the eyes of the search engines. Some directories use redirects or dynamic URL’s so you won’t get any credit. Don’t even bother submitting to those directories, even if it’s free. Directories are basically worthless if they won’t pass you any pagerank. You will not get any direct traffic benefit from most directories, with the exception of maybe Yahoo and Dmoz.
Getting a backlink from a .gov or .edu site in the past has been seen as more important than other TLDs. More recently, people have said there is no difference between domain TLDs. I tend to agree with that because like reciprocal linking, Google has caught onto people trying to game the search engines by purposely seeking .edu backlinks. To make matters worse, many spammers are using .edu sites. You probably in the long run would get more benefit worrying instead about getting a ton of new backlinks than a lot of time trying to get a few .edu. links.
Backlink abuse:
Google in particular, will factor in a lot about the quality of your backlinks. Rapid increases of backlinks, especially on newer sites, could actually work against your rankings in Google. Slow and steady ong term is the best. The older your site is, the less you have to worry, but you should never make it too unrealistic or else your site MIGHT drop out of the SERPs for a few weeks.
Paying for text link ads:
While building links one by one through the above methods can take you pretty far, buying links is the easiest and may be the only way to get you near the top. There are many webmasters out there that have such old established sites and/or have been buying links for so long, that you have no choice, but to do it yourself too. If you want to reach the top, you have to follow suit and do what they do. I recommend Text-Link-Ads.com to build natural looking links into other people’s websites. These links won’t appear to Google as paid links because they don’t come with any easy identifiable logo that a search engine can identify. Just make sure you don’t buy too many links at once and do not always use the same anchor text, so you can bypass some of the “filters” of Google.
Choosing The Best Domain
Choosing the best domain can not be a easy decision. When you first get into being a webmaster sometimes you will have regrets of what domain you chose. Why would anyone want to change their established domain name?
Well choosing a domain name comes down to two major goals: SEO Friendly Domain or Brand Name. These goals will usually wind up conflicting with each other.
Brand Name Domains:
Brand names such as “Dollars blog” is not a SEO friendly domain. If you check the most searched keywords on the net that phrase is very very low. Almost no one in the search engine types that (unless they are looking for my site). Unless the domain is really cool or memorable you probably don’t want to go this route.
Search engines are an excellent way to get new traffic and you will be dramatically decreasing it by a lack of a SEO friendly domain. However, you may get lucky and get a lot of repeat visitors because of a well thought out catchy domain name. If you get lot’s of repeat visitors that’s a huge step to getting on your way to a high traffic.
SEO Optimized domain
An SEO optimized domain name will contain in it’s domain keyword (s) word(phrase) that is searched thousands of times a month in the search engines. If you really want to get the best SEO optimized domain you will want to read my more in depth article on Most Popular Searched Keywords
Domain TLD Extensions
Unfortunately, most domains with very high trafficked keywords are taken, including all the TLD extensions such as .info .biz .net etc. If your site is commercial (centered around a store or product) you MUST get a .com or .net. No one will take a product or store serious without those extensions.
Often there is some good SEO .net, .info, and .us TLD’s still left on the internet. It will depend on each topic, but if your creative enough you should get a great SEO domain on those extensions, even on a .com too but it probably won’t look as nice or quite as SEO optimized. Keep in mind that with .us you must be a us resident and you will not be eligible for whois privacy protection.
Domain Hyphens, a good idea?
Hyphens are a common use in domain names. Supposedly, all search engines use hyphen seperation of keywords for better ranking of seperate multiple keywords. If you have a long domain name, it would not be a good idea to put a hyphen in it, nor is it ideal to have more then one hyphen in your domain name. Too many hyphens will make your domain hard to remember and make it look like spam sites to search engines. Generally domains with a hyphen in it are harder to remember. I usually never use hyphens in domain because making them harder to remember outweighs any tiny SEO benefit. Only time I will use a hyphen, is if I know I don’t expect very many repeat visitors to that website. Than you might as well add a hyphen since you don’t expect many to come back.
Where to purchase your domain?
You should never purchase your domain with the same company that you host your websites on. Many hosting companies are not that reputable and may actually hold your domain hostage if you want to change hosts. It is very important you find a domain registrar you trust.
I prefer GoDaddy to register my domains for 4 important reasons. First, they have a control panel which allows you to change your nameservers and whois information yourself, anytime you want. With some other domain registrars you have to contact them, so they manually change it. Second, GoDaddy is a very large domain company, so your domains are safe in their hands. Third, GoDaddy has the best DNS server infrastructure and DNS servers often wind up being the bottleneck in handling large web traffic. Finally, they are always having a lot of sales on domain purchases or renewals, which has saved me quite a bit of money so far.
Well choosing a domain name comes down to two major goals: SEO Friendly Domain or Brand Name. These goals will usually wind up conflicting with each other.
Brand Name Domains:
Brand names such as “Dollars blog” is not a SEO friendly domain. If you check the most searched keywords on the net that phrase is very very low. Almost no one in the search engine types that (unless they are looking for my site). Unless the domain is really cool or memorable you probably don’t want to go this route.
Search engines are an excellent way to get new traffic and you will be dramatically decreasing it by a lack of a SEO friendly domain. However, you may get lucky and get a lot of repeat visitors because of a well thought out catchy domain name. If you get lot’s of repeat visitors that’s a huge step to getting on your way to a high traffic.
SEO Optimized domain
An SEO optimized domain name will contain in it’s domain keyword (s) word(phrase) that is searched thousands of times a month in the search engines. If you really want to get the best SEO optimized domain you will want to read my more in depth article on Most Popular Searched Keywords
Domain TLD Extensions
Unfortunately, most domains with very high trafficked keywords are taken, including all the TLD extensions such as .info .biz .net etc. If your site is commercial (centered around a store or product) you MUST get a .com or .net. No one will take a product or store serious without those extensions.
Often there is some good SEO .net, .info, and .us TLD’s still left on the internet. It will depend on each topic, but if your creative enough you should get a great SEO domain on those extensions, even on a .com too but it probably won’t look as nice or quite as SEO optimized. Keep in mind that with .us you must be a us resident and you will not be eligible for whois privacy protection.
Domain Hyphens, a good idea?
Hyphens are a common use in domain names. Supposedly, all search engines use hyphen seperation of keywords for better ranking of seperate multiple keywords. If you have a long domain name, it would not be a good idea to put a hyphen in it, nor is it ideal to have more then one hyphen in your domain name. Too many hyphens will make your domain hard to remember and make it look like spam sites to search engines. Generally domains with a hyphen in it are harder to remember. I usually never use hyphens in domain because making them harder to remember outweighs any tiny SEO benefit. Only time I will use a hyphen, is if I know I don’t expect very many repeat visitors to that website. Than you might as well add a hyphen since you don’t expect many to come back.
Where to purchase your domain?
You should never purchase your domain with the same company that you host your websites on. Many hosting companies are not that reputable and may actually hold your domain hostage if you want to change hosts. It is very important you find a domain registrar you trust.
I prefer GoDaddy to register my domains for 4 important reasons. First, they have a control panel which allows you to change your nameservers and whois information yourself, anytime you want. With some other domain registrars you have to contact them, so they manually change it. Second, GoDaddy is a very large domain company, so your domains are safe in their hands. Third, GoDaddy has the best DNS server infrastructure and DNS servers often wind up being the bottleneck in handling large web traffic. Finally, they are always having a lot of sales on domain purchases or renewals, which has saved me quite a bit of money so far.
Choosing the Best Web Host
There is many considerations to take into account when looking for a host. Realize that just because a hosting account charges more, doesn’t necessarily mean they are better. The best way of finding a web host is through reading other’s feedback. There are some very good and also some very bad ones out there, all with similiar priced plans.
If you have multiple active or parked domains, then I recommend choosing a web host that allows you to have add-on domains on a shared hosting plan. This is where you can host multiple domains under one account, for usually 10 to 20 a month. This saves you a lot of money, than if you had hosted them seperately.
One important thing to realize, is that web hosts oversell their hosting, so when they say 3000 GB bandwith or some other large number, it is just a advertising gimmick. What will happen instead, is when your traffic gets too high, you wind up using too many CPU resources at once, long before you would hit that bandwith limit. CPU resources is the true bottleneck, not total bandwith used per month. Anytime you hit their 25%(differs by host read the TOS) of the server’s CPU resources, they will shut your account down temporarily. This is caused by large spikes of simultaneous traffic that can happen when you are receiving thousands of unique visits a month. The reason they have to shut your account temporarily is because on shared hosting, you cause every single account on that server to be effected. If it becomes a problem, then you have no choice, but to upgrade to a dedicated server. They are pretty costly, starting at $150-200 a month, but what happens on your server won’t affect others.
I currently host all my websites with Hostgator and highly recommend them. Their servers are fast, their support is friendly, and all their plans come with Fantastico and Cpanel. Fantastico is great because with the click of the mouse, it can install all the free major blog, forum, shopping cart, gallery, mailing list, and content management system software. It will also automatically tell you when there is an update on the software and you can install an update with a click of a mouse. This is especially handy when you have multiple websites. Cpanel is the most common web hosting software administration software, so I recommend using a web host like Host gator to get familiar with using it.
Hostgator’s Hatchling plan will host one domain on the 1 year plan for 84 dollars, but they often have coupon offers on their site which saves you money. If you have multiple domains or plan on running multiple domains or parking them, you can host them all under their Baby plan. The baby plan is $9.95 a month, however you can get it cheaper by prepaying 2 or 3 years in advance or using coupons on their site.
Some people find that they want to sell their unused bandwith to others through the use of a Reseller Hosting account at Hostgator. For example, say you have 4 domains, you can host all of these on a reseller account, and then can sell a few more accounts to someone else. The reseller account costs more, but if you are re-selling to a few at a lower price than what hostgator charges, you can make up for the price difference and make a profit from re-selling your account. You are basically your own miniature web hosting company in the process.
If your website(s) are handling a very large amount of traffic you will have to use Hostgator’s Dedicated Server. plan. This should only be necessary for those with dozens of medium trafficked sites or one very large trafficked sited.
If you have multiple active or parked domains, then I recommend choosing a web host that allows you to have add-on domains on a shared hosting plan. This is where you can host multiple domains under one account, for usually 10 to 20 a month. This saves you a lot of money, than if you had hosted them seperately.
One important thing to realize, is that web hosts oversell their hosting, so when they say 3000 GB bandwith or some other large number, it is just a advertising gimmick. What will happen instead, is when your traffic gets too high, you wind up using too many CPU resources at once, long before you would hit that bandwith limit. CPU resources is the true bottleneck, not total bandwith used per month. Anytime you hit their 25%(differs by host read the TOS) of the server’s CPU resources, they will shut your account down temporarily. This is caused by large spikes of simultaneous traffic that can happen when you are receiving thousands of unique visits a month. The reason they have to shut your account temporarily is because on shared hosting, you cause every single account on that server to be effected. If it becomes a problem, then you have no choice, but to upgrade to a dedicated server. They are pretty costly, starting at $150-200 a month, but what happens on your server won’t affect others.
I currently host all my websites with Hostgator and highly recommend them. Their servers are fast, their support is friendly, and all their plans come with Fantastico and Cpanel. Fantastico is great because with the click of the mouse, it can install all the free major blog, forum, shopping cart, gallery, mailing list, and content management system software. It will also automatically tell you when there is an update on the software and you can install an update with a click of a mouse. This is especially handy when you have multiple websites. Cpanel is the most common web hosting software administration software, so I recommend using a web host like Host gator to get familiar with using it.
Hostgator’s Hatchling plan will host one domain on the 1 year plan for 84 dollars, but they often have coupon offers on their site which saves you money. If you have multiple domains or plan on running multiple domains or parking them, you can host them all under their Baby plan. The baby plan is $9.95 a month, however you can get it cheaper by prepaying 2 or 3 years in advance or using coupons on their site.
Some people find that they want to sell their unused bandwith to others through the use of a Reseller Hosting account at Hostgator. For example, say you have 4 domains, you can host all of these on a reseller account, and then can sell a few more accounts to someone else. The reseller account costs more, but if you are re-selling to a few at a lower price than what hostgator charges, you can make up for the price difference and make a profit from re-selling your account. You are basically your own miniature web hosting company in the process.
If your website(s) are handling a very large amount of traffic you will have to use Hostgator’s Dedicated Server. plan. This should only be necessary for those with dozens of medium trafficked sites or one very large trafficked sited.
Domain Registration Guide
Registering your own domain for your site is the first big leap for a person wanting to start a career as a serious webmaster. Most people don’t know much about web hosting or registering domains and may think it’s only for the technical elite. In reality, it really isn’t as complicated as one might think. I will give an overview in this article to help give you confidence.
Domain registration is really website ownership. You own that name and no one should be able to take that from you. Even if someone got access to your database or files or “screenscraped” your site and tried to steal your content for their own site, most likely Google will recognize it as duplicate content and punish them. They also wont have all the name recognition or backlinks that you will gain pointing to your domain name over the next few years.
When registering a domain, it is wise to make sure the domain registrar is a good one. The domain registrar will be responsible for domain support and for keeping your domain up. One big example of a domain registrar gone bad is Registerfly recently. They started having problems and wouldn’t answer anyone’s support. People were even getting domains hijacked yet Registerfly didn’t deal with it. Luckily, GoDaddy was able to save them and get all their domains moved to that company.
Many registrars also have a “reseller” option. That is like a middleman who can control it. For example, Namecheap is the reseller for ENOM. Inc. My personal belief is if you have a choice between some unknown domain reseller offering you discounts or the parent company, you will want to have it registered with the parent registrar. That way it will save you any future hassles you might have with some unknown domain reseller. You can complain to the parent registrar though, if you do have any problems with a reseller.
Many people don’t understand why you would spend extra few dollars per year for whois privacy protection services. One reason is spam. But an even more important reason is because do you really want your real contact information posted out there on the net? And don’t think about putting fake information on your whois because under ICANN regulations (the body that sets up domain registration rules), a registrar can suspend your domain and sell it for giving false whois contact information. And Godaddy has done that plenty of times when competitors tried to take advantage of it. By using whois privacy protection service, you are putting the registrar’s contact information instead of yours, so you are safe.
Once you register your name it is important you make sure it is locked. This will prevent any domain hijacking. You also might want to consider registering the domain a few years out, as Google places more importance on domains with longer registrations.
You won’t be able to do anything else with your domain until you purchase web-hosting. Until then, your domain will “point” to a parked page (or nothing). Remember that if you decide in the future to transfer your domain to another registrar company, you will lose all the registration years you paid in advance on the previous registrar.
You should never purchase your domain with the same company that you host your websites on. Many hosting companies are not that reputable and may actually hold your domain hostage if you want to change hosts. It is very important you find a domain registrar you trust.
I prefer GoDaddy to register my domains for 3 important reasons. First, they are a very large domain company, so your domains are safe in their hands. Second, GoDaddy has the best DNS server infrastructure and DNS servers often wind up being the bottleneck in handling large web traffic. Finally, they are always having a lot of sales on domain purchases or renewals, which has saved me quite a bit of money.
Domain registration is really website ownership. You own that name and no one should be able to take that from you. Even if someone got access to your database or files or “screenscraped” your site and tried to steal your content for their own site, most likely Google will recognize it as duplicate content and punish them. They also wont have all the name recognition or backlinks that you will gain pointing to your domain name over the next few years.
When registering a domain, it is wise to make sure the domain registrar is a good one. The domain registrar will be responsible for domain support and for keeping your domain up. One big example of a domain registrar gone bad is Registerfly recently. They started having problems and wouldn’t answer anyone’s support. People were even getting domains hijacked yet Registerfly didn’t deal with it. Luckily, GoDaddy was able to save them and get all their domains moved to that company.
Many registrars also have a “reseller” option. That is like a middleman who can control it. For example, Namecheap is the reseller for ENOM. Inc. My personal belief is if you have a choice between some unknown domain reseller offering you discounts or the parent company, you will want to have it registered with the parent registrar. That way it will save you any future hassles you might have with some unknown domain reseller. You can complain to the parent registrar though, if you do have any problems with a reseller.
Many people don’t understand why you would spend extra few dollars per year for whois privacy protection services. One reason is spam. But an even more important reason is because do you really want your real contact information posted out there on the net? And don’t think about putting fake information on your whois because under ICANN regulations (the body that sets up domain registration rules), a registrar can suspend your domain and sell it for giving false whois contact information. And Godaddy has done that plenty of times when competitors tried to take advantage of it. By using whois privacy protection service, you are putting the registrar’s contact information instead of yours, so you are safe.
Once you register your name it is important you make sure it is locked. This will prevent any domain hijacking. You also might want to consider registering the domain a few years out, as Google places more importance on domains with longer registrations.
You won’t be able to do anything else with your domain until you purchase web-hosting. Until then, your domain will “point” to a parked page (or nothing). Remember that if you decide in the future to transfer your domain to another registrar company, you will lose all the registration years you paid in advance on the previous registrar.
You should never purchase your domain with the same company that you host your websites on. Many hosting companies are not that reputable and may actually hold your domain hostage if you want to change hosts. It is very important you find a domain registrar you trust.
I prefer GoDaddy to register my domains for 3 important reasons. First, they are a very large domain company, so your domains are safe in their hands. Second, GoDaddy has the best DNS server infrastructure and DNS servers often wind up being the bottleneck in handling large web traffic. Finally, they are always having a lot of sales on domain purchases or renewals, which has saved me quite a bit of money.
How To Setup Web Hosting
Before you setup web hosting, you first need to purchase a domain. Your domain is what you will use to “point” your internet address to your actual web host. I recommend you register your domain at GoDaddy. Although Godaddy is good for domain registrations, they aren’t very good at web hosting. For web hosting, I highly recommend Hostgator. I currently host 13 different active domains receiving tens of thousands of visitors, for only a small fee a month at Hostgator. All plans come with Fantastico and Cpanel, which is a must for any newbies to web hosting. If you plan to have more then one domain (active or parked), you will want to buy Hostgator’s baby plan. This offers unlimited domain hosting under one account and saves a lot of money, compared to if you were to buy a new plan for each domain. If you just want to host one domain (or blog) you can buy their hatchling plan. If you decide to create more domains later, you can just upgrade to the baby plan later when you need it.
Once you purchase webhosting, the hosting company will give you the nameservers(usually one or two) for example: n21.nameserver.com and n22.nameserver.com . Now if you bought your domains with a registrar like GoDaddy, you have the ability to go in and modify the namesevers (among other things such as whois info) anytime you want. With GoDaddy and similiar registrars, you go log onto Godaddy.com and in your account’s control panel enter the information into the nameservers box. You will have to read the intstructions at your domain registrar, to see specifically how it is done, but it’s usually pretty easy to do. If you registered your domains elsewhere, they may not have this easy control panel feature, so you may have to contact them with the nameserver information for them to manually change it.
Once you change the nameservers, you must wait between 15 minutes to 3 days for the DNS to update for your particular internet provider before you may see the domain point to your host. Each internet provider has it’s own working copy of DNS settings, so while the domain pointing is really instantaneous, it can take a while before your Internet service provider can see the DNS change. Think of DNS as a telephone book, where each internet service provider has a copy and it may take awhile before all of them get the newest copy.
Before you start your pursuit of building your website, you should get FTP software. This allows you to be able to move large amounts of files between your computer and hosting account. If you’re just starting out and using Hostgator’s plans, which all have Fantastico installer, you won’t need to know FTP right away. Fantastico installs many major forms of web software such as SMF forums, wordpress blogging software, all with the click of a mouse. But you will need to learn FTP soon after so you can backup all your files to your computer or upload web software not in the Fantastico package.
If you are using hostgator, you will need to learn your way around using Cpanel, before you get started working on your websites. The file manager in Cpanel, is where you can edit pages and upload images. Here you will also setup your mail and various other things. I also recommend you learn as soon as possible PHPmyadmin, which is under the MySQL databases section of Cpanel. PHPmyadmin is a web interface software to backup, modify, and transfer databases. Forums, blogging software, and most other software use a MySQL database which require knowledge of PHPmyadmin in order to backup or move your database to a different web host. Not every webhost uses Cpanel software, but it is the most commonly used web host administration software for managing files, checking email, etc in a web based environment. That is why I recommend you purchase hosting from a site like hostgator, which uses Cpanel.
Once you purchase webhosting, the hosting company will give you the nameservers(usually one or two) for example: n21.nameserver.com and n22.nameserver.com . Now if you bought your domains with a registrar like GoDaddy, you have the ability to go in and modify the namesevers (among other things such as whois info) anytime you want. With GoDaddy and similiar registrars, you go log onto Godaddy.com and in your account’s control panel enter the information into the nameservers box. You will have to read the intstructions at your domain registrar, to see specifically how it is done, but it’s usually pretty easy to do. If you registered your domains elsewhere, they may not have this easy control panel feature, so you may have to contact them with the nameserver information for them to manually change it.
Once you change the nameservers, you must wait between 15 minutes to 3 days for the DNS to update for your particular internet provider before you may see the domain point to your host. Each internet provider has it’s own working copy of DNS settings, so while the domain pointing is really instantaneous, it can take a while before your Internet service provider can see the DNS change. Think of DNS as a telephone book, where each internet service provider has a copy and it may take awhile before all of them get the newest copy.
Before you start your pursuit of building your website, you should get FTP software. This allows you to be able to move large amounts of files between your computer and hosting account. If you’re just starting out and using Hostgator’s plans, which all have Fantastico installer, you won’t need to know FTP right away. Fantastico installs many major forms of web software such as SMF forums, wordpress blogging software, all with the click of a mouse. But you will need to learn FTP soon after so you can backup all your files to your computer or upload web software not in the Fantastico package.
If you are using hostgator, you will need to learn your way around using Cpanel, before you get started working on your websites. The file manager in Cpanel, is where you can edit pages and upload images. Here you will also setup your mail and various other things. I also recommend you learn as soon as possible PHPmyadmin, which is under the MySQL databases section of Cpanel. PHPmyadmin is a web interface software to backup, modify, and transfer databases. Forums, blogging software, and most other software use a MySQL database which require knowledge of PHPmyadmin in order to backup or move your database to a different web host. Not every webhost uses Cpanel software, but it is the most commonly used web host administration software for managing files, checking email, etc in a web based environment. That is why I recommend you purchase hosting from a site like hostgator, which uses Cpanel.
Free blog hosting on your own paid domain
Hosting a professional blog on your own domain can be done for free in variety of ways. There are 3 major common blogging options I want to discuss here, that you can use for your own custom paid domain, without paying for the hosting portion.
Blogger: This is google’s free blogspot hosting. Blogger now allows you to purchase a domain and point it to your existing free blogspot blog. There are times when it’s useful to use a free blog host like Blogger for your own domain. For example, if your new to blogging you may not understand how to use a real host where you must understand how to backup your database and files, learn Cpanel, install web software, and all the other complexities of runnning it on your own paid webhost. Registering a domain and configuring it to the blogger servers isn’t that complex, as they give a tutorial for how to do it for each domain registrar service. The downside to blogger hosting is that you won’t have an easy way to backup your information and their blogging software is extremely limited.
Using blogger’s free hosting on a paid domain can also be useful for when your letting a site mature in the search engines. It takes months for a site to work itself up in the search engines and you may not want to purchase hosting for that domain, until it gets enough traffic to warrant paid hosting. I used to do this with new sites and let them mature for about 3-5 months, until I bought Hostgator’s Baby plan. I really like how Hostgator’s baby plan allows me to host unlimited domains under one plan for a good price. I immediately now put new sites under my current hosting plan because I don’t have to worry anymore about paying extra each time I start a new site.
Wordpress: Wordpress is the most popular blogging software on the internet. The company can also host your blogs for free at Wordpress.com. The major problem with their free hosting option, is they don’t allow any advertising. They also charge 17 dollars a year if you want to use a custom domain to your free wordpress.com blog. I don’t see any point with paying for a domain to point to a free hosted wordpress.com blog. If you decide to purchase your own web hosting, I highly recommend using the wordpress blogging software.
Free Hosting web services: There is many different free web hosting services. They come in many shapes and forms. Some come with the web administration software Cpanel, but most aren’t that fancy. Usually they have many different restraints on file size uploads, bandwith, languages, and database. Most of the free hosts also display banner ads, which effectively cuts into your own advertising revenue. Many people report that the sites are also slow or constantly down. My advice is if you are going to go to the hassle of learning how to use these free hosts, you might as well buck up a few bucks a month and get a real paid host.
If you are looking for a place to buy a domain to point to your free blog host, I recommend
Blogger: This is google’s free blogspot hosting. Blogger now allows you to purchase a domain and point it to your existing free blogspot blog. There are times when it’s useful to use a free blog host like Blogger for your own domain. For example, if your new to blogging you may not understand how to use a real host where you must understand how to backup your database and files, learn Cpanel, install web software, and all the other complexities of runnning it on your own paid webhost. Registering a domain and configuring it to the blogger servers isn’t that complex, as they give a tutorial for how to do it for each domain registrar service. The downside to blogger hosting is that you won’t have an easy way to backup your information and their blogging software is extremely limited.
Using blogger’s free hosting on a paid domain can also be useful for when your letting a site mature in the search engines. It takes months for a site to work itself up in the search engines and you may not want to purchase hosting for that domain, until it gets enough traffic to warrant paid hosting. I used to do this with new sites and let them mature for about 3-5 months, until I bought Hostgator’s Baby plan. I really like how Hostgator’s baby plan allows me to host unlimited domains under one plan for a good price. I immediately now put new sites under my current hosting plan because I don’t have to worry anymore about paying extra each time I start a new site.
Wordpress: Wordpress is the most popular blogging software on the internet. The company can also host your blogs for free at Wordpress.com. The major problem with their free hosting option, is they don’t allow any advertising. They also charge 17 dollars a year if you want to use a custom domain to your free wordpress.com blog. I don’t see any point with paying for a domain to point to a free hosted wordpress.com blog. If you decide to purchase your own web hosting, I highly recommend using the wordpress blogging software.
Free Hosting web services: There is many different free web hosting services. They come in many shapes and forms. Some come with the web administration software Cpanel, but most aren’t that fancy. Usually they have many different restraints on file size uploads, bandwith, languages, and database. Most of the free hosts also display banner ads, which effectively cuts into your own advertising revenue. Many people report that the sites are also slow or constantly down. My advice is if you are going to go to the hassle of learning how to use these free hosts, you might as well buck up a few bucks a month and get a real paid host.
If you are looking for a place to buy a domain to point to your free blog host, I recommend
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