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Blog Web Hosting Content Provided by FatCow FatCow Web Hosting
If you are currently blogging, or are considering creating a blog you will need to have it hosted somewhere. With literally thousands of web hosting companies out there – how do you choose among them? What should you look for to ensure that you find a quality web hosting provider? Here are a few tips to get you pointed in the right direction.
Reputation – Perhaps no other single factor is as telling about a web hosting provider as their reputation. By reputation we refer to the comments generated by current customers. In other words, the publicly observable appraisal of those actually engaging with the web host day in and day out. There are a few great ways to check on a potential web hosting company’s reputation online.
Google Search – Step one is to search Google for the company name, but also search phrases like ‘company name problems’ or ‘company name service’. Google is great for seeing the total accumulation of comments over time. You’ll see the disgruntled customer from 2002 that created a whole website to voice his displeasure. Or you’ll see comments from years past about how great your potential webhost is. What to do if you want to see extremely current information? Try Twitter search – see below.
Twitter – Besides being a great place to view the outward face of your webhost through their Twitter feed, you can also see comments from current customers. These comments are often less than a few hours old as well. So the information that you are getting about a customer service issue or outage are often happening right at the moment you are learning about it. To use Twitter as a real time search engine simply go to the search box: http://search.twitter.com – and type in your query. Try both the format ”host name” and ”@hostname” (this is the usual Twitter handle for a business).
Web Hosting Resource Sites and Forums – There are also specialty websites that research and review web hosting providers and their products. These sites range from current news and information about reputable hosting companies to ongoing conversations and threads in various web hosting forums. Among the best resources are: The Hosting News, webhostingtalk.com, Ping! Zine and Tophosts.com. Be aware that there are also some ”Top 10” type websites that receive affiliate bounties for recommending certain hosting providers. While these may be great web hosts, you ought to conduct separate independent research on any web host recommended through a ”Top 10” website.
Account Types – A second important factor to consider when selecting a web hosting provider is to match your online needs with the specific account types offered by the hosting company. Often a webhost will specialize in a particular type of web hosting. As an example, let’s say that you have selected the WordPress content management system as your preferred publishing platform for your blog. You would of course want to make certain that your web host is capable at WordPress hosting. Further, if WordPress was a specialization of your potential web hosting company they may offer special features such as a ”one click” install of the WordPress software, or special proprietary plugins developed just for their customers. You may also need WordPress themes and a specialized WordPress provider may supply free themes for their customers. Here are a few different type of hosting that you may want to consider.
Linux Hosting – Plain vanilla Linux operating system behind the hosting. This is very common, flexible and often is at a lower cost.
Windows / ASP.NET – This operating system is built upon the Microsoft server technology and is sometimes a prerequisite for enterprise or business scale hosting.
Shared Hosting – You receive a small sector of space and resources on a web server shared with others. If high security and uptime are important to you – you may want to select a virtual server or dedicated server instead.
Virtual Server / VPS Hosting – Virtualization has become commonplace and can offer many of the same benefits of a dedicated server (security, space, scalability) at a lower cost. A virtual server is a ‘’server” that is created with software – but has all the same attributes of a dedicated server. This is true even though multiple virtual servers exist on a single dedicated server.
Dedicated Server – In the case of very large sites, or website where security is paramount, a dedicated server is a great option. This is an entire web server which houses nothing but your website and databases. The benefits are high availability, high security and plenty of room to grow. The benefits come at a price though – dedicated servers are at a higher price point than both shared and virtual servers.
There are many more types of hosting, with each serving a specific market niche. To match up your needs with those of your provider give them a call to discuss your specific website configuration.
Geography – When considering which webhost is right for you, take a moment to consider your audience. That is, who will actually be viewing your website content. More specifically, consider which search engines will be important to your business strategy. If getting traffic from search engines is important to you (and it should be) you must select a host that serves your geographic target. This is because search engines look at the geographic location of the originating server to decide which countries and local geographies will be most relevant for that website. For example, if you plan on targeting website visitors in the United Kingdom, you would want your business to be listed we among the search engines for the UK (for example google.co.uk). Therefore, you would need to select a web hosting provider who has servers based in the UK.
Note – the company itself doesn’t have to be located in your target geography. They just need to have a server presence in your target country that can house your website.
Service Factors – Webmasters range from the uber-technical to the novice. No matter your level of technical expertise, you will need to obtain the help of your web host at some point. A critical consideration in selecting a web hosting provider for your blog needs to be: Will this company make it easy for me to ask questions and get problems resolved quickly? Look for a web host that offers communication in the ways that you prefer. For example, if you like to use chat to get issues resolved – look for a hosting company that offers support via chat. Similarly, if you want to call up and get a human being on the other end of the call, look for strong phone support. It never hurts to do a ”test run” on communications prior to buying. Use the chat service or phone number to ask a few pre-sales questions. This will at least help you gauge how responsive the host is to queries.
Good luck in selecting the best web host for you. Remember to conduct your research ahead of time, to ensure that you have a great and trouble-free web hosting experience.
Source: Blog Hosting – Choosing The Right Host
Blog Web Hosting Content Provided by FatCow FatCow Web Hosting
If you are currently blogging, or are considering creating a blog you will need to have it hosted somewhere. With literally thousands of web hosting companies out there – how do you choose among them? What should you look for to ensure that you find a quality web hosting provider? Here are a few tips to get you pointed in the right direction.
Reputation – Perhaps no other single factor is as telling about a web hosting provider as their reputation. By reputation we refer to the comments generated by current customers. In other words, the publicly observable appraisal of those actually engaging with the web host day in and day out. There are a few great ways to check on a potential web hosting company’s reputation online.
Google Search – Step one is to search Google for the company name, but also search phrases like ‘company name problems’ or ‘company name service’. Google is great for seeing the total accumulation of comments over time. You’ll see the disgruntled customer from 2002 that created a whole website to voice his displeasure. Or you’ll see comments from years past about how great your potential webhost is. What to do if you want to see extremely current information? Try Twitter search – see below.
Twitter – Besides being a great place to view the outward face of your webhost through their Twitter feed, you can also see comments from current customers. These comments are often less than a few hours old as well. So the information that you are getting about a customer service issue or outage are often happening right at the moment you are learning about it. To use Twitter as a real time search engine simply go to the search box: http://search.twitter.com – and type in your query. Try both the format ”host name” and ”@hostname” (this is the usual Twitter handle for a business).
Web Hosting Resource Sites and Forums – There are also specialty websites that research and review web hosting providers and their products. These sites range from current news and information about reputable hosting companies to ongoing conversations and threads in various web hosting forums. Among the best resources are: The Hosting News, webhostingtalk.com, Ping! Zine and Tophosts.com. Be aware that there are also some ”Top 10” type websites that receive affiliate bounties for recommending certain hosting providers. While these may be great web hosts, you ought to conduct separate independent research on any web host recommended through a ”Top 10” website.
Account Types – A second important factor to consider when selecting a web hosting provider is to match your online needs with the specific account types offered by the hosting company. Often a webhost will specialize in a particular type of web hosting. As an example, let’s say that you have selected the WordPress content management system as your preferred publishing platform for your blog. You would of course want to make certain that your web host is capable at WordPress hosting. Further, if WordPress was a specialization of your potential web hosting company they may offer special features such as a ”one click” install of the WordPress software, or special proprietary plugins developed just for their customers. You may also need WordPress themes and a specialized WordPress provider may supply free themes for their customers. Here are a few different type of hosting that you may want to consider.
Linux Hosting – Plain vanilla Linux operating system behind the hosting. This is very common, flexible and often is at a lower cost.
Windows / ASP.NET – This operating system is built upon the Microsoft server technology and is sometimes a prerequisite for enterprise or business scale hosting.
Shared Hosting – You receive a small sector of space and resources on a web server shared with others. If high security and uptime are important to you – you may want to select a virtual server or dedicated server instead.
Virtual Server / VPS Hosting – Virtualization has become commonplace and can offer many of the same benefits of a dedicated server (security, space, scalability) at a lower cost. A virtual server is a ‘’server” that is created with software – but has all the same attributes of a dedicated server. This is true even though multiple virtual servers exist on a single dedicated server.
Dedicated Server – In the case of very large sites, or website where security is paramount, a dedicated server is a great option. This is an entire web server which houses nothing but your website and databases. The benefits are high availability, high security and plenty of room to grow. The benefits come at a price though – dedicated servers are at a higher price point than both shared and virtual servers.
There are many more types of hosting, with each serving a specific market niche. To match up your needs with those of your provider give them a call to discuss your specific website configuration.
Geography – When considering which webhost is right for you, take a moment to consider your audience. That is, who will actually be viewing your website content. More specifically, consider which search engines will be important to your business strategy. If getting traffic from search engines is important to you (and it should be) you must select a host that serves your geographic target. This is because search engines look at the geographic location of the originating server to decide which countries and local geographies will be most relevant for that website. For example, if you plan on targeting website visitors in the United Kingdom, you would want your business to be listed we among the search engines for the UK (for example google.co.uk). Therefore, you would need to select a web hosting provider who has servers based in the UK.
Note – the company itself doesn’t have to be located in your target geography. They just need to have a server presence in your target country that can house your website.
Service Factors – Webmasters range from the uber-technical to the novice. No matter your level of technical expertise, you will need to obtain the help of your web host at some point. A critical consideration in selecting a web hosting provider for your blog needs to be: Will this company make it easy for me to ask questions and get problems resolved quickly? Look for a web host that offers communication in the ways that you prefer. For example, if you like to use chat to get issues resolved – look for a hosting company that offers support via chat. Similarly, if you want to call up and get a human being on the other end of the call, look for strong phone support. It never hurts to do a ”test run” on communications prior to buying. Use the chat service or phone number to ask a few pre-sales questions. This will at least help you gauge how responsive the host is to queries.
Good luck in selecting the best web host for you. Remember to conduct your research ahead of time, to ensure that you have a great and trouble-free web hosting experience.
(The Hosting News) – INetU Managed Hosting was ranked in the top 3 managed hosting services by hosting review service HostReview in their annual web hosting awards.
Since 1996, INetU has been a prominent hosting provider focused on business web hosting for mission-critical sites. INetU provides a tailored managed hosting solution designed for each of their clients’ needs and establishing long-term relationships that have earned them over 96% client satisfaction. INetU also attributes earning this award to the personalized expertise delivered 24×7×356 by certified personnel and true 100% uptime they provide.
“We are very honored to receive this recognition from HostReview,” commented Dev Chanchani, President of INetU, “Our clients already know that INetU is willing to go the extra mile for them, and awards like these are evidence of that.”
INetU placed #3 in the managed services category from HostReview’s Web Host Awards 2009. This is their second year placing in the top 5 for the managed services category. HostReview awards providers based on service quality, customer support, package diversity, new products, and overall performance.
INetU Listed As On Of Top 3 Managed Hosting Providers
(The Hosting News) – INetU Managed Hosting was ranked in the top 3 managed hosting services by hosting review service HostReview in their annual web hosting awards.
Since 1996, INetU has been a prominent hosting provider focused on business web hosting for mission-critical sites. INetU provides a tailored managed hosting solution designed for each of their clients’ needs and establishing long-term relationships that have earned them over 96% client satisfaction. INetU also attributes earning this award to the personalized expertise delivered 24×7×356 by certified personnel and true 100% uptime they provide.
“We are very honored to receive this recognition from HostReview,” commented Dev Chanchani, President of INetU, “Our clients already know that INetU is willing to go the extra mile for them, and awards like these are evidence of that.”
INetU placed #3 in the managed services category from HostReview’s Web Host Awards 2009. This is their second year placing in the top 5 for the managed services category. HostReview awards providers based on service quality, customer support, package diversity, new products, and overall performance.
(The Hosting News) – INetU Managed Hosting was ranked in the top 3 managed hosting services by hosting review service HostReview in their annual web hosting awards.
Since 1996, INetU has been a prominent hosting provider focused on business web hosting for mission-critical sites. INetU provides a tailored managed hosting solution designed for each of their clients’ needs and establishing long-term relationships that have earned them over 96% client satisfaction. INetU also attributes earning this award to the personalized expertise delivered 24×7×356 by certified personnel and true 100% uptime they provide.
“We are very honored to receive this recognition from HostReview,” commented Dev Chanchani, President of INetU, “Our clients already know that INetU is willing to go the extra mile for them, and awards like these are evidence of that.”
INetU placed #3 in the managed services category from HostReview’s Web Host Awards 2009. This is their second year placing in the top 5 for the managed services category. HostReview awards providers based on service quality, customer support, package diversity, new products, and overall performance.
(The Hosting News) – Hostway Corporation, the global Web services leader, announced today that it has bundled Instant Business Broadcast, a service that submits a business profile to 10 of the most popular online directories plus Newsletter Broadcast, a robust email marketing platform into its Web hosting plans.
“We want to make it easy for the small businesses we serve to attract new customers and keep them coming back. That’s why we’ve made Instant Business Broadcast and Newsletter Broadcast easy to use and free with our Web hosting plans,” said John Lee, senior vice president of small business hosting. “Instant Business Broadcast attracts new customers by getting small businesses in front of more people when they’re searching online. Newsletter Broadcast lets a small business stay connected with its customers through newsletters and email marketing campaigns.”
With Instant Business Broadcast, a customer enters his or her business information into one form. Hostway formats the profile and submits it to 10 of the most popular online directories, including Google Maps, Yahoo! Local, Bing and Yellowpages.com. The profile can include a link to the business Web site or serve as a stand-alone Web presence with all of the information people need to buy from the business.
Newsletter Broadcast is a simple interface for creating and managing email marketing campaigns. Users can plug their information into a template or upload their own HTML code and send it to a list of subscribers and track its success using the application.
These two features were rolled out this year as part of Hostway’s ongoing mission of helping small businesses succeed. While most Web hosting companies charge for their directory listing service, Hostway is offering it free with any Web hosting package. Learn more by visiting hostway.com.
Hostway Adds Directory Listings and Email Marketing to Its Web Hosting Plans at No Extra Charge is a post from: Hosting News and Reseller Web Hosting information.
Having a fantastic web site available on the web will do nothing for one’s business if no one can find it. Once built, an essential part of having a web site is optimizing it so that search engines can easily locate it. This requires a bit of expertise with regard to keywords and phrases, good content copy that reflects the chosen keywords and even knowing which page URLs will work or not with search engine spidering.
Don’t do it yourself
Instead of attempting to do this on one’s own, it is prudent and recommended to seek out and hire an SEO consultant. A professional SEO consultant will be able to determine which services are needed to make one’s business web site optimized for search engines and how to incorporate SEO marketing.
There are dozens of specific tasks and elements that go into good SEO and going the “do-it-yourself” route may end with one’s web site not showing at all in the major search engines.
Check their previous work
The first thing to ask for when looking for the perfect SEO expert is previous examples of SEO content as well as web sites they have helped optimize in the past. Check the rankings of these web sites with the major search engines – Google and Yahoo are perfect examples – and use the Alexa web site to view overall rankings. Alexa is a free web traffic metric analyzer that will give one a good overview of how well a web site or company is doing over time.
A good showing with increased rankings over time is an indication of how effective an SEO consultant can be. Rankings that are dropping or maintaining an unchanged level would indicate locating another SEO expert would be in order.
Look at rates
Check the rates of the SEO consultants one is considering. Very low rates can mean the person in question is just starting out and is trying to build up their portfolio. Very high rates but with a less than stellar portfolio can also indicate a novice in the SEO field or one that isn’t terribly good at what they do.
Alternatively, as the world economy has taken a beating lately, many professionals have dropped their rates accordingly. This is an important factor to keep in mind when researching rates. Check to see if the SEO professional in question has recently dropped their hourly or project rates – one may get a bargain out of this.
Cheaper isn’t better
Don’t attempt to take the cheapest route. While initially it may seem like a good idea and cost effective, a low rate SEO consultant can mean poor work produced for one’s business web site. This, in turn, will mean ineffective search engine optimization, low rankings (if at all) within the major search engines and pretty much a loss of money overall.
Careful research should be done when looking to hire an SEO consultant. Look at their previous results, experience and rates. Remember that great search engine optimization can mean more customers and hiring a professional to do it correctly can only bring about a return on one’s investment.
The latest feature rolled out by Twitter is lists. This new offering by Twitter allows users to create lists of specific Twitter users. Believe it or not, Twitter lists can be helpful to the business web site owner. After all, social media has been proven to be a boon to the online business owner.
How Twitter works for business
As social media outlets go, Twitter is quickly becoming one of the more popular micro-blogging sites around. The list of businesses currently using Twitter in one fashion or another is constantly growing. Comcast, JetBlue, and Dell are just a few companies that realized early on that Twitter has great potential to help them get in contact with and support their customers. Comcast is a perfect example of how a business can use a micro-blogging service to give fast and courteous service to their existing customers as well as garner new business by word of mouth from happy and support customers.
How Twitter lists work for business
Once a business has set up their Twitter account, it is very easy to start racking up the number of users being followed. At last count, the official support Twitter account for Comcast has over 32,000 users it’s following. Trying to keep track of that many conversations at once is completely impossible. So, what is the solution?
Simple – Twitter lists. Creating a list is a very quick and easy process. Log into Twitter and click on the “New list” link found on the right-hand side of the web site. A new window will open up where a name can be typed in as well as the type of list it should be (private or public). Once the list is created, it’s then a simple matter of going through the “following” list of the account and adding members to the newly created list.
One great example for a business use for a Twitter list is a company that has offices and customers across the states. If this business wished to group its customers by area, lists such as “northwest_customers” or “Oregon_clients” could be created. Then, support teams could have direct access to specific customers based on geographic location.
Taking it one step further
Twitter has made it convenient to include user lists within web sites. By going to the Goodies – Widgets area, one can find the easy to customize Twitter list widget. Once customized, the code then can be grabbed and integrated easily within a business web site. This widget provides a quick way to keep tabs on customers and makes it very simple for new customers to join in on the conversation. The list widget can be placed on a front page of a web site or even within a support section. Either way, including this bit of coding is a perfect way to generate more business.
Conclusion
Including Twitter within a social media campaign is a smart move. Twitter is continuously adding new features to make the experience of micro-blogging easier. The latest addition of Twitter lists is a splendid way to monitor topics and people who matter most and a great way to keep in contact with and give support to customers and clients.
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