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Web.com Website Hosting Review!

Posted under Hosting Blog/Reviews by Jeff Jones on Sunday 27 September 2009 at 6:05 pm

Web.com Review

Have you ever been trying to find a site that is focused on helping small businesses take off, and has a famous known reputation? At Web.com that is their focus, and it has one of the top leading reputations online. The headquarters of Web.com is located in Florida . Over 15 million websites have used Web.com and they have been loyal customers because web.com has helped them start the business website that they needed.

You might wonder why 15 million websites use Web.com. The reason why 15 million websites use this site iswebcom-rev2 because services, and features that the site offers. It offers a huge range of services so that all of your needs are met.

Price Value/FeaturesWith Web.Com it has Linux, Windows, and even ecommerce Hosting plans. The best part about Linux plan is that if you buy it you will only be paying $11.95 per month for unlimited storage, and transfer. Not only does it have unlimited storage, but it has multi-domain hosting. This plan also includes 1 Year Free Domain Name and supports PHP 5, Python 2.4, Perl 5 and MySQL 5.

 

Web.Com also offers a Microsoft Hosted Exchange program. If you get this program you can enjoy features such as being able to access your email anytime, 1GB email storage, spam, and virus filtering for emails, and even a free download and use of outlook 2007. These are not even all of the features that come with Microsoft Hosted Exchange. If you have any doubts about Microsoft Hosted Exchange you will have a free 30 day trial with it, and then you can pay as low as $8.95 per month.

Now, let’s talk about Domain Name Registration. Picking a place to register your domain name is very important. Web.com knows this and that is why when you register with them you will be able to gain quick access to your easy to use control panel. The other awesome thing with Domain Name Registration at web.com is that it can be as low as $8.95 per month, and it can even be free if you decide to sign up with Linux, windows, or ecommerce web hosting plan.

Another great thing that Web.Com has is a powerful optimization search engine. Owning a business online is very ompetitive nowadays so with that in mind they have a variety of services. The services that they have with this optimization search have been voted one of the fasted growing SEO firms in the country.

SEO Consulting
Keyword and competitive Research
Link Building
Paid Directory Placement

That’s not all of the services offered but with just those four awesome things you will quickly be able to understand why their optimization search engines is considered one of the best!

Some of the marketing plans are :

Online Advertising(Visibility online) $76.95/mo
Search Engine Marketing(Smart Clicks) - The prices will vary
E-mail Marketing $8.95 per month

ReliabilityWeb.Com host their servers in State -of-the-art Tier 4 Data Center and has Redundant Infrastructure for Superior Uptime. Their 24/7 Live Support also provides peace of mind.

 

SupportWhenever you need to contact Web.Com they have a variety of ways that you can contact them. Web.Com provides 24/7 Technical Support through phone, Email and Online Chat.

 

SummaryWeb.com is a website that almost any business owner should look into. With all of the features, awesome price plans, and with the outstanding customer service you can’t go wrong when you decide to use Web.Com.

 

 


iPowerWeb Website Hosting Review!

Posted under Hosting Blog/Reviews, Hosting Providers & Plans by Jeff Jones on Sunday 27 September 2009 at 5:50 pm

iPowerweb Review

Based in beautiful Santa Monica, CA, IpowerWeb was established in 1998 and has become recognized as an industry pioneer and a very trusted name, providing web-based solutions directly to businesses and to various vertical markets. Over 700,000 worldwide members from an amazing 150 countries depend on the speed, reliability, security and global reach of IpowerWeb to power their website. Using Dell PowerEdge and HP ProLiant servers, Cisco Firewalls and Routers and premium bandwidth through partnerships with AT&T and Cable & Wireless, IPowerWeb operates two world-class data centers which are connected to the internet using high performance OC-48 and OC-192 connections.

IPowerWeb has recieved several awards for excellent performance and customer service, including the 100Best “Best overall host for 2002″. They also recieved the “World’s best web hosting company” award from Host Pulse, and they have been rated the “Recommended Web Hosting Company” by Smart Computing Magazine.

With offices also based in Phoenix Arizona, Montreal Canada and London UK, IpowerWeb employs over 80 professional network engineers and support representatives to bring you the best quality affordable hosting possible. With products such as webhosting and e-commerce solutions, IPowerWeb provides all these products directly to the customer with a commitment to the highest quality. This is why IpowerWeb has grown to become the fastest growing website hosting company worldwide.

Price Value/Features

IPowerWeb offers shared linux hosting, windows hosting, the cheapest price in the world on internet domain name registrations and powerful inexpensive Intel and AMD dedicated servers. The linux shared hosting plan, dubbed “business Pro” which is definately a powerful solution. This has been the #1 web hosting solution on the internet for two consecutive years. It’s an ideal solution for novice users to professionals and businesses. Including 15,00GB of disk space and 15,000GB of data transfer, this is a large enough account to host even the biggest of websites. Other standard features include SSL, CGI-BIN, MySQL, PHP & Perl, Frontpage extensions, SSI, Web Based email and eCommerce shopping carts (osCommerce, Agora, Paypal) which will allow your website to reach it’s maximum potential. Management will be made easy with access to a professional web-based control panel which allows you to quickly maintain various website settings through a few clicks of the mouse. All this starting at only $6.95 per month!

If you’re using ASP programming and or Microsoft Access Databases then you should select the Windows Pro solution offered by IpowerWeb. This hosting account will provide 10,000MB of disk storage and 50GB of data transfer per month. Multimedia capabilities such as Real Audio and Video are also ideal uses for this hosting account. Prices start at only $9.95 per month backed by a no questions asked money back guarantee.

Enjoy blazing speed with a powerful Intel Celeron D 3.06 GHz dedicated server solution from IPowerWeb. These are an ideal solution for anyone who wants to start their own webhosting company, or serious web masters who have very large, or multiple websites which are becoming expensive to host. Starting at $129/mo, IPowerWeb offers a Intel Celeron D 3.06 GHz jam packed with 512MB DDR2 RAM, a 80GB SATA hard drive and a whopping 500GB of data transfer per month. With 4 data center locations available and 99.9% network availability, you can’t go wrong hosting with IPowerWeb. If you have higher requirements than this, more powerful servers are also available at an increased cost, with the most expensive at a rate of $169/mo. You are free to choose Linux, Windows, or FreeBSD as your operating system.

IPowerWeb offers the cheapest domain name registration on the internet today. For only $6.50 per year you can register your own domain name and launch your own personal homepage containing pictures, guestbooks, chat rooms and much much more..

All hosting packages come with a free internet domain name (.com/net/org/us/biz/info) and a $30 Google AdWords credit which will allow you to quickly and professionally bring an increased amount of traffic to your newly developed online business. Other marketing methods are provided too such as search engine submission, a search engine position report, keyword and meta tag generator and a website link checker all help to boost your websites rating and incoming traffic which basically means, more profit! No other webhost will offer you this, and much more, with standard hosting packages, anywhere.ipowerweb-rev1

iPowerWeb Business Pro Plan

- 15000GBBandwidth
- 1500GB Disk Space
- 500 e-Mails
- CGI, PHP, Frontpage
- e-Commerce enabled
- 99.9% Uptime
- 24/7 Support
- Free Setup 
$6.95/month

What others are saying about IPowerWeb:

“I just wanted to pass on while I was in here that I think IPOWERWEB and your staff are doing a great job. I have been very satisfied with the technical service, response times, and the professional mannner that I have been treated by all the contacts I have had with your company to date!” - Russ Pollanen, Client

About the iPowerWeb website

The website is very easy to navigate and is very informative. All of the information provided is presented in a simple, easy to read fashion with no hidden details or costs. We highly recommend “Taking a tour” of the website to get a full feel for the products and services that IPowerWeb offers. Unlike many providers this website isn’t flashy however it does come off as a professional website. Another note that I had about the website was that it loaded really quick, which is a good indication of enough bandwidth availability. Sites that load slow are using overutilized lines or are packed on machines which permit overselling, something that IpowerWeb is strictly against.

Support

Support inquiries requiring immediate attention can be directed to their 24/7 telephone hotline. This is excellent for customers, such as those operating eCommerce sites, where time is money, and just can’t wait to deal with the problem and cannot afford to experience downtime. Billing and sales inquiries can be handled via phone during normal business hours (Monday - Friday 7 AM - 7 PM (PST), Saturday 9 AM - 5 PM). Email support is also available, and quite impressive. Most requests for support are usually answered within the first 24 hours.

For those who do not require such immediate attention, other avenues of support are provided. An interactive tutorial section can aide you in setting up and configuring your website, featuring assistance with e-mail, file transfers, vDeck and Plesk control panels, domain transfers and miscellaneous other questions. A powerful and extensive online knowledge base will also assist you with your website allowing you to search for help on a specific topic. IPowerWeb provides top notch support, so signup today and realize what a true web hosting provider is all about.

IPowerWeb Content Package:

IPowerWeb offers free content solutions which you can include in your website to have the same professional image as the “big guys”. Featuring 11 categories of daily news (business, world, movies, weather, horoscopes, etc..) web directory and software content, jokes and pc enhancements. IPowerWeb also offers an easy to use website builder which they have labled IBuilder. You can take IBuilder for a test ride at builder.ipowerweb.com

Money back guarantee

IPowerWeb remains very confident in their products and services, and remain committed to providing fast, reliable and comprehensive customer support around the clock which should leave you as a completely satisfied customer. If, however, for any reason you are not satisfied with the services offered by IPowerWeb, they offer an unconditional 30 day money back guarantee on all hosting services. Registration fees however, cannot be cancelled, therefore arrangements can be made to transfer your domain name to your new hosting provider.

Summary

IPowerWeb provides affordable web hosting services without sacrificing quality. The packages they offer are filled with features and should provide more than enough room for any average personal or business user. We highly recommend IPowerWeb to anyone in search of a hosting account where the customer is treated like a customer and not a dollar sign. With an unprecendented $50 overture credit for marketing and advertisement, backed by remarkable support and a 30 day no questions asked money back guarantee, why should you go anywhere else?


Heart Internet Website Hosting Review!

Posted under Hosting Blog/Reviews, Hosting Providers & Plans by Jeff Jones on Sunday 27 September 2009 at 5:25 pm

Heart Internet Review

Since their launch in 2004, the Heart Internet business ethic has been low prices, powerful products, highly automated systems and customer autonomy. Heart Internet web hosting is competitively priced; however, the cheapest package is very basic, so it is definitely worth a package upgrade, because once you do, you’ll have access to loads of great features, many of which are unlimited.

heart-interent-revWith 24/7/365 customer support, including live chat, as well as downloadable Web Hosting Guides to help you plan, build and market your website,  Heart Internet is the reasonable and dependable choice for your web- hosting needs.

Price Value
 Heart Interent offers three hosting packages—Starter Pro, Home Pro and Business Pro. All packages come fully equipped with eXtend Control Panel 2.0, website statistics, and loads of free web tools like Google AdWords credits and Microsoft adCenter.

The Home Pro plan offers the best value and will meet the needs of most users. For a few extra quid you can upgrade to the Business Pro plan and get unlimited web space, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited email boxes, website building tools and more. With Home Pro and Business Pro, Heart Internet hosting also gives you one-click access to Joomla, WordPress and Drupal, 4 different shopping carts for ecommerce enthusiasts, and includes MySQL5 databases, with the MySQL5 web interface. Business Pro is the only package that offers virus scanning.

Regardless of which plan you decide to go with, you will be fully backed with a 30-day-money-back-guarantee!

Starter Pro: 5 GB disk space, 30 GB bandwidth @ £2.49/month (1,000 email boxes)
Home Pro: 20 GB disk space, 60 GB bandwidth @ £8.99/month (10,000 email boxes)
Business Pro: Unlimited disk space, unlimited bandwidth @ £10.75/month (Unlimited email boxes)

Reliability
The Heart Internet data centre boasts power supplies and backup power supplies that are impossible to interrupt. It is monitored internally and externally by CCTV, the images of which are stored for three months, and access is restricted using Secure Fobs. Climate is fully controlled within the data centre, and the fire protection suppression system extinguishes the fire with gas, rather than water, so that equipment is not damaged. Reliability is further supported by the use of Dell and Cisco hardware, and Redhat operating systems.

Control Panel
 Heart Internet eXtend Control Panel 2.0 was developed by their development team so it’s customised for Heart Internet web hosting customers. With the eXtend Control Panel 2.0 you can manage your web hosting account as well as your email, set up databases, install scripts like Joomla and WordPress, manage secure servers, download free templates, edit your files, and much more.

Support
 Heart Internet offers 24/7/365 customer support, an easy to use ticket system and live online chat. You can also use an easily-accessible question and answer page, as well as an extensive knowledgebase. Heart Internet supports their customers with market leading technology at a great price visit Heart Internet  Today!


InMotion Hosting Review!

Posted under Hosting Blog/Reviews, Hosting Providers & Plans by Jeff Jones on Saturday 26 September 2009 at 10:30 pm

InMotion Hosting Review

“At InMotionHosting, we understand business - not just e-business” is a statement they have stood behind since their inception into the hosting industry during 2001.

Their hosting network is based on Linux and UNIX systems through Dell PowerEdge servers which are monitored 24/7 for any unusual activity and benchmarked continuously for performance. Being an employee owned and self operated company, InMotion Hosting’s employees cover an average of 4 years hosting experience, backed by a senior staff with a decade of hosting experience. The combination of experienced knowledge, responsive management and friendly staff offers customers what made them the “Top Host of 2002″ according to Web Hosting Advice.Find out more about this top-rated support team behind the service at InMotion.

Statement from web hosting provider

“Our background is business and technology - and we are always looking for new software, hardware and methods to compliment our existing tools. It is a not just a matter of business but a matter of pride to our experienced staff. In fact, we have several times taken suggestions from customers and after formal evaluation, added the functionality to all of our servers.
Combine this with our performance guarantee and you will see why our customers are so loyal.”

 

Support

InMotion is offering Toll-Free support for all the above plans, this could be really handy .Their support is well above standard, as you can navigate through their in depth FAQ, or if you feel that’s not enough, you can contact a sales rep through their live chat. They also feature user guides, control panel guides, and an online support forum which leaves you with many options toward making your hosting experience smooth. Thus proving how they live up to providing solutions without the hassles of support.

 

About the Website

 The website is clean and clear in overall design. Very simple to navigate all while providing the information you need without reading in between the lines.

 

Price Value/Features

InMotion is backed by Dell PowerEdge *nix servers that update their security levels at a constant rate. Providing three affordable plans: Launch, Power, and Pro with up to date software starting at the low price of $6.95/mo, their transactions use the highest level of SSL to ensure absolute security. Those that sign up for their yearly package are nullified from setup fees. They have also been given the BBBOnline Reliability seal for meeting participation and Better Business Bureau membership standards. InMotion also provides a boat load of features for all of their seperate popular plans which include:inmotion-rev

InMotion Launch Plan Overview

- Unlimited Disk Space
- Unlimited Transfer
- 2 Sites on 1Account
- Unlimited FTP
- $6.95 per month

 

InMotion Power Plan Overview

- Unlimited Disk Space
- UnlimitedTransfer
- 6 Sites on 1Account
- Unlimited FTP
- 50 MySQL DB
- $8.95 per month

 

InMotion Pro Plan Overview

- Unlimited Disk pace
- Unlimited Transfer
- 1000 e-mail accounts
- 200 MySQL DB
- Unlimited FTP
- $18.95 per month

Money Back Guarantee

InMotion offers an industry leading 90-day money back guarantee, with no reservations!

Summary

Affordable business hosting is always appealing, and the kind that lets you keep your worries at the absolute minimum, or perhaps even never, is the kind of hosting that goes a long way for sites wanting to provide their services on the web. First off, their lowest plan giving Unlimited space with Unlimited transfer at $6.95 is not just affordable, it’s a steal and far more than enough to get any small business going. Their largest plan, which doesn’t even exceed $20, is literally enough for large scale businesses. This is a great solution rather than having to open out your monthly wallet for triple digit costs to the average e-commerce host. There’s all the support you can ask for regarding any newcomers to building web sites. Overall, this is the kind of solid hosting that can get a business venturing on the web.

 


Aplus.Net Hosting Review!

Posted under Hosting Blog/Reviews, Hosting Providers & Plans by Jeff Jones on Saturday 26 September 2009 at 10:13 pm

Aplus.Net Hosting Review

In business since mid 1998, Aplus.Net operates their own data center in San Diego, California which has excellent connectivity to the internet using OC-12 and OC-96 connections to major internet backbones WorldCom/UUnet and Sprint. Aplus.Net must be doing something right, they are the recipient of many well deserved awards, such as being rated one of the Top 3 ISPs in San Diego, listed as a TopHosts Top 5 Hosting Company and catching the eye of CNET to win their Editor’s Choice Award for good product design, performance, quality and value. All unix hosting plans come with a free domain and a 30 day money back guarantee. Read our detailed Aplus.Net review below for more information.

Hosting Options

One of the things that I like about Aplus.Net is the fact that they offer inexpensive Windows and Unix hosting services. This provides an excellent opportunity for hosting resellers and clients who operate multiple websites. Instant account activation, a 30 day money back guarantee and an unbeatable uptime guarantee which promises that your website will be accessible to the world 99.9% of the time should make you feel a bit more comfortable hosting with Aplus.Net. The most unique feature that I noticed is that they provide unlimited online photo and file storage via private websites so you can easily store and manage your files, create multiple photo albums and upload pictures from your camera ready phone! Definately a neat bonus.

Price Value/Features

The most economical shared hosting package that Aplus.Net offers is the Solo XR plan, providing 2000 MB of disc storageaplus-rev and 50 GB/mo of data transfer for only $9.95 per month, plenty of room is available for large or expanding websites. Not only do you recieve generous bandwidth and storage amounts, Aplus.Net provides free domain name (yourname.com) registration, as well as the ability to host multiple domains through the use of the control panel and access to online file and photo storage. Many other attractive features are included, like: virus protection, off-site tape backup storage, your own secure server certificate (SSL), SSH Access, search engine submission, search engine optimization and access to over 200 software tools and libraries including front page extensions, php4, perl, java, etc. All of this is included in UNIX shared hosting plans from Aplus.Net.

Shared windows hosting is also available. Starting at $9.95 per month Aplus.Net’ Primo plan allows 500MB of storage and 40GB of data transfer per month. Free domain name (yourname.com) is also provided with shared windows hosting accounts. The Primo Plan is an ideal entry-level Windows hosting account. Very reasonable in cost, the account boasts generous email and disk space. The Primo Plan includes support for the Microsoft Access Database. Customers requiring more advanced hosting solutions such as Active Server Pages (ASP) and Real Audio/Video G2 Servers should look into subscribing to the Proxima hosting plan which features a whopping 1GB of diskspace for power users.

Starting at $34.95 a month, the ePro eCommerce soultion will give you 4000 MB of storage and 1000 GB/month of data transfer. Free domain name registration access to online photo and file storage and loads of useful software are bundled in with this package. To get you started, Aplus.Net provides a MIVA merchant online storefront, credit card payment gateway, merchant account and an amazon.com store connector. To increase your income a banner rotation tool and solution for selling domains on your website are available in conjunction with an affiliate program.

Aplus.Net offers Virtual Private Servers for clients who have the desire to start their own buisness or host multiple websites or domains and can’t afford the cost to upgrade to a completely dedicated server. For $35 a month they provide you with a free internet domain name, 500MB of disk space and 5GB of data transfer.

Excellent deals on dedicated servers. Starting at only $99/month Aplus.Net offers a standard dedicated server boasting an Intel Celeron 2.2GHz processor and 512MB RAM (upgrades up to 2GB available), a 80GB hard drive (upgrades up to 250GB available) and a whopping 1000GB/month of non-cogent bandwidth is included. These servers are capable of handling day to day tasks with ease and host multiple or very large websites. An excellent solution for individuals or small buisnesses, or a great machine to start your own webhosting company.

What others are saying about Aplus.Net

CNET says: “In recent months, Aplus.Net has revamped its look and packed on a considerable number of features, such as graphical site-building tools and wizards, full support for FrontPage extensions, and high-end utilities such as cross-platform HTML-validation and code-optimization tools. All that for less than 10 bucks a month? Aplus.Net gets our nod!” - Editor’s Choice Award, April 2003.

Support

Aplus.Net operates public forums to allow customers to share their experiences with others, share tips and other information and seek assistance if necessary. Highly skilled technical support engineers are on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week to provide telephone support or answer any pre-sales questions you may have. Support is also provided by qualified support personnel via email and live online chat around the clock. If you are a do it yourselfer, Aplus.Net offers an online knowledge base containing ansers to over 1,000 questions which are frequently asked by customers. This knowledge base answers questions regarding web hosting, web design, internet domain names and much more, you are likely to find the information you are seeking with this tool.

Money Back Guarantee

If for any reason you are not completely satisfied with the service Aplus.Net offers, you can simply cancel your account within 30 days of sign up and you will be refunded all the fees you paid except any charges incurred for domain registration or transfer.

Aplus.Net Website

A clean, professional and easy to navigate website will greet you when you visit http://topnotchwebsitehosting.com/aplus.html. Videos of the Aplus.Net Data Center are available so you can take a virtual tour of where your website may be potentially hosted. Lots of detailed information is available on the website, and contact links are provided in many areas of the site.

Summary

Aplus.Net will offer top notch hosting services for buisness or personal clients. The basic shared hosting packages doesn’t offer much features, but a more advanced package (which costs $9.95) is definately worth the extra cash. Generous amounts of disk space and data transfer are provided with shared hosting solutions and dedicated servers, however for the cost of a virtual private server, not much bandwidth is provided. Overall, I would recommend Aplus.Net for shared UNIX or Windows webhosting and dedicated servers, however for Virtual Private Servers I think the packages could be improved a bit. I am impressed by the support options, and unique web hosting services they provide, and believe that Aplus.Net will continue to be a successful hosting provider in the future.


Go Daddy Announces European Data Center!

Posted under Hosting Current News by Jeff Jones on Tuesday 22 September 2009 at 9:53 pm

Go Daddy Announces European Data Center

In an effort to expand its customer base in Europe, domain registrar and web host Go Daddy is opening a new data center in the Netherlands, according to a Data Center Knowledge report.

 Designed to improve the performance of sites for European users by moving content closer to the end user, the new facility will be owned and operated by Scottsdale, Arizona-based Go Daddy.

 ”By spending the money up front and not outsourcing operations, we control key factors like uptime, security and speed” Go Daddy chief executive officer and founder Bob Parsons told Data Center Knowledge. “No one will take better care of our customers than we will – no one.”godaddy-banner

While Go Daddy did not offer the specific location of the facility, Amsterdam is clearly one of Europe’s largest data center markets, offering a lucrative connectivity hub for online traffic.

Go Daddy manages more than 36 million domains for 7 million customers, making it one of the largest registrar of its kind. With its increasing focus on Europe, according to Data Center Knowledge, Go Daddy is hoping to gain customers in Germany, France, the UK and Spain, all of which have Internet penetration double the global average.


Lunarpages Partners with Miva Merchant !

Posted under Hosting Current News by Jeff Jones on Tuesday 22 September 2009 at 9:36 pm

LunarPages parnters with Miva Merchant

Hosting services provider Lunarpages Web Hosting has partnered with e-commerce solutions provider Miva Merchant to provide Miva Merchant 5.5 shopping cart software as an add-on service for Lunarpages’ web hosting packages.

According to Miva Merchant’s Tuesday announcement, Lunarpages customers can add Miva Merchant 5.5 to its shared, virtual private server, or dedicated hosting plans for just $19.95 per month, with a one-time $75 setup fee, saving companies more than $700 off the full price after one year. Also, Miva Merchant’s online credit card processing will be extended to anyone adding Miva Merchant 5.5 to their Lunarpages hosting plan.

lunarpages-logo1Lunarpages Business, VPS, and Dedicated Hosting plans assist so many customers in getting their own e-commerce storefronts up, but we wanted to give our clients yet another amazing way to push their stores to the next level,” Lunarpages business development director Amy Armitage said in a statement. “So when Miva Merchant expressed interest in a partnership, we jumped on board very quickly.”

Deployed on more than 200,000 online storefronts worldwide, Miva Merchant provides Lunarpages customers with a shopping cart that is completely flexible and customizable to each business’ unique needs, according to the announcement.

“Miva Merchant 5.5 is literally the world’s best e-commerce storefront software. With Miva Merchant, you can design your perfect shopping cart, integrate it with your website, and even offer credit card processing right on your check out page! It’s an unbeatable offer.”

 


Business Blogging - How it Benefits Your Business!

Posted under 'To Do' Tips, Hosting 'How To' by Jeff Jones on Tuesday 22 September 2009 at 9:22 pm

Business Blogging - How it Benefits Your Business

By now, you should be familiar with the word “blogging” or at least familiar with the concept of a blog. Blogs have been around for several years and thousands have been published and most of the them are the personal blogs. But do you know that there are several extraordinary benefits of what a blog can do for your business?

Build Community

Your Buisness Blog give you a chance to share your expertise and knowledge with a larger audience. Once you have built up your online brand, those in your community are highly possible to follow your instruction and become your customers.

Build Relationships

Blog will allow you to publish the news of your company timely, and its also provide the ability for your customers to leave comments on your posts, you can get a sense of how they react to what you say and your products. All those will greatly enhance the relationship between you and your customers.

Blog not only can bring you potential customer, it will also bring you potential employees. People would like to read about the company they are going to do business with or work for in the future. A successful blog will be able to turn your readers into your employee, who can help your company tremendously, since before they join, they have got a good understood on your brand and the cultures.

Free Search Engine Traffic

Blog can help driving high quality free traffic to your web site. Search engines, like Google, love web sites that are regularly updated with fresh, well written, keyword-rich content. And Blog is exactly what they are looking for. Usually, the new post from blogs can be ranked higher than static web page in search result.

Low Cost and Easy to Use

Blogging is a low-cost alternative to have a web presence. Blog software is free, and it’s easy to use. Simply write your thoughts, link to resources, and publish to your blog, all at the push of a few buttons. Blog software - such s WordPress - will offer you easy blogging tools to get started.

In order to write blog, you have no need to have deep knowledge of HTML or the money to hire a designer/developer. Blog software will allow you to focus on the content of your blog, and save your time and money at the same time.

It’s Fast

Another big benefit of Blog is that your audience can subscribe to your blog via RSS and get the notification via email or a centralized Blog reading tools once you publish a new post.

To Your Onine Success

Jeff


Blog Software - What’s the Right One for You!

Posted under 'To Do' Tips, Hosting 'How To' by Jeff Jones on Tuesday 22 September 2009 at 9:12 pm

Blog Software - What’s the Right One for You

Blog software is the platform you can use to write blogs. There are many types of Blog software, but in general, they can fall into 2 categories: Remotely Hosted Blogging Software and Self Hosted Blogging Software.

Remotely Hosted Blogging Software

Blogger.com, MySpace.com stand for this type of blog software. They provide you with a blog platform including blog software, and the hosting. In order to start blogging, you will need to open an acount with them, and everything will be ready in miniutes. And usually, you can get all those as free. 

But there are some cons. of  this type of blogging system, such as:

  • They are less configurable - Most of them are very limited in terms of features and it’s very hard to design a professional bog template with the functional they provide. You will see that almost all the blogs hosted by them looks close.
  • Generic URL - The URL to your blog is either a sub-domain of the site or an inner link of them. You will not have your very own Blog URL. When it comes to a time that you plan to host the blog by yourselves as the growth of it, then there are 2 big issues you have to face: 
    • It’s hard to migrate the content of the existing blog to the new blog platform since the technology used is not open
    • All your SEO marketing (or blog promotion) effort will be wasted. Search engine only recognizes the URL, and all your marketing effort are on your old URL, which cannot to go with your new blog. In the other word, you have to rebuild your blog brand online. This will be the biggest lost when you shift from remotely hosted blogging to self hosted blogging. Rebuilding a successful blog really takes time.
  • Less control - This means a lot. You cannot fix the bug of the system if there any. There is no guarantee on the reliability of the system since it’s free (you are somewhat at the mercy of their platform in terms of whether their blog is working or not). If they plan to close their blogging service, then your blog will be gone.

Self Hosted Blogging Software

For self hosted blogging software, you will need to download the blogging software, and install it in your own hosting environment. There are some Blogging software you can choose, such as WordPress, B2evolution, and MovableType, etc. And the most popular Blog software right now is WordPress, which is used by most of the famous (and serious) bloggers.

Self hosted blogging means that you need to purchase a web host to place your blog, you need to upgrade the blog software when there is a new release, you need to backup and maintain the blog by yourself, but it does bring you a lot of benefits, such as:

  • You very owned URL - Having your own domain name is great for many reasons. It’s more easily brandable, and it’s also more professinal and easier to remember.
  • Blog Software is Opensource and free - The beautiful thing about WordPress is that it’s developer and maintained by a very active open source community. You can get a more and more powerful application regularly, you can download a huge list of free and beautiful free template to use, and a lot of developers has developed some very useful plugins to power your blog. And it’s all because of open source.
  • Full Control of Design - You can redesign the whole UI and enhance the function of your blog if you want. Everything is open to you.

What’s the Best Blog Software for you

Considering the difficulties in changing the blog software (especially the cost or losts happened during it), it’s worthwhile to take you some time with this decision. And below question will help you figure it out.

  • What’s your main purpose of your blog - If you plan to do the blog long term, if your blog is more than a hobby, if you plan to profit from your blog, or if you want to build up your own brand online, then a self hosted blogging solutiion will be the right choice for you
  • What’s your budget - Budget is always an issue. To set up your very own blog, you will need to purchase a hosting solution. Here is a list of very top Blog Hosting, and each of them will take your less than $7/month. This is affordable but it means some.
  • How technical you are? - For self hosted blogging softwware, you will need to install WordPress by yourself, and then deploy the new template, add new plugins to your blog or redefine the UI if necessary. Although most of the blog hosting solution will provide you with a tool to setup a WordPress blog in some simple clicks, you still need to be skilled to make your blog look professional. All those can be done with some basic knowledge of computer and HTML, and can be outsourced if you want, but it does take some time to learn.

To Your Online Success

Jeff


6 Steps to Web Hosting Rebates!

Posted under 'To Do' Tips, Hosting 'How To' by Jeff Jones on Tuesday 22 September 2009 at 1:14 am

Web hosting rebates are now being offered by many web hosts, affiliate sites and other industries that support web hosting. Generally, upon signing up for a hosting plan through a link provided by the site, the rebate offer appears. In addition, there are web hosting firms offering rebates.

Web Hosting Rebates, Defined

When searching for a web host, it is also a good idea to find the companies that are offering specials and rebates. Knowing how and what to look for, and how rebates work, can provide a business savings advantage, in beginning or expanding an Internet business.

 Web Host Rebate Process1. Research and decide on a certain web host. A good place to start, is The Hosting News, where detailed information on all of the facets ot web hosting is located. It is essential to determine which web host best suits your particular needs. Research Dedicated Servers, Reseller Hosting Products and Web Hosting Services here. There are numerous articles about every aspect of web hosting, to assist in determining which web host will be the best choice for your business.

 

1. One way to find a current rebate, is to research using keyword: “rebate” - at The Hosting News.

2. Currently, a rebate at Host Color is revealed through that search.

3. Visit Host Color (or the site that comes up in the search). This particular search revealed that there is a special for Elvis’ birthday, and an offer of a 10% instant web hosting rebate on all web hosting plans, including Shared Hosting Services, Virtuozzo VPS Hosting plans and Dedicated Servers.

4. Click on the link generated for the service of interest.

5. Sign up for the service, after which information should appear on how to receive the rebate.

6. Follow up to ensure that the rebate is received.

The above details the entire process. In today’s economy, virtually every vendor is offering a rebate of some kind, in addition to regular sales. This is an easy way to find a little extra cash and save some operating expenses, along the way to building a new web business.

To Your Success

Jeff


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