There are so many web hosting reviews out there but only a few are unbiased about what they are saying because every web hosting provider offer a dollar or two for every referral they make. Who wouldn’t want a few bucks for just writing a positive review of a web hosting provider. Every review website you see, have different takes and have their own favorite web hosting provider to promote to. So where can we read unbiased review sites to compare web hosting providers? Here are my top ones:

CNET
CNET is a tech media website that publishes news, articles, blogs, and podcasts to the consumers. For those of you who didn’t know CNET is not just a site to find gadget review but web hosting reviews too. They are considered as one of the most reliable website to look for web hosting sites you can put your trust into. They review a website based on the performance, reliability, and stability of the web host. If CNET gives a positive review to the web hosting provider, people will believe in it, no other explanation necessary.

The WHIR
Web Host Industry Review provides news, tips, and other information and web hosting reviews that will help you compare web hosting services. It is a website dedicated for web hosting alone so expect their experience in finding a fake web host and only provide the most reliable web hosting provider on the web.

You can also find tips, guides, and articles that will help you effectively compare web hosting providers fit for your website.

FindBestWebHosting.com Web Hosting Reviews This is another good source of web hosting reviews. Mostly you can find reviews of editors here. Selection of web hosting companies look good. Most of reviews covered are of popular web hosting companies.

TopWebHosting Review
TopWebHostingReview (TWHR) provides unbiased review to one of the best web hosting providers around, new providers, and the old yet most reliable web hosting site. It is made for shoppers and website owners so they can compare web hosts with ease and confidence knowing that this site is reviewing a web hosting provider with consumer-friendliness in mind.

WebHostingTalk
WebHostingTalk is a forum made for people to talk about a certain website and compare web host. Since forums do not like someone promoting a website, expect to see real reviews, real experiences from the web host users themselves.

HostingMatrix
HostingMatrix lets you compare web host side by side to have a look at what feature each web hosting provider has and what is unique on each sides. Just click two or three of the web hosting provider listed to get a feature review and compare web host.

These are just some of the web hosting review sites you can compare web hosts two. The best ones are CNET and TheWHIR because CNET is a company owned website that do not need compensation from the web hosting providers because they are backed by ABC, a television company in the United States. TheWHIR is passionate about reviewing web hosts and providing the best information they can get to help newbies and professional alike. If you like to compare web hosts in order to clear your doubts with the web hosting providers, have a look at these credible and unbiased web hosting reviews.

If you need more traffic to your wordpress blog, you need to do some good SEO (Search engine optimization). Good news is that WordPress has many excellent plugins for SEO. Also wordpress blogs are well optimized for SEO and when you add the following smart plugins, your blog can get a good ranking in search engines.

List of WordPress SEO plugins:

All in one SEO – This SEO plugin can automatically generate title, description and keyword META tags. Instead if you choose to add meta tags manually, you can do this as well. You can see these fields in a section under the post field. These   META tag fields can be found  for pages as well as and posts in your wordpress blog.

Contextual Related Posts – This smart plugin can generate a list of Related Posts automatically under a wordpress post. This can make your site more “sticky” so that your blog visitors stay in site reading more content.

Google XML Sitemaps: Excellent plugin. Can create xml sitemaps and ROR sitemaps and automatically submit  to Google, Yahoo and Bing search engines.

SEO Smart links – What this plug does is, to find keywords within a post and link those keywords to other posts and pages within same blog. As you know interlinking site content is very important SEO aspect.

W3 Total Cache: – Improves your blog performance and makes it more faster. Also results in good user experience. This plugin for do lot of  caching and content delivery network support. Most of the experienced wordpress seo gurus as well as best web hosting companies recommend this plugin for better performance.

How can I install these plugins?  Simply login to your wordpress admin section, click on Plugins and then click in “Add new” button. Then search for the plugin names listed above,  look in search results and click “Install”. WordPress is fast becoming one of the best web 2.0 cms’s.

You also need a reliable web host to host your wp blog. See this list of Best wordress hosting company to host your blog.

I am sure you have heard about WordPress. If you have not, it is one of most popular web 2.0 Content management systems  that have been created so far.  What makes it more popular is it’s huge fanbase and loyal developers who constantly develop tools, plugins, wordpress themes or templates etc. Also it is free!

Excellent Blogging tool: WordPress is best known as a popular blogging tool and is rightly so.   So if you already have a website consider adding a wordpress blog to your website. Did you know that good wordpress blogs with relevant articles are sought by search engines. This means your business could attract good customers if you post good articles in your blog.

Website tool: Even though it is known as a blogging tool, WordPress can do more that that. You can create an entire website based on wordpress. You can create website pages, contact forms, photo galleries, website directory… the list goes on. This was all made possible by theme developers and plugin developers who constantly create these tools.

Other use:

Business Directory: You can create and maintain an entire business directory using wordpress and plugins.

Job Board: Create a job board website!

Forums Create forums based on wordpress themes for forums.

Create a website today using WordPress. See this list of best wordpress hosting companies that lets you create a wordpress website. These web hosting companies have excellent support and have web hosting plans specifically for WordPress. Best wishes.

To be successful online, you need a good functional website.  A good domain name, good web design and other features are all important.  Als0, successful websites need backing of a good web hosting company.  So choose your web host very carefully.

What to look for in a good web host?

Good customer support:  This is a very important factor when you are searching for good best web hosting companies.  Timely response from tech support can help you solve issues without any headaches.

Good uptime record: Make sure the web host has a good uptime record of at least 99.6%.  This way you can have peace of mind that your site will be available online. Poor web hosts may have have bad uptime record and this means their servers can do down due to issues or bad management.

Good hosting features:  Optimal number of email accounts, good control panel, website building features are a few of the features that a good web hosting company can provide to you in a web hosting plan.

Affordable plans: Getting a reliable website host does not mean you have to spend a lot. Good hosting companies can also offer affordable web hosting plans. Shared hosting plans are most popular affordable web hosting plans. For most of you, this should suffice. Dedicated hosting plans and VPS accounts can cost a lot more than shared hosting accounts.

Do it yourself website design:  Without knowing any technical skills you can create a website.  Refer to this list of DIY best website builder design companies  to know more.  Good web hosting companies like WebHostingHub offer good website building tools.

Hope above article helps you choose a good web host for your success online. Best wishes

Multiple domain web hosting is becoming more and more popular because of the various advantages that these provides as opposed to hosting sites in a single domain. Most of the web hosting companies these days are changing their strategy by letting people to host multiple domains from one web hosting account. This has become a selling point to most of the companies today.

Why would we need multiple domains?

One of the most common reasons for having multiple domains registered is to get hold of all the domain extensions in the same name to avoid spamming or a competitor from owning it. Such a thing actually happened when a misspelling of a popular web portal led the users to a site with explicit content and the company had to spend a fortune to acquire all the domains. So it has become a common practice for companies to register multiple domains with different extensions and misspellings.  And even with multiple domains, the web hosting account(applies to small business web hosting accounts as well) would be single and hence allows the user to easily manage his domains, check their statistics and maintain and route emails in their servers.

Security is one of the major factors for acquiring multiple domains. Many companies have an administrative domain that is not public for managing all their administrative activities and to secure them rather than using the public domain registered in their name that is associated with their email addresses and is known to all.

How to acquire multiple domains?

Usually, web hosting clients will register domains with their best web hosting companies. Though this is convenient for the user, it has its downsides too. The web hosting company owns the domain and when the user wants to change companies, it will become a difficult job for changing domains.

An alternative to this is to register your domains with a domain registering company. The biggest advantage of this method is that you own the domain. At times this is also the cheaper alternative. The disadvantage of this method is that after procuring the domain, the web hosting company has to some background work in order to route the request on the domain to your site. Procuring multiple domains has become easy and common in this technological age and even if you are just a beginner, you can easily upgrade to multiple domains easily.

After mapping out a flawless marketing plan, you now need a website to promote it. You know exactly what you want, but things may grow complicated due to fierce competition in the web hosting industry. During your search, you will encounter an endless sea of credible servers offering a variety of web hosting packages. You may not comprehend the extensive web lingo used to describe features, but do not get so rattled. Knowing what to look for in a quality server can be easily recognized by the most uninformed user. When selecting a web hosting company, there a few crucial checkpoints one must follow to choose the best company for you.

Available space & Traffic

Inquiring about the amount of disk space and bandwidth the web hosting company provides is a good place to start. Disk space will determine how much content you will be able to host, while bandwidth defines the amount of files you will be able to transfer to the server. A company may charge by the capacity used, this it is important to know what is appropriate for your website. Anywhere from twenty to thirty MBs is generally an adequate amount of disk space, while a full gigabyte of bandwidth meets the needs of most websites. Some servers offer shared hosting, which could end up limiting capability and affecting the performance of your website. The best advice here is to get as much space for your money as you possibly can.

Platform: Windows vs Linux

This could be good point to consider when choosing your host. The answer much depends on what your website does and what tools or language you use. If your website uses ASP/ASP.NET, it is obvious that you should go with microsoft platform, windows. Whereas if your site uses a language like php and you plan to use MySQL database, Linux would be a very good choice.

Excellent Customer Support

When selecting a web hosting company, users need to be covered in the help department. Having a reliable support team is very critical to the longevity of your website. When problems arise, you never want to be caught in a jam all alone. If your website is down, you may be permanently losing visitors and customers.

One hosting company may just refer you to an email, while others offer support tickets with speedy solutions and responses. The best option of all may be the web hosting service that comes with a 24 hour support system or live chat sessions. This assures that you will obtain the required assistance to keep your website flowing smoothly.

Website Builder Technology:

Make sure your web hosting company provides a good website builder.  The new generation Do it yourself website builders and store builders save you time and money.  It is very easy to create a web design from scratch without knowing any programming at all. You can build a professional website or store or blog using these website builders.

Creative management tools

Easy to use administrative tools are a plus in the way of web hosting. Even with a solid support team, you will certainly want to have as much control as possible over your website. You want the power to modify your layout and choose the text that will be displayed. The ability to make visual changes is also a perk in the way of web hosting. The WYSIWUG editor allows you to create and modify both text and images, which inevitably brings vibrant life to your site. When selecting hosting, remember to inquire about the functions of your management panel and editing functions, as they detail the overall capability of your website.

E-Commerce capabilities

More than likely, you are looking to make a business of your website. Web hosting for you should certainly include dependable E-commerce capability. Does the hosting company provide a shopping cart? Are they able to integrate Paypal? This is very important to know as you decide just how payments on your website will be collected. What about your transactions? Are they secure? You never want to run the risks of leaking customer information over the internet. Any web hosting company not operating on a fully secure server is definitely one you wish to avoid.

Email:

Make sure that as part of your hosting package, sufficient email accounts for your business are available. Note that as your number of emails increase, your email database size also increases and when the size goes beyond a limit (average is 100 MB),  hosting companies will charge you for extra space taken. A good idea would be to periodically cleanup your mail database in server to free up space.

Finding the perfect web hosting company for you

In order to find the best hosting company for you, it is critical that you personally understand your website’s fundamental needs. How much traffic are you anticipating? Will your website require a tremendous amount of bandwith? Do you need to ensure that the website will be secure for payment gateways? Reliable servers can be found anywhere from $10 to $25 per month, but they offer varied features. Selecting the right host all depends on what you are looking to accomplish with your site. When you match your needs with the key checkpoints of a web hosting company, your decisions becomes much easier.

(This is 2nd part of the article: Do It Yourself SEO Part 1) 

You have taken that first critical step, overcome the strenuous mental challenge of “can I do SEO by myself or not?” Here comes the even more grueling follow up – actually going through with Do It Yourself SEO. Since you have come this far, there is no need to turn back. Knowing how to correctly practice SEO is your new mission.The overall key to SEO is understanding the functions of a search engine. You must realize that they operate by the almighty dollar, and high ranking can be purchased for the right price. Some of them will only list advertisements or placements that have been purchased, leaving you out of the mix regardless of your highly relative content and SEO strategies. Understanding these facts will keep you from becoming discouraged while devising other tactics to prevail at Do It Yourself SEO.

The key is….keywords!

In our DIY SEO Part I, we talked about the optimal keyword density formula. Effective content for SEO all breaks down to keywords. However, how do you determine which keywords are best suited for your website? It has been demonstrated that as little as four simple keywords can give you a high ranking in the search engine. Chances of positive ranking can be maximized by placing keywords in product descriptions, meta-tags, and image codes.

Use keywords aimed at your intended audience. Imagine yourself in their shoes; what keywords would they be typing into the search engine box to find you? For example, if you specifically sell wholesale fragrance oils, then you would want target keywords such as “fragrance supplier” or “fragrance oil manufacturer” then general consumer keywords like “perfume.” Focus your keywords on the psychology of your target audience, and you will be able to drive high-value traffic into your website.

Monitor and adjust. Many websites begin with a PPC campaign that targets certain keywords. You can easily determine the effectiveness and ROI on certain keywords by monitoring your campaigns closely; this will reveal which keywords will be effective for your overall strategy.

Don’t overuse keywords. Knowing the right balance of keyword distribution and relevant balance is critical to your website’s SEO. You should evenly distribute your keywords (with a 3 – 5% per page density) throughout each page, as well as the throughout your entire website. Even distribution allows the search engine algorithms to conclude that you are a relevant site, thus increasing your indexing rankings.

Keyword density advances to LSI. Above and beyond the standard 3% to 5% keyword density is the importance of understanding latent semantic indexing, also known as LSI. As the search engine algorithms become smarter in detecting our SEO strategies, they too change their formulations for rankings. One of the newer changes is their weight on LSI keywords, which ensures that content is not “stuffed” with keywords. What this means is that not only are the search engines counting your keywords, but they are also searching for naturally related words that would appear in an un-stuffed article. For example, if your main keyword is “bonsai plant,” then the search engines are looking for related words in your content, such as “Japanese bonsai,” “bonsai tree,” or “living bonsai.”

Imbedding keywords in alternative content. Beyond the content, you have an ability to imbedded keywords in other areas of your website, such as meta-tags, website titles, sub-page names, and image descriptions. If you are creative and use your keywords whenever you have an opportunity, you can further increase your SEO. In addition, you can further increase your SEO when you submit keyword-related content to article directories. The more backlinks your website has, the higher its relevancy rankings will be with the search engines. Therefore, if you write compelling, valuable keyword-enriched content and submit them to article directories, you can significantly increase your SEO and rankings.

SEO simply requires a little strategy…Do It Yourself SEO is very possible, and you have just taken the first step in optimizing your website without the expensive help of professionals. When you create a comprehensive keyword and linking strategy, you can significantly increase your search engine rankings, while saving yourself a great amount of money.

All across the world people are finding more and more ways to simply “Do It Yourself”. How does this relate to the internet and marketing? Is it really possible to successfully promote your own website? How does this relate to the internet and marketing? Is it really possible to successfully promote your own website? This question is justified by the fact that many individuals pay handsome fees for their site to be designed and even higher prices to have someone else market it.

After realizing these truths one must ask another question, “is Do It Yourself SEO really possible?” Let us examine the facts here.One must fully understand that effective SEO is a trying job in itself, an underlying factor of why several contract others to handle this huge responsibility. Some wish to save a few bucks and go at it alone, confident it conquering SEO with their basic knowledge and strong determination to succeed. Though it can be done there are some important factors that need to be considered before jumping into unchartered waters of Do It Yourself SEO. You must keep it rational and be real with yourself.

Saving money on an expensive SEO service may be appropriate for now, but what about the future? Can you honestly keep up it with this task? Before climbing high aboard the Do It Yourself SEO train, make sure you have the time to devote to it. More than likely, you are occupied developing the overall idea for the site, doing your best to create a quality product or service. This is totally understandable. The savvy business man does not necessarily translate to technical internet marketing genius, especially when it relates to SEO.

Are you ready? It begins with your domain name. As complicated as it may seem, the basics of SEO are rather straight forward. Many fail to realize that it all begins with your domain. This URL should reflect the theme of your website, and it ideally should have your main keywords within the domain name itself. For example, if your company WFR Productions makes picture frames, then you would want to select a domain name such as www.custompictureframes.com, instead of www.wfrproductions.com. This will not only be easier to remember for your customers, but also better for the search engines. Titling the domain after a product on your site also another overlooked strategy of SEO.

Good SEO is good content. SEO challenges you to be creative, and you must possess marketing skills in order to be successful with your optimization. Do you have the ability to promote not only your business, but your website too? Can you create client-friendly content, while ensuring that it speaks loudly to the search engine algorithms? The second most basic fundamental of SEO is content! Content is king, and it always will be on the internet. Not only does content result in conversions, but it also critical to your SEO. Imbedded throughout your content should be strategic keywords, with a density ranging between 3% to 5%. The dispersion of your keywords should be throughout your page, as this helps the search engines index your site’s relevancy. However, you do not want to traverse beyond 5% – 6% in keyword density, as this is a red flag to search engines that you are “stuffing” your site, which bodes poorly for relevancy and your rankings.

In conclusion….Ready to tackle SEO all by yourself? Have no fear. This goal is very reachable, as long as you educate yourself on SEO tactics and remain dedicated to the process. No one knows the business like you. However, those of us who are not in tune with all the behind the scenes responsibilities of SEO may wish to seek aid of the more experienced to make a positive internet impact on search engine rankings.

(Read 2nd part of the article: Do It Yourself SEO Part 2)