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.

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.

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) 

Newsletters are generated from several different sources. Some are created on a separate server and emailed out to subscribers who paid or signed up for free. More web hosts now come available with a newsletter feature that can be comfortably managed from within the site.

Newsletters have become a very effective tool for increasing company sales and gaining business leads. They may be employed by any industry with an active website and used for a number of reasons. Newsletters are commonly distributed to introduce a new product or service, announce upcoming events, and give background and current info about the company. More importantly, they keep you connected to your audience. Here are some detailed facts of how newsletters add to the success of your site.

Create a creative newsletter title

Although your newsletter may be informative, it is fundamentally a marketing piece that enhances the success of your website. Therefore, you want to capture your readers’ attention from the beginning and encourage them to stay subscribed to your newsletter. If you run a fragrance company, it is boring to name your newsletter “Fragrance Oils Newsletter.” Instead, you capture your readers’ attention by naming your newsletter “Upcoming Market Trends in the Fragrance Industry.” The latter title creates a sense of authority and importance to your newsletter, instead of a mere company plug.

Bring value to the reader

Remember, people are subscribing to your newsletter in order to “learn” something, either about new products they can sell or changes in the overall industry. While you provide them with valuable information and knowledge, you are providing your website an opportunity to promote itself. The relationship should not be reversed; if you promote yourself and then offer little tidbits of information, your newsletter will not be successful. The more “objective” you are in your newsletter, the more likely readers will view it in an important light. If your newsletter sounds like a sales pitch, be prepared for unsubscribe notices in your email box.

Keep it simple

Too much information crammed into newsletters can be a turn off and send yours straight to the trash icon. Internet users have shorter attention spans when it comes to reading; therefore, your newsletter should be concise, informative, and to the point. You want to always ensure that your reader perceives value in your newsletter; if you dilute the information with filler, it becomes harder for your potential customer to derive value from your content. It is also helpful to write with sub-titles and bullet points for the important points you want to express. Using visuals to break up the newsletter text also maintains your readers’ attention. Avoid the trouble of confusing a client by sticking to vital content that will encourage clients to follow that trusty link that redirects them to your site.

Ending note

The beauty of newsletters is consent, and the ability to market your website “objectively.” Newsletters can certainly enhance your site traffic and build your loyal client base exponentially. Knowing how to maintain their interest is the key to publishing a successful newsletter. With the right content and writing approach, your website can garner the profitable benefits of an online newsletter.

Monetizing your blog: In order of a blog to generate income, you must develop a strong strategy for monetizing it. There are several different venues which you can employ to monetize your blog:

·AdSense Advertising space for banner ads

·Donations

Affiliate programs

· Paid third-party product reviews / pushes

·Selling your own services or products

Deciding on what monetizing strategy you employ depends upon the goals for your blog and its target audience. Each target audience will respond different to your different monetizing strategies; for example, a humanitarian blog audience may be more receptive to donations, while a cooking blog audience would click through your banner ads for an organic recipe cookbook. You should develop an initial strategy, keeping your targeted audience’s psychology in mind. The design and layout of your blog should reflect your monetizing strategy; for example, if you will be employing AdSense, then you may want to use a column layout with clean colors and lines. You want to ensure that your monetizing efforts are optimized in the layout of your website. As you progress with your blog, do not be afraid to test the water and adjust your monetizing strategies based upon feedback and performance results.

Generating traffic You may have the best blog and monetizing strategy in the world, but without traffic, your bank account will not grow whatsoever. To begin making money with a blog, one must first generate traffic. Establishing a stable list of loyal readers has been easier for some than others, but it is the key to running a successful blog. When you are first beginning your blog endeavors, it may seem daunting to generate traffic when there is not a single visitor to your website. However, with a bit of strategy, you can quickly build traffic and a returning base of readers.

Write what you know. You should consider writing your blog on a topic of your specialty or passion. The more you know about the subject matter of your blog, the better; you will be able to establish yourself as an authority and readers will come to learn from you. Content and traffic have a very strong symbiotic relationship. Remember what you learned about in advertising class in college? Viral marketing is the most effective form of advertising – period. If people like your blogs, they will refer it to their friends, and in the internet, friends can add up to millions of people.

Regularly updated content. Yes, you have heard it before, and you will hear it again – content is king! Readers will flock to your blog if you provide them with insightful, unique, and relevant content that is updated regularly. In addition, when you consistently publish quality content that is rich in keywords, the search engines will frequent your site to update their indexing, which then leads to more traffic coming into your blog. The better, more frequent posts you publish, the more other sites will link to you, thus again bringing in more traffic and increasing your search engine rankings. 

Linking with related blogs. Linking is another way to generate traffic and add to your blog’s success. You want your site to be viewed by as many readers as possible. Exchanging links with another blogger is a great way to make that happen. Surf the web for similar blogs that relate to your specialty and host the same audience you are seeking. Linking relative sites on your page also displays credibility to readers. They will view you as a main source, referring other interested parties to your blog for that relative info. Friendly links also improve search engine ranking and increase the chances of someone stumbling across your blog.All novice bloggers looking to make money should know this: success is hard work. Devotion and great patience is required if you want a blog to work for you. The most comforting fact is that many people are taking advantage of this tool and creating mass revenue. While nothing is promised, applying sound search engine optimization strategies to your blog speaks volumes in the way of success. Combining this with good old fashion communication can help return profitable results in the long journey with your blog.

You want your website to prosper and flourish with sales. Maintaining a steady flow of interested visitors is more of a challenge than you may think. Generating traffic to your website is what determines its longevity; this is an absolute must if you plan to survive the hectic game of internet marketing.The first crucial step in bringing in high-value traffic is content. This sounds apparent, but many hopeful beginners fail from the start. Your website must include attractive content to intrigue visitors and keep them returning for more. Your content not only includes your text, but also audio and video files.

Illustrative Content: The age old internet adage “content is king” continues to hold true in driving traffic and conversions to your website. When you utilize quality content that is search engine optimized (3 – 5% keyword density), your search engine rankings increase, thus driving in solid flows of quality traffic. Once the traffic arrives at your site, it is the content that will convert them.

Audio & Video: Recent technology has made marketing online much easier – take advantage of it! With small and Fortune 500 companies all harnessing the power of video viral marketing on YouTube, you can also put this to use for you. Create an intriguing video, submit it to YouTube, and wait for the views to arrive. In addition, sprucing up your website with audio and video clips will keep your traffic returning.

Directory Articles: A great way to bring in free and targeted traffic is by submitting informational, valuable content to article directories. Not only are thousands of people consistently browsing these directories and may click through to your site, but the search engines value backlinks that are generated from directory articles. This is a two-fold strategy that brings in targeted, free traffic.

Keyword Strategy: Keywords are important to effective content, and perhaps the most important element of SEO. Make sure this relative text is sprinkled not only in your content, but throughout your pages, accordingly added to meta tags, banners, titles, and image descriptions. This basic method will eventually garner you high-value traffic organically from the search engines.

Links: Exchanging links with professionals in your industry is an example of effective SEO. The search engines are favorable to relative sites that link together. This enables your content to be labeled high-value, and thus, gives the site a better ranking. Eventually, your ranking will increase in the search engines, driving targeted free traffic to your website. <!–

Blogging: Creating a related blog for your website not only generates a readership, but also increases your presence in the search engines. Search engine algorithms, such as Google’s “fresh bot” specifically seek out websites that update their content frequently. Thus, this further increases your rankings in the search engines, bringing your high-quality free traffic.

Press Releases: If you are launching a new site or a new product, then take advantage of the power of press releases! You can directly reach your audience with press releases, as well as gain additional links that increase your rankings in the search engines. If your press release is compelling, your story may be picked up by the news media, blogs, and other publishing mediums that can drive in high-value traffic to your website.

PPC: If you have a financial budget to implement an advertising campaign, then you can drive high-value traffic to your website through PPC ads placed through the search engines. This is useful for new sites that have not gained rankings within the search engines, but would like to begin experiencing conversions. If you do utilize a PPC campaign, it is important to maintain your budget and consistently monitor the ROI on your campaign. PPC campaigns can quickly rack up a great amount of advertising money, but if used properly, you can generate significant levels of high-value traffic.

Banner advertisements: Although a more traditional and expensive form of marketing, banner ads are still effective in obtaining high-value traffic to your website. However, the key is to find a place to advertise that is directly related to your website or product. For example, if your website sells hand-made ceramic goods, then you may want to advertise on a design blog with readers that appreciate craftsmanship. Driving high-value traffic to your site requires well-rounded strategy that incorporates the search engines. The basics are simple; without solid content and sound SEO, you will not be able to capture the full traffic of your potential clients. On the bright side, when a site is designed with the above factors in my mind, high-traffic is continuously generated without you have to spend a penny on marketing campaigns.

UNDERSTAND YOUR PURPOSE
When it comes to planning a winning website, it is important to carefully evaluate what you intend to accomplish. Are you selling a product or service? Do you wish to drive large amounts of traffic to participate in a forum or social network? Are you providing information and wish to sell affiliate marketing or advertising space for revenues? It is critical to consider the fundamental goal of your website in order to craft a winning strategy around it. All of the design and business strategy elements stem from your fundamental understanding of the purpose and goal of the website.

DEVELOP YOUR BRANDING As it is critical in any business, creating a branding strategy is very important for your website. The branding extends from your domain name to the colors and content style of your website. Do you want to brand your website as innovative, reliable, entertaining, or authoritative? If you are creating a financial website, you would consider selecting authoritative and reliable, but if you are creating a social network, then entertaining and innovative may be the right branding strategies. It is critical to develop a branding strategy that aligns well with your purpose before creating the pages of your website.

CREATE A DETAILED STRATEGY PLAN FOR USERS AND SEO This is an important stage in outlining the visual plan of your website, and there are many factors that need to be considered in this stage:

• Title of your website: The title of your website is very important for both search engine rankings and website traffic. When you include keywords into the title of your website, your rankings in the search engines increase. In addition, it is important to create an interesting, engaging title that will compel search engine users to click on your link from the results page.

• Pages: Your website could have a robust or simple number of pages, depending on the purpose of your website. For a website that sells a service, the pages generally include Home, About Us, Product Packages, Benefits of Our Product, Client Testimonials, FAQ, and Contact Us. Of course, the website pages will vary tremendously depending on the type of website you own.

• Layout style (number of columns): The layout style has a large influence on the visual flow your website, and it determines how much information is on one page. Some websites may have one large column, while others many split it up into several columns. Again, this depends upon the purpose of your website; if you are selling a product, you may only utilize one column, but if you are creating a news website, then you may opt to use several columns for the layout style.

• Color scheme: Creating the mood of your website, in conjunction with your branding strategy, is easily set through the color scheme. If you have a Halloween website, then you would choose a color scheme of orange and black. If your website is a financial business portal, then you may opt to select a navy blue and white or gray and black scheme. This reflects back upon your branding strategy, as color is one of the most important psychological factors in setting the tone of your branding on the website.

• Navigation toolbar style: The toolbar can exist in a variety of ways to help your users navigate your website. Traditionally, many websites have the horizontal navigation toolbar on the top of the page, while others have the navigation vertically on the left side of the page. Regardless of which style you choose, it is important to remember that the human mind, due to the training we receive as a child in school, begins reading anything from the top left hand corner. Therefore, whether you choose a vertical or horizontal navigation toolbar, it is important to ensure that it starts at the top left hand corner of the website page.

• Content style: Creating compelling, keyword-dense content is important for your search engine rankings, as well as for converting your visitors. However, you should keep the keyword density to approximately 3 – 6% of your website, as this is the optimal level for the search engine algorithms. Search engine bots enjoy fresh, relevant content, and it may serve you well to update your website frequently with new content. In addition, the style of your content will also send a signal of branding across to your visitors, and it is important to keep the strategy in mind in developing your text.

• Links: Consider adding relevant affiliate links to your website, as the search engines base their rankings upon how many one way and two way back links your website has. You may want to consider submitting your website to directories, as well as creating relevant articles to submit to article directories. There are many steps you can take to search engine optimize your website, and creating back links is one of the most important ones.

IMPLEMENT! When you have developed a strong branding strategy and in-depth website plan, it is time to such as programming it yourself, purchasing a template, using design software, hiring a designer, or utilizing a publication program such as WordPress. Once your winning website is implemented, it is time to drive traffic to your website!