Month: February 2013

Web Hosting Secrets You Must Know about

Solve The Web

Web Hosting Secrets You Must Know about

 Web hosting companies offer a wide array of services today, some which come at a price and others which are free of charge. The free service is mainly sponsored by advertisements placed on the website; therefore you get to pay indirectly for the service. At the most basic level, web hosting entails small scale file hosting where files can either be uploaded either through an interface or using File Transfer Protocol (FTP). The files require very little processing for them to be delivered to the cyberspace.

Web hosting is basically used for simple and small websites but complex corporate websites need a very sophisticated and high level of database support as well as platforms for application development e.g. PHP, ASP.NET, and Java. It further has an interface panel like cPanel, Plesk, and Hosting Controller which make it possible to have manageable e-mail service that will make it easy to install scripts and manage the web server more adequately.

In other cases, web hosts specialize in a particular service or software, hence are hired by corporate establishments and organizations to outsource work to a certain company. Web hosting further entails hosting uptime which is the total percentage of time that the host is reachable, or rather, accessible to surfers on the cyberspace. Most companies aim to offer a hosting uptime of up to 99.99%. In interpretation, this will mean that in a year, the downtime will be circa 8 hours and 46 minutes. Be advised though that planned interruptions for whatever reasons together with server maintenance and restarts are a reality and shouldn’t be ignored altogether.

 

Web hosts can at other times run internet hosting services. There are some web hosting services that are strictly limited to the internet, and which have their own share of merits and demerits. They include:

 

–          Virtual dedicated server

–          Dedicated hosting server

–          Reseller hosting

–          Shared web hosting

–          Free web hosting

–          Clustered hosting

Specialized web hosting services include on the other hand include:

–          Image hosting

–          Video hosting

–          Blog hosting

–          Shopping cart software

The web hosting business has become a very competitive one; no wonder the industry players are becoming more and more creative when advertising their products and services. They put together very many client benefits into their user-friendly packages, inclusive of free services. Granted, if the services are free, why would anyone bother to pay for the same service? Well, the old expression you get exactly what you paid for becomes more valid in this instance.

For one, free services offer very limited services and secondly, because they don’t charge you to host your website, they will need to generate some revenue off it. This they do by maybe placing advertisements on your website. Chances are you will not have any control of the kinds of, and number of ads placed on your site. Such free services are also known to restrict the kind of content put on a website. In some cases, you may not even be able to have videos or music on your site, or even sell any products. Needless to mention, the ads placed maybe competing with your products, but it’s a matter of take it or leave it.

Author Bio:

Josh D. is blogger and writer. He currently writes for digbacklink.com, which is a backlink checker tool for webmaster.

Start-Up businesses

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5 ways technology will save you cash in those initial stages of business

Starting out as a new business can be tough. Expenses, maintenance cost, staff wages and more, all amount to a looming big number of cash you’ll find difficult to keep hold of. Luckily there are ways to reduce these costs, and the growing importance of technology can help with this. Thanks to the growing networks of technology now available, there’s an app or a type of software out there that tends to almost every function imaginable- in a much more budget friendly way. Here are 5 of the ways in which technology will save you cash in those initial stages of business when starting out;

1. Business travel is one of the main sources of business cost! Keeping track of your outgoing and incoming finances is crucial in staying afloat as a business. Organization is key, so make sure you’re aware of any money coming in, any money that hasn’t paid and vice versa. Expensify is a smart and efficient app that takes the stress out of calculating the expenses for business travel. Presenting you with an expenses report as well as being able to track your spending via GPS technology, you can connect the app to your credit card or bank account! This app is also free- making it very worth while your time.
2. Face to face meetings cost you crucial time. More often than most, video conferencing is the preferred alternative for everyone concerned – it enables you to fit in a meeting without the hassle of travel and losing time. Make sure you’re using a free video calling server- there are many free videos calling service available, such as Skype, Google Hang Outs or freeconferencecalling.com. All of which let you have that important meeting – whilst staying behind your desk.
3. Get familiar with budget friendly SEO tips that won’t require a brutal denting to your bank balance. Search Engine Optimisation is frequently used to promote businesses across the internet- enabling smaller business that aren’t aided by a massive budget, to achieve a higher ranking on search engines by simply using a few tricks of the trade. An important point to remember is the importance of quality content! With great quality content you’re demonstrating your value to customers, and effectively presenting them with something that will keep them coming back for more. In addition, keywords are also a great way to divert traffic towards your businesses website! Keywords are what search engines will pick up on, so choose wisely and make sure you’re meta titles aren’t too clumsy and long, remember to be concise, short but informative.
4. Set up your website on WordPress and you’ll cut the costs of hiring a web designer, coder and all sorts of other hefty costs. WordPress is a smart Content Management System – and not just for bloggers – but for businesses too. Set yourself up on a decent server first of all to make sure your site runs smoothly (you can find reviews here which might be helpful if this is new to you) and then choose a premium theme (don’t go for a free one as they can be a little generic looking) to personalise your website. The money it would cost you to do all of that with a web designer of development would be in the thousands, so you’ve definitely saved money here.
5. Potentially the most obvious tip, however no less important, is the way the in which technology makes paper costs unnecessary. With the rise of technology and media, virtually every company loyally stick to communicating via email rather than through letters. Not only does it save you ink and paper, it’s also a great deal faster and comes with a lot less hassle. E-books and online reports also save you from incurring a massive cost that simply isn’t necessary. Try and avoid producing paper documents as much as you can, and you’ll seriously notice the difference in saving.
6. Open source software. Embrace the wonders of Cloud software, like so many business who have saved much needed cash by making use of this easily accessible medium to access data for employees. Cloud brings with it flexibility, improving efficiency and productivity, by allowing employees to access the database where they are only requiring an internet connection to do so. The main advantage is of course the lowered IT costs- Cloud software won’t require any of the hardware costs that come with the maintenance and upgrading.

PPC mistakes that may be hurting your website

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PPC mistakes that may be hurting your website

Pay per click is most efficient and fastest way of driving traffic to your blog/website. You can set up PPC advertisement for your business/ profession in less than 1 hour. Moreover your budget can vary from $10 to $1000 per day. Best of all, PPC advertisement can increase your global presence all over the world.
Another benefit of PPC advertisement is that you will get report of every single penny spend, even number of total clicks on your add and on how many internet users your add has made impression.
In order to make sure about your good start I will make you familiar with some common PPC mistakes.

1. Overly Broad Scope

PPC marketing is all about niches, before starting with PPC campaign you should make sure to which niche your website belongs. Keywords are comparatively price based in PPC advertisement programs like google AddWords.
This can increase your broad scope overly because now you know where to place your add to get your target visitors, you can even set your target location to show your add. Since you have to pay for every single click you got on your Add so you should set target visitors location. I prefer to set my country as target location for my Adds when I just want national clients.

2. Incomplete Keyword Research

The general mistake related to overly broad scope is not making through research before choosing keywords. One should make efforts to find and select strong keywords in long run. You should select keywords related to your target market and that are relevant to general terms of many people.
Instead, you should select keywords that explain or give idea about your products or services that you are selling on your website. This will create interest among internet users to click on your add and more clicks means more sales.

3. Not tracking your Metrics

Metrics? Metrics are health indicators of PPC advertisement program; you should keep a regular check on them to keep your PPC cost below than your total gain. While running a PPC advertisement program always remember that PPC is not just advertisement program your target is to drive more sales of your products or services and earning more.

4. Neglecting your Landing Page

Split landing is very good way to test whether your add landing page is well designed or not. This is one of very important part of entire campaign that you design your add in such way that it appeals to audience to get you more sales otherwise you have to suffer unnecessarily failure of your PPC campaign.

5. Failing to Have an Overall Strategy

Before your add gets off to the ground, you need to find better strategy for your PPC that will relevant for long run success. If you don’t make efforts for finding better strategy for your PPC campaign you are otherwise going close to failure and just wasting your time and money.

Author bio: This article has been written by Tracy. She is a freelance web designer and practice internet marketing for her personal e-commerce website. She is a SEO expert and loves to provide valuable tips to her readers about PPC and internet marketing.

How To Impress At Industry Trade Shows

DotNetTips

Most industries have some form or another of trade industry show and for many this may be their main outing into the wider customer sphere annually. Obviously, this means that impressing and informing is the order of the day – it’s the perfect way to get leads after all.

It may sound simpler than it seems, but it is in fact very easy and there are a number of ways to ensure that you can get that attention, inform those customers and nail those leads.

Planning

The centre of all winning formulas is planning. One of the problems with trade shows is that people tend to see them as a yearly chore. You show up, you stand there for a few days and then go home. However, they provide so much opportunity if you can really impress. Everyone is vying for attention and to get your fair share or more you will need to stand out. Planning is the perfect way to do so. Get your staff together a few months before and brainstorm on the ways you can impress and stand out at the show. You can then delegate and get ready for the event.

Prepare

A little bit of marketing do no harm and informing your current customers and leads that you will be at the show via online newsletters, your website and emails is a good idea. You can also use offline media such as banners to announce your appearance. One of the best ideas is to send out cards or tokens to potential customers offering a free gift if they come to your stall – a great way to engage them.

The Booth

Of course, when they arrive you want to be cock of the walk and this means your booth should flex your marketing muscles. This is where great marketing and advertising comes into play and you require a quality print company to create those roller banners, pavement signs and wide format posters. These are the things that will help you to stand out and you should ask the company for tips on what works and doesn’t.

Your booth should be easily accessible and there should be nothing to obstruct users coming in and around for a look. Essentially, you want to create a rich user experience that gives the people the best impression.  This should also mean staff is looking their best. Smart casual is best as it is most approachable. Also, be sure they are rearing to go and full of energy; this is the sort of atmosphere that makes conversions.

Samples and Promotional Items

Make sure that you have both samples of your product and catalogues for your potential leads, as well as promo items – people love free stuff. These can be anything from pens to note pads and are the little things that encourage people to recollect you.

Gather Information

Try and gather and take in as much information as possible, this can be anything, from writing down the topic of light conversation on the back of their business card when you go, to foot counts and conversions. You can then follow this up with a thank you email for those that came to your booth during the show and if they seemed keen make sure to provide a follow up call in the next day or two.

Follow these tips and your show should be all the more successful and your business will benefit from it too.

Cormac Reynolds writes for www.discountbannerprinting.co.uk and has written on numerous marketing topics across the web

Grouped Repeater .net

DotNetTips

A neat solution to allow group headers on repeaters without using much code or nested repeaters. Rick Strahl provides a good example of this stragegy in C# i have modifid this slightly and converted to VB.
[sourcecode language=”vb”]
<asp:Repeater ID="RPContent" runat="server">
<ItemTemplate>
<%# Me.RenderGroup(Eval("theyear")) %>
<div class="headline">
<h3><a href="<%# Eval("url ")%>"><%# Eval("description") %></a></h3>
<p><%# Eval("thedatestr")%></p>
</div>
</ItemTemplate>
</asp:Repeater>
[/sourcecode]
Whilst the last closing div may look out of place it is required to close the last repeater item. the eval RenderGroup function passes the vasriable that you wish to group the repeater by. This function then returns a header div if the item in the repeater is part a new group or nothing if the next item in the repeater matches the same group as the preivous one.

I’ve added the active class to the div for the first group to be selected automaticaly with the jquery paging plugin this then pages the repeater list based on the group.
[sourcecode language=”vb”]
Public LastGroup As String = &quot;@#@~&quot;

Public Function RenderGroup(Group As String) As String
If (Group = Me.LastGroup) Then
Return &quot;&quot;
Else
‘// *** Group has changed
If LastGroup = &quot;@#@~&quot; Then
‘start group
Me.LastGroup = Group
Return &quot;&lt;div id=’pane&quot; + Group + &quot;’ class=’tab-pane active’&gt;&quot;
Else

Me.LastGroup = Group
Return &quot;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div id=’pane&quot; + Group + &quot;’ class=’tab-pane’&gt;&quot;
End If
End If
End Function

[/sourcecode]

Thanks to Rick for his orignal work.
http://www.west-wind.com/weblog/posts/2007/Aug/23/Creating-a-scrollable-and-grouped-Repeater-Layout

How to Painlessly Negotiate Cheaper Broadband Prices

DotNetTips

If you’re paying more than you’d like to pay for your broadband service, you may be able to negotiate a cheaper deal if there’s at least one competitor in town. It doesn’t even take great negotiating skills or a long list of justifications, just a few easy steps that will result in almost sure fire lower prices.

Ideally, you have two major ISPs who tend to fight over customers in your area (often sending flyers is an indication), as this means both will be willing to discount the cost of your broadband internet. Here’s a step-by-step process for negotiating cheaper broadband prices.

1. Gather information about your current rates

Find your last three bills and take a close look at them. Know what you’re paying for the plan itself and what your fees are. For instance, you might pay $80/month altogether, of which $65/month is for your broadband internet not including fees and router rental cost. When they tell you they can cut it down to $60/month, you can ask whether this is the broadband cost with or without fees to know if you’ll be paying $75 or $60 per month.

2. Consider bundling services

You might get a discount by simply bundling broadband services with other services like home phone or TV, if you aren’t already, to save money on all of them. It can mean being locked into a particular feature set, however. Look up information on your ISP’s website and the competitor’s website about the available bundles and promotions.

3. Have an idea of how much you want to pay

If you settle for anything they give you, you might not save much. Have an idea of what a great price for your broadband internet service would be and what you’re willing to accept. If you know what you’re aiming for, even a moment of silence and uncertain sound as you consider an offer the representative just made can do wonders. You should also keep in mind what services or add-ons you’re willing to give up in exchange for a lower price.

4. Call the competition and ask for a better price

Now that you know how much you’re paying for your broadband, call your ISP’s main competitor and ask for a better price than you’re paying right now. Be sure to give them the price without fees and taxes included and tell them that this is the base price. Listen to their offer and decide if it sounds reasonable according to what you’re looking for, and ask if it’s a promo rate or permanent.

5. Sign up for the new service or let them know you’ll get back to them

The most effective way to get your current ISP to pay attention is to actually sign up for the competitor’s service. You may even want to go ahead with the switch! If you really don’t want to go with the competitor, let them know you’ll call them back. You can be sure they will keep a note on your file – probably attached to your current phone number – with the price they offered you, so keep a note for yourself, too.

6. Call your current ISP and see if you can get a better price

You may have to call to cancel your service with this internet provider; if so, this is the perfect opportunity. You will likely speak to a representative who asks you why you’re leaving. Tell them the offer you received from another company (you can mention the name or not, it’s up to you). They will probably try to beat it, and it’s up to you whether you want to accept this new price from your current ISP or actually switch to the other provider.

Negotiating by calling a competitor is a very easy way to save money on your broadband internet, and you don’t even have to be pushy or know how to negotiate! By simply considering other options and asking for a better price based on what they offered, you can often get a significant discount on your monthly broadband bill.

Attached Images:

Laura was disappointed with her broadband service so spent time calling over providers in her area.  She soon switched to a cheaper and better provider.