Website Hosting is Still of Value to You

Website Hosting is Still of Value to You In a down market it is more necessary than ever to consider how to cut costs. You look at every penny spent and trim the fat so much that sometimes you trim the meat as well. In this case, the meat I’m referring to is hosting your website—or having a website at all. Losing the power a properly designed and marketed site can provide you in today’s marketplace would truly be a tragedy, so before you even think about putting the carving knife to your hosting; consider this.

Seek Those Referrals

Now’s the time where you really should be putting your website’s marketing power to use. Look at rebuilding your site to better utilize calls to action. It’s OK to blatantly ask your customers for referrals. If they didn’t like what you are offering, they wouldn’t be customers, and most people will be happy to provide their friends and family with the same opportunity to benefit from your service or product. Offer incentives that make it worth their while such as discounts on services, unique sales prices, or even products or services that aren’t available to the layman. In your redesign of your site, present your customers with every possible opportunity to participate as this will enhance your referral program.

Build Smart Landing Pages

Rather than solely marketing a slew of products or services by trying to drive customers to your homepage, create smart landing pages for your best selling, or most profitable, products and/or services. You wouldn’t believe the marketing power a landing page can provide. It’s like placing an advertisement specifically for that one item in every visitor’s mailbox…only instead of using it to line their birdcages, they’ll actually convert! Well, a good percentage of them do, and certainly more than a mailer campaign (which is also much more costly). Pay a professional who really understands the proper methodology for building a landing page to create many different pages depending on your offerings, and you’ve just increased your sales potential.

Open 24-7

I’m not suggesting that you start up a midnight shift, but I am suggesting that whenever possible, you look into automating your offering so that those individuals who operate in a different time zone, or the insomniac who prefers to surf instead of sit on the couch, can take advantage of your product and/or services even when you’re sleeping. If you’re offering actual, physical products, I have no idea why you wouldn’t want to open an e-commerce solution on your site. Imagine the benefit of waking up in the morning to find additional sales you might have otherwise missed waiting for you to process! It’s enough to incite drooling, no?

Summary

While it can be tempting to knock that website hosting charge from your monthly statement, it isn’t the wise course of action. In today’s age you need a website to truly be successful. More and more people are turning to the Internet for their answers, for their purchasing, and for their own peace of mind. According to InternetWorldStats.com, North America has had a growth in Internet users of 128.3% from 2000 to 2008 with nearly 73.1% of the population using the Internet, and that’s just the Homeland, friend! If you’re international, those numbers grow astronomically. How can you afford not to maintain your website hosting?


Max Elliot is the chief editor and lead contributing author for the site http://www.webguides4u.com which provides site hosting company reviews, Internet usage articles, website development and design articles, and much more. He's been in the industry for well over a decade working for a range of companies from design houses to hosting companies and Internet service providers.








Sometimes it's difficult to tell if your on line marketing efforts are having any effect. Google search results can help you determine how noticeable you've become. While you shouldn't ignore offline sales and marketing, which often result in a smaller but much more immediate income, it can be easy to get discouraged when it comes to the Internet.

This is especially true for authors, since publishers tend to only pay commission once or twice a year. It can be even more worrisome if you've been paid an advance and it doesn't look like your book sales will cover it. You may end paying your publisher the difference.

The first thing you should know is that anyone who tells you there's quick and easy money to be made on the Internet is generally after some of yours. Remind yourself that you're here to be the one making money instead of spending it. Some investment is generally required, but both extremes outside of that should be avoided. These range from outright scams to completely free web hosting sites. Problems with free website hosts often include annoying commercials and public suspicion. Some people avoid visiting cheap websites for fear of being hacked or spammed. I've had more visitors simply because I can tell people my site is professionally hosted. The monthly hosting fee is worth it in terms of credibility and technical support.

Once you've managed to come up with a user name that's descriptive of who you are and/or what you do, check on line to see if it's available as a domain name. It's sort of like an on line alias. You might want to use the name of your business if appropriate. You may wish to use your own name instead. It's even better if you can tie your name to the domain name as it doubles the number of ways people can find you.

However, be aware that the whole world is looking for a unique domain name. If you're incredibly lucky the one you want will be available. Pounce! Purchase your domain name before it gets away and always renew it before it expires! Be aware that other users may issue a legal challenge if they can prove it's more appropriate to their business than to yours. In other words, avoid things like celebrity names, offline business names or irrelevant titles.

Legitimacy on the Internet is earned. The more someone else backs you up the more willing others are to check you out. Until my first novel was listed on Amazon I was nowhere to be found on the Internet. My name's search results were a Marvel comic book character, a parish listing and someone doing volunteer work in a distant state. After publication my name, website and book title were all listed and there were over 2000 search results just for my name. Not all of them were me but the results before publication, when none of them were me, were in the low hundreds.

When you find something that works you can sometimes repeat it. Although it takes me almost a year to get a novel into print, each title does its part to raise my on line profile in general. Sometimes it's when the book first comes out, once in a while it's from a review and occasionally it's because another book site chooses to carry the title or series.

Social networking sites and blogs can help raise your Google presence or how many times you're the person listed first and most often when your name is searched. I have blogs on Word Press and Vox and comment whenever and wherever I feel I have something to contribute on other blogs. I suspect commenting on other blogs is more 'valuable' to Google because then it's a discussion between at least two people. I'm also on My Space, Face book and Twitter.

When you decide to sign onto a social networking site the first thing you should do is fill out your profile. You may choose to leave out your birthday or other details that could be stolen in much the same way you'd protect your credit card. However, many people will refuse to connect with you if you offer no information. At the very least you should try to upload a fairly recent photo. I've encountered a few sites where it's difficult because of the size restrictions. Don't they know that digital cameras come with more and more pixels these days?

It may be wiser to use a minimum of social networking sites. It's important to keep them all updated. Visitors who notice your last login was over four months ago are going to assume you're gone and won't respond to them. Presenting an abandoned profile to your customers is worse than not having one. It also indicates that you're not aware of the option of using one site, such as Twitter, to continuously update another site, such as Face book.

Another very important point is not to say anything negative. It doesn't matter if your idiot neighbor is once again acting like...delete, delete, delete! Once it's on line the whole world can read it. Ask yourself if a future spouse, employer or friend would find it acceptable BEFORE you post. (If you wish to pay me for the hassle and money I've just saved you, Pay Pal is acceptable. LOL)

Learn the lingo. It's a hassle because there's always more of it but it can save you headaches. LOL means 'laughing out loud,' ROFL means 'rolling on the floor laughing,' TTYL stands for 'talk to you later,' etc. I'm sure at some point someone will come up with a 'net-speak' dictionary and monetize it by charging for access. Until then, just ask the person who used the term on you. Internet users generally realize we're all in this together.

Let others use casual forms. Authors can't afford to be rejected by a publisher because he or she noticed an on line lack of grammar and punctuation. Even on Twitter I try to avoid shorter forms unless I run out of characters. Check your spelling before posting. Editors don't want to have to change any grammatical diapers.

Open dialogs or continue discussions. You'd be surprised what Google latches onto. I created a LOLcat caption a few years ago that still comes up in the top eight to ten results for my name. It's a cat wearing a paper bag hood, pointing towards a serious looking boxer. The caption is something about the dog having to slay a dragon before the cat will marry him...LOLcats are the exception where you can murder the grammar.

I do a name search on Google when I want to know more about someone. I was disappointed last week to find an actor I liked was barely mentioned on line. Either he's not interested in advancing his career or his public relations people are falling down on the job. Someone else I searched would have shown up more prominently if his name wasn't so universal and he'd done more to get himself noticed on line. With my own name I have something of an advantage. Because my parents were older and chose a less widely used first name there isn't a lot of on line competition. So far not too many people are asking if I'm the comic book character. Maybe it's because I'm younger and better looking.