101 Online Business Basics

More Natural SEO WIth Secondary Keywords

Online Business — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 14:48:02 +0000

What is the very first and absolutely fundamental thing that anyone should acquire before moving into the deeper stages of SEO? In fact, SEO would simply be impossible to perform without this.

Ask any true SEO practitioner and they will tell you the same thing.

Keywords

Think about it, without the right keywords, there will be nothing to optimize FOR and there will be nothing to optimize WITH. With the right keywords, you can target the right audience and thus allowing your business to be found and connect with the right people.

The entire concept of SEO REVOLVES around keywords, and that is why keyword research is such large and important aspect. But it’s not as simple as acquiring any or as much keywords as you can.
That won’t mean your SEO campaign is a guaranteed success because choosing the wrong ones is just as equally ineffective. You also have to be smart in which keywords you choose and how you choose to use it.

Primary Keywords

We are more than familiar with these all-important keywords. These keywords are the keywords that you would like to rank for. It’s these keywords that you want your target audience (and potential prospects) to find your site with.

For the sake of simplicity we shall refer to them as PRIMARY keywords. Primary keywords should always be in your site’s title tags, Meta tags, internal links, and of course, the body of your page contents.

Primary keywords are also an integral part of your backlink building strategy. Because your primary keywords will be used a lot in the anchor texts of your backlinks. And that is one of the best ways of utilizing your primary keywords.

Alas, as powerful as they primary keywords are, they can suffer from “overuse”. When it comes to this point, it starts to lose its effectiveness and in some cases, it can be damaging enough to jeopardize your entire SEO efforts.

This is because when you keep using the same one, especially for backlinks, things will not appear so natural anymore. But overusing the same keyword for building backlinks might not be so damaging as actually using the same keyword over and over again for your website page.

Secondary Keywords

Therefore a healthy dose of anchor links should include your main (primary) keywords as well a sprinkle of other set of keywords. This should be your SECONDARY keywords. These keywords may be comprised be derived from your main keywords. This applies to synonyms, different sequence, and arrangement, adding it with nouns, adjectives, or even verbs where appropriate.

Doing this will make your overall links sound more natural which can also cover what other people are using to search your contents. Everyone searches using different terms and phrases, so by diversifying your keywords as well (it IS your primary keywords but merely in a different form, but still retains the same context).

Secondary keywords are not only used for anchor texts for backlinks, but also for the internal links on your site. Because using the same primary keywords on your website without changing it’s form or sequence will easily shoot up your keyword density to the level of keyword-stuffing.

Therefore by employing secondary keywords on your site, you will not be penalized for keyword stuffing but at the same time you will still be able to retain the context of the primary keywords.

Therefore secondary keywords are just as important as primary keywords themselves. You can’t purely rely only your primary keywords. Secondary keywords are not meant to achieve a higher rank in the search engine results for your web page. Think of your secondary keywords as “reinforcing” or “supplementing” your primary keywords.

By having a wide array of keyword variants which is derived from your main keywords, can make your SEO efforts sound more natural to both your web visitors and also the search engines. Imagine if you have only used the same keywords over and over again on the contents of your website. It will look spammy, and will eventually become annoying for the visitors for those who do stay long enough.

Content Marketing Misconception

Online Business — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 13:14:39 +0000

Content marketing has been gaining popularity for quite some time now and from the looks of it, it hardly shows any signs of slowing down. One of the main reason that’s fueling its momentum are the online businesses have come to adopt this method of marketing.

But what is it exactly that sets content marketing apart?

It’s the approach.

Content marketing strives to deliver value first to its customers before any real marketing or selling is done to them. And it works, really well because potential prospects respond positively to it.

Like many things that are gaining popularity, many people have plenty of misconceptions or the wrong idea about content marketing. It’s actually a simple case of misunderstanding and being informed by those who misunderstand.

But, it becomes damaging when misinformed people start to adopt this strategy with the wrong mindset. With the wrong mindset, these people will be doomed to fail long before they even the true potential of content marketing. Of course, they don’t see it as their fault, and they only see that it is their tools which are at fault here.

So to avoid jumping into content marketing with the wrong mindset, take a look at some of the misconceptions about it :

Content Part Is Easy

Let me save you the trouble and allow me to put it in the simplest of terms.

Coming up with content is NOT as easy as many people think.

In fact, according to a study, coming up with ENGAGING content for content marketing is the biggest challenge faced by many online businesses. This is closely followed by CONSISTENTLY coming up with engaging content. Yes, you have to write great content plenty of times. The quest to constantly deliver value to your readers can be…never-ending.

You didn’t think content marketing would be that easy now did you?

What is important here is to actually sit down and get the creative process going. Adequate research has to be also performed, such as keyword research, market trends, target audience research, their likes, dislikes, wants, needs, desires and such.

Only from then, can you know WHAT to write so that it WILL APPEAL to your target audience. Content is only as valuable as your potential prospects who appreciates it.

Remember, you are writing FOR your target audience, and to do that you need to better understand them, or be in their shoes.

Job Done After Writing

Let’s say you are an artist and you have just painted your finest masterpiece. If you frame it, hang it up on the wall for display and wait for people to come, is anyone going to? Well, unless a miracle happened, nobody is going to come because nobody knows you finished painting the said masterpiece in the first place.

The same goes for your online content. Nobody will come to read about your published masterpiece if nobody knows it exists in the first place. No matter how great a masterpiece is, it is not going to attract crowds by itself. It is a crowd-pleaser, but it isn’t a crowd-puller. Not yet anyway.

You have to optimize your content to be search-engine friendly and you need to distribute it on the right channels to ensure it get the exposure it needs to generate traffic back to your site. But of course you don’t want to pull in just any crowd. To be more efficient, you need to go where your target audience is.

Social Media Is A Better Alternative

Many people abandon the idea of content marketing because it is too hard, it takes up too much time and too much effort. So they turn to social media instead. They think, how hard is it to talk in 140 characters at a time right?

Well, just how much value can you give your target audience in 140 characters or less? Yes, not much either. These people just do not see the bigger picture. When content marketing works in SYNERGY with social media, the potential is many times better than any of these methods alone.

Content marketing can be propelled with social media and a social media strategy can be more effective with great content backing it up. In other words, content marketing can’t really take off without social media and social media just doesn’t really have the “Oomph” without the right content.

So, instead of choosing one, by employing both methods, it can have a far greater impact that can change your business and bring it to new heights of success.

Content marketing is not a new fad or trend, nor is it a shortcut. It is just a new and more effective approach in reaching out to your customers and connecting to them on a deeper level (which was long overlooked). In the end, having 1 loyal customer is always worth more than 2 non-loyal ones. And with content marketing, you are going to have plenty of loyal customers at hand.

What Is Content Curation

Online Business — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 12:12:14 +0000

Content Curation is the process of research, aggregation, analysis and organisation of web content and presenting it in a meaningful, coherent and organized way. It is usually done based around a particular topic, or niche. Content curation suggests that it is carried out by a real person, a human being, rather than by a piece of software or service.

That in turn suggests that the Human Being is a Curator, usually an expert in the field being curated. Due to the vast amounts of data available, and being constantly created every day in huge volume, the task can be time consuming and difficult.

Why Is Content Curation Useful?

Content is King. That’s why it’s useful. Every business, entrepreneur and organisation needs to produce, or publish content. Creating new content is difficult and time consuming.

So acting as a Content Curator is a viable alternative. Instead of producing the content, curating it is an easier (possibly) option. What does this mean in term of your reputation? It presents you as the expert, the trusted source, the one that is ‘in the know’. Gaining this reputation is very valuable as it adds to your brand and builds your social capital.

Why Is Content Curation Hot Right Now?

There is a LOT of content on the web right now. Filtering all that content and presenting ‘the best of the web’ has become big business. It’s a VERY fashionable thing to do, a very accepted way of building a website, blog, or social media profile. You can even go so far as build your own personal brand around being a top content curator. There are a lot of BIG sites out there using this model:
For example:

The Huffington Post
Gawker
Tech Crunch
Mediaite
Pricey Pads

Step By Step Blueprint

Step 1 :: Research

Topics and sources

Be very sure what your topic is; make it narrow, not wide.
Research sites and sources of content, in a variety of media categories; written, pictorial, audio, video, even games and apps.
Read a lot, a lot more than you ever share.
Don’t use it unless it’s very high quality: Quality not quantity.

Step 2 :: Analyse

Take note of the format of what you are sharing, and ensure a good mix of sources.
Add value in the form of opinion; additional resources, annotations, comparisons etc.
Always give proper attribution to the source.
What is attribution? Simply, you must mention who wrote it and link to the original website it came from.

Step 3 :: Publish and Share

Blog
Publish it (with attribution) on your own-domain blog. Publish it (with attribution) on other blogging networks:

WordPress
Blogger
Tumblr
Posterous
LiveJournal
Xanga
Weebly

Social Media
Link to the content on Social Media Networks:

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Myspace
Google Plus
Pinterest
Orkut
Ning
Badoo

Video
Create a Video linking to the content, and share on the video networks:

YouTube
Vimeo
Veoh
Dailymotion
Yahoo Video
Metacafe
Viddler
Flickr
Revver
Videojug
SmugMug
Photobucket
Hulu

Audio
Create an Audio (podcast or similar) and share on the podcast networks:

iTunes
Podomatic
Podcastalley
Odeo
Yahoo
iPodder

Expert Content Curation Tips

Use Google Alerts on keywords you are curating.
Use Google Reader to monitor relevant RSS feeds from blogs and news sites
Use iffft to alert you of news
Monitor Google Trends
Monitor Twitter for trending items
Follow other people in your niche on Twitter etc.
Do it differently; if curators in your niche just publish on blogs, create a video or audio daily review of news items.
Do it continuously; people expect it all the time, so either choose a topic you love, or work hard, or outsource it!

Content Curation Tools

1 – paper.li

Paper.li claims you can:

“Start an online newspaper today”
“for your community”
“to monitor a topic”
“to share your passion”
“for the classroom”
“about your town”
“as a newsletter”
“to cover an event”
“to mobilize”

2 – BagTheWeb

BagTheWeb says you can:

“Find, Bag, Share”
“Build Networked Curation”

3 – Pearltrees

Pearltrees suggests you can use it to:

“Cultivate your interests” and it is:
“A place to collect, organize and share everything you like on the web”

4 – Scoop.it

The Scoop.it site enables you to:

“Easily Publish Gorgeous Magazines” ;
“Leverage Curation to increase your visibility.” and
“Give persistence to your social media presence.”

Conclusion

Content Curation is a powerful method of publishing other peoples content. You therefore don’t have to create content yourself; you ‘only’ have to act as the publisher, the re-publisher, the curator. You can build your own personal brand as an expert in your niche, and as the person who is in the know. This will lead to all sorts of opportunities.

You might be interested in : CurationSoft software

CurationSoft was created specifically for online publishing professionals, bloggers, news organizations and outsourcing firms who handle content development and marketing work for their clients – CurationSoft.com

Internet Marketing Strategies That Stood The Test Of Time

Online Business — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 13:22:30 +0000

Internet Marketing has been around for many years now. Many people have come to embraced internet marketing as their main career choice, and many people have also jumped ship from working full-time from a cubicle in the middle of town to working flexible hours from their office in the very comfort of their own home.

Why do these people make the shift? Well, the potential to earn (much) more money at your own time, pace and accord is certainly tempting enough. Added to the fact that many people are currently living the life of their dreams thanks to Internet Marketing, it’s no surprise more and more people are trying their hand at it each passing year.

Even though Internet Marketing has been around for very long, but in the ever evolving World Wide Web, internet marketing strategies come and go. Some worked, some didn’t, some outright failed, and some were doomed to fail even before it took off. But of course there are that worked, and continued to work until this very day.

And here are those that stood the test of time:

Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Marketing has been around as long as the search engine giants themselves. And as the name SEO suggests, it was born because of the search engines.

Many people recognize the benefits of being top dog in the search engine results and therefore when bringing their businesses online or creating an online business, they aim for the top spot, and they realized that to achieve this is to perform SEO. Most searchers don’t bother clicking results which are not on the top 5 and anything below that the chances of sites being clicked are severely diminished.

Perhaps the most attractive aspect of SEO is that its methods are often FREE to employ and even small online business owners are more than capable to do it on their own, and all of it on their own even.

With SEO being free and have a chance to be on the top spot in the searches, it’s no wonder many companies are adopting SEO as a staple part of their online strategy to pull in customers or organic traffic to their website.

In addition to optimizing your websites, link building is such an important and integral aspect of SEO that deserves to be pointed out. Link building involves leaving your web link on other web site or pages. For example you can do this through blog commenting, guest posting, social media, and forums. The best practice is to leave your link on web pages which are relevant to yours therefore pulling in more targeted traffic.

PPC (Pay-Per-Click)

For businesses who have the budget to do so, they will most likely adopt the PPC advertisement strategy. Pay Per Click campaigns allows you to display your ads and you only pay when someone clicks on your ad. You don’t have to pay when someone merely views your ad. It’s only when someone clicks on it.

The biggest names so far in the PPC advertisement scene have to be Google AdWords and Facebook Ads. But, just like SEO, for PPC to be truly effective you must properly research and utilize the keywords which will bring in the most of your target audience. Poorly executed PPC campaigns will only waste your hard earned money.

And by pulling in targeted audience will you effectively pull in clicks which are genuinely interested in what you are advertising and most probably buy what you are selling on your website, be it a product or service.

Web Banners

Web Banners are usually more flashy and eye-catching compared to most PPC ads because they employ the use of more graphical or animated elements to really catch a web surfer’s attention. It’s easier to capture the attention of web surfers using web banners as picture can speak a thousand words.

Web banners do not have to be part of a specific ad network and you can usually design your very own banners and approach web masters to “rent” their ad space for a certain monthly fee. The question of who you approach and how you approach is totally up to you but each webmaster usually has certain rules that you must adhere to before you can put up your ad on their website. Rules such as the size of your banner or the nature of the advertisement has to suit their website’s tone and theme

E-Mail

As the saying goes, “The money is in the list”. That is the main reason why people build lists or leads through their opt-in form on their websites. To capture their visitor’s e-mail as those who choose to opt-in are usually interested in what the website owner has to say or give or simply to receive future updates on current news and events.

E-mail marketing however is a great way for the list owner to build relationships with his/her current list through newsletters. And a good list owner knows when the time is right to market the right things to them is and therefore he/she can continue to reap in profits time and time again.

This leads us to another saying that goes like this. “The best time to start building a list was yesterday” therefore it is never too early to start building your list as an internet marketer nor is it ever too late either.

To be truly successful in internet marketing is not just using one of these strategies, but in fact employing more than one or even all of them if possible. But before you do that, it is recommended that you truly understand and be knowledgeable in at least one of them and before choosing to adopt another.

Working Internet Marketing strategies are not meant to be seen as a replacement, but should be viewed as individual strategies that complement and supplement each other to achieve even greater success and rake in bigger profits in Internet Marketing.

Understanding Virtual Hosting

Online Business — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 08:34:09 +0000

The term virtual hosting can often be misleading. Basically it is another term for shared hosting. Hosting is accomplished by using servers.

Virtual hosting is when numerous domain names are shared on the same server. This one server will share certain features like memory and processing cycles without needing these services to be pointed to the same hosting name.

For example this allows you and a friend to share the same server, but each of you wouldn’t have access to the other person’s files or information. The hosting company provides each of you with a separate log in account. You have access to your own domain names and files but nothing else.

Because of the shared feature， virtual hosting is cheaper than paying for a dedicated hosting account.

A virtual service uses two methods for hosting. Name hosting and IP based hosting. Name based is more commonly used and the cheaper of the two. When a protocol is served it must supply the name at some point.

With IP based virtual hosting， the IP address is used at some point in the protocol. Each domain name must have its own IP address and this is the point that drives the price up for this type of hosting.

Many marketers don’t want to have all their domain names coming from the same IP address. Imagine renting out IP addresses for each domain that you own.

It is also possible to have a virtual hosting account that incorporates a mixture of name and IP based hosting. Again planning your website and business will allow you to see if this is a service you require. Whether you need it immediately or not if you are planning on running lots of domains it might be option to keep open. Check to see if your hosting provider even offers this type of service, so you can upgrade when necessary.

Virtual web hosting is normally taken on by large companies and corporations. Many hosting companies themselves are on a virtual web hosting plan. This is how they offer the service to you as a customer!

Internet and computer technology can sometimes be overwhelming to understand. Hopefully you now have a better understanding of what virtual hosting actually consists of. It is always best to educate yourself ahead of time. You don’t want to be paying for services that you will ever use.

Tools any business can use to manage time

Online Business — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 15:03:19 +0000

Managing time is more about learning to manage yourself around the time that you have. There are many ways to go about finding ways to self-manage in a way that saves the most time for money making activities, as opposed to time wasting activities. You already know what a money making activity is, and you probably know deep down what a time waster is, but you feel powerless to get it together.

Fortunately, there are tools to help you get a handle on your time, forcing you to focus business activities toward money making (billable) activities. A few ideas are:

Dovico Software — A really good software that helps you manage not just time, but projects is Dovico Software. You can use it on your computer and via your iPhone, which enables you to take it with you on the road. This can be invaluable to the on the go business person.

Google Calendar — Most mobile phones will integrate with Google Calendar, and it can obviously be used on your computer or tablet device. Another really great feature is that you can invite as many people as you want to view the Google Calendar and add to the calendar.

Easy Time Tracking Software — Another really good software product is called Easy Time Tracking. Easy time tracking software has a free version you can try. This software allows you to track time, handle expense reports, and even invoice your clients and has multiple user support.

Freshbooks — This is a web based solution which enables you to track time, expenses, your entire staff, accounting and offers personal branding. With Freshbooks, you can get quite a large free version in which you can use to track your own time if you set up dummy accounts to track time you’re spending on non money making tasks.

Paper Planners — If you don’t want to use software, stick to your paper day planner, but actually use it for what it’s meant to be used for. Before you put something in it, make sure you know it’s a business essential money-making task. It helps to have a special planner for personal time which you keep totally separate from business time, and vice versa. Some name brands for these are WeekDate, Planner Pad Organizer, and the well known, Day Runner brand.

A really awesome time management tool will help you prioritize, schedule, and focus on the goals you’ve set for your business. It’s individual preference that will determine what type of tools you use to organize yourself and manage your time. Your choice will also depend on what kind of business you have, how many employees or contractors you have, and on what goals you’ve chosen to focus.

The important factor is that a plan is implemented that discovers and redirects time wasters, putting the focus back on accomplishing money making tasks in your business. Either software or traditional methods can work, but they will only work well if you actually implement them. While setting your system up can take some time, it will be more than worth it once it’s done.

You might be interested to read more about Time Management Success Secrets for Business Owners

How To Build A Free Business Blog Infographics

Online Business — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 06:49:38 +0000

How To Build A Free Business Blog Infographics

Embed the image on your site:

<a href="http://101onlinebusiness.com/goal-setting-infographics.html" target="_blank"></a><br />How To Build A Free Business Blog Infographics Bought To You By : <a href="http://101onlinebusiness.com" target="_onlinebusiness"><strong>101 Online Business</strong></a>

Online Business Search:

free business infographics set

Does Unlimited Really Mean Unlimited?

Online Business — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 16:07:14 +0000

You might be researching web hosting already. If you started with the cheapest (shared) then you have probably come across some AMAZING deals.

You have, without a doubt, came across deals announcing – UNLIMITED resources for just dollars per month.

For Instance:
UNLIMITED web hosting
UNLIMTED bandwidth
UNLIMITED disk space

All for $3.95 a month!!!

Why the heck would you go for any other plan? This is your dream set up. You can host unlimited sites for a ridiculously low cost.

There is a catch though (isn’t there always?). Any shared hosting plan claiming unlimited is never unlimited. How could they ever make their money back? These companies will bury clauses into their fine print making sure that you can never use up too many of their resources. If you do…your sites go down. Simple as that.

Web Hosting Companies do this by limiting things like inodes (inodes store info on files, folders etc…) or by using unclear statements in there terms of service, like: 

“Web Hosting ABC’s offering of “unlimited” services is not intended to allow the actions of a single or few subscribers to unfairly or adversely impact the experience of other Subscribers.”

Web Hosting ABC’s reserves the right to limit processor time, bandwidth, processes, or memory in cases where it is necessary to prevent negatively impacting other Subscribers

 So basically, Web Hosting ABC won’t tell you exactly how many resources you can use, but if it gets to this unspecified level, then they will shut your site down.

Beware unlimited hosting plans, make sure you read the fine print first

What are the Differences Between Types of Hosting?

Online Business — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 03:58:39 +0000

One of the things I had a really hard time dealing with was figuring out what the differences are between the types of web hosting out there.

I started searching for web hosts and all of a sudden I realized I needed to do some homework, because there are a number of different kinds and I had no idea what each one was.

Luckily for you, I will guide you through this morass of information.

In general, when you are looking for web hosting you are going to come across these different types:

Free Hosting

Free web hosting can be found throughout the web. It is clearly the cheapest option, but it is also the one you should most likely avoid.

If all you want is a simple daily blog, then join up with WordPress.com or Blogger.com. They are both free and provide the hosting for your blog/journal. This is just about the only scenario I would recommend free web hosting.

There are other free web hosts out there, that actually let you upload a typical website but the problem with these is they are rarely reliable, usually ad filled and at the end of the day you don’t have complete ownership of your website. Avoid them.

Shared Hosting

Shared Hosting is usually the cheapest hosting option available. I don’t want to get too technical, but web hosting companies store your website info on servers. A shared account means you share a single server with a number of other websites.

This type of hosting requires that the hosting company provides the system administration. This is valuable for people who are new to the net, or who lack tech savvy because all of the scary tech issues (managing servers, installing software, security updates, backups, etc…) are controlled by the hosting company.

Usually this type of hosting provides you with a user panel to control it. The most popular seems to be cPanel. With it you can control just about every aspect of your hosting. See our companion guide, for a 68 page cPanel tutorial.

The downside to this hosting is that it isn’t as secure since you share a server with so many other users. It usually doesn’t perform as well either (speed wise). Shared hosting can also be tough to scale, meaning a traffic spike could kill your websites.
A final note – shared hosting is a great intro to web hosting. It lacks the flexibility of the other options, but for basic use it will be fine. If you do need more flexibility or power you can upgrade at a later date.
 

VPS Hosting

VPS stands for Virtual Private Server. The key word there – virtual. This type of hosting let’s you have the functionality of a dedicated server, but in reality, VPS is actually a kind of shared hosting. Your “virtual server” will be included, along with others, on one physical machine.

While you share a physical machine, you have much more control than with shared hosting. For example – each virtual server on one machine can run it’s own set of software and reboot separately.

Besides the flexibility, another big benefit with VPS hosting is that it is easy to scale up your resources. If all of a sudden your website is the next viral sensation, you will be able to quickly get more resources to meet your traffic demands.

Also while not ideal, it is much more secure than a shared hosting platform. While you still share a physical server with other people, your virtual servers are so well partitioned they are their own isolated environment.

One downside to VPS hosting is that you could need some technical know how in order to properly run it. With shared everything is set up, your software is installed and cPanel (or an equivalent) is ready to go. Some VPS web hosting packages will expect you to handle those type of things yourself. To offset this, some hosts will have an option to choose a managed account for a premium price.
 

Dedicated Hosting

This is the cream of the crop of web hosting plans. That is why it costs the most (more on that later).

Dedicated hosting means that you get an entire server to yourself. Wherever your hosting company is located there will be a computer dedicated to you and only you.

There are many advantages to this type of hosting.

First of all it is the most secure. While no server is 100% secure from every nefarious attack out there, a dedicated one is the best choice if security is a top need for your website. Since the server is dedicated to one user it is also easier to pinpoint where potential problems are coming from.

Dedicated servers are faster as well. You don’t have to share bandwidth with people after all. They usually offer more resources as well. Even the most basic of dedicated servers will allow you to build multiple fast loading, busy websites. Like VPS hosting, it is also easily expanded to meet traffic needs.

On top of all that, you get the most flexibility as well. You can run anything you want on your own server. The downside being you will need the technical knowledge to mange the server yourself. Once again though, you can always opt for a managed option when choosing a dedicated server.

Cloud Hosting

Cloud hosting is a newer development on the web and it is currently a MUCH discussed topic. If you follow tech news, you have certainly heard the term cloud hosting before – most likely linked with Google and Apple’s cloud storage for music.

Cloud computing may seem like a VPS, but it differs quite a bit. Basically, instead of servers being dedicated to one(dedicated) or more(shared & VPS) users, all of the computers work together to create a giant network (or cloud) of computing power.

This makes cloud web hosting the most easily expandable/scalable version of hosting on the market. A traffic spike that could take down a shared, virtual or even dedicated server, can be absorbed into the “cloud” of servers since all of the servers work together.

If your traffic maxes out power of one server, it is ok because it is connected to more. In these cases you may have to pay for the added bandwidth use, but the piece of mind is worth the cost. Basically, you pay for only the resources you use with cloud hosting so usually it is a cheaper option than dedicated.

Reliability on cloud hosting is great as well, because if one server goes down it doesn’t mean that your site goes down, it just begins to draw resources from another computer in the cloud.

The prognosis isn’t all rosy though. Cloud hosting does have a couple of areas of concern. First off – where is your info? There is no way to really control the physical location of your data. It is part of the “cloud”. This might just be a mental hold up for me, and nothing to be concerned with but it is worth mentioning in my opinion.

Security is another questionable area. While cloud companies stress they are as secure as a dedicated server, you have to wonder. On a dedicated server you are on your own server. At the end of the day, multiple people are sharing physical hardware with cloud hosting.

By now you should already see the value in the list you created earlier. You can go through your list of needs and wants, and match them up with the above info to get an idea of which types of hosting you would consider. Of course before you decide, you better think budget…

How Much Do I Have to Spend On Hosting?

Online Business — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:31:29 +0000

Most people who want to buy web hosting have some sort of budget. If you can spend whatever you want with no thought, go ahead and ignore this section, but if you have a budget in mind you will want to read along.

When I started out online, I had to seriously consider my budget so I did a lot of research looking at prices for each of the above types of web hosting. Now keep in mind that the price recommendations I mention are based on an average package that should be good enough for someone new to online. The price you actually pay could be a little higher depending on your needs, or maybe even a little less.

Shared

I mentioned before that shared hosting is the cheapest. In fact if your sites don’t have to be secure and you don’t get much traffic you can run multiple sites off one shared hosting plan. This is perfect for people who are “dipping their toes” into the online world.

Every web host varies of course, but in general you can get a decent shared hosting plan for about $10/month. You could even get as low as $6/month if you prepay for a couple years in advance.

VPS

VPS is essentially a step up when it comes to web hosting. You get more options and resources, but of course you pay for more. VPS offers the same functionality as a dedicated server but usually at a lower cost.

Inmotion (Cnet rates best VPS host)

offers VPS packages that start as low as $39/month and rising to as high as $139/month. Even on the low end it is significantly higher than shared hosting but as detailed in the last section there are many benefits to VPS hosting.

One thing to keep in mind, is that VPS hosting makes it very easy for you to upgrade based on your needs, so if you start with a cheaper plan and need a resource boost, it is no problem.

Of note – the above plan prices I quoted are managed VPS servers, so the host will handle the heavy lifting tech wise. Managed VPS usually costs more money.

Dedicated

Going to stick with Inmotion, for comparisons sake and because they also provide highly recommended dedicated servers.

Their dedicated hosting packages start at $199/month. That may have made you gasp since it is a very high cost, but remember this is a managed plan, you can probably find cheaper plans out there but if you aren’t tech savvy you will have to choose managed.

No matter what, if you want a quality dedicated server you are looking northwards of $100. Dedicated servers are usually chosen by people who are already making money online and need to expand, or by businesses that want secure eCommerce.

A quick note – you can make some of your hosting back by selling hosting to friends who need it, or local business owners/internet marketers. If you have a fully dedicated server, you will be able to handle the extra sites no problem.

Cloud

Cloud hosting is most likely to fall within the same price range as VPS. Their main selling point is that you get all the benefits of dedicated server, but at a fraction of the cost. In the last section we went over a couple key differences between Cloud and Dedicated, so kep those in mind.

One of the oldest and most trusted companies offering cloud web hosting is Rackspace. One thing to remember is you pay for what you use in cloud computing, so some companies won’t have a monthly price, they will charge you per hour. Rackspace hosting starts out at 1.5 cents/hour for unmanaged, and 13.5 cents/hour managed.

The hourly cost is based on bandwidth and storage used etc… The good news is that you can start low and build your way up as you need it. Cloud hosting is the most flexible in that regards.

So a little basic math:

24 (hours in day) x 365 = 8760 hours per year
8760 divided by 12 = 730 hours (an average month)
730 x0.015(1.5 cents) = $10.95

So as you can see the most basic of all cloud hosting packages works out to shared hosting type of costs. A managed account would work out to just under $100 a month.

Online Business Search:

how much shoukd a business spend on histing