by McKinneyBrown on May 16th, 2012
Want to increase your blog traffic? Of course you do, but how? Ramping up the number of people who visit your blog can be much easier than you think. Check out some of these strategies for keep the visitors streaming in.
Analyze
If you haven’t yet, install Google Analytics and track your blog in detail. Which sites refer visitors to your site? Which pieces of content that you’re putting out are garnering the most traffic so you can better plan your future content? Use Google Analytics to answer these questions and more to hone in on how to streamline your site for the most traffic.
Socialize
Connect, connect, connect. Link your blog to active Facebook and Twitter accounts to grow your follower base. Many more people have these accounts than blogs, so this will definitely allow you to reach a larger audience. As you grow these accounts, also consider opening other accounts that will expand your base like accounts on YouTube and Flickr. This will also improve the diversity of your content – see “Visualize” below.
Visualize
Including visual content on your site through photos and illustration can have a profound impact on your site traffic for several reasons. One reason is that visual content engages the viewer and makes your site more exciting. This will almost always keep visitors on your site for longer periods of time. Another reason to do this is that content from your site will appear on Google Image search result pages. This creates another avenue for people to visit your site with content they are specifically looking for.
SEO-ize
Probably the most obvious of these suggestions, making your content SEO friendly will go far in garnering traffic from search results. There are loads of strategies that will make your blog more search engine friendly and differentiate yourself from the pack. SEO Book has some great tactics here that will boost your SEO in no time.
Socialize (Part 2)
In addition to having an active presence on multiple social networks, having a social presence in real-life will also go a long way. See what events are being held in your area and meet up with other tech-savvy bloggers, entrepreneurs, developers and designers to really promote your blog to others who have a strong online presence.
What are some of your ideas for increasing traffic for your blog? Let us know in the comments!
by McKinneyBrown on May 15th, 2012
Earlier this month, Google rolled out its new Google Webmaster Tools with revamped navigation, dashboard and homepage. We are so excited about the look and function of these new features that we wanted to share them with you!
Simple Reorganization
The new reorganization of Webmaster Tools features greatly increases its usability and overall flow. According to Google’s Webmaster Central Blog, Tools’ features are now organized as such:
Configuration: Things you configure and generally don’t change very often.
Health: Where you look to make sure things are OK.
Traffic: Where you go to understand how your site is doing in Google search, who’s linking to you; where you can explore the data about your site.
Optimization: Where you can find ideas to enhance your site, which enables us to better understand and represent your site in Search and other services.
Compact Layout
Another feature that should prove to be very helpful is the new compact layout of the dashboard. As in Gmail, you will now have the option to view the sites you manage in a roomy or more compact format. This compact option should make managing sites easier in general, especially for people who are managing many sites at once. If, however, for some reason you prefer a larger format, there is an option for that as well.
Site Summaries
Again, very useful for people who manage multiple sites at once, the site summaries feature will come in extremely handy. Upon logging into your Google Webmaster Tools account, you will have a brief summary of the status of all of your sites. This feature will allow you to check all of your sites in one glance and be immediately alerted for problems so that you can troubleshoot more effectively.
Message Prioritization
Finally, every message you receive will be automatically sorted and prioritized. This will further increase productivity and overall flow of management since your most important and pressing tasks will be given precedent over ones that are less important.
We would love to hear your thoughts on the new Google Webmaster Tools features! Let us know what you think in the comment section!
by McKinneyBrown on May 14th, 2012
In our last post, we talked to Mac users about effective ways to back up their data. Today we’re going to show PCs some love, and talk about backup strategies for the rest of us. Check out these tools and tactics to ensure your PC enshrined data is never completely lost.
Plug it in!
The most common form of backing up – simply grab a USB stick or an external hard drive and dump your data. While this clunky method is quickly being outpaced by sexier technology, you’ll have the piece of mind of having a copy of all of your important data right there with you.
Nearlining
A hot word in backup these days, nearlining is the practice of backing up your data to a storage site connected to your computer or in the same network. A service like this can immediately restore files right back into your computer to the exact location where it was before. Some great examples of this type of backup are Carbonite and Druva.
Remote backup
Remote backup allows your to store your data on a server (surprise) remotely. As unlikely as it is, if something happens to your computer and your external hard drive, you’ll be happy you took this special precaution. Check out Barracuda Networks or Iron Mountain to start backing up your own data remotely.
How do you back up your PC? Let us know in the comment section!
by McKinneyBrown on May 11th, 2012
Hello Everyone! Welcome back to the Weekly Round-up. This week we’re changing things up a bit by replacing out blog post links to section that highlights a particular topic and includes links to resources related to that topic. Let us know what you think in the comments!
Want us to cover a certain topic in next week’s digest? Tell us in the comments, and we’ll get on it.
HostNine links from the past week:
How to Speed Up Your Website
[WEB DESIGNER DEPOT]
How to Safeguard Your Site with HTML5 Sandbox
[SITEPOINT]
The Noob Guide to Link Building
[SEO MOZ]
5 Steps to Fix Broken Websites
[SITEPOINT]
Plugins for a More SEO Friendly WordPress:
Check out these plugins that will boost your presence on SERPs:
WordPress SEO by Yoast
WP HTTP Compression
ShareThis
Comments Box
HostNine Social Outlets:
Like HostNine on Facebook.
Follow us on Twitter.
Visit us on Google+.
Your Weekly Spot of Humor:
See you all on Monday!
by McKinneyBrown on May 10th, 2012
Backing up the data on your computer is important and should be a top priority, especially for those working in the tech space. However, it’s amazing how many people do not back up their data, or if they do, lack any sort of comprehensive strategy for keeping their stuff as secure as possible. In the next three posts, we’ll show you how to come up with some tactics to secure your data that will make sure it is as safe as it can be.
We’ll begin by talking about strategies and products to help you back up your Mac. There are three main ways to go about this, and to be on the safe side, you should employ all of them.
Online backup
With online backup, you can get all your files up and running without any additional software or any real hassle. In the event that you lose your data, you can reboot your computer and start working immediately. Have your stuff saved periodically with automated backups using programs like Carbon Copy Cloner and SuperDuper!
Nearline backup
Nearline backup means automated backup to another device that is attached or is in the same network as your computer. Nearline backups add some additional benefits to the mix as well, such as compression and incremental updates. Check out these Nearline backup providers that will do a great job at protecting your data: Time Machine and Retrospect.
Remote site backup
Finally, in the event that a tornado tears through your house or a similar geographically-focused disaster, save you data on some servers that are nowhere near you. Although this type of backup can be slow in getting you and your computer back on your feet, you never want to risk losing your data for good. Check out CrashPlan and Dropbox as good resources to back up your data remotely.
What strategies do you use to back up the data on your Mac? Let us know in the comments!
by Jim on May 9th, 2012
Today we’ll continue our two-part summary post on our favorite posts from A List Apart. Check out these great articles!
CSS Floats 101
This useful post provides some advanced tricks of the CSS trade to show how to create “floaters” that is, a box that shifted to the left or right of a current line with the option of having content flow along its side. Sound like something you could use for your site?
Future-Ready Content
How do you ensure that your content will be able to respond to advances in technology? After all, the internet is constantly evolving and adaptation is necessary. Despite these changes, however, there are a number of strategies to stay on top of your content game while planning for the future.
Getting Clients
Getting clients as a web developer or designer is not always easy. Sometimes you must resort to some classic tactics to get people to seek you out for their projects. This excerpt from Design Is A Job by Mike Monteiro is a fantastic resource for both designers and developers. Try out some of these methods to really get noticed and grow your client base!
Pricing Strategy for Creatives
How do you get the most out of your clients while still keeping them happy and giving them reason to come back? This is a dilemma faced by many designers and other creative types. This post offers some useful tips on how to maximize the quality of your and your client’s experience, from first meeting to final product.
Find anything else on A List Apart that’s noteworthy? Let us know about it in the comments!
by McKinneyBrown on May 8th, 2012
A List Apart is a great blog that publishes top-notch content that’s relevant to both designers and developers. We decided to dedicate two posts to some of its best articles- topics include A/B testing, determining user needs, and more!
Dive Into Responsive Prototyping With Foundation
This post introduces you to the new and powerful tool for website mockups: Foundation. This powerful, yet incredibly user-friendly tool generates just enough code to save you immense amounts of time, while still keeping you in control of the final design. Check out the screenshots below for a good idea of what Foundation is all about.
Audiences, Outcomes and Determining User Needs
This useful post successfully instructs you how to pair the needs of your users with your goals as a brand. While this may seem like an obvious relationship, connecting the two may be more difficult than you would think. This process involves building a healthy conversion rate for your visitors, while at the same time using the collective of their experiences to understand their needs. This information, when applied, encourages additional conversions and the process repeats itself.
A Primer on A/B Testing
You have probably seen many different tutorials on A/B testing since it’s one of the most common practices in fine tuning your CRO strategy. This article takes matters a few steps further by showing you examples of creating personas that fall in line with the metrics of your users, allowing for a more personalized and visual approach to your conversion goals.
Personality in Design
This dynamite post is a must read for anyone involved in the branding business. Using case studies from the VW Beetle to the MailChimp Monkey, this article shows you the vast and lasting importance of creating a (sometimes even anthropomorphized) personality for your brand. Make your product or service really come to life with these great tips!
Click around on A List Apart and see what useful articles you can find! Come across something interesting? Let us know in the comments!
by Jim on May 7th, 2012
Photo by andymangold
Thinking about launching a site or a revamp of your existing one? If you don’t quite have the skill to produce a look for yourself or want something more unique than a generic template, you’re going to need a designer. Below are some tips to help you find the perfect person for the job.
Know the distinct difference between designers and developers
Developers and designers can almost be compared to architects and interior designers. One’s job is to handle the functionality of a site, the other’s is to make sure everything looks nice. Very few web professionals have extensive experience in both fields, so be skeptical when someone claims to be highly skilled in development and design.
Seek out designers with diverse portfolios
This is one of the easiest ways to gauge if the potential designer is up to snuff to design your site. Don’t look for a designer that only puts out designs that all look the same. Even if that design is the look you’re searching for, the possibility that the designer will be able to skillfully deviate from the style is slim. Look for designers that have a plethora of designs in their portfolio for you to sift through. Chances are designers like this will be able to produce exactly what you want with much more skill and flexibility.
Look for a flat fee for an entire project as opposed to pay-per-page
You obviously want to keep things as cheap as you can, and this is a great tip to stay within the lines of your budget. Pay-per-page developers often end up costing much more than a flat rate project fee. A one-time project fee will also remove some of the guesswork in budgeting and remove some stress.
Check out reviews or get personal recommendations whenever possible
Ask around! Keep an eye out for websites that match the look you want and email the people who hired the designer or designers. Ask about pricing, customer service and the timeline of the project. Also check out online reviews of designers. Finally, many of the biggest freelancing development sites have review sections for your potential web professionals, so be sure to check those out if that is an option.
Look for comprehensive and straightforward proposals
As with any contract work, be sure your designer gives you a comprehensive and straightforward proposal before agreeing to work with him or her. As mentioned above, make sure you are paying for the whole project at once rather than paying per page. Also be sure to have a detailed timeline prepared so you have an idea of the designer’s progress throughout the designing process. In addition, don’t pay for anything you can get for free. Some bells and whistles like “premium search engine placement” you can get for free with Google.
Ready to get searching? Check out these great sites and job boards featuring some fantastic web designers:
The Smashing Magazine job board
Freelance Switch
37 Signals
Do you have any helpful advice for people looking for talented designers? Share them in the comments!
by McKinneyBrown on May 4th, 2012
Hello Everyone! Check out our blog posts and links from the previous week!
Also, we’d like to thank everyone who participated in our Content Survey earlier this week. We’re still curious to hear your opinions, so we’re making it available to you over the next few days. Click here to check it out.
HostNine Blog Posts from the past week:
HostNine Newsletter: Volume 2, Issue 4
How to Get Started with Reseller Hosting
Reseller Hosting Best Practices
5 Tips For Using Stock Photos
HostNine links from the past week:
Optimizing WordPress Loading Speed with header.php & .htaccess
WP TUTS PLUS
5 Ways to Learn Web Design: Which is Right for You?
DESIGN SHACK
Fighting the Silent Killer: Spam
THE HOSTING NEWS
Measuring Social Media Success
[CONTENTLY]
HostNine Social Outlets:
Like HostNine on Facebook.
Follow us on Twitter.
Visit us on Google+.
Weekly Spot of Humor:
by GeraudStaton on May 3rd, 2012
photo by deepwarren
We’re sure that some of you have a photography budget so that you can pay someone to take just the pictures you need to make the images on your blog fit exactly the way you want them too. For the rest of us, we often resort to stock photos. But even this has some rules the need to be followed. Don’t worry, we’ll guide you through the process.
If there’s anything we miss, or if you have some great tips for using stock photos, please leave them in the comment section.
1. Remember Your Brand
This is the first rule because often we get excited about a new medium, a tip we learned, or an opportunity to try a new procedure. In doing so, we sometimes stray from our original brand. This is something that you should consider from the beginning. If you’re putting forth a serious face for your company, maybe cats in straw hats aren’t the best photos for your column. On the other hand, if you are a fun and upbeat company be sure that the photos you use represent that. Use fewer corporate executives in suits and more, well, cats in straw hats.
2. Use Photos Properly
You know you shouldn’t just grab a photo from a Google image and plop it into your blog, though a lot of people do just that! You want to use photos that have a Creative Commons License. What that means is that, as a photographer, you want to allow people to use your photos but you don’t want companies to be able to sell them. What the photographer does want is credit.
You can find photos with a creative commons license using many different sources. We use Flickr and choose the advanced search options to look for photos with the creative commons license. Then, we just link the photos back to their source.
3. Common License Photos Don’t Have to Be Common
If you need a photo of a monkey, don’t choose the first one you find. Or even the first 10 you find. Dig a little deeper. Most photo sites rank according to popularity, which means that the first round of photos are the ones others are using. That group could be your competition!
Go a little deeper in, find something with a little more individuality. But you don’t have to stop there. Alter the photos that you do use. You can crop them, or change them to black and white. There’s no limit to what you can do. Just be sure to check the license of the photo to be sure alterations are allowable.
4. Make Sure the Photos Fit the Topic
Just because you CAN use a photo doesn’t mean that you SHOULD use a photo. Not only do you need to make sure your image fits your brand, but it needs to fit your subject as well. A confusing picture will leave your readers scratching their heads.
5. Don’t Use the Same Boring Images
We’ve seen enough families running on the beach, or two executives shaking hands, or a woman holding her baby. These images are as cliche as Star Wars quotes. Be creative and come up with something that will grab the reader’s attention and offer a little entertainment value.
Need some more? Here are a few links that will help you!
Flickr
This is the Advanced Search page of Flickr. You can find just about anything you need.
Creative Commons Search
This site is free and actually allows you to search for photos and music using multiple sites.
by H9Taylor on September 11th, 2011
One of the best features about our reseller hosting plan is the fact we have built our very own dashboard for our customers to manage THEIR customers. It is fast, robust with features, and quite easy to learn. Did I mention, it is really easy to learn?
We have recently launched a public demo of our dashboard and we would like you to try it out. Granted, you can’t do everything you would if you were a customer (for Technical and Security reasons) but you can get a really good idea of what you are getting when you signup for our reseller service. Click Here or the screenshot to check it out:
Click the link to demo Reseller Central
Here are some of the features you get out of the box…
Reseller Central Features:
- Automated Billing software included: Easy to setup a reoccurring monthly/bi-annual/annual payment system with your customers. No hassling with envelope-stuffing invoices or dealing with importing your data into a 3rd party billing software.
- Support/Ticket System- Don’t hassle with emails back and forth with customers. We give you the power to have your customers submit tickets so you can answer them on a timely basis.
- Worldwide Reselling- We don’t limit you to a specific country when hosting your customers websites. Go global and if customers want to move from one server to to another, country-to-country? Well, it is as easy as point and click (limited locations apply*).
So go ahead and give us a test drive– let us know what you think!
by Jim on November 18th, 2011
Finding the best WordPress resources can be a pain. How does one separate the wheat from the chaff when faced with 2 million results for “WordPress Tutorials”? There’s only so many hours in a day!
Here’s 6 reliable resources that will get you absorbing WP knowledge like a hungry sponge.
The best place to start for the newbie. Divided into 4 sections that touch on all the essentials: “WordPress for Beginners”, “Designing Your WordPress Site”, “Lessons for Theme Development”, and “Website Development”. Solid.
The official WordPress forums. Along with the WP documentation, there’s valuable, regularly updated information that stretches across any WP topic you can think of.
WP tuts is part of the “Plus” network of tutorial sites that cover everything from app development to Adobe’s Creative Suite. You’ll find helpful WordPress-focused articles, videos and tutorials that benefit users at any skill level.
Check out this collection of WordPress cheat sheets they put together. Good stuff.
Somewhat similar to WPtuts, the Smashing Magazine network collects the best articles and tutorials from across the web for WordPress users, and also covers topics related to design, web development and user experience. An endless resource.
Another great provider of info for the web professional or the newcomer interested in WordPress. You’ll find tutorials, podcasts, a bookstore, and online courses available for developers and designers for a reasonable price. Highly recommended.
While this contains content similar to the resources listed above, there’s also solid opinion and interview articles with WordPress experts. Looking for an experienced WordPress developer to make your site? There’s a easy-to-search directory of WordPress pros for hire.
by Jim on December 21st, 2011
The facts
Social media is no longer a “craze”. We’re less than a decade into its existence, and it has already been linked into just about every other media channel there is. Above all, it’s an essential component to growing an online business. Whether you’re a developer, designer, reseller, or self-obsessed web celebrity, a steady online presence on a variety of social networks is a must.
Is this you?
You like sharing videos on YouTube, but still like to Tweet and post to Tumblr and Facebook while maintaining an outpost on Google+. You have a strong online presence, but spend far too much time ping-ponging back and forth from network to network, logging in and out. You get a lot of followers on Twitter, but some of your profiles are beginning to collect digital dust from not being tended to. There’s a simple way to avoid this kind of disorganization- a social media dashboard.
What’s a social media dashboard?
A social media dashboard is a tool that lets you manage all your different social accounts in one place. You can post to multiple sites, set goals for campaigns, and most importantly, get a larger view of how your online reputation is doing across different channels. Here’s some of the main reasons why you need to jump on the dashboard train:
Collaboration
Do you have more than one person handling the social media duties in your organization? With a social media dashboard in your life, you and your team can share a broader view of what’s going on with your brand in the social world, and pool your resources so things get done faster.
Scheduling
Some dashboards provide you with the ability to schedule posts and Tweets, which can help to amp productivity during busy periods. Take care not to over-schedule, though- too much automated content can sometimes dilute the quality of your efforts and make everything sound too stilted.
Analytics
As social media marketing budgets have increased, there has been a growing emphasis on the measurability of social initiatives. What are you doing with your social media campaign? How does it benefit your bottom line? Do you have measurable goals? Social dashboards can help you find out how many people you’re engaging, and provide insight into who follows the links you’re posting, among other things.
Many dashboards also let you can create reports that can help you provide concrete explanations for why a campaign is succeeding or falling on its face. If social media is a large part of your job, and you need to produce actionable insights and results related to your social presence on a consistent basis, a social dashboard application is an a essential component for your day to day tasks.
A great tool
HootSuite is a free social media dashboard tool that performs all of the aforementioned tasks, and more. Some of its features include:
It’s free
HootSuite costs nothing. You have the option of upgrading to a “pro” account (which eliminates ads and gives the ability to customize reports and profiles), but there’s also plenty of great features in the free version.
No downloads
HootSuite is a third-party application that doesn’t hog space on your computer, because there’s nothing to download! You can tweet and post without the added hassles of another application gumming up the works on your laptop/desktop.
Thorough analytics integration
HootSuite lets you integrate your Google Analytics and Facebook Insights accounts into your dashboard, so you can create customizable reports from a variety of different perspectives.
Endless resources
HootSuite also provides a large, diverse archive of video tutorials for users. They cover everything from the basics of using HootSuite to the ins and outs of maximizing your social media efforts. There’s an entire series called “HootSuite University” and a live chat called #HSUchat that helps to steer users towards new heights in social media.
A new tool for a new year
Social media is only going to keep growing into 2012 and beyond, so there’s no reason to succumb to time-wasting traps that hinder productivity. Getting the right tool can make a world of difference for you and your organization.
Click here to check out HootSuite and take the first steps towards getting your social media strategy right for 2012!
by Jim on December 28th, 2011
Welcome to the final HostNine Newsletter of 2011!
UK-based VPS and US-based Dedicated Servers are on Sale!
15% off our UK-based VPS hosting plans.
Click here to take advantage of this offer.*
25% off dedicated servers!
We’ll give you 25% off your order when you purchase a US-based dedicated server plan!**
Coupon code: DedicatedSale
Click here to order!
Specifics about this offer can be found here
What’s New
New Amsterdam server location for Reseller accounts
In our ongoing effort to give our customers and resellers access to different server locations across the globe, we’re happy to announce our new data center in Amsterdam!
What’s Next
Tell us your story!
You may have noticed that our homepage has a new, fresh look to it. We’re still in the process of remaking some other pages, with the goal of sharing what HostNine is all about. We also want to showcase some of the people and businesses that have helped HostNine to succeed. Here’s how you can get involved (and get a bit of free publicity in the process)!
1) Send an email to newsletter@hostnine.com with a company logo or photo of you and your team (no larger than 250px by 250px).
2) Provide a short paragraph of your hosting story or how HostNine has helped and include your first name, last initial, company name and position in the company.
That’s it! We’ll be in contact if we use your story on our website.
Thank you for your support through 2011. We look forward to serving you in 2012!
The HostNine Team
* Discount is only available for customers who upgrade from their current package or are buying a new UK-VPS package. Our team of Support Technicians will review orders before migration and notify you if you do not meet any requirements. The promotional value lasts approximately 1 year from when you sign up or upgrade with the UK-VPS package. At that time, we cannot guarantee your discounted price for your plan will roll over past 1 year.
** Discount is only available for customers who upgrade from their current package or are buying a new US Dedicated Server package. Our team of Support Technicians will review orders before migration and notify you if you do not meet any requirements. The promotional value lasts approximately 1 year from when you sign up or upgrade with the US Dedicated Server package. At that time, we cannot guarantee your discounted price for your plan will roll over past 1 year.
by Jim on January 4th, 2012
Welcome! The Customer Spotlight is a new feature for the HostNine blog, where we’ll be taking a peek at one of our customer’s sites. Our inaugural post is about a company called “PyroFactor”, an organization that specializes in creating fireworks displays.
Who are you?
Mathew Ierston. I am the owner of PyroFactor, the UK’s most exciting and dynamic fireworks display team. We specialize in customizing and creating unique displays for all types of outdoor and indoor events. We cover everything from controlled on stage explosions to full city centre firework displays. Our team bring the WOW factor to any event. You can see the other types of events we handle here.
Where is your website?
www.pyrofactor.com
What makes your website interesting?
My website is simple, fast-loading and dynamic. It was created using WordPress, and is hosted on HostNine’s UK shared hosting servers.
Thanks for participating, Mathew! You’ve got a pretty interesting business!
Do you like free publicity? Interested in spreading the word about your H9-hosted site? Look no further! Fill out this short form, and we’ll be in touch.
by Jim on January 12th, 2012
Happy belated 2012 from HostNine. For the last couple months of 2011, we’ve been collecting and posting a wide range of links on our various social media channels. We want to share helpful resources with our customers (and passers-by) to deepen their existing knowledge of important things like content creation, WordPress, web design best practices, SEO and more. We want to help you make your website (or someone else’s) the best it can be in the new year and beyond.
If you have some specific resources or topics you’d like to see featured in the HostNine blog, give us a shout on Facebook, Twitter or G+. We’re always happy to help!
WORDPRESS RESOURCES
This flexible, free and extremely popular (over 65 million downloads as of December 2011) content management system is the first choice for many Webmasters and bloggers. This list of links covers everything from security best practices to plug-ins and site optimization.
15-Step Checklist To Creating The Perfect WordPress Website
The Best WordPress Tutorials of 2011 on WPBeginner
The 14 Best WordPress Plugins For Social Media And SEO Optimized Sites For 2012
10 Tips To Optimize Your WordPress Theme
Top WordPress Security Plugins for 2012 | Web Sigmas
11 Quick Tips: Securing Your WordPress Site | Wptuts+
WordPress Security: Seven Ways I Could Hack Into Your WordPress Site
SEO / DIGITAL MARKETING / BUSINESS RESOURCES
Make your site more visible. Learn SEO. Increase conversions.
Grassroots SEO – Strategy, Process & Life Cycle
Five Questions to Streamline Your Keyword Research
How To Increase Conversions by 50% Overnight » SitePoint
Building Links & Driving Traffic with How To Posts
Sales Oriented Website Needs
5 Ways to Turn Social Customers Into Brand Ambassadors
CONTENT GENERATION RESOURCES
Sure, you can write, but can you write for the web? Learn more about idea generation, blogging best practices, copywriting, headline writing, and more.
How to Write Great Blog Content
A 5-Minute Guide to More Persuasive Copywriting
Ideas for Creative (& Efficient) Content Generation
Proven Headline Formulas | Steal These Formulas For Your Next Blog Post…
WEB DESIGN RESOURCES
No matter what your level of familiarity/unfamiliarity is with web design principles, it helps to understand the basics. Remember- it’s code, words and pictures, not rocket science!
Clear Indications That It’s Time To Redesign
The State Of Web Design Trends 2012
Don’t Fear the Internet (A fantastic primer on HTML/CSS for non-designers)
Building A Website In Progressive Steps (a series of screencasts that goes through the process of designing and building a website)
by Jim on January 18th, 2012
For those wanting to start an Internet business, reseller web hosting is a great choice. It has a low start up cost, and is profitable for those who are dedicated to making it work. A reseller is an individual who purchases bulk web space, packages it and sells it to others who are seeking to establish a presence on the web.
As with any offline business, a reseller web hosting setup should be taken seriously. It requires planning and financial management in order to thrive. The following list outlines important points to consider when going into the reselling business.
Research the Market
The first and most vital step is to conduct research. Valuable information and advice can be gained by speaking with people who are already running a reseller web hosting business. Looking into how the direct competition does things can provide valuable insight as well, especially in niche markets.
Setup the Business
When choosing the business and domain name, it’s always best to keep things simple. The domain name should be easy to remember and the company name should complement it. The company name should also be properly registered with a county clerk, and a bank account opened under the name of the business.
Some people may wish to incorporate a business or form an LLC. As there are a number of different structures and legal issues at stake, getting a tax accountant or attorney involved in the process may be quite helpful. Anyone starting a company should always familiarize themselves with local business laws.
photo by Jamison_Judd
Find a Provider
A search for web hosts that offer reseller packages should be done and narrowed down by reputation and reliability. Packages and cost can differ quite a bit from one host to another, so it pays to shop around. The right host will offer a balance of desired features with affordable cost.
Entry level reseller packages are usually offered at the shared hosting level, which is suitable for beginners. There should be options for future upgrades to VPS or dedicated server environments, to allow for growth.
A good way to test a potential host’s reliability is to live chat or make a forum post to the sales department and see how fast the response is. A good host will not mind answering presales questions.
Build a Site
The reseller hosting website is what potential clients see first, so it is a worthy investment to have it professionally designed. It should load fast and clearly explain what services are being offered, along with price. The sign up process should be easy to find and execute, and the entire site should have effective navigation.
Utilizing a billing software platform (such as WHMCS) to run in tandem with the website can be a big time saver and a great organizational tool. It can automatically keep track of invoices and payments, and send alerts when action needs to be taken.
Good search engine optimization, or SEO, is necessary for a high search engine placement. Consulting with an SEO expert can give the reseller business an extra step up, especially at the beginning.
Running a reseller web hosting business has the benefit of being relatively low cost while bringing in a steady stream of profit. It also does not require an extensive knowledge of servers and hardware, as this aspect is the responsibility of the hosting provider. Not having to worry about the technical side allows the reseller to concentrate on bringing in clients and focusing on quality, first level service to them.
While a reseller business is relatively easy to start up, it does require dedication and hard work to be successful, just like any other company. Customers and revenue are not guaranteed, so the reseller must commit to an excellent standard of service in order to build a solid reputation. A good website and solid SEO are necessary tools but nothing beats word of mouth, or a great online review.
With the ongoing economic crisis and high unemployment, many people are looking for ways to generate extra income. Starting a reseller web hosting business may be a good option without a lot of upfront cost.
by Jim on January 24th, 2012
The best SEO practices have not changed all that much over time, and the essential points will continue to remain steadfast. In order to get your webpage to rank high, you need to deliver quality content that is optimized. There are multiple search engines, so what may work for one, may not prove effective for another. It’s imperative that you utilize proper SEO techniques if you want your webpage to succeed. Content is king, and luckily, you can control what is placed on your webpage. You need not hire a consultant; just follow these easy steps to start ranking yourself for the right reasons!
Step One: Write for the user, not the search engine.
Everyone always assumes that when you are writing for SEO, you are writing for the search engines, but in reality you should be focused on writing for your readers. Keywords should be properly tagged and utilized throughout the article. For example, if you are devoting a website to helping others buy property, you need to utilize as much information as you can that is relevant to that topic. You may choose to enlist various topics on interest rates, home buying tips, foreclosure opportunities, financing your property and so on.
Step Two: Write quality content in a focused area
Content is extremely important in implementing a killer website. Anyone can take a few minutes and set up a website in no time at all, but having the proper content is what is going to matter in the long run. You need content that is useful, informative and helpful for the readers. The content needs to be kept current through a consistent stream of updates. Having quality content and a unique voice that stands out above the rest is what is going to set your site apart from all of the others. It may not be necessary to write a new piece every day, but you should make sure that you are taking the time to gather information and allow your readers a chance to absorb what you are providing them.
Step Three: Give credit where credit is due
If you can provide links to other websites, that is a great way to showcase what others may have to say about the topic you carry on your website. A lot of people fear that having a bunch of links will essentially drive away visitors, but this is actually false. You will receive far more positive views about the subject rather than having any negative impact. Make sure that your links are directed toward trusted sites and not just anyone. Once you’re writing information that’s helpful and/or entertaining for your readers, you’re ready to move onto advanced tactics like guest blogging, link building, and social media— all vital pieces of the SEO puzzle. There is a plethora of extensive research and detailed information regarding SEO and the science of search available from reputable brands on the internet; we recommend SEOMoz and Search Engine Land, both of which are ethically conscious thought leaders who are well-known and respected in the search industry.
by Jim on January 31st, 2012
Welcome to the first HostNine Monthly Newsletter of 2012!
As always, we will keep our content short and relevant.
Any questions? Contact us at newsletter@hostnine.com, and a real human being will respond quickly.
US-Based Dedicated Servers are on Sale!
For a very limited time, HostNine is offering 25% off US-based Dedicated Server Packages.
Click here to take advantage of this special offer!
This offer expires 2/15/2012.
Coupon code: DedicatedSale
HostNine Social Feeds +HostNine Blog = Resources For Your Business
Be sure to check out HostNine’s social feeds! We’ve been stocking our Twitter, Facebook and Google+ pages with helpful information related to hosting, analytics, content creation, and other things geared towards helping you run a great online business.
Click here to go to the HostNine blog for a round-up of the best links we’ve found over the last few months.
Do you have any topic suggestions for us? Tweet at us, or give us a holler on Facebook or Google+.
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Thanks for reading! See you next month!
by Jim on February 13th, 2012
Getting a basic website up and running is easy nowadays thanks to popular Content Management Systems like WordPress and Drupal. These programs allow anyone to administer a gorgeous, full-featured dynamic website regardless of coding ability. If you’d like to take your website to the next level, there are plenty of sites online that offer useful web design tutorials. Here are six of the best that are currently available.
W3 Schools
If you don’t know an “id” tag from a “class” tag and lack a basic understanding of how HTML, CSS and Javascript work,W3 Schools should be your first destination. Though it’s frowned upon by self-appointed web design snobs and can be a bit basic, it’ll provide some much-needed grounding in the fundamentals if you’re a complete “noob”. When it comes to web design training wheels, it’s tough to beat W3 Schools.
Six Revisions
For years, Six Revisions has provided a limitless supply of handy tutorials and how-to guides on all things web design. Their material ranges in difficulty from absolute beginner to full-blown expert-level and includes everything in between. Their tutorials are organized based on their web design sub-discipline, giving you handy tips on things like AJAX techniques and PHP back-end coding. It’s easily one of the most comprehensive tutorial sites for designers on the web.
Smashing Magazine
We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention the grandaddy of web design tutorial sites, Smashing Magazine, in our master list. In addition to its own amazing material, its related ecosystem of affiliated web design sites, the Smashing Network, fills in the blanks. Whether you need to turn a Photoshop-designed PSD file into a pixel-perfect web design or just create a fluid layout for mobile devices, Smashing Magazine has all the bases covered.
Nettuts+
For a more in-depth, technical look at the low-level markup and coding required for intermediate and advanced web design, Nettuts+ is the place to go. Boasting net tutorials that are a cut above the rest, Nettuts+ offers guides on every kind of web design technique imaginable. Their guest writers are culled from the ranks of the finest web designers on the planet, so any advice you find among their pages is almost always topnotch and up to date.
Web Monkey
Backed by the popular tech news publication Wired, Web Monkey is an underrated source for web development tutorials and step by step guides. Overall, they offer some of the best web design and coding tutorials around and make learning web development easy and hassle-free. If you need to modify a WordPress theme and don’t know how to get started, Web Monkey will show where to begin.
A List Apart
The thinking man’s tutorial portal, A List Apart is a great way to explore the theory of effective design and learn a practical trick or two at the same time. A List Apart is well-known for its focus on user experience and aesthetic perfection. If you’re trying to figure out how to tweak your current theme or web layout just so, A List Apart probably has an article addressing your query.
Gaining proficiency in web design and development can take years to fully master both the fundamentals and the finer points. To get up to speed on the basics, the aforementioned tutorial sites will give you a great start. In addition to those stellar web design learning sites, CSS-Tricks and 24ways.org are also terrific options for upping your game. In any event, anybody with the desire to learn can pick up some deft web design chops from online web design tutorial sites.
by Jim on February 14th, 2012
One of the most essential elements to any website these days is imagery. Everyone has graphics for everything. Logos are everywhere, pictures accompany every blog post, and everyone has a profile picture stapled to their account. Not everyone takes their own pictures, however, and many people simply search up an image and download it for their own use.
The problem with this method is that such photos may not be available for use. Online copyright is a sticky business, and it’s virtually impossible to determine from search results what license a photo falls under. Most of the time no one will care when you use such a photo, but you never want to deal with the hassle of having someone send a cease and desist order or worse.
To avoid that problem, the best option is to use stock photographs that are specifically published under licenses for use. These photos can have varying use agreements. Some allow only the stock image, while others allow editing. Still others require a copyright to be added to the post the image is attached to. It’s important to view these license agreements before you use a stock image. Of course, you also have to find the stock images you want to use in the first place. Here are a few good places to look. All of these stock photo websites provide free stock photos, meaning you don’t have to pay a cent.
Stock.xchng is the best of the best when it comes to free stock photos. They have over three hundred thousand images available to be searched for and used for whatever project you might require. More are being added every day. While you have to make an account to access the images and use them, it’s free and well worth it.
What’s more is that Stock.xchng is owned by Getty Images, who are the leaders in stock photos and other such websites. They offer high security to ensure all of their images are safe. Their servers and hardware are powerful and ensure the site will never go down when you need it to be up.
They also offer a number of tutorials and other helpful resources, which are excellent for anyone in need of a little help in their blogging or web presence. Altogether they are one of the best sites available for stock photography and images.
Morgue File is another excellent stock image resource. Every image on Morgue File is covered under one license, which allows a number of things. All images can be altered to any degree and used for any purpose, even commercial uses. In addition they don’t need to have their copyright information or backlink added. The ‘strings’ attached are: you cannot resell the image without alteration and cannot claim ownership of the unaltered image. Any or all of those caveats can be waived with permission from the image owner.
Morgue File does not have the same number of images that Stock.xchng offers, but their license is simple and easy to comprehend. This makes them an ideal resource because you know the deal won’t change between images. Plus they have the occasional contest and prize for budding photographers to contribute.
These two sites aren’t the only ones by far, but they’re simple and excellent choices. Other sites offer small images and require money for larger versions, or have paid subscriptions, or charge for every image. Compared to those alternatives, these two options are the best. Never pay for a stock image again and make your blog posts and websites filled with attractive images.
Flickr
Although most of Flickr’s photos are copyright protected, there are ways to fine-tune your search so you can access images that fall under a Creative Commons license. Don’t pass up this option- you’d be surprised at the volume of great pictures at your disposal! Click here for specific instructions on how to do specific searches in Flickr.
What tools do you use to access royalty-free images? Let us know in the comments.
by Jim on February 15th, 2012
Digging into some keyword research? These six tools will help you stay on top of the competition and make sure your site is getting as much traffic as possible. We’re looking at a lot of Google-based tools here, but if you’re using any other helpful tools we didn’t list, let us know in the comments.
Google Analytics:
Although Google Analytics is an ever-evolving tool that provides an extremely wide range of services for tracking web traffic, it’s especially useful for those diving into SEO and researching keywords.
Google Insights for Search:
Originally intended to assist in pay-per-click advertising campaigns, Google Insights for Search has evolved to meet other needs of keyword researchers. This tool tracks the volume of specific keywords and offers a tremendous volume of suggested keywords. Google Insights for Search is thus a good tool if you have time to manually sift through many keywords and apply them to your own site.
Google AdWords:
This tool gives you a list of suggested keywords based on an initial list that you construct. It also how competitive particular keywords are and the number of Google searches it receives every month. What sets Google AdWords apart is that is has three distinct “match types” for keywords: phrase matches, exact matches and broad matches.
A phrase match will match similar phrases to a given search, for example, the phrase “shop for cheap winter jackets” would be a match for the phrase “winter jackets.” A broad match retrieves synonyms for a given phrase. For example, a broad match for the phrase “winter jackets” would be matched with the phrase “winter coats.” An exact match (as it sounds) only returns matches to the exact phrase “winter coats.”
Google Trends for Websites:
Google Trends for Websites is a rather simple tool that allows you to track the traffic of your website over time. This, however, can be a powerful resource for generating more traffic on your website in that Google Trends gives you keywords your visitors searched for, their geographical locations, and other sites that they visited. This tool can also track seasonal trends if your site is sensitive to fluctuations in seasonal-related traffic.
Alexa:
Alexa is a great resource for people using keyword research to optimize their website. The site allows you to access data about your own website and your competitors’ sites through traffic statistics and search analytics. The site also gives information on the demographics of people visiting the site, with breakdowns for age, education, gender, location, and more. Alexa also features a “Reviews” page that lets Alexa users comment on particular sites.
by Jim on February 16th, 2012
Curious about the world of web design and programming, but not sure where to start? You’re not alone. Here’s a few resources that offer tutorials for beginners, and helpful information for designers and programmers at all skill levels.
If you know of any good sites we didn’t list, post links to them in the comments!
W3 Schools
W3 Schools is a fantastic site dedicated to teaching web developers at all levels. This is a great place to start with very basic HTML and CSS and eventually move on to more complicated things if you choose. The site’s “Tryit” editor allows you to type in HTML and CSS on one side of the screen and see the resulting “site” on the other side. This feature is incredibly helpful as you can track your progress incrementally as you hone your skills.
Don’t Fear the Internet
Specifically geared for non-web designers, Don’t Fear the Internet gives basic tutorials of HTML and CSS in easy-to-understand videos. The site also features tools explaining in detail exactly how the internet works and what the role of your own development plays into it.
WebDesignTuts
WebDesignTuts is another site that has resources for everyone from the beginner to the advanced programmer. This site puts you in charge by categorizing tutorials by topics, difficulty, estimated completion, and in some cases, additional requirements. This is a good resource since it is organized in such a way as to maximize your time and by allowing you to advance quickly through HTML and CSS and on to more advanced topics.
Some of you who really want to dive in might enjoy this article from WebDesignTuts that highlights some of the current trends in web design. The article does a great job to catch you up on when is currently hot in web development.
Lynda.com
Lynda.com provides a great service to the beginning developer through a paid subscription. While this may deter some novices, the site is a solid resource that is very well organized and presented. The service prides itself on giving you control over your own learning experience. By constructing itself as a virtual library, Lynda allows you to do anything from looking up a complex answer to a question on its database to diving into tutorials that are hours long. Each tutorial also gives its duration time, letting you plan and manage your time effectively. It should also be noted that Lynda not only offers tutorials on web development, but also topics ranging from Photoshop to 3D and animation.
Tutorial Guide
Tutorial guide is a massive database for self-teaching materials. Like Lynda, it features a slew of differnent topics other than HTML and CSS. Unlike Lynda, however, the site is free of charge. The catch though, is that the information on the site is not very well organized, and you may find yourself looking longer than you would like for certain tutorials. For the patient and frugal however, look no further than Tutorial Guide.
by McKinneyBrown on February 17th, 2012
Hello HostNine Blog readers! Since we’re going to be posting content on a daily basis at the H9 Blog, we thought we’d close every week out with a “digest”-style post that rounds up what we’ve posted and shared from Monday through Thursday.
Also, let us know in the comments if there’s anything you’d like to see here, or on our Facebook, Twitter or G+ pages.
This Week’s HostNine Blog Posts
6 Awesome Web Design Tutorial Sites
The Best Places to Find Stock Photos for Free
5 Free Keyword Research Tools
Web Design and Programming Tutorial Sites
Social Links From The Week
Data Visualization Principles: Lessons from Tufte
SEOmoz
Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Preparing your site for a traffic spike
OFFICIAL GOOGLE WEBMASTER CENTRAL BLOG
How to Write Blog Posts For Your Existing and Repeat Customers
GREYWOLF’S SEO BLOG
Use WordPress as a CMS (Content Management System)
WPTUTS+
Socialize with HostNine
Join H9 on Facebook.
Follow us on Twitter.
Visit us on Google+.
And now, a comic.
See you next week!
by Jim on February 20th, 2012
The following are five fantastic SEO plugins for your WordPress site that should prove incredibly helpful in increasing your traffic:
All in One SEO Pack
This all-in-one SEO pack automatically optimizes your WordPress site. Some of its features include Google Analytics support and automatic optimization for titles within your site. Since this plugin automatically optimizes your content, it’s good for people who don’t have as much SEO or WordPress experience.
SEO Rank Reporter
Another fairly self-explanatory plugin, SEO Rank Reporter tracks your Google rankings every three days. This simple plugin is a great tool for tracking the traffic flow to your site in graphs that are easy to interpret.
SEO SmartLinks
SEO SmartLinks is another plugin that automatically optimizes your WordPress site. SmartLinks does this by linking keywords and phrases in your posts and comments with corresponding posts, pages, categories and tags on your blog.
SEO Ultimate
Another all-in-one SEO package allows you to manually manage title tags, autolinks, 404 errors and more. SEO Ultimate is perfect for a user who has some experience in WordPress and SEO and prefers to control asptects of their site’s SEO themselves.
WordPress SEO by Yoast
Developed by a WordPress SEO consultant and WordPress developer, WordPress SEO by Yoast is a fantastic all-in-one SEO tool. While the plugin takes care of most of the technical aspects of SEO automatically, a few features are left up to your control. For example, when writing articles for your site, the plugin forces you to select key words and ensures that you focus that particular word.
by Jim on February 22nd, 2012
photo by The Booklight
Choosing the right domain name for a website is a critical element of any internet entrepreneur’s marketing strategy. The right domain name will help generate traffic by helping your website feature prominently in search engine results, and by making your website easy to share via word of mouth advertising. Before you register your domain name and build your website, you should consider your domain name carefully to optimize positioning for your online business. Five simple strategies can help you select the best domain name for your site.
1) Include one of your top keywords in your domain name.
Consider your niche and use a keyword research tool to find words and phrases that Internet users will search for when looking for your products and services. For example, if you plan to launch a website to provide car insurance quotes, you might include “car insurance,” “auto insurance, “insurance quotes,” or “buy insurance” in your domain name. This can help you appear more prominently in search engine results, which will bring you more organic traffic.
Keep in mind that you should factor in competition when choosing a keyword for your domain name. Ideally, the keyword you choose should have high search volume and low competition.
2) Make your domain name relevant to your website content.
This helps fulfill your visitors’ expectations so they will stay on your site. If visitors do not perceive your content as relevant to the domain name, they will quickly leave, and you will lose potential sales. For example, before you choose a domain name that contains “gardening tools,” make sure that your site contains information that is useful for visitors interested in gardening tools. If your website’s content is primarily about other aspects of gardening, such as buying seeds or determining the best time to plant a garden, your visitors might not consider your website useful for their needs.
3) Make your domain name easy to share.
You want visitors to remember the domain name so they can tell their friends, coworkers and family members about it. Avoid adding hyphens between words, which makes the domain difficult to remember. Also, stay away from extensions other than .com, since people commonly associate this extension with every website. If you opt for a .net or .tv extension, word of mouth referrals will have difficulty finding your website. The exception to this rule is using .mobi to create a separate version of your site that is compatible with cell phones and other portable devices.
4) Keep your domain name as short as possible.
Long domain names are difficult to type, and visitors looking for your site often make mistakes that take them to a “page not found” page, or even worse, a competitor’s website. Keeping your website domain name short helps minimize the risk of losing customers because of typing errors. A short domain name also works better on offline promotional materials, such as brochures and business cards, which may offer limited space.
5) Make your domain name unique.
Although a domain name is uniquely yours when you purchase it through a domain registrar, you may run into problems if it is similar to the domain name of an established, branded business. Make sure that a visitor looking at your domain name would be led to believe that he is visiting a branded competitor’s website. Deceptively similar domain names can result in legal issues if the branded company believes the similarity was intentional.
Using these strategies can help you develop a strong domain name that will set you apart from your competitors, and will help you efficiently build your business online.
by Jim on February 21st, 2012
picture by Dvortygirl
Blogging or running a content website itself isn’t very difficult in theory, you just write about 400 words for a post and then upload it onto your CMS. The problem is continuing to deliver interesting posts, especially if you’ve been at it for a few years and you can’t think of a single new thing about your topic of expertise. Instead of throwing up your arms and quitting in an infantile rage, why not utilize the endless resources of the Internet? This list will show you six of the best tools available online to help ease your writer’s block.
Quora
This is a Q&A website, but there are many ways you can use it. For example, say you write about Web hosting. Type that into the search bar, and Quora will show you a list of questions on that topic. These make great subjects for articles. Not only that, but this is a great research tool. Unlike most other Q&A websites, business executives normally answer the questions, which gives you good information for your post.
Google Keyword Tool
You might already be using this to think of keywords for your posts, but if not, now is the time to get acquainted. You start by typing in a keyword, like Web hosts, and the Google Keyword Tool will bring up keywords that people search that are related to your term.By looking through the keywords, you will know what people are searching for, and you can think of a keyword to center your post around.
KISSinsights
There may be people already messaging you, asking you to make posts about a certain subject. But most of the time, your readers aren’t doing that. By using this tool, you can insert a survey box into your website where you can directly ask people what type of content they would like to see. This can give you a whole new world of perspective on your topic, and can easily give you new topics to write about.
Delicious
Here you will find a social bookmarking website where people bookmark their favorite websites. By entering your search term, you can find out what websites are popular in your field. Then, just read through their content and get an idea of what they are posting, and you may feel the creative juices flowing.
Wordtracker Keyword Questions
People are always asking questions about your particular niche topic, but it can be hard to find these questions and be inspired by them. With Wordtracker’s tool, you are able to type in a keyword, and then it will return a list of questions centered on your keyword. You can then make a post that answers this question, or you may think up an entirely different topic. Regardless, this is a powerful tool that can help you think of a new topic.
Yahoo Answers
While Yahoo Answers typically does not have the same experts that you can find on Quora, it does have one distinct advantage: a much larger user base. This means that, on average, you can find more questions dealing with your keyword. Just type in your keyword, and a huge list of questions will appear. It is usually best to use some of their filters to find the best topics, as you will normally find pages and pages of topics.By using these six tools, you should be able to get enough inspiration to fill your site’s editorial calendar for months and years to come.
by Jim on February 23rd, 2012
As a webmaster, you want to be able to track the web traffic to your site – where these people are coming from, what keywords they’re searching for, and what pages visitors love. All this information is vital to the running of your website. You’ll get a better idea of how to move forward and what kind of content to continue providing in order to grow your site. This is no easy task, but with the help of the right analytics solutions, you can make this a much smoother process. Here are 5 great web analytics tools you can use:
1) Google Analytics
This right here is one of the best solutions for web analytics. A good number of websites out there utilize this tool as it’s made by the king of search engines. Compared to the majority of web analytics solutions, Google Analytics is quite robust, detailing the usual number of visitors, bounce rate, and keyword search phrases used by site users in the best way possible. The interface is easy to navigate and understand, thus making this analytics tool an enjoyable experience.
The only downside to using Google Analytics is privacy. Many webmasters, especially those that rely upon search engine optimization for traffic, have dumped Google Analytics for alternatives because of the amount of data that Google can get on your website. So for any of you using SEO on your site, look into one of the other alternatives on this list.
2) StatCounter
StatCounter has been around for years and was the go-to free analytics tool for people on free sites like Geocities and MySpace blogs. For most people, it gets the job done even if it doesn’t present the data in the most user-friendly way possible.
This analytics tool did get a recent user interface facelift, giving a more web 2.0 feel, yet it still might be a bit too basic for most users. If you can get past the clunky feel to StatCounter and only need basic data like the number of daily visitors and their sources, then all you might need is StatCounter.
3) Woopra
Woopra is another free analytics solution, although there is a monthly limit to how many visitors it can track per website. For those webmasters with high traffic websites, this might not be your main solution, but for someone who wants some robust analytics for smaller sites, Woopra is what you want.
The only downside to Woopra is its weird way of tracking bounce rates. Rather than showing an actual percentage, it states the number of visitors who didn’t stay on your site for long, forcing you to manual calculate the bounce rate. Other than that, Woopra is top-notch. You also have the ability to initiate a chat with visitors.
4) Piwik
As long as you don’t mind hosting this web application yourself, Piwik gives you the power of Google Analytics without the search engine giant snooping into your data. Best of all this web app is free. You really need to spend the time in configuring Piwik and updating it yourself, but for the value you get, it’s worth it.
5) Clicky Web Analytics
For someone who wants the closest solution to Google Analytics without having to host anything yourself, Clicky Web Analytics is easily the best out there. As long as your site doesn’t get over 3000 daily page views and you don’t need extra features, you might only need a free account.
Clicky also offers monthly and yearly paid plans that might be appropriate for webmasters with multiple websites that all get large amounts of traffic. Its clean, easy-to-use interface sets it apart from the competition. Even if you do have to pay for a premium account, think of that data as potential earnings. That data can be used to find appropriate media buyers in your niche.
Regardless of which app you choose, knowing your web traffic is crucial to keeping your site alive and moving things forward. If you don’t already have web analytics on your website, try out one of the five above today.
by McKinneyBrown on February 24th, 2012
Hello readers! Here’s a round-up of the links and content we’ve posted on the HostNine blog throughout the week. If you’d like to see us cover a certain topic in the future, let us know in the comments!
This Week’s HostNine Blog Posts:
HostNine Social Links From The Week:
WordPress Multisite Beyond the Basics Essentials and Domain Mapping
TUTS+
Determining Which Plugins are Slowing Your Site Down
WPTAVERN
Free Photoshop Alternatives for Editing Photos
NOUPE
Convert Your WordPress Theme to HTML 5
TUTS+
HostNine Social Outlets:
Like HostNine on Facebook.
Follow us on Twitter.
Visit us on Google+.
To close out, here’s some humor from Toothpaste for Dinner:
See you all next week!
by Jim on February 26th, 2012
(photo by Kevin Dooley)
If you’re running your own online businessNothing is more important to the bottom line then your ability to convert customers. As your customer conversion represents the number of people who actually purchase your product or service, this is the statistic that will keep your company in business and your employees happy with a paycheck.
Here are a few techniques you can employ to increase your customer conversion by optimizing your conversion rate.
1. Market segmentation strategy
What market segmentation strategy means in the online universe is taking Pareto’s rule to the extreme. With all the free analytics that you can get through the major search engine companies, you have all of the statistics that you need to segment your market into the people who provide you with most of your sales versus the people who just stop by and visit without buying.
Before you get into converting the visitors, you must optimize your core audience. Do so by testing different pricing strategies and action campaigns on that particular segment. Give them the majority of the free deals and the introductory offers. If there is someone with the same demographic as your high conversion audience that has not been converted, they should be your first priority.
2. Optimize your stickiness
The longer that people stay on your website, the more likely they are to become a true customer. After 5 min., according to MarketWatch, their potential for conversion goes up 10% for every additional minute they spend.
You can optimize your stickiness by streamlining your organization straight to the sale. You can do this by offering your loss leaders quite early, especially on the mobile platform. On the mobile platform, people are 90% more likely to be in a “purchasing mood,” which means that you can get them used to purchasing your products almost immediately. Do not be afraid to put your best deal on the landing page and a link directly to your e-commerce cart.
3. Increase your search engine optimization listings
Studies have shown that not only do people click on the listings that are ranked more highly in search engine listings, but they trust them more as well. There is also another stat known as “ubiquity” which is gaining traction as a way to gain trust more quickly with your customer base, which has a direct effect on your customer conversion rate.
Ubiquity means the amount of exposure that you receive on the Internet at same time, giving you the impression of being an established brand. One instance of ubiquity would be if you had your landing page, your how-to blog and your Facebook page as the top three search results under your chosen keyword. This not only gives you a higher instance of click through rates, but also a higher instance of customer conversion.
4. Price strategy
Your problem with low customer conversion rates may be your pricing. With all of the analytics around, it is sometimes easy to overlook the old school reasons that visitors to your site may not become conversions.
Take a look at the pricing on your website versus the pricing of your competitors. Once you have this hard data in hand, you can very easily segment your audience into those who are looking for price discounts and those who are more value-oriented. If your price is higher than that of your competitor, then you want to take your development back to step one and further segment your audience.
A new strategy that many people are using online is to divide their products into different brands, with different URLs and all. Many times, people will not even know that the same company owns two websites.
by Jim on February 28th, 2012
photo by docbaty
Web hosting resellers employ a wide variety of pricing strategies to sell their services. No single method is best; each strategy appeals to a different set of potential customers. A good pricing scheme can attract new clients, retain existing customers, and set a company apart from the competition. Here are some profitable strategies for hosting resellers to consider:
1. The traditional tiered pricing strategy has worked well for many hosting providers.
They offer two or more types of hosting accounts, each with different limits on bandwidth and storage space. Some also impose varying restrictions on databases, email, subdomains and other features. The different types of accounts often have names like “gold” and “silver.” If customers exceed the limits, they must upgrade to the next level or pay additional hosting fees.
2. Include extra services in the hosting price.
For example, one successful company in Florida combines hosting, domain registration, and web design in a single package. Hosting resellers can also include services like online promotion, search engine optimization, and website proofreading. A drawback of this strategy is that it excludes customers who don’t need the additional services.
3. Offer discounts when clients pay for web hosting in advance.
They often use attention-getting advertisements that quote the lowest prepaid price on a monthly basis. Some only offer annual pricing. The smaller quantity of payments can significantly reduce payment processing costs. This strategy also encourages the customer to make a long-term commitment. However, new customers may be reluctant to pay for several months or a year of web hosting in advance.
4. Offer a free trial period.
This helps to attract new customers by allowing them to try the web hosting service without making any payments. When the free trial period ends, customers may transition to monthly or yearly pricing. A downside of this strategy is that people can use free trials and decide to leave for any number of reasons. Paying customers must absorb the costs associated with free trials.
5. Offer low introductory rates.
Cable and satellite television providers often employ this pricing strategy. For example, a hosting company could charge $3.99 per month for the first four months. After that, customers would pay the normal monthly rate of $4.75. This helps to attract clients by giving them the opportunity to try a new hosting service at minimum expense.
6. Incorporate setup fees into your pricing strategies.
Such fees enable them to reduce monthly hosting rates to more attractive levels. Clients are more likely to remain loyal to a company with a setup fee. A customer doesn’t want to waste his or her investment in the fee, and the hosting provider can more easily maintain competitive rates. However, hosting resellers shouldn’t become too dependent on setup fees; there is no guarantee that new clients will continue to sign up.
7. Let the customer help determine the price.
Some hosting resellers successfully auction their services at online auction websites. The sale price may only apply to the first month of hosting, or it can set the rate for subsequent months. However, web hosting services often sell for relatively little at online auctions. Resellers can also let clients request quotes on custom hosting plans with specific amounts of bandwidth and storage space.
Some hosting companies attract customers by offering unlimited web hosting plans with no restrictions on space or bandwidth. Major hosting providers might be able to get away with this, but it’s a very risky strategy for resellers. High-demand customers may use so much bandwidth that the reseller loses money or has to raise rates. Web hosting providers should always maintain specific limits and rules for customers to follow.
Hosting resellers ought to carefully consider each of these strategies and estimate the potential earnings. Some companies successfully combine two or more of these options. It is always worth taking the time to devise an effective pricing strategy. When resellers raise prices, it can result in the loss of existing customers. If in doubt, start with relatively high rates that can be lowered if necessary.
by Jim on February 29th, 2012
Happy leap day! As always, we’ll keep our content short and relevant.
Any questions? Reply back to newsletter@hostnine.com and a human being will respond quickly.
What’s New
H9 Daily Blog
The HostNine Blog is now publishing daily posts featuring a variety of information for the H9 community. Each week you’ll find links to design and development resources, helpful hints for designers, developers, and resellers across all levels of expertise, and tips on how to run an online business efficiently.
Want us to cover a specific topic? Tell us in the comments, or hit us up on Facebook, Twitter or Google+.
H9 Blog Round Up
Every Friday, the HostNine Blog will provide a round up of links to all the blog posts and articles we’ve shared from Monday through Wednesday.
Click here to look at the most recent HostNine Blog Round-up.
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Thanks for reading! See you next month!
by McKinneyBrown on March 2nd, 2012
Hey readers! Welcome back to the H9 Blog Weekly Round-Up. Below you’ll find all the links from this week, including blog posts and social links. Have a fantastic weekend!
This Week’s H9 Blog Posts
4 Ways to Increase Conversion Rate Optimization
Pricing Strategies for Hosting Resellers
H9 Community Newsletter: Volume 2, Issue 2
Start A Web Hosting Business with Reseller Space
H9 Social Links From The Week
Secure Your Browser Add-ons to Stop Web Tracking
WEBMONKEY
Launching a WordPress Blog
WP HACKS
Tips to Secure Your WordPress Site
AJ CLARKE
7 Analysis Tips for Improving CTR on Display Advertising
WEB ANALYSIS
H9 Social Outposts
Join H9 on Facebook.
Follow us on Twitter.
Visit us on Google+.
Weekly Spot of Hilarity
See you all on Monday!
by Jim on March 1st, 2012
Photo by Tom Raftery
For those wanting to start an Internet business, reseller web hosting is a great way to begin. It has a low start up cost and is profitable for those who are dedicated to making it work. A reseller is an individual who purchases bulk web space, packages it and sells it to others who are seeking to establish a presence on the web.
A reseller web hosting setup should be taken seriously as it is essentially the same as an offline business. It requires planning and financial management in order to thrive. The following list outlines important points to consider when going into the reselling business.
Research the Market
The first and most vital step is to conduct research. Valuable information and advice can be gained by speaking with people who are already running a reseller web hosting business. Looking into how the direct competition does things can provide valuable insight as well, especially in niche markets.
The information gathered in this step can be helpful with choosing the business and domain name.
Setup the Business
An Internet business is just as serious as a brick and mortar one. The domain name should be easy to remember and the company name should complement it. The company name should also be properly registered with a county clerk, and a bank account opened under the name of the business.
Some people may wish to incorporate a business or form an LLC. As there are a number of different structures and legal issues at stake, getting a tax accountant or attorney involved in the process may be helpful. Anyone starting a company should always familiarize themselves with local business laws.
Find a Provider
A search for web hosts that offer reseller packages should be done and narrowed down by reputation and reliability. Packages and cost can differ quite a bit from one host to another, so it pays to shop around. The right host will offer a balance of desired features with affordable cost. HostNine, for example, offers an array of reseller packages for a reasonable price.
Entry level reseller packages are usually offered at the shared hosting level, which is suitable for beginners. There should be options for future upgrades to VPS or dedicated server environments, to allow for growth.
A good way to test a potential host’s reliability is to live chat or make a forum post to the sales department and see how fast the response is. A good host will not mind answering presales questions.
Build a Site
The reseller hosting website is what potential clients see first, so it is a worthy investment to have it professionally designed. It should load fast and clearly explain what services are being offered, along with price. The signup process should be easy to find and execute, and the entire site should have effective navigation.
Utilizing a billing software platform to run in tandem with the website can be a big timesaver and a great organizational tool. It can automatically keep track of invoices and payments, and send alerts when action needs to be taken.
Good search engine optimization, or SEO, is necessary for a high search engine placement. Consulting with an SEO expert can give the reseller business an extra step up, especially at the beginning.
Running a reseller webhosting business has the benefit of being relatively low cost while bringing in a steady stream of profit. It also does not require an extensive knowledge of servers and hardware, as this apsect is the responsibility of the hosting provider. Not having to worry about the technical side allows the reseller to concentrate on bringing in clients and focusing on quality, first level service to them.
While a reseller business is relatively easy to start up, it does require dedication and hard work to be successful, just like any other company. Customers and revenue are not guaranteed, so the reseller must commit to an excellent standard of service in order to build a solid reputation. A good website and solid SEO are necessary tools but nothing beats word of mouth, or a great online review.
With the ongoing economic crisis and high unemployment, many people are looking for ways to generate extra income. Starting a reseller webhosting business may be a good option without a lot of upfront cost.
by Jim on March 4th, 2012
So, you’re hosting with HostNine. Maybe you’re doing some reselling. Maybe it’s something a little less involved, and you just want put up a site for your own personal reasons. Either way, you should pick a CMS that meets your needs. But what are those needs?
As you may already know, WordPress is an overwhelmingly popular choice- but it’s not the only fish in the sea! Here’s an infographic from Devious Media that can help you figure out what open source backend to use. Good luck! And if you have any other suggestions, please leave a comment!
(click here for a larger version)
by Jim on March 6th, 2012
Doing reseller hosting with HostNine? Hosting for yourself? On a VPS? No matter what your role is in the web hosting world, using a strong password is simply common sense. Check out this fantastic infographic from Zone Alarm on avoiding the pitfalls of choosing easy-to-hack passwords.
Do you have any methods of your own that aren’t covered in the infographic? Let us know in the comments!
by Jim on March 7th, 2012
If you are a web developer, you should consider how you can benefit by purchasing reseller hosting for your business online. In addition to adding value to your business and helping you stay organized, reseller hosting can also be used for unlimited storage space, to generate additional business and help you save money over the years.
Reseller Hosting Will Add Value to Your Business
Whether you are just getting started as a web developer or have been in business for years, buying reseller hosting adds value to your business in more than one way. Web developers that have reseller hosting can automatically add value to their business by offering additional services to existing and prospective clients.
Even if a web developer has no plan on offering web hosting to clients, web developers that have their own reseller account are always prepared to offer these additional services to clients when the need arises. Since many clients often prefer that their web developer have the ability to manage and control their websites, web developers should have the ability to control and mange all of their clients’ websites and projects or from one centralized panel.
Reseller Hosting Helps Web Developers Get Organized
In addition to having one centralized control panel where hundreds of websites and domains can be managed and monitored at one time, reseller hosting also helps web developers create and manage their own portfolio of websites and domain names, including but not limited to pre-designed and custom designed websites that are available for purchase. Reseller hosting is a good option for web developers want to get and stay organized.
Reseller Hosting Provides Unlimited Space for Storage
Reseller hosting provides unlimited storage space for one low price. The cost of storage can add up over time. By purchasing reseller hosting, web developers will not only have the ability to stay and keep organized, they will also have the ability to cut down on the cost of storing photos, documents, templates and any other resources they regularly use during the web development process. By purchasing reseller hosting, web developers will have access to all the space they need to use in any manner they wish, including but not limited to extra storage space for one low price.
An Excellent Way to Generate Additional Business
Buying reseller hosting is also a great way for web developers to generate additional business. Web developers that sell hosting to others have access to an unlimited number of prospective clients who may be interested in web development services. Since many people who are interested in purchasing a hosting plan have a need for a web developer, buying a reseller hosting plan can be a great way to generate leads for a web development business.
Purchasing Reseller Hosting is an Inexpensive Solution
Web developers who need to host websites will find that that purchasing reseller hosting is an inexpensive alternative to purchasing individual hosting for each website he or she may manage. In addition to providing a centralized area where web developers can control and manage hundreds of domain names and websites, reseller hosting can also help web developers save thousands of dollars a year on the purchase of individuals hosting accounts. Since web developers often have the need for unlimited space, reseller hosting is the perfect option for web developers who are looking for an inexpensive solution to save a tremendous amount of money
Web developers who are interested in attracting more business, staying organized and generating additional income should consider all of the benefits of purchasing reseller hosting. In addition to giving web developers the ability to control and manage hundreds of websites around the world from one centralized location, reseller hosting has the potential to add automatic value to a web developers’ business.
by GeraudStaton on March 9th, 2012
Hello readers! Here’s an all new round-up of the links and content we’ve posted on the HostNine blog throughout the week. If you’d like to see us cover a particular topic in the future, let us know in the comments!
This Week’s HostNine Blog Posts:
What CMS Suits Your Needs
Avoid Common Passwords [Infographic]
Five Reasons Why Web Developers Should Buy Reseller Hosting
Reseller Hosting Do’s And Don’ts
HostNine Social Links From The Week:
Deconstructing the Qualities of High Quality SEO Links
HUBSPOT BLOG
12 Things That Will Kill Your Blog Post Every Time
SEOMOZ
The Seven-Point Checklist For Powerful Landing Page Copy
HUBSPOT BLOG
Finding (Not Provided) Keywords In Google Analytics
WEB ANALYTICS, BEHAVIORAL TARGETING & OPTIMIZATION
HostNine Social Outlets:
Like HostNine on Facebook.
Follow us on Twitter.
Visit us on Google+.
To close out, here’s some humor from Toothpaste for Dinner:
See you all next week!
by Jim on March 8th, 2012
photo by jeff_golden
Reseller hosting is a good way to begin an online business. It has relatively low start up costs and when maintained properly can be a lucrative endeavor that brings financial independence. Like anything else, there are good ways and bad ways to go about being a reseller host.
A new reseller must avoid three common pitfalls of a new hosting service. The biggest one is spending all the income instead of reinvesting it in the company. Offering packages that are impossible and unaffordable to maintain in the long term is another mistake. Some people simply get tired of the time and effort that is needed for a hosting service, pocket the money and move on.
It is because of these scenarios that potential customers may not consider a small hosting company, and 99 percent of people will not use a company that has no reputation. Anyone who is serious about being a reseller needs to do it right. The following list outlines some tips to follow for a reseller’s first year in business.
Do’s for resellers:
Offer Discounts
First year discounts are a great incentive to attract new customers. Posting them in forums and hosting sites around the web will get the word out to a wide audience. The posts may also go viral and be passed on in emails, instant messages, Twitter and Facebook. Social media is a new businessperson’s best friend and a quick way to provide customer service.
Recruit Friends and Family
Offering free or discounted service to family and friends who may not have considered a website before is a great way to get started and establish a customer base. After the initial month, they may find the service to be useful and will be happy to pay for it. They may also spread positive word about the service to friends and coworkers of their own.
Request Feedback
Encouraging new customers to provide feedback about the first month of service will help to build company reputation. This is easy to do by creating a well designed welcome email. Offering the customer a discount on one month of service if they will write a review on a reputable hosting review site is worth losing the little bit of income, and will give new customers confidence in the company.
Save All Income
All money received for hosting should be left in a PayPal or bank account and used to pay for domain and service renewal, as well as the license for the billing software. There will not likely be a profit in the first year of business as being a reseller is a long term commitment. The goals should be staying within means and growing a solid base of customers.
What NOT to DO:
Avoid Paid Marketing
While paid marketing is an important tool to gain customers, it is not advisable to use it right away. A company with no reputation will end up wasting a lot of money this way. It is best to wait until after the first year before considering a marketing scheme. This will give customer reviews time to build a reputation to make marketing a better investment. Word of mouth is always the best advertising and it is free.
Bypass Overselling
People who are new to reselling may think offering unlimited or unmetered hosting plans is a big selling point. This misconception comes from not understanding how much bandwidth actually costs, and thinking no one will notice if the servers are oversold. Customers do notice and will leave.
Skip Unnecessary Purchases
Keep things simple and manageable by not buying what is not needed. This covers licenses, servers and any web based services. By paying careful attention to customer signups and cancellations, it is easy to calculate when any services need to be extended to match company growth.
It should be noted that reseller hosting is not a way to get rich fast. It is an investment of time, dedication and patience that will pay off well when done right. Following the guidelines above will go a long way to ensure a reseller business is a success.
by Jim on March 12th, 2012
Reselling web hosting services is one way to create a web-based start up that does not require a great deal of capital or effort. The need to maintain hardware and software is the responsibility of the web hosting company whose services are “resold.” The main task of a reseller is to promote the hosting resale business.
Several techniques are available to promote your reseller hosting business. These techniques include:
1.) Guest Blogging
One great way to promote your reseller hosting business is to “guest-blog” on blogging sites. However, do not over-promote your business! Be sure to blog about interesting topics. For hosting resellers, the list of topics are endless. These topics include cloud computing, hosting plans, hosting company reviews, what is a web host, and a myriad of other technical or web-related topics.
Share your expertise with an audience who will be interested in differences in hosting plans, such as Linux-based versus Windows-based hosting. Discuss considerations for selecting the right web hosting company for a small business. Blog about various add-ons and extra features that may or may not be included in web hosting plans. Discuss how important good technical support is when it comes to a web hosting company.
Providing relevant and interesting content that readers can use is one way to make a name for yourself and generate business for your reseller hosting effort. In addition, mild promotion of your business, such as a by-line that includes a URL to your hosting resale site, is usually acceptable practice when you are a guest blogger on another blog.
2.) Create Your Own Blog
As part of your business site, create your own blog. As you guest-blog on other sites and create a name for yourself as a knowledgeable author, you will develop a following and an audience. In addition, search engines tend to list fresh, new content higher in page ranking algorithms. Sites that are stagnant tend to fall in page rank when compared to sites where the content is continually updated. Make a name for yourself as an expert in the field of web hosting and increase your page ranking with major search engines at the same time. It’s a win-win proposition.
Be sure to work a few of your keywords into your content as you blog. As long as you are not “keyword loading,” keywords appearing in your blog will increase your page ranking with major search engines, as well.
3.) List Your Reseller Hosting Business on Location-Driven Directories
One of the most utilized and well-known location-driven directories is Google Places. Google Places will allow you to list your business for free. When someone searches for a term such as “Web Hosting Atlanta GA,” if you are located in Atlanta, your business will appear in the search results! Many business either do not know that this listing is free, or do not know about the service to take advantage of it, but far too many business fail to list their services with location-based directories. True, if you one a reseller hosting company, your clientele need not be based in your area. However, it sure doesn’t hurt to appear at the top of the search results when someone searches for your type of business in your specific area!
4.) Post External Links on Your Business Site and Get Back Links From Those Companies You Promote
Now, you really don’t want to promote another web hosting service, but you could promote SEO and marketing companies that would complement your type of business, rather than initiate competition with you. Try to post links to other businesses that will return the favor by posting links to your site on their site. Google and the other major search engines LOVE external links and back links.
5.) Post Internal Links to Your Interesting Blog Posts and Articles
Google and the other major search engines also LOVE internal links! Make sure to create links on your business home page to new and relevant content that you have recently posted to increase your page ranking.
6.) Provide GREAT Service to Your Customers
Still, one of the best ways to promote your business is word-of-mouth from happy customers to other, potential customers. If a client loves your service, they will share the information with others.
by McKinneyBrown on March 14th, 2012
After working with many types of customers, from big business and small, I often hear, “I don’t know if the size of my business or the type of product or service I sell is right for affiliate marketing. I don’t know if it will work…”
While I can’t guarantee that Affiliate Marketing is right for every business out there, I believe there are a ton of companies that can start using affiliate marketing today to bring in more customers.
So how do you get started? Let’s go over the basics:
Affiliate Marketing 101
The Wikipedia definition of Affiliate Marketing is, “an internet-based marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate’s marketing efforts”. In its most basic form, A “Refer a Friend” campaign is essentially affiliate marketing.
To understand affiliate marketing a little further, you must be equipped with the common types of affiliate payments out there; how you can reward your affiliates for bringing in more customers.
CPA: (Cost per Acquisition)
This is usually done as a flat rate. For example: If an affiliate marketer brings in 1 customer, they get paid a flat rate of $25.
CPS: (Cost Per Sale)
Probably the most common, this model relies on a percentage of the sale referred, as the payout to the affiliate. For example, If a customer was referred by an Affiliate Marketer, and that customer paid $25 for the product or service (Let’s say the CPS is 10%), then the Affiliate Marketer would be paid $2.50.
Credits:
Probably the easiest for small businesses, offering your affiliate program to just your customer base and giving them credits or percentage off your services or goods.
How Do I Get Started?
There are so many tools depending on how much you want to invest in Affiliate Marketing. Let’s assume that you just want to get off the ground with some basics. Here is some starting points to get your program setup:
Join a Network
This is by far, the easiest way to jump right in. Just be cautious; some of these networks have high costs to join. I’d check out ShareASale or LinkShare. These networks expose your program to affiliate marketers in a network and allow you to manage it all from one place.
Site themes or WordPress Plugins
If you’re running your business website off of WordPress, there might be an easy way to add an affiliate program by just installing a plugin. Check out these plugins here.
Coupon Codes or Credits
If starting a whole new affiliate marketing channel scares you, Figure out a way you can hand out unique coupon codes to select customers. Ask those customers to share these with potential leads. A simple form field on your site will allow you to see who used the coupon code and who, as a customer, should be credited for their affiliate marketing.
After getting setup with one of the above solutions, you will want to track your affiliate’s progress. This alone will make sure that your Affiliate Marketing channel is showing a consistent activity of bringing in customers.
What Affiliate Marketing strategies have you used to grow your business? Let us know in the comments!
by Jim on March 13th, 2012
Are you an individual with a burning entrepreneurial spirit but you just don’t know how or where to start when creating your own online business? Reseller hosting may be the start-up business for you! With very little monetary and time investment required up front, reseller hosting affords you the opportunity to start and grow an online business.
What is Reseller Hosting?
Reseller hosting is selling web hosting packages with your own unique brand. Several web hosting companies will not only allow you to resell their hosting products, but will assist you to do so! When you resell web hosting, you will create your own business web presence and promote your own “brand” of web hosting. Of course, your plans must be in line with the plans that are offered by your web hosting provider. In addition, you will be responsible for acting as the support liaison for your own clients. You as the web hosting “middle man” of sorts, may also provide your clients with extras in addition to web hosting plans, such as SEO services, web design and site build-outs.
How Do I Promote My Reseller Web Hosting Business?
Reseller hosting requires that you promote your own brand. You will promote your web hosting brand just like you would promote any other business interest. First, you build a website that showcases the web hosting plans, as well as the other services you offer. Next, you strike a deal with your web hosting provider that allows you to maximize your profits when you sell web hosting services. Most web hosting companies will be happy to have you as a reseller for their product and will work with you in several ways to assist you with your efforts.
Promoting any business online requires that you attain at least a cursory understanding of search engine optimization (SEO). You need to know SEO to effectively promote your brand online. This includes getting your site listed and highly ranked with the major search engines, exchanging links with complementary businesses and getting the word out about the services you offer.
Is Reseller Hosting Scalable?
Many entrepreneurs are concerned with the scalability of reselling web hosting. Fact is, reselling web hosting is no different than any other business in terms of scalability. As long as your web hosting provider is reputable, provides excellent service (up-time, support, etc.) and has been around for a while, you can pretty much rest assured that as your client list grows, your web hosting provider will make sure that your hosting availability grows, too. If you find that you need to switch web hosting companies because or original host is no longer able to accommodate your business’ extreme growth, well, we should all be so fortunate! You can most likely perform a seamless switch to a new web hosting provider, if needed, and your clients be none the wiser.
However, the more clients you resell hosting to, the more your original web hosting provider profits, and the more money you make, as well. Everyone has a vested interest in seeing you succeed in such a venture, including your web hosting provider. In most cases, your web hosting provider will do whatever it takes to keep you as a reseller for their business.
Web Hosting Resales is a Win-Win for Everyone!
As a budding entrepreneur, reselling web hosting is beneficial to you in that you learn valuable skills about promoting your own business, dealing with and keeping clients, managing business procurement and other business-related activities, as well as other skills. You get to start a business without investing a great deal of capital. By starting out small, you are able to provide clients with excellent customer service. You are able to develop and maintain business relationships that may remain for years to come.
For your web hosting provider, they make money because the more web hosting plans you support through your business, the more profit they make as a result. Many web hosting providers actually encourage budding entrepreneurs, as well as web developers, SEO marketers and others in Internet-related endeavors, to resell their hosting products.
As you master the features offered by your web hosting company, you will be able to provide these services to your clients. For example, many web hosting providers offer Linux-based hosting with easy-to-deploy add-ons like Joomla and WordPress. Chances are, an average end user has no desire to master the art of deploying a Joomla site. However, you know about Fantastico! (By the way, Fantistico is a tool offered by several Linux web hosting providers that enable you to deploy add-ons like Joomla within minutes.) Deploying a Joomla site is as easy as pie for you now that you have taken the time to learn about Linux-based hosting services. Why not share this skill with your clients and make money doing it? Reselling web hosting can be a win-win proposition for all involved.
by Jim on March 15th, 2012
Are you a WordPress user? Looking for some WordPress hacks? Check out the resources below.
Any sites you frequent that we didn’t mention? Tell us about them in the comments!
WP Recipes
WP Recipes is a fantastic blog that gives you daily snippets, tips and hacks to keep your developing skills sharp.
WP Engineer
WP Engineers offers code snippets with extremely detailed explanations behind them. A bit more code-heavy than the other resources on this list.
Digging into WP
Lighter on the programming side of things, but still offers some great snippets and tips for a more effective WordPress site.
WP Hacks
WP Hacks gives a long list of resources for themes, stylesheets, posts and comment hacks. These tips tend to be lighter on the code as well, but with very detailed tutorials.
WP Snippets
WP Snippets lets you browse from another long list of WP snippets or sort them into categories, including images, pages, and posts.
New WordPress Power Tips
This post is aimed at developers wanting to get up to speed on the latest WordPress developments.
41 WordPress Tricks and Hacks
This is a long, yet manageable list to help you build your WordPress skill set. These topics are incredibly diverse and run from site efficiency to managing your comments.
by McKinneyBrown on March 16th, 2012
Hello readers! Here’s a round-up of the links and content we’ve posted on the HostNine blog throughout the week. Want to see us cover a certain topic in the future? Let us know in the comments!
This Week’s HostNine Blog Posts:
6 Ways to Promote Your Reseller Hosting Business
Why Entrepreneurs Should Buy Reseller Hosting
Affiliate Marketing: Is it Right for My Business?
WordPress Hacks
HostNine Social Links From The Week:
Top 10 Premium WordPress Plugins for 2012
SITEPOINT
Using a Content Delivery Network with WordPress
THE HOSTING BLOG
10 Useful Queries to Clean up Your WordPress Database
CATS WHO CODE
The 10 Commandments of Landing Pages That Work
COPYBLOGGER
HostNine Social Outlets:
Like HostNine on Facebook.
Follow us on Twitter.
Visit us on Google+.
To close out, here’s some humor from XKCD:
See you all next week!
by Jim on March 19th, 2012
Looking for some day-to-day WordPress inspiration with a personal touch? Check out these great bloggers and development experts to follow on Twitter or add to your RSS feed.
50 WordPress People to Follow on Twitter
This is a good list to stay in touch with what’s going on in the WordPress world through the Twitterverse. We have featured many of these WordPress sites and experts in the past few days, so some of the names may be familiar to you. There will also no doubt be some new resources you should also check out and follow to stay up-to-date on all things WordPress.
Justin Tadlock
Justin is a very talented blogger and WordPress developer that we have featured on our blog several times before. He is a great resources especially for plugin development. Justin also spices up his blog with non-WordPress related content like workout routines and recipe inspiration.
Ben Gillbanks
Ben Gillbanks’ site Binary Moon offers frequent WordPress-related posts. Gillbanks mostly handles theme development, though other topics occasionally surface. In addition to these posts, he also rounds out his blog with movie and game reviews.
Cats Who Code
Cats who Code is the creation of Jean Baptiste Jung of WP Recipes, featured in a recent ASO post. His WordPress posts deal mainly with themes and PHP snippets, though there is some variation. Also note that Jean is not strictly a WordPress expert. He is also a great resources for Java, HTML/CSS, web development and more.
Otto on WordPress
Otto on WordPress has a stockpile of plugin resources that should be helpful to developers of all experience levels. Otto also gives quality updates dealing with all things WordPress on a regular basis. To get a sense of Otto’s personal side, check out the link to his blog, “Nothing to See Here” on the top right corner of the page.
Mark on WordPress
Mark on WordPress also does a good job with keeping his readers informed and entertained. His posts are very detailed and well-thought-out, though he does tend to update less frequently than other the WordPress experts listed.
What WordPress masters fill your RSS feeds and follow lists? We would love to hear about your WordPress people in the comments!
by GeraudStaton on March 22nd, 2012
Joomla is a free content management system that has a strong niche community of passionate users. Since we have used this space to talk about WordPress a great deal, we thought we’d mix it up a bit.
If you’re already using Joomla and have some other tutorials that were helpful, put them in the comments section!
Also, if you ever want to see a certain topic covered in the HostNine blog, let us know in the comments as well!
1. Best of Joomla
This site is packed full of information from multiple users. There are blog-style entries and links to video tutorials. And you can see just how hot a particular post is because the site puts the information in large green boxes at the front of each entry. Looking for the most important and useful information, just click on the higher ranked tutorials.
2. Rocket Theme
Rocket Theme has a more basic layout than Best of Joomla, but the information is great, all the same. You can start off by looking at the featured videos and written entries. Once you’ve seen the most popular information you can then open it up to all of the tutorials. And all of the lessons are set up so that you can look at only those things that are relevant to your needs. There is a lot of information here, without all the bells and whistles.
3. Web3Mantra
Web3Mantra has over 30 video tutorials! These videos range from basic installation to managing global configuration. All 31 videos are in a list on the main page. Just click anything you’re interested in.
4. Lynda
This site has a great deal of information from a number of amazing instructors. There are videos and written tutorials, but it’s the video that really wins the day. Lynda is set up so that the tutorials are actually courses in a particular subject. There are a few free courses, but most of the information on Lynda.com must be paid for.
by Jim on March 20th, 2012
Are you a WordPress developer looking to freelance while working from home? Or maybe you are a busy professional who needs a WordPress project completed ASAP? The following sites bring the developers to the demand connects you with solutions. Check these out if you’re a developer looking for work or someone looking for a quality WordPress professional.
Code Poet
If you’re looking for work: Code poet has a couple more barriers to entry than most WordPress sites (you must apply to create a developer profile), but has a big payoff. The user-friendly nature of Code Poet, combined with the fact that it is run by the same company as WordPress, gives you access consistent and well-paying projects.
If you’re looking for a developer: Code poet is a fantastic way to get exactly what you want from a trusted source. Code Poet allows you to search for a developer by geographical location, specialty and budget. One drawback, however, is that you cannot post individual projects on the site.
WPMU Jobs
If you’re looking for work: Again, this is a site that has some level of screening when it comes to posting your professional services. To create a profile on WPMU you must be a WPMU DEV Premium member. Again though, this has obvious payoffs when you have professionals seeking quality developers who are willing to pay top dollar. Also keep in mind that WPMU is strictly freelance – no full-time work here.
If you’re looking for a developer: You must be a WPMU DEV Premium member to post a project for review. This may deter some, but keep in mind that you pay for what you get. When it comes to developing, this is especially true, and shelling out a little more now can go a long way later.
WP Candy Pros
If you’re looking for work: It’s relatively easy to get started with WP Candy, and setting up a profile is fast and free. Because of this, WP Candy is a great place to pick up projects and build your WordPress expertise. On WP Candy, you cannot search projects, rather clients seek out a developer who seems to most meet their needs. Thus, the more detail you put into your profile the better your chances of getting contacted. Bear in mind that this is WP Candy pros only handles freelance work.
If you’re looking for a developer: Keep in mind that developers on this site can easily create a profile for free. Despite this, it is easy to screen people by the amount of detail in their profiles and portfolios. Another potential drawback is that unlike other sites, you cannot post individual projects to be perused by potential developers.
WP Hired
If you’re looking for work: WP Hired is a great place to search for full-time, part-time, freelance work, internships and temp work. Post your resume to get your name out to potential employers, while at the same time browse and search job postings from all around the world. Also sign up for email updates to alert you when a job related to your expertise is posted.
If you’re looking for a developer: WP Hired makes it easy to create a free profile and begin posting jobs. Keep in mind that you can browse detailed resumes of potential developers on the site for free as well. This site is great for people with a variety of needs ranging from full-time to temp-work.
WordPress Freelance
If you’re looking for work: WordPress Freelance lets you browse project postings and bid on them per project or per hour. Build up your reputation on the site through client reviews of your work.
If you’re looking for a developer: This site may not be as easy to use or the professionals as verifiable on other sites, but if you’re willing to take a little risk WordPress Freelance could end up saving you some money. Be sure to check the reviews of developers who bid on your projects to ensure you’re getting reliable service. Also be sure to check developer portfolios if you have a specific look for your project in mind.
WordPress Freelance
If you’re looking for work: WordPress Freelance lets you browse project postings and bid on them per project or per hour. Build up your reputation on the site through client reviews of your work.
If you’re looking for a developer: This site may not be as easy to use or the professionals as verifiable on other sites, but if you’re willing to take a little risk WordPress Freelance could end up saving you some money. Be sure to check the reviews of developers who bid on your projects to ensure you’re getting reliable service. Also be sure to check developer portfolios if you have a specific look for your project in mind.
What successes have you had as a developer or as a client on these or similar WordPress sites? Let us know in the comments!
by Jim on March 21st, 2012
Do you use social media to promote your website, web hosting business or reseller hosting business?
This infographic, created by MDG Advertising, covers user opinions about the level of privacy that has come to be expected when using social networks.
The figures show that even heavy users of social media are not entirely aware of what information is/isn’t being collected by the networks they use. In fact, the infographic claims that nearly 2/3rds of consumers don’t trust online companies like Facebook, despite consistent use of the platform.
While this infographic may not be the best conversation starter for those looking to persuade others to increase social media engagement, it’s a fascinating starting point for those who may want to learn more about the privacy policies of the social platforms they use.
What are your views? Is privacy important to you? Have you ever found yourself in a social media-related security snafu? We’re curious to hear your opinions, so let us know in the comments section!
Click here to see the full-size image.
by GeraudStaton on March 27th, 2012
Content strategy isn’t a new concept, but it is often overlooked in many organizations, especially small to medium sized businesses. In our rush to get information, any information, out to our customers we often overlook the importance of WHAT we are putting out there. This isn’t just a matter of peppering the ‘net with as much information as possible, or using the shotgun method to make sure you’re name is out there in as many places as you can get it. Content strategy is just that: a strategy.
Here are some links so that you can use to learn about the ins and outs of content strategy. Have some info that you’d like to share? Please let us know in the comments section.
What is Content Strategy?
Content strategy plans for the creation, publication, and governance of useful, usable content, whether it is text, graphics, audio or video. As Rachel Lovinger puts it, “The main goal of content strategy is to use words and data to create unambiguous content that supports meaningful, interactive experiences.”
It’s the “unambiguous content” and the “meaningful, interactive experiences” that most of us may be lacking.
How Can Content Strategy Help Your Business?
It’s all well and good to care about your content, but proper content management is a lot of work. So, what do you get out of it? Here are a few things.
Helps you produce higher quality content: If you know what your overall strategy is, you will be able to create content that fits into that supports your plan.
Better content: By knowing what topics are interesting to your customers you will be able to provide more value to them.
Improves your SEO: Good content gets shared, which increases your page rank among search engines.
Helps you identify what works and what doesn’t: With a well-defined strategy you can see what you have published, analyze how well it did, and know if it’s worth repeating…or avoiding.
Identify things that make re-purposing sense: If you have a great collection of information on one subject, you can use it for other websites, or publish it in a collective, or even create a new niche for your business.
Leads to consistency of brand: It is much easier to keep things inline with your particular brand when everyone is on the same page.
Fewer revisions: With everything being consistent you are less likely to have to re-do things. You will be much more efficient, having everything inline at the beginning.
Knol
Knol gives an amazing amount of information on content strategy. This includes Rahel Bailie’s aspects of content lifestyle that discusses the analysis, collection, management and publishing of information.
Six Revisions
Six Revisions has their own reasons you should consider utilizing content strategy. Maybe you can think of others. If so, let us know in the comment section.
Blueglass Content Marketing [Infographic]
This infographic gives a lot of information in a great, easy to read layout. It will explain the whys and hows of content management
HubSpot Blog
HubSpot’s blog specializes in online marketing, and is a great place to find information on content-based marketing topics.
by McKinneyBrown on March 23rd, 2012
Hello readers! Here’s a round-up of the links and content we’ve posted on the HostNine blog throughout the week. Want to see us cover a certain topic in the future? Let us know in the comments!
This Week’s HostNine Blog Posts:
Some WordPress Experts to Follow
Navigating WordPress Job Sites
The Sad State of Social Media Privacy [INFOGRAPHIC]
4 Great Joomla Tutorials
HostNine Social Links From The Week:
7 Places You Need To Publish on Your Website Beyond Your Blog
HUBSPOT
A Marketer Guide to Accumulating Awesome Online Reviews
HUBSPOT
10 Reasons Why Your Joomla Website Got Hacked
IOCTOPUS
The header.php – What Needs to Go in and What Doesn’t
TUTS+
HostNine Social Outlets:
Like HostNine on Facebook.
Follow us on Twitter.
Visit us on Google+.
To close out, here’s some humor from T-Rex Trying To Do Things:
See you all next week!
by Jim on March 26th, 2012
How do you use content to represent your business or organization? Do you rely on the speediness of Twitter, or do you find yourself entrenched in the image-based world of Pinterest? Do you generate a large amount of original material, or do you depend on links from around the web?
Whatever your strategy, you can’t ignore the power and simplicity of blogging. Although “experts” of all kinds have announced the death of the blog time and time again, it’s best to avoid such hasty proclamations. There’s more than a few reasons why you should center your content around a blog platform.
Patricia Redsicker at Wordview Editing has composed an infographic that provides 10 great reasons why business blogging may be a better fit for your content strategy- check it out below.
What’s your preferred platform? Let us know in the comments.
by McKinneyBrown on April 2nd, 2012
Thinking about changing some aspects of your site or overhauling the whole thing?
Before jumping in, consider the following:
Remember: your goals are visitors and conversions.
While it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of launching something new, remember to keep the end goal in mind: total visitors and conversions. A website redesign can have serious consequences for your SEO and can have much more labor involved than it might seem like on the surface. Never redesign a site simply because you’re bored with the look or need something to do on the weekend. Always keep in mind that the only reason you should consider an overhaul is to attract more visitors and boost conversions. If you can reach this goal without a redesign, go that route.
What specifically works and doesn’t work with your current site?
So you’ve determined that you need a redesign. Now your task is to determine exactly what needs to change and what can stay the same. How user friendly are critical pages? Do you need to ramp up your content? Are you successfully linking to your social media outlets? Don’t fix things that aren’t broken, and deciding what doesn’t need to change will save you time and energy.
Come up with a detailed list of what aspects of your site should change.
Now that you have your list of things that need to change, it’s time to really start putting things under the microscope. Really spend time on your list of things to change and get picky. What changes in visuals are you looking at? If you’re using WordPress, what plugin matches your exact needs for speeding things up or managing your SEO? Come up with a detailed list of your exact needs and execute.
Plan a smooth transition.
Both sudden transitions and slow rollouts have their advantages and disadvantages. A quick launch that revamps your site’s main featured should be made known via blog posts and announcements on the home page. Additionally, you should double and triple check all of your changes and troubleshoot any potential problems. You should also have a detailed SEO strategy in place since sudden and far-reaching changes can affect your search rankings. A slow rollout with incremental changes avoids some of these problems, and allows you to handle potential problems one at a time. For more info on strategizing your transition, particularly with regards to SEO, check out this post from Ilya Pozin .
What has helped you to succeed in the website redesign process? Let us know in the comments!
by McKinneyBrown on April 5th, 2012
photo by J. Paxon Reyes
Creating relevant and effective content is easier said than done. Are you tasked with generating a content strategy and not sure where to begin? Keep these things in mind.
Understand and focus on your audience
Generating content that is useful and enjoyable for your audience is imperative to an effective content strategy. First, look at your product and make sure the content you are producing is relevant to your customers’ interests and expertise. Perform regular check-ups on which topics are getting the most tweets and shares, and conduct surveys every few months to let your readers tell you what they want. Also be sure to engage your audience by responding to their comments and suggestions in a positive and timely fashion. The more you do this, the more likely they will engage in your content again.
Be realistic
What resources do you have to generate content? Don’t set impossible goals for yourself, but concentrate on maximizing your manpower and resources. Focus on creating quality content before ramping up your quantity. This will generate more buzz and give you a solid base to start from when looking to increase the quantity of your content. Staying within reasonable goals will also save you a lot of stress when planning and generating content.
Make connections
There are many ways to create meaningful connections with your content that will expand your readership and improve your SEO. The first and perhaps the most obvious is through social media. Be sure to link your content to your Facebook, Twitter and G+ outlets and vice-versa.
Another way to make connections is by featuring guest bloggers on your site. Many bloggers are looking for exposure outside their immediate network, and can provide a boost in traffic if the blogger is a savvy promoter. Featuring a guest blogger can also give you a break in generating content or get caught up on your calendar. A couple of good sites for finding guest bloggers and guest posts are My Blog Guest and GuestBlogger.
What are your strategies for creating effective content for your readership? Let us know in the comments!
by Jim on March 28th, 2012
These days it is becoming more and more important to be able to share and collaborate with co-workers as quickly and efficiently as possible. Whether your co-workers are separated geographically, working on a time-sensitive schedule, or simply need more tools to collaborate with more speed, easy accessibility to construct and edit documents is extremely important. Here’s where file sharing comes in.
The idea of file sharing and collaboration is not the newest innovation. Most of you have probably used tools like Google Docs to assist in compiling and editing information. These companies, however, give your business an added edge with more features and accessibility options to maximize collaboration and efficiency.
Sharefile
Image from http://www.apple.com
Professional
- Price: $59.95/month
- Number of Users: Up to 10
- Amount of data available: 10GB of Storage/Bandwidth
- Overview: Sharefile’s Professional Plan includes free professional custom branding, login box on website, and a sync feature that automatically updates and backs up your data from your desktop. Sharefile doesn’t seem to have a full-text search feature for your stored files however, and this could decrease your efficiency in collaboration.
Corporate
- Price: $99.95/month
- Number of Users: Up to 20
- Amount of data available: 20GB of Storage/Bandwidth
- Overview: Offers same features as the Professional Plan, but with double the storage and user limit. This plan is also slightly cheaper per user and per GB.
Corporate Gold
- Price: Starting at $499.95/month
- Number of Users: Customizable
- Amount of data available: Customizable
- Overview: Same features as the Business Corporate and plans, but with the option of customizing the number of users with access and amount of storage space available to them
Box
Image from http://farm4.static.flickr.com
Business
- Price: $15.00/user/month
- Number of Users: 3-500 employees
- Amount of data available: 1,000GB
- Overview: Box gives you more breathing room in terms of number of users allowed on one account and gives you access to massive amounts of space. Box also employs a bare-bones approach to their services although there are desktop sync and full text search option, there are no custom branding or fancy login boxes.
Enterprise
- Price: Customizable
- Number of Users: Customizable
- Amount of data available: Customizable
- Overview: Box Enterprise gives you the option of consulting with a representative to come up with the right file sharing plan for the particular needs of your business. Enterprise also gives you a few more features than Business, with lucrative option of custom branding.
OneHub
Image from http://onehub.com
Team
- Price: $99.00/month
- Number of Users: Unlimited
- Amount of data available: 25GB of Storage/Bandwidth
- Overview: Full text search, desktop sync and unlimited users make OneHub a great option for a reasonable price. Space is fairly limited when compared to Box and Dropbox (below), but if 25GB if seems like enough storage for you, give OneHub a closer look.
Dropbox
Image from http://www.blogcdn.com
Teams
- Price: $795/year for 5 users, $125/year each additional user
- Number of Users: 5 (with the option of adding more)
- Amount of Storage/Bandwidth available: 1,000GB for first 5 users, +200GB for each additional user
- Overview: Many of you are probably already familiar with Dropbox as a personal solution for data storage and backup. Dropbox Teams is a great solution if your business needs to store and collaborate on many large files per user. For the amount of space you get with Dropbox, the price is very reasonable. Dropbox doesn’t seem to have a full-text search option or customizable options, however.
Do you know of any good file sharing and collaboration services good for business that are not listed? Please post about them in the comments!
by Jim on March 28th, 2012
Dear HostNine Customers:
We’re running a super simple contest for H9 customers that will give them a chance to win a Honey Badger Koozie.
You know the Honey Badger, right? The ferocious, thick skinned bad ass of the animal kingdom?
If you don’t, here’s something to get you up to speed.
So, are you up for it? Here’s some rules to follow:
INSTRUCTIONS:
1) Go to the HostNine Facebook page, and click the “Like” button.
2) Those who like the page will be entered into a drawing.
3) Although many will enter, only 3 will be chosen at random to win prizes.
4) HostNine employees are not eligible for this contest.
Yes, it’s that simple.
You have until 4pm on Friday, March 30th to enter.
We will pick the winners on Monday, April 2nd.
Good luck!
Click here to get to our Facebook page.
by McKinneyBrown on March 30th, 2012
Hello readers! Here’s a round-up of the content we’ve posted on the HostNine blog throughout the week, as well as our social links. Want to see us cover a certain topic next week? Let us know in the comments!
This Week’s HostNine Blog Posts:
Business Blogging vs. Facebook: Which Works for You? [INFOGRAPHIC]
The Importance of Content Strategy
Tools for File Sharing and Collaboration
The Anatomy Of Content Marketing [INFOGRAPHIC]
HostNine Social Links From The Week:
Does Web Design Affect Site Performance?
THE HOSTING NEWS
Customizing Your WordPress Admin
TUTS +
A Collection of Great New WordPress Themes
NOUPE
Content Creation Formula
COPYBLOGGER
HostNine Social Outlets:
Like HostNine on Facebook.
Follow us on Twitter.
Visit us on Google+.
Your Weekly Spot of Humor:
See you all next week!
by Jim on March 29th, 2012
Are you looking for interesting, engaging ways to communicate with your audience and pull in new leads? Look into content marketing- combining your specific expertise with the power of blogging and social media to grow interest in your organization. Here’s a great infographic from the folks at Content + that breaks it down for you.
If you’ve got experience with content marketing methods, please tell us about them in the comments!
by Jim on March 30th, 2012
Welcome to the HostNine Monthly Newsletter!
As always, we’ll keep our content short and to the point.
Any questions? Reply back to newsletter [at] hostnine [dot] com and a real human being will respond ASAP.
What’s New
Visit & Like Our New Facebook Page!
We updated the HostNine Facebook page to the new “Timeline” format.
Click here to stop by and say hi! HostNine Blog updates and links are posted daily, as well as helpful content on how to run a great site, get the most out of your reseller account, and more. You can also follow us on Twitter and join us on Google+.
What’s Next
Upcoming Conferences Of Note
Here’ s a couple conferences you may want to check out in relation to web hosting and search engine marketing.
1. SMX Toronto
This conference is the place to be if you’re a search marketer interested in workshops and networking activities. A great idea for industry professionals across all skill levels.
Click here to learn more.
2. Hosting Con
HostingCon is considered to be the premier conference and tradeshow for those in the hosting industry. HostingCon 2012 will take place in Boston on July 16 – 18, 2012.
The conference features 52 educational sessions across 3 full days presented by more than 100 speakers and panelists, including industry thought leaders and trend setters.
Click here to learn more.
3. SES Toronto
The leading international conference for webmasters, digital agencies, and online marketers will be in Canada this June. Tons of educational and networking opportunities.
Click here to learn more.
Thanks for reading! See you next month!
by Jim on April 4th, 2012
Hello WordPress users! Today we have some great resources that will help you speed up the rate at which your pages load and enhance your visitors’ browsing experience. One of the best ways to achieve this is through “caching” (pronounced “cashing” for the newbs out there).
For those unfamiliar to the concept, caching is a process by which your site server copies and saves static pages your visitors have been to. Then, when navigating back to those pages, the server simply generates the saved static page rather than sending your database another query. This can drastically speed up the time it takes to load different pages on your site. Sound good? Jump into these plugins that will do the work for you.
Image from http://i.msdn.microsoft.com
Quick Cache
Quick Cache is an extremely user-friendly plugin that will help you start caching in no time. Coupled with its user-friendliness, Quick Cache offers some useful options to tweak you’re the way your site caches pages. For example, the plugin allows you the option of disabling caching for logged-in users, enabling them to see comments and other posts in real-time.
WP Super Cache
WP Super Cache is fantastic in that it gives you so much control in your caching through an extensive dashboard. WP Super Cache also has the capability of caching other WordPress plugins, increasing your site’s speed even more.
WP Widget Cache
While WP Super Cache stores pages, WP Widget Cache stores any existing widgets on your page. This is (self-explanatorily) most useful for sites with a lot of widgets, but may still speed things up if you have just one or two widgets.
W3 Total Cache
Although the dashboard interface may seem confusing, this plugin is extremely popular among the internet’s leading WordPress sites. If you’re an advanced WordPress user, who knows how to navigate some complicated, but powerful cache tools, this plugin is for you.
WP File Cache
WP File Cache works in a unique capacity in that it does not store static pages, but rather the data that WordPress asks a regular caching plugin to store. The immediate drawback to this is that the plugin still requires a dynamic page to be generated, taking more time than regurgitating a cached page. However, the plugin saves some time in reproducing a page while keeping it dynamic. Based on the needs of your particular site, this plugin could prove extremely useful.
Generate Cache
This innovative plugin seeks to tackle one of the biggest hiccups in caching pages, namely that when a page changes (a new comment or post is made, for example) the cache is deleted. Generate Cache gives you the power to generate caches for users to make their browsing experience faster. Generate Cache also gives you the option to select which features of your page you want caches generated for.
What are some caching strategies you use for your WordPress site? Let us know in the comments!
by Jim on April 4th, 2012
Last week, we announced a short, simple Facebook contest that asked our readers to like our Facebook page. Those who did so between Wednesday 3/28 and Friday 3/30 were entered into a drawing for a small gift.
Here’s the three winners (in no particular order)!
Fern Joseph
Jon Robinson
Christopher Downs
If you happen to be any of those three people, please email:
jim [at] hostnine [dot] com
with your mailing address ASAP to claim your prize!
Thanks to all who participated! Watch for another contest soon.
by McKinneyBrown on April 6th, 2012
Hello readers! Here’s a round-up of the content we’ve posted on the HostNine blog throughout the week, as well as our social links. Want to see us cover a certain topic next week? Let us know in the comments!
This Week’s HostNine Blog Posts:
Things to Consider Before a Website Redesign
5 Tips to Help You Find an Amazing Web Designer
Some WordPress Caching Plugins
Creating Effective Content
HostNine Social Links From The Week:
5 Popular Email and Collaboration Software Tools for Web Hosts
THE WHIR
WordPress Multisite 101
IPSTENU ON TECH
VPS, VDS, VM and More: Demystifying the Terminology
THE HOSTING NEWS
WordPress Security Tip: Log-in to cPanel Securely
WP SECURITY LOCK
WordPress and PayPal: An Introduction
WP TUTS +
Protect Your WordPress Site with .htaccess
NET MAGAZINE
HostNine Social Outlets:
Like HostNine on Facebook.
Follow us on Twitter.
Visit us on Google+.
Your Weekly Spot of Humor:
See you all on Monday!
by Jim on April 9th, 2012
Boost your search engine rankings using these tools for link building!
Raven
Raven works as a dashboard of SEO, social media, and online advertising tools that allow you to manage all of these areas in one place. The SEO division brings together Google Analytics, Google AdWords, SEOMoz, WordTracker and others to efficiently manage your SEO from a single space. Similarly, with Raven you can manage and track your social media content on a single platform. Finally, the advertising division compiles a number of online advertising tools into one space and gives you detailed information about the progress of your campaigns. Within all of these features, you can choose to collaborate with your co-workers for increased efficiency.
Plans and Pricing:
- Pro: Allows up to 2 users, let’s you integrate unlimited websites and social networking accounts, and gives you 20 social monitor searches, 1,000 keyword rankings and 50,000 managed links. A Pro account is $99.00/month.
- Agency: Allows up to 8 users, let’s you integrate unlimited websites and social networking accounts, and gives you 50 social monitor searches, 2,500 keyword rankings and 150,000 managed links. An Agency account is $249.00/month.
Contributors to distillied.com have compiled a fantastic series of tips and tricks to assist SEO professionals in using Excel to its fullest potential. This guide is a extremely helpful in organizing, analyzing and interpreting the data for your sites.
Plans and Pricing:
- The guide is free for anyone to download.
2. Open Site Explorer
“The Search Engine for Links” is a simple, yet powerful tool to discover who is linking to your site and your competitors’ sites. This search engine gives you page and domain authority rankings, as well linking root domains and total links. For those wishing to use Open Site to its fullest potential, look into getting a paid “Pro” account. This upgraded account will give you access to social media statistics, thousands of more links, run unlimited reports ,and track links over time.
Plans and pricing:
- Basic functions are free.
- Pro: Upgrade to have access to the functions listed above for $99.00/month.
Ontolo goes above and beyond the typical SEO toolset with a focus on building an arsenal of relevant information about competitors. Ontolo is unique in that it gives you a host of relavant backlinks from your competitors. Ontolo is also a fantastic tool for starting and managing multiple campaigns at once.
Plans and pricing:
All plans include prospect searching, prospect notifications, contact information, workflow management, advanced metrics and tags and notes.
- Solo: 5,000 monthly automated prospects, 5,000 daily instant prospects, 3 custom campaigns. $97.00/month.
- Professional: 15,000 monthly automated prospects, 15,000 daily instant prospects, 10 custom campaigns. $297.00/month.
- Advanced: 30,000 monthly automated prospects, 30,000 daily instant prospects, 15 custom campaigns. $497.00/month.
- Competitive: 50,000 monthly automated prospects, 50,000 daily instant prospects, 25 custom campaigns. $697.00/month.
Majestic offers solid complimentary data to your SEO strategy with Fresh and Historic indexes for your sites and the sites of your competitors.
Plans and Pricing:
- Free: Gives monthly reports and advanced backlink reports for your sites.
- Silver: Access to 60 detailed site reports per month. Advanced backlink reports for up to 5,000,000 sites. Incorporates Site explorer and the Daily Fresh Index into monthly reports for in-depth tracking. $499.90/year.
- Gold: Access to 300 detailed site reports per month. Advanced backlink reports for up to 25,000,000 sites. Incorporates Site explorer and the Daily Fresh Index into monthly reports for in-depth tracking. $1499.90/year.
- Platinum: Access to 950 detailed site reports per month. Advanced backlink reports for up to 100,000,000 sites. Incorporates Site explorer and the Daily Fresh Index into monthly reports for in-depth tracking. Also grants API access. $3999.90/year.
5. Tom Anthony’s Link Profile Tool
This free and simple tool uses innovative analysis to easily interpret link activity to a particular site vs. competitor sites. This tool is great for ballpark comparisons and getting rough estimates about how sites match up to each other.
Plans and Pricing:
- Free account with registration
Stay tuned for part 2! In the meantime, post your favorite link building tools in the comments…
by Jim on April 10th, 2012
Do you want to learn some basics of programming, but are intimidated by much of the resources you find? You’re not alone. There are plenty of sites out there that are geared toward people who want to have some control over their site but are not very technically minded. These sites are just a sampling of those resources. Take a look at these and see what you think! If you’ve had success in the past with similar sites that aren’t listed, post links to them in the comments:
W3 Schools
W3 Schools is a fantastic site dedicated to teaching web developers at all levels. This is a great place to start with very basic HTML and CSS and eventually move on to more complicated things if you choose. The site’s “Tryit” editor allows you to type in HTML and CSS on one side of the screen and see the resulting “site” on the other side. This feature is incredibly helpful as you can track your progress incrementally as you hone your skills.
Don’t Fear the Internet
Specifically geared for non-web designers, Don’t Fear the Internet gives basic tutorials of HTML and CSS in easy-to-understand videos. The site also features tools explaining in detail exactly how the internet works and what the role of your own development plays into it.
WebDesignTuts
WebDesignTuts is another site that has resources for everyone from the beginner to the advanced programmer. This site puts you in charge by categorizing tutorials by topics, difficulty, estimated completion, and in some cases, additional requirements. This is a good resource since it is organized in such a way as to maximize your time and by allowing you to advance quickly through HTML and CSS and on to more advanced topics.
Some of you who really want to dive in might enjoy this article from WebDesignTuts that highlights some of the current trends in web design. The article does a great job to catch you up on when is currently hot in web development.
Lynda
Lynda provides a great service to the beginning developer through a paid subscription. While this may deter some novices, the site is a solid resource that is very well organized and presented. The service prides itself on giving you control over your own learning experience. By constructing itself as a virtual library, Lynda allows you to do anything from looking up a complex answer to a question on its database to diving into tutorials that are hours long. Each tutorial also gives its duration time, letting you plan and manage your time effectively. It should also be noted that Lynda not only offers tutorials on web development, but also topics ranging from Photoshop to 3D and animation.
Tutorial Guide
Tutorial guide is a massive database for self-teaching materials. Like Lynda, it features a slew of differnent topics other than HTML and CSS. Unlike Lynda, however, the site is free of charge. The catch though, is that the information on the site is not very well organized, and you may find yourself looking longer than you would like for certain tutorials. For the patient and frugal however, look no further than Tutorial Guide.
by McKinneyBrown on April 11th, 2012
Designing or redesigning your site’s look? Start with some of these fantastic wireframing tools that will have have the blueprint for your fresh site looking spiffy and available in no time.
Basalmiq
Price: $79.00 (Though a limited free version is available online)
Balsamiq is an extremely popular tool that includes over 75 pre-made but customizable images and text blocks to help you get a good idea of what your site will look like in no time.
Mockingbird
Price: Free
Mockingbird is a quick, easy and not very involved tool that gets the job done for your mock-up needs. Good for initial drafts, this resource is good for brainstorming what you want without spending money. Mockingbird also generates sharing and editing links for collaborative work.
Pencil Project
Price: Free
If you’re looking for a user friendly and free wireframing, look no further. Pencil project has exactly what you’re looking for with a easy-to-use interface with the ability to export your wireframes to HTML, PNG, Openoffice.org, Word or PDF.
OmniGraffle
Price: $99.00
Need more than just some basic mock-up software? OmniGraffle goes the extra mile with all sorts of diagram, graphic design, wireframing and page-layout tools.
Adobe Illustrator CS5
Price: $199.00
Adobe Illustrator is truly the big guns wireframing editor for designers. The Illustrator doesn’t have some of the quick-and-dirty features of some of the other editors we’ve mentioned here, but it gives you a powerful command over the exact look you want to achieve for your pages.
Cacoo
Price: Free
Cacoo is a free wireframing service that lets you collaborate with others in real-time, creating charts, site maps and page designs. In addition to its collaboration tools, you can chat with your friends and co-workers while you work via Cacoo’s chat function.
What are some wireframing tools you use when designing your sites? Let us know in the comment section below!
by McKinneyBrown on April 13th, 2012
by Jim on April 12th, 2012
Dear HostNine Customers:
Please read this important systems maintenance announcement.
Thanks in advance for your cooperation.
Sincerely,
The HostNine Team
• Our billing system and customer portal will be down (in maintenance mode) between 9pm PDT and 11pm PDT April 19th (12 midnight Eastern time until 2am Eastern time April 20th.).
• Customers will not be able to make payments during this time.
• New or existing customers will not be able to place new orders during this time.
• Customers will not be able to login to the client area or do anything they would do from within the client portal (edit domain settings, update contact info, change cpanel pw, open support tickets, etc).
• Customers won’t be able to open a ticket via the client area. For support, you should email help@hostnine.com or billing@hostnine.com and that will create a ticket on our helpdesk.
• The following day, records of payments and automatic payments made may lag a bit. Management will follow up that morning and any automatic payments that were not attempted that night will be attempted that morning ( those who would get these automatic payments done would not be in danger of suspension for 9 more days, so the lag should not hurt them.).
• If a customer has a due bill, they may want to login and make sure it’s paid by the 18th. If a client gets suspended before this maintenance time, they won’t be able to pay and get reinstated right away during the maintenance time.
• Anyone that has an invoice generating around this maintenance window should be fine. (Everyone has a grace period of several days.)
• If anyone is suspended for billing reasons and find they cannot pay, they should email billing@hostnine.com. Please note that billing is only open during normal business hours. Or if someone paid but they are not yet reinstated, they should email billing@hostnine.com.
by GeraudStaton on April 16th, 2012
Photo by pylbug
Here are two videos from Tripwire that can help you in your security efforts- one covers security and configuration management, and the other discusses automated systems that can assist with detecting breaches and attacks.
What resources do you use to stay up-to-date with site security? Let us know in the comments.
Tripwire: Security and Configuration Management
Your network could be hacked right now and you wouldn’t even know it. The first sign would be when your information is already out there in the world. So, what is a company to do? Paul Henry has some advice in this interview with Tripwire.
Tripwire: Protective and Detective Controls to Protect Against Breaches and Attacks
It’s difficult monitoring every user on your network for potential breaches. But you don’t have to do it alone. In fact, according to Paul Henry, you might not have to do much of it at all. There are plenty of automated systems out there that can help you out.
by McKinneyBrown on April 17th, 2012
Looking for different ways to promote your website, web hosting service or reseller hosting program?
Check out this post on inbound marketing from A Small Orange:
Would you rather be bothered by intrusive and annoying online advertisements or self-select helpful information from companies vying for your attention and patronage?
The answer to the above question in obvious, and businesses everywhere are taking note. In the past (let’s be real, from the beginning of advertising), brands and organizations have sought to grab the attention of the consumer through flashy, in-your-face, and over the top advertisements. This is termed as “Outbound Marketing.” Now, the fundamental functions of the internet are changing the way businesses and advertising agencies reach out to their customers.
Unlike print publications (the main form of mass communication before the turn of the century), the internet is not a one way conversation, but a network of voices that review, comment, upload, download, subscribe, tweet, post, update, and the list goes on. This fundamental change in communication structure has revolutionized the way businesses connect with consumers. Enter: Inbound Marketing.
Unlike “Outbound Marketing,” blasting consumers with ad after annoying ad, Inbound Marketing acts as an agent of conversation. This style of marketing recognizes that it is a voice in a dialogue, and thus being rude and annoying has real consequences. The way Inbound Marketing works is creating useful and user-friendly content that informs and edifies the user who has self-selected this content.
Image from blog.hubspot.com
Inbound marketing is an effective way to grow your business and the loyalty and respect of your customers. Sound like something that could work for you? Check out these great resources for creating Inbound Marketing strategies that produce effective results and give you an edge on your competition.
Copyblogger
These two great blogs from HubSpot:
http://blog.hubspot.com/
http://blog.inboundmarketing.com/
Content Marketing Institute
PR 20/20
And while you’re at it, be sure to check out this great article dealing with how online marketing has evolved since the 1990′s.
Have you been using Inbound Marketing for your organization? How have you fared? Let us know in the comments section!
by McKinneyBrown on April 18th, 2012
Web developers: It’s always helpful to have an easy-to-access list of hints when you’re throwing down some code. Check out this list of cheat sheet resources, which covers everything from basic HTML to C++.
DevCheatSheet.com
An extensive collection of cheat sheets that covers programming and scripting languages, frameworks and libraries, and more.
DZone
DZone is an online community for developers that features a popular links front page (a la Reddit) for quick perusal of the best content the users have to offer. Although not specifically reserved for cheats, DZone is a great resource for any developer who wants to stay up to date and fresh with their knowledge and skill set. Keep in mind that you’ll need to create a (free) account to join.
QuicklyCode
QuicklyCode sorts their cheats by format, so you can search for wallpapers, widgets, apps and infographics that meet your development needs.
Tripwire
Another great resource mentioned in the designers post that is also fantastic for developers. With 60 cheat sheets, chances are you’ll find something you can use.
Pete Freitag
Check out over 30 cheat sheets in one place sorted by web development, databases/SQL, language, version control and more.
Anything good that we missed? Let us know in the comments!
by McKinneyBrown on April 20th, 2012
by Jim on April 19th, 2012
Are you a web developer looking to boost your efficiency and increase your productivity? Look no further! Below are some awesome browser add-ons and extensions you can use to do just that.
What developer extensions do you use? Let us know in the comments section!
MeasureIt!
MeasureIt! is a tool that lets you measure the exact measurements of an image you are looking to capture. This tool makes getting images that meet your precise requirements incredibly easy.
MeasureIt! For Chrome
MeasureIt! For Safari
MeasureIt! For Firefox
Live CSS Editor
As its name suggests, Live CSS editor gives you the power to update and edit CSS on your pages and see your changes in real time.
Live CSS Editor For Chrome
Live CSS Editor For Safari
(Unavailable for Firefox at this time)
Firebug Lite
Firebug Lite combines the power of a far-reaching development tool with the convenience of a browser extension. From live CSS editing to Synchronization across different windows, Firebug lite makes developing and editing easier than ever. Read more and download using the links below.
Firebug Lite For Chrome
Firebug Lite For Safari
Firebug Lite For Firefox
HTML Validator
HTML Validator detects errors in your HTML and displays them in your status bar while browsing.
HTML Validator For Chrome
HTML Validator For Safari
HTML Validator For Firefox
Server Switcher
Server Switcher allows you to easily switch between servers throughout the developing process to save you time and energy.
Server Switcher For Chrome
Server Switcher For Safari
Server Switcher For Firefox
Web Developer
Web Developer is designed to be an all-in-one tool set for your most important development needs. This extension is very clean and extremely user-friendly for the developer.
Web Developer For Chrome
Web Developer For Firefox
(Web Developer is currently unavailable for Safari)
by Jim on April 23rd, 2012
Photo by gamp
One of the most important aspects of a reseller hosting business is the level of customer service it provides. Responding to client needs and expectations is the cornerstone to building an excellent reputation in the market. Outlined below are five ways to provide the very best service to customers.
Be Accessible
Nothing is more frustrating to a client than an inability to reach the host, especially if there is an emergency. A quality reseller will provide a phone number that will be answered at any time of the day or night. Implementing a ticket system, which comes included with some client management softwares, will efficiently prioritize and keep track of customer issues. Another method of contact that has become popular in recent years is live chat. This can be more practical and cost effective than phone service for new resellers on limited budgets. Twitter is an alternative, real-time option that is effective for quick troubleshooting and announcing planned downtime, such as for maintenance.
Be a Good Listener
When a customer has a problem with the reseller service, they want to be heard. They do not want a canned response, or a link to a knowledge base post that may not completely address the issue at hand. Whether communicating by text or voice, the reseller should let the customer talk without interruption, then clarify anything that requires more information. It can be helpful to write out the problem while the client is talking about it and highlight key points. Never argue with the client, as the focus should be on solving the problem, not winning a fight.
Be a Good Communicator
A good host will always treat a customer with respect, regardless of the manner in which the problem is being presented. It is wise to remember many clients do not have the technical expertise that a host does and minor glitches may be intimidating, especially if there is downtime involved. After the client has explained the issue, the host should repeat everything back to ensure all details were covered and the problem is being understood correctly. The client should then be reassured the issue will be handled with utmost priority. This point is very important when using a ticketing system and the discussion is not occurring in real time.
Be Professional
Letting the customer know resolving the issue at hand is very important to you goes a long way toward building a solid reputation in the reseller business. The client should be thanked for their patronage and asked for feedback on how to make the service better. A broader way to find out how the service is doing is put a poll on the company site and make note of the results. Another benefit of great customer service is clients who receive it will write shining reviews and also tell their friends and family how fantastic the hosting service is. Each of those people will share the information with their own network of coworkers and friends. A good reputation always builds upon itself.
Be Open to Change
An often overlooked aspect of customer service is knowing when the current system is not working. Whether that means changing the way clients contact the company, how tickets are handled or who answers the phone is dependent on the type of feedback received. It might be as simple as redesigning the company site or offering new hosting packages, or as complicated as installing a more efficient billing and ticketing system. Whatever the reason, a good host will know when it is time to make a change to better serve its customer base. A company that listens is a company that stays ahead of the game. This is crucial in a highly competitive reseller hosting market.
Providing quality customer service is more than just solving a client’s momentary technical issue. It is an ongoing process that builds trust and goodwill that can lead to more business. The high failure rate of new resellers can often be attributed to a lack of quality communication between the company and the client. Making stellar customer service a number one priority is part of the foundation for success.
by Jim on May 1st, 2012
Photo by iwouldstay
Reseller hosting is a great opportunity for anyone interested in making an online income. While getting set up is simple and low-cost, reselling is a long term investment of work, patience and promotion. With proper preparation and thorough research, it can become a lucrative business over time. The following list outlines the steps necessary to becoming a quality reseller web host.
Have a Plan
As with any venture, a plan should be drawn up with a clear idea of goals before starting out, while bearing in mind that profits will take time. Determine what part of the hosting market the business will target. Starting off small is the best approach, allowing the reselling business to grow organically. Thinking too big and wanting too much, too soon is the main reason many new reseller hosts fail.
Pick a Domain Name
The domain name should reflect the name of the business and be registered prior to choosing a host. A dot com is the first choice, with the option of adding the dot net to boost SEO and lock the brand name. Single word domain names work the best, as they are easy to remember and look more professional.
Choose a Host
Many hosting companies offer reseller plans and it can be difficult to choose one. A good host will offer generous bandwidth and disk space for a reasonable monthly fee, and will also provide a control panel that allows for simple administration and branding. A cPanel host is a good choice for novices because it is easy to learn. Some hosts offer a free license for billing software, which can be a huge time and money saver by providing easy sign-up, keeping clients organized and sending invoices automatically.
Set Up the Website
The company website is the portal through which potential clients first meet the business. It should be simple, easy to navigate and clearly show what the reseller has to offer. There are many quality free hosting templates on the Internet that only require a minimum of editing to customize. If in doubt, a small investment in professional web design can go a long way toward making a good impression and can ensure optimization.
Create Packages
Offering a variety of hosting packages will attract the most clients. It is crucial to offer disk space and bandwidth within reasonable limits that will allow for future growth. A good reseller will never promise more than can be delivered and have hidden limits that are a big surprise later on. Packages also need the flexibility to change to reflect customer needs.
Promote the Business
Promotion is vital to any business and the best way to get the word out is through social media. Setting up Twitter and Facebook accounts will make the reseller appear more approachable as well as professional. It is also an excellent avenue for letting people know about coupons and other specials. Twitter can serve as a lightning fast customer service solution with a personal touch.
Encourage Feedback
A new reseller can learn a lot by listening to clients. Encouraging feedback through an email form or social media will help the business grow and change to meet the needs of its target market. All criticism should be taken as constructive and a way to make things better. This approach will also show clients the reseller cares about their needs and will go the extra mile.
Have Patience
Growing a reseller hosting business takes a lot of patience. It is unlikely the company will turn a profit in the first year and it may only break even in the second one. Success in reselling comes over the long term, as it is not a get rich quick scheme. The company may have to shift its approach and goals a few times before finding the perfect niche and customer base.
Web hosting is a highly competitive market and with so many people getting in the reseller business, it can be difficult to stand out and get noticed. Following the tips above should provide a solid foundation for the novice reseller to build a profitable, well-run company.
by Jim on April 25th, 2012
Photo by DBarefoot
The most challenging part of starting a reseller hosting business is getting the word out. While family and friends can be helpful, it is more crucial to establish a strong presence on social media. This not only attracts new clients and helps to stay in contact with current ones, it also gives a hosting company a more personal touch. Outlined below are ways a reseller can utilize social media and stand out in the competitive world of hosting.
Facebook
Facebook is by far one of the most useful marketing tools for any business. It has a huge global userbase and many features for websites, such as the popular like button. A reseller can set up a Facebook page that provides information about the company and the hosting plans available while also offering discounts and coupons. The page’s wall can be used as a pre-sales forum, where potential clients can ask questions before signing up. The wall can also serve as an avenue for customer service, giving clients a quick resolution to their technical issues. Those resellers who wish take it a step further can create personal profiles and link them to the page. Facebook is an excellent reputation builder and one of the most powerful ways to build a customer base.
Twitter
Microblogging service Twitter is best known for its 140 character messages, but it also works very well for promoting a business. It differs from Facebook pages in that it emphasizes sharing rather than discussion, so its power lies in using links. A reseller host can set up an automated process where relevant links about the company, its current specials and the hosting industry itself are tweeted on a regular basis at times where they will pull the most traffic. Twitter is also a great way to get the word out about maintenance or downtime issues, as well as general company announcements. Like Facebook, Twitter can also be used as a means to resolve uncomplicated customer problems or complaints. One practice resellers should avoid is the use of automatic direct messages. While this not a violation of the terms of service, it is frowned upon by Twitter users.
LinkedIn
Many reseller hosts may not consider LinkedIn as a way to promote their business, but it can prove helpful by putting the reseller in touch with other industry professionals. This in turn will put the hosting service on the radar and may also attract the attention of other LinkedIn users who may be in need of web hosting, whether for personal or commercial purposes. Most of all, having a profile on LinkedIn will make the person running the company appear more serious and professional.
Google Plus
Google Plus is new on the social media scene, having arrived in July 2011. While it works much like Facebook, it has a much smaller userbase and does not have all the tools that Facebook offers. Its one big advantage is the majority of people using it are from the technical world, so setting up a business page there can bring in a lot of interest and new signups, as well as get the company noticed by the right people. Like Facebook pages, a Google Plus business page can be used for information, announcements and to answer any questions people may have about the service. While it may not have the overall reach that Facebook does, a Google Plus presence is a sure way to create some buzz around a reseller hosting company.
Social media is a powerful way to get a reseller hosting company noticed in a crowded and competitive marketplace, but the best way to stand out from the crowd is to offer a quality hosting experience along with top notch customer service. A great host will always listen and respond to customer needs and fulfill them any way possible. This aspect is what sets exceptional reseller hosts apart from average ones.
Following the social media tips outlined above should help new resellers promote their companies, stay in touch and attract new clients over the long term. All it takes is a small investment of time to get on the fast track to success.
by Jim on April 26th, 2012
Photo by Andrew*
Becoming a reseller host does not require a high level of technical knowledge or a lot of money, but it does come with certain responsibilities. It should not be looked on as a fast way to make money or something that can be set and forgotten about. Reselling is a business that must be built from the ground up. The list below explains several best practices that can ensure success.
Be Realistic
From the start, it is vital to be realistic about goals, packages offered, target market and profit. A reseller business grows slowly and often does not turn a profit in the first year. While it may be tempting to offer customers generous hosting packages in order to get more sign-ups, it is best to stay conservative in order to give the company room to grow. It is also wise to bear in mind that the only constant about web hosting is the fact that it is always changing. A reseller must be flexible and willing to try new business and promotional approaches for maximum results.
Provide Superior Customer Service
It is a common misconception that customer service is a limited event based on a certain problem or situation. Nothing could be further from the truth. Customer service encompasses everything from the layout of the company site to the efficiency of a submission form. A reseller should provide multiple ways for clients to contact the company, such as phone, live chat, ticket system, email and social media. All communication from customers should be answered as fast as possible. Accessibility and a willingness to listen, communicate and solve customer issues in a professional manner is a big part of creating a stellar reputation.
Promote the Business
There are many ways to promote a reseller host and the majority of them require only a small investment of time. A new host can start by asking family, friends and coworkers to sign up for the service and provide honest feedback. If they have a positive experience, they will tell everyone they know and that group will tell others as well. Using social media such as Twitter and Facebook is a great way to introduce the company to the masses and generate some buzz. Twitter works especially well because it can be used as a customer service tool as well as a promotional one. Being approachable and willing to engage goes a long way toward building rapport.
Give Discounts
Everyone loves a deal and hosting clients are no different. Offering specials and discounts as an incentive to sign up is a great way to attract new customers and retain the current ones. Some examples are giving new clients a month free for agreeing to a year of service or giving a percent off when they renew. Once the business is going strong, it may be feasible to offer recurring coupons and specials to everyone. The idea of a discount is to make customers feel important and as if they are receiving royal treatment.
Encourage Feedback
Reseller hosts should ask their clients to provide feedback about the service. Whether positive or negative, feedback will tell the host how well the company is doing and how best to address the aspects that require change. Feedback can be collected by a form on the company site or through social media. A Facebook fan page can be very helpful in this regard, as it will allow clients and company to interact publically and show the reseller in a professional light. Another possibility is to ask clients to write reviews around the web and offer a discount in return. Feedback is what keeps a company honest and it should always be encouraged.
Being a reseller web host requires time, dedication and a willingness to go the extra mile for customers. It is not enough to sign up for a reseller account, slap together some packages and put up a site. Hosting is all about personal service from start to finish. The client is always the most important of the business, and the tips outlined above should be helpful for attracting customers and keeping them over the long term.
by Jim on April 26th, 2012
Dear HostNine Community:
We’re pleased to announce that we’re switching over our auto installer system from Fantastico to Softaculous. For those not in the know, Softaculous is an extremely fast auto installer for cPanel and DirectAdmin. We’re pretty happy about this change, and we think you will be too.
Some reasons why it’s an awesome product:
• 259 scripts at your disposal
• One step installation
• User ratings/reviews of different scripts
• GZip compression
• Ease of use
• Import scripts directly or from other Auto Installers
• All available Softaculous scripts have demo versions available to try out
• Fast, regular updates
Click here for a great comparison chart that shows how Softaculous measures up to other auto installers.
Click here to learn more about Softaculous.
Keep in mind that all your scripts installed by Fantastico will be maintained from Softaculous from now on, and imported for you during the conversion. However, if you notice installs that are missing, simply follow the following procedure and the missing install should appear:
• Login to cPanel
• Go to Softaculous
• Look at the upper right hand icon dock
• Choose the one that says “Synchronize with other Auto Installers”
• Click that icon
• Check what you want to import
• Click to import
Thanks for your time!
The HostNine Team
by GeraudStaton on April 27th, 2012
by Jim on April 30th, 2012
Welcome to the HostNine Monthly Newsletter!
As always, we’ll keep our content short and to the point.
Any questions? Reply back to newsletter@hostnine.com and a real human being will respond ASAP.
What’s New
Take The HostNine Blog Content Survey!
As you may have noticed, the HostNine Blog has been publishing content five days a week on a variety of topics, from web design and development to security and social media. We’re curious to hear your thoughts on what we’re covering, so we can continue to provide helpful information to you.
We’ve constructed an extremely brief survey for you to fill out here.
Thanks in advance for your participation!
Softaculous Is Here!
We’re pleased to announce that we’re switching over our auto installer system from Fantastico to Softaculous. For those not in the know, Softaculous is an extremely fast auto installer for cPanel and DirectAdmin. We’re pretty pleased with this change, and we think you will be too.
Some reasons why it’s an awesome product:
• 259 scripts at your disposal
• One step installation
• User ratings/reviews of different scripts
• GZip compression
• Ease of use
• Import scripts directly or from other Auto Installers
• All available Softaculous scripts have demo versions available to try out
• Fast, regular updates
Click here for a great comparison chart that shows how Softaculous measures up to other auto installers.
Click here to learn more about Softaculous.
Keep in mind that all your scripts installed by Fantastico will be maintained from Softaculous from now on, and imported for you during the conversion. However, if you notice installs that are missing, simply follow the following procedure and the missing install should appear:
• Login to cPanel
• Go to Softaculous
• Look at the upper right hand icon dock
• Choose the one that says “Synchronize with other Auto Installers”
• Click that icon
• Check what you want to import
• Click to import
Thanks for reading! See you next month!
-The HostNine Team
