Web Hosting

Domain Names and Search Engine Optimization

Many people don’t understand how crucial domain names are to effective search engine optimization. A domain name is capable of changing the entire fate of an online business, and this has never been more true than in today’s highly competitive keyword driven market. A good domain name could mean the difference between a page rank of 10 or a page rank of 1.

Search engine optimization can be a very complicated process to try and master, especially if you are relying entirely upon on-site optimization. Although populating your site with high quality content is definitely a good way to get a high ranking in the search engine, there is nothing more effective than good old domain name keyword targeting.

How Do Domain Names Affect Search Engine Optimization?

This question may seem basic to some, however the answer is a lot deeper than most would expect. If you want to fully understand why and how domain names affect the search engine optimization of a site then you need to understand how the search engines think. Search engines base their search results on the usefulness, relevancy and popularity of a site. Now first and foremost if your site is brand new then it cannot be very popular yet, so we can eliminate that form the equation. However, your site does not have to have any daily visitors to impact the relevancy category of search engine optimization. In other words -you can rank highly in the search engines based on just your domain name alone. By having a domain name that is similar or identical to the keyword or phrase you are targeting, you are automatically guaranteeing yourself a  high ranking in the search engine for that keyword.

How to Find the Right Keyword for Your Domain

This is perhaps the most challenging part of picking your domain name. If you are searching for a domain name that targets a keyword, it can be very difficult to find one that is even similar to a valuable keyword. It is however possible, and with the right researching skills you can easily make it happen. The key to finding a good keyword for your domain name is targeting long tail keywords. Long tail keywords are basically long spin offs of the main keyword. For example, trying to register a domain name with the keyword “loans” (loans.com) would not be plausible. However you could target the keyword “bad credit car loans” (badcreditcarloans.com) and you may be able to secure this domain. If you can get a domain with that name, and place content on it that pertains to that niche, then you will find yourself at the top of the search engine for that niche in a very short period of time.

Optimizing your Keyword Targeted Domain

Once you have your keyword targeted domain, you will need to fill the site with content that is relevant to your niche, and then submit your site map to Google so that it can be indexed. Simply find a few articles that pertain to your niche and rewrite them or write a few unique articles yourself. Once you have done this you’ll being to see consistent traffic to your site on a regular basis, based on your domain name and very minimal work on your behalf.

What is 95th Percentile Monitoring?

95^th percentile monitoring is a collocation technical term that relates to bandwidth. This method of monitoring logs 30 days worth of traffic samples every 5 minutes. This log is then sorted in descending order, placing the largest traffic spikes at the top of the list. These top 5% traffic spikes are thrown out.

This remaining top value, within the 95^th percentile, is the bandwidth usage for the month. Colocation hosting providers often use this method to bill their corporate customers. Most collocation hosting companies feel this is the most fair and effective method for conducting business with corporate clients.

This method of billing is only really seen in peering arrangements between corporate networks. Since internet service providers need consistent data rates for planning, this method is far from appealing to them. Most sites generate the bulk of their traffic on Mondays. Therefore, Monday practically determines the billable rate for the entire month.

The primary advantage is the user can accumulate up to 36 hours of peak traffic that will be ignored on that month’s bill, regardless of the height of the spikes. Unfortunately this bill method attracts a few criticisms.

For instance:

• Potential to pay for unused bandwidth
• Inbound and outbound traffic calculated separately

Although the primary advantage is attractive, it works both ways. Users can potentially pay for unused bandwidth. For example, if a website only uses 2Mbps for 5% of the time and nothing more, the client would be billed as if they had utilized 2Mbps for the entire month. If this were the case, the cost could be driven down by sending data reducing the bandwidth to the 95th percentile thus knocking the 5% off.

Another criticism is the split calculation of inbound and outbound traffic. Since these are calculated separately, the highest value is used for billing and not the total sum. This is another issue that could cause for a surprising bill. Critics of this method prefer the flat rate billing system, the average amount of data transferred or billing per byte.

Web hosting providers offer many different types of billing. Some colocation providers even offer a 90% billing method to attract those with inconsistent bandwidth usage. There are so many different steps to getting a website up and running and ever-increasing options to keep it maintained. 95^th percentile monitoring is a fair and effective billing method, but it’s generally more useful for individual users to find an alternative with a better fit.

The In’s and Out’s of Virtual Private Server Hosting

Virtual private server hosting (VPS hosting) splits a server so that one half runs one operating system and the other half runs a different system. Since each operating system is independent, they can be rebooted separately without affecting the other. Partitioning has been a common practice over the past few years but is making a strong reappearance due to the virtualization technology now available.

How it works

In lemans terms, the operating systems share the overall resources of the server. It’s split between the main system and the “guest” system. In this virtual environment, the guest system can utilize a virtual set of hardware of which it’s unaware that the hardware is not physical.

The hypervisor; which is responsible for creating, destroying, and managing the resources of the guest, translates maps and converts all requests from the guest to the appropriate resources on the server.

Primary Uses

The main use of VPS hosting is to bridge the gap between shared and dedicated hosting providers. This gives the users independence from other customers in terms of software, but allows them to still remain on a shared server which significantly decreases the cost.

Another use is for software upgrade testing. If a single server with two virtual servers running; one primary and one for backup, need to be updated, the patches and software can be tested on the backup segment so it doesn’t disrupt normal uptime.

Additionally, virtual servers can be employed to run software with known security issues without interrupting the main server. This can be tremendously beneficial for further testing software for the flaws that may accompany it.

Private Hosting

An even newer trend is dynamic dedicated server hosting. This is actually a virtual dedicated server that allows companies exclusive access. There are two types of dynamic dedicated server hosting:

• Unmanaged
• Unmetered

In this instance, unmanaged hosting is simply a server that is administered by the company paying for the hosting package. Similarly unmetered hosting is also unmanaged, but with a fixed data transfer rate so the monthly allowance is not exceeded.

Although virtualization has been used for many years, the comeback of this technology in relation to web hosting has been enormous. There are many benefits that make this technology appealing to businesses. As the web sector continues to grow and expand, VPS will become a more popular web hosting option.

Best Methods for Generating YouTube Traffic

Social media has become one of the best advertising mediums. With millions of users on Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and YouTube, this is prime advertising real estate. YouTube is an entertaining site that now offers more than just interesting videos.

Utilizing YouTube’s power to generate traffic to your site and potentially convert that traffic into sales is becoming a mainstream idea. The following are a few tips to acquire additional traffic and promote products utilizing YouTube. These pointers include:

• Posting viral videos
• Posting quality videos
• Including your website logo in the videos
• Video promotion
• Make videos search-friendly
• Create an intriguing profile

Viral videos are useful videos that appeal to large groups of people. If you create a video that becomes viral, others will promote the video for you by word of mouth. This allows anything in the video to be seen and accessed by potentially millions of users.

Unfortunately there are many low quality videos available on YouTube. By posting videos of high quality, you are separating yourself from the pack. Viewers don’t like lower quality videos so they will skip over those not conforming to their viewing taste.

Including your website logo or actual web address in the videos is the best promotional tip to generate traffic because it creates branding. Its best to place the logo and URL throughout the video for extended exposure.

Once this is all achieved, promoting the video to gain viewership is the next step. Its unrealistic to just assume that any video created will become viral. Step up and start promoting in blogs, forums, content mills, email links, or other high trafficked web sites.

Furthermore, allow viewers to be able to easily find your video on both YouTube and search engines. To make the video search-friendly, simply include major keywords in both the title and descriptions and pay close attention to tags.

The final tip is while you’re creating and promoting the video, craft an interesting and intriguing profile. This allows viewers to learn more about you. If they read a boring profile, they won’t want to view your content any further.

YouTube and other forms of social media are a gold mine for advertising and generating free traffic. Although there are many videos displaying websites and many advertisements on Twitter, Facebook and Myspace, this is still an untapped, highly resourceful market.

Utilizing a Control Panel for Novices

The control panel is perhaps the most important part of your backend interface that is used to manage and organize your websites. Without a control panel your hosting account would be practically useless, unless of course you were highly skilled in computer programming. There are many control panels currently on the market, and many of them are simply spin-offs of the more popular ones like cPanel. In fact, many people will not purchase a hosting account unless it includes an active version of cPanel. So what exactly is a control panel?

The Definition of a Control Panel

Your web hosting control panel is similar to your Windows control panel in that it can be used to modify and interact with literally every aspect of your web server. Your control panel gives you access to your website’s databases and directories by letting you set up FTP accounts, as well as email accounts. Your control panel can also be used to install software on your web server that can improve the functionality of your web site. Control panels include simple installation applications that help you install scripts and other programs that make your site easy to manage and update. Virtually every aspect of site creation, management, maintenance and organization is dealt with within your control panel.

What is the Best Control Panel?

As usual there is no solid answer to this question simply because everyone has an opinion, and this opinion will surely differ depending upon how much experience you have. However, in general the consensus is that cPanel is the most user-friendly, useful software for controlling your website. The popularity of cPanel has been built up with a snowball effect over the past few years, as more people begin to learn about it and share information about it, even more people want to use it as the awareness of this control panel increases exponentially. For this reason web hosting companies have begun to offer cPanel more than any other hosting control panel. If you’re looking for a control panel to start out with you should definitely consider cPanel as a suitable solution.

Learning to Use Your Control Panel

Every webmaster should know their control panel like the back of their hand. As mentioned above one of the easiest control panels to learn how to use is the famous cPanel. The great thing about cPanel is that it comes with so many tutorials, regardless of the hosting plan you purchase. Even if you have the cheapest hosting plan available you still have access to all of the cPanel training videos. Aside from the training videos it also doesn’t hurt to run tests yourself to see if you fully understand all of the features within the control panel. You can also find a plethora of information and video tutorials on Youtube. The web is full of advanced and intermediate tutorials that are made especially for cPanel. You can even join the cPanel forum and get answers from cPanel experts within a few hours. All of these features and more make cPanel the perfect solution for any novice webmaster.

SERPs and Backlinks – The Keys to SEO

Your site’s page ranking is how Google judges and displays your websites overall popularity. The better your page rank, the more search traffic you’ll receive, as your site will gain more exposure towards the top of Google. Your site’s page rank is displayed on the SERP (Search Engine Results Page). Every effort you put towards search engine optimization is primarily focusing on increasing your site’s position in the SERPs. One of the primary ways to get  a higher page rank in the SERPs is by building backlinks. Backlinks are like the backbones of any popular website. Backlinks are links on the internet that contain your site’s URL. The more links there are in existence, the more popular your site appears to be to Google.

Quick and Easy Vs Long and Hard

There are many ways to build backlinks for your site. A lot of people try to take the easy way out and use tools that will let them spam other sites in hopes of establishing backlinks. While it is possible to build many backlinks doing this, the backlinks will be relatively pointless, as not many real people are going to want to link to your site since you are spamming. Spamming is also bad for your website because Google and other search engines frown upon it severely. In fact it is possible to get indexed by spamming to advertise and build links to your website.  If you want to create a long lasting website that is going to bring you profit year in and year out, then you may want to consider building your link empire legitimately.

Networking and Content

Perhaps the most legitimate and fundamental methods of building backlinks is by simply providing your visitors with interesting content that they would want to share. If the content is interesting enough, then they will automatically link to it on their blog. People will also link to your site on social bookmarking sites, ad posting sites and anywhere else where links can be posted. You can even place social bookmarking utilities on your site that will make it easier for your visitors to recommend your site to their friends on various networks including Myspace and Facebook

Advertising

Yet another obvious way to get more links to your site is through basic advertising. You can use a plethora of ads such as PPC campaigns and other basic advertising methods to drive traffic to your site initially. Once you’ve found an effective keyword to bid on, you can scale up your efforts and begin creating multiple websites. The beauty of owning multiple websites is that you can link to your own websites, creating even more backlink opportunities and an overall better SERP ranking.

Conclusion

Keep in mind that the quality of backlinks is every bit as important as the quantity. Having only 10 backlinks that originate from authoritative sites within your niche, can mean a lot more than having 100 irrelevant backlinks from unrelated websites.

Types of Content Management Systems

There are literally thousands of content management systems available on the internet. Each one caters to different users offering a variety of features which are consistent across all sites.

There are four main types of content management systems that each of the thousands fall under. The systems include:

1) Homegrown
2) Commercial
3) High-end
4) Open Source

Homegrown content management systems are software created by a single development company for their own use of their own products. Consequently, every aspect of the system is catered to their specific needs since they’re the only organization utilizing it. The main issue is the development company relies on a single vendor to fix the bugs and create patches.

The second type is commercial content management systems. This is the most widespread offering many different pricing options, plans and features. Unlike homegrown systems, these are rarely customizable. Also it’s difficult to initially judge the functionality of the software since the company presents what they want you to see.

The third type is high-end content management systems. Out of the thousands of content systems available only a select few fall in to this category. One nice feature is their reliability as high-end content management systems deliver robust solutions. Unfortunately the consumer is going to pay a pretty penny for these services as they tend to be rather expensive.

The final content management system is open source. This essentially means that the software is available to anyone for free. The primary advantages are the price (free!) and that these systems are fully customizable since its open source code. The main limitation is the quality of the product. They often lack stability, security and support of certain infrastructures as you’d often expect from free software.

The selection of the type of content management system is based on customer need. If they are a company that needs customization and price is not an issue, a homegrown system or high-end system might be the most viable option.

On the other hand, if a price tag is problematic and customization isn’t important then a commercial content management system is the best choice. Finally, if the consumer isn’t concerned with stability, security and support and likes the price tag and customization options, open source is the way to go.

Like any type of product you get what you pay for. Those that have the money will purchase the best content management system, those that do not will function with a potentially unreliable product. Either way, the selection is based on individual need and due to the availability of thousands of content management systems; there are many options out there.

What is Reseller Hosting?

The most popular type of reseller hosting is an arrangement wherein the client purchases the host’s services at a wholesale price then resells the bandwidth and server space to customers.  There are two methods to this type of hosting. First, the reseller rents a dedicated server from the host and sells the space and bandwidth or they may resell the shared server space.

This is a very lucrative market as it does not require the reseller to have extensive technical knowledge of web hosting, simply smart business sense. Another benefit for the reseller is they do not have to maintain the servers. All downtime issues, upgrades, recovery centers, hardware and general infrastructure are preserved by the hosting company.

The downfall of being a reseller is the extensive advertising costs involved. It’s difficult to go head-to-head against large web hosting providers when it’s simply a reseller service. A large budget in advertising is a must for any reseller to be profitable. Also, this is a low margin business so most money is pumped back in to advertising.

The typical web hosting resellers are web developers, system integrators, and web design firms. They tend to offer the hosting services as an add-on to their already established business. Entrepreneurs are also attracted to reseller hosting as it’s an inexpensive way to start a business with little overhead.

Most hosting companies allow reselling to occur. Many actually permit the reseller to customize their hosting plans as well as pricing structure. This allows resellers to create branding of their services based on the unique plans that are established. All actions can be monitored via the web in a control panel.

Affiliate Reseller

Another form of hosting is more on the affiliate level. The reseller acts as an agent for the hosting company by advertising the hosting services. Customers purchase the service directly from the host, but the reseller makes a small commission for their advertising efforts.

Marketing Reseller

An additional form is where the reseller acts as a marketer for the hosting company. Customers purchase the service from the reseller, but only deal with the hosting company thereafter. The reseller acts as a middle man only selling the service, but not dealing with any follow-ups, technical issues or complaints.

Portioning Reseller

The final type occurs when the reseller purchases a large chunk of bandwidth and storage space, then breaks it up into smaller portions and sells it to consumers. Customers contact the reseller for any issues.

There are many different types of resellers within the web hosting industry. Since this industry generates tremendous profits, resellers get a small piece of that without having to invest much upfront capital. This is a great way to start a business and also obtain inexpensive web hosting.

The Importance of Anchor Text in SEO

Anchor text is one of the most fundamental yet misunderstood aspects of search engine optimization, in that most people view it as a way to simply improve the appearance of their links. While anchor texts do shorten your links and make them look more attractive, they also serve an even deeper purpose for search engine optimization. An anchor text is a piece of text that is used to describe a link. Thus, instead of distributing a long and unattractive text link that contains an entire URL, you can use anchor text to name the link whatever you’d like. The average site visitor is much more likely to click on a piece of anchor text, rather than a 50 character long unattractive URL.

What Does Anchor Text Have to Do with SEO?

Based on the above information you may be confused as to why anchor text would even matter in regards to SEO. The answer is (like so many other questions related to SEO) – backlinks! When you link back to your site on the Internet, you are creating a backlink for your site. Backlinks let the search engines know that your site is valuable. However a regular backlink that does not contain anchor text will not give the search engine a quick and reliable way of knowing what keyword that page is targeting. For example, if you have created a page that pertains to the keyword “web pages” and you link back to this page with a regular URL, you can see that this link does not really reveal a lot about the destination of the link. However if you were to use anchor text to disguise the link as the clickable words “web pages” then you would make it easy for the search engines to index that page as pertaining to that keyword.

Creating an Anchor Text Link

It is important to note that all online services will not let you post anchor text links. For example, Twitter will not let you post anchor text links. However you should be able to post an anchor text link on any standard web page online. The following is the proper way to create an anchor text -

<a href= “websiteurl.com”>Anchor Text</a>

Using that simple string of code you can make a link appear as any word you’d like, thus boosting your search engine ranking for targeted keywords.

The Importance of Relevant Anchor Text

Although having a lot of anchor text links online that point back to your site will help your overall search engine ranking for specific keywords, it is important to remember that the anchor text used to represent your links need to be relevant to the page they are pointing to. For example, if your page targets the keyword “dog collars” then you wouldn’t want to make your anchor text “dog bones.” Trying to abuse anchor text in this manner can negatively impact your search engine ranking. Thus anchor text should only be used to point to URLs that are relevant to the topic of the anchor text itself.

Control Panel Industry Overview – 4 Top Competitors

Many webmasters and technically inclined internet specialists will tell you that a web server is only as valuable as the control panel used to administer it. Without a good control panel, the web server is practically useless, at least to the average webmaster. Control panels simplify the administration of complex tasks that are performed every day by web servers. Since these applications are in such high demand, it is easy to see why the control panel industry is so competitive. With every control panel claiming to be the best, we deemed it necessary to provide a comprehensive comparison of the 4 top competitors in the control panel industry.

1. cPanel

cPanel is by far the most recognized name in the control panel industry. There exists no other control panel that can compete with the overall popularity and simplicity of cPanel. In fact, the words cPanel and control panel have become practically synonymous. The popularity of cPanel has created somewhat of a snowball effect, in that the large population of users is what continues to increase its popularity. As more people utilize it, more people publish tutorials on how to use it, then more people want to use it.  However, what made this control panel so popular to begin with? If the main attributes of control panel had to be summed up into two simple words; simplicity and functionality. cPanel is one of the only control panels that can be learned in less than an hour, using only videos found on YouTube.

2. Plesk

Plesk is a close second to cPanel, for the simple fact that it is one of the few control panels that is fully compatible with both Windows and Linux based servers. As Microsoft based applications become increasingly popular in today’s market, so does Plesk, as it is very compatible with programming tools such as ASP, IIS and MS SQL. If the main attributes of this control panel had to be summed up into words; efficiency and stability.

3. Virtuozzo Power Panel

Parallels Virtuozzo Power Panel is another control panel that offers both Windows and Linux solutions. This control panel allows users to administer server functions directly from within the browser interface. Users can reboot servers, manage and analyze server data, and complete just about every other basic server function within their favorite web browser. As far as VPS hosting is concerned, Virtuozzo is by far the most capable control panel solution.

4. ServerCP

ServerCP is a Linux-based  simplified control panel that is often seen in the VPS hosting environment. This control panel offers a user-friendly yet extensive and feature-rich administrative interface. ServerCP lets users manage an unlimited amount of domains, and offers a simple installation application that makes the process of installing your favorite web applications quick and easy. This control panel is offered in two forms, the standard version and the lite version.

Conclusion

All four of the above control panels have proven themselves to be capable solutions, and the ultimate decision should be determined based on the need for certain features. Before making a final choice, I’d recommend you check out the full features list of each control panel, and conduct the necessary research.

Domain Name Selection – A Business Changing Decision

There are many steps involved in starting a new business, some of which require financial investment, others which only call for a bit of intuition. Many aspiring online business owners don’t realize that the  amount of intuition they put into their business will far outweigh the amount of money they invest. Even investing thousands of dollars will not help an individual that is focused on the wrong aspect of their business. From start to finish, the process of starting a successfully online business is one that requires plenty of critical thinking and decision making. Perhaps the most important decision you’ll need to make is the selection of your domain name.

Know What You’re Aiming For

When it comes to domain names, the possibilities are literally endless. Unfortunately, thousands of other individuals came to this realization long before you did, and have since assumed most of the names that would be considered optimal. This, however, does not mean there are no good domains left. It simply means you’ll need to be more deliberate in the brainstorming process. You’ll need to know what you’re looking for, instead of aimlessly cycling through possible names. This is especially true if you already own an offline business. Your domain name needs to be memorable, catchy, and most importantly – relevant to your business. Your goal is to find the shortest or most memorable domain name that will embody your business’s online presence.

Don’t Settle

One of the most common mistakes people make is assuming the name they want is not available, when in fact it is. Many people have come to the conclusion that there are simply no good domain names left and it is this very mentality that causes many domain owners to miss out on their dream domain name. Instead of assuming the name is taken, at least try it. Run a search for every domain name that comes to mind, even if it seems highly unlikely that it would still be available. Settling for a substandard domain name will only result in an unsuccessful business, or at the very least a worthless domain name. An example of settling for less would be acquiring a domain name with a series of numbers on the end. For example, if the domain name you want is – “thedomainireallywant.com” and this name is not available, so instead you buy – “thedomainireallywant123.com” then you’re settling for a domain name that is ultimately going to be detrimental to the full potential of your online business.

Assume Your Brand

Once you have found the perfect domain name, you’ll need to realize that this will be your permanent online brand, so it is important to claim this brand completely. This means acquiring all similar domains, all possible domain extensions with this domain name, and all spelling variations of the domain name. You’ll also need to copyright your domain name, and any other intellectual property such as your logo and/or slogan.

Conclusion

The entire process of procuring and securing your domain name is by far the single most important process in the beginning of your online business endeavors. A successful start in this area will surely lead to subsequent success in the near future.