Choosing a Web Host: Research Before You Decide

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by Jaako

Choosing a Web Host: Research Before You Decide

Hundreds of hosting providers are competing these days to attract customers in different ways. In most cases, their offers look very similar, especially to those who are new to web hosting, making the selection of a good hosting provider a very difficult and confusing task.

If you are new to web hosting, you first need to know the basics of web hosting. You should know the answers to the following questions:
1. What is a web host?
2. What are the available host server platforms? What are the differences between server types?
3. What is the bandwidth?
4. What is a domain name? How Can I get one?
5. How can I create web pages?
6. What are scripting languages? What can I do with them?
7. What is FTP?
8. What features do I need for my website?

If you don’t know the answers to the above questions, you can find answers and hints here.

If you are only intending to build a small and simple personal website to publish your pet’s (or family) pictures, then you don’t need to worry, almost any hosting plan will meet your needs. You can go for the cheapest provider, even free ones.

However, If you are about to build a business site to sell goods or services, then you have to be careful about all the details of your new web host. You must read, research, compare and then decide. You don’t want to spend your time, effort and money to attract customers to a website that is not up to your business requirements; this will really hit your image.

It is certainly important to study the features required in the hosting plan. You must know what does storage capacity, bandwidth, platform and scripting languages mean, and how important each one is for your new website, but this is not enough, not at all.

After you shortlist the candidate hosts to only include the ones that meet your requirements, do some research on providers’ history, read some unbiased reviews about their services and explore some customer experience. These are the factors that should make your final decision.

Be careful when researching such information about a provider. Performing a quick search on google about “best web hosting” or “top 10 hosting companies” will not directly return the right and honest information. Most of hosting reviews sites are not actually providing honest reviews. Instead of giving it based on the quality of service, the highest ranks and best reviews are actually given to the companies paying higher commissions to their affiliates. I’ve seen this on quite a lot of review sites.

So, after you have narrowed your web host choices to several providers, you’ll need to take a more in-depth look at them before deciding which one you should go with. You have to perform a thorough evaluation process which might take hours, or even days, for each choice. Sources of information that can support your evaluation process can be in:
1. At least three honest and unbiased review sites.
2. Several reviews in more than one web hosting forum.
3. Direct feedback from real customers of the candidate providers.

Web Hosting Review Sites
Hosting directories and review sites are useful in the process of narrowing your search, especially those who provide an automatic search utility based on price, space, bandwidth, OS, etc. which can save your time and effort in this aspect.

Avoid review sites with “top 10” sort of recommendations. Go for those which provide user reviews, and read the reviews carefully. Compare reviews and user opinions from as much review sites as you can, at least three. As stated above, be careful when reading customer reviews as some hosts might encourage their new customers to write favorable reviews by offering some advantages.

Web Hosting Forums
Open forums are important source of reviews and customer experience. They are open places where customers can write their reviews and opinions about their hosts. However, they can have the same problem as review sites: a provider can write very positive reviews about his own company. The opposite might also happen: competitors can write very negative reviews about their competitors. In some forums, this activity is not permitted. Moderators are strictly monitoring the forums for such activities and deal with them in away that preserve their honesty and credibility, but this cannot guarantee that all the reviews are 100% accurate and honest. Keep in mind: what fits with other users’ needs might not fit with your needs.

Search for “web hosting forum” in any search engine and you will get hundreds of them. My favorite one is www.webhostingtalk.com. Almost all forums have a search services from which you can search for your candidate hosting provider’s name or URL. If you get results for your search, read as much related threads as possible. If you don’t get results you can post a thread asking for customer reviews about the intended provider(s). Again, don’t base your final decision on one opinion. Read reviews in different threads on more than one forum.

Feedback from Customers
Some web hosts list samples of their customers. Others have forums on their websites for support, where you will see examples of issues raised by real customers and how did the company dealt with. On those forums you might get addresses of some customers. Try to contact those customers to find out what they think about the service and support.

At this point, you can make a decision based on a combination of the gathered information. You will most probably be satisfied with the host you choose.

Abbas Alafoo is the creator of www.website-hostings.net, a collection of articles and tutorials about web hosting, design, development, promotion and administration.

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Niche Market Research for Home-based Internet Businesses

Niche Market Research for Home-based Internet Businesses

Internet Marketing Niche for Home-Based Internet Businesses

Niche Market Research may possibly the only way Home-Based Internet Businesses can compete with huge corporations that spend huge amounts of money on Internet marketing. For example, a company that makes every kind of bicycle you can think of spends their marketing dollars on “bicycles” which is a broad market. In order to compete with the “bicycle company”, as a home-based Internet business you might consider a much smaller niche market like “mountain bike seats”.

the quickest and cheapest way to generate income from the Internet is to start a home-based Internet business using Pay-Per-Click Advertising (AdSense) and Affiliate Marketing. If you want to succeed at AdSense Affiliate Marketing, niche market research is an absolute requirement. Select the wrong niche and fail. Select the right niche markets and you WILL make money.

What is a Niche Market?

A home-based Internet business generating income with pay-per-click advertising and affiliate marketing must be focused on a niche market with a high probability of making money. Choose the wrong niche and you will be wasting time. Find the right Internet niche and you can make ,000.00 to ,000 per month and even more.

Selecting a niche market that targets a small, select audience can allows you to tap into a market that is not being served or has little competition. The targeted nature of the niche creates an active market.

What Is Niche Marketing Research?

Niche Marker Research for a home-based Internet business is all about Niche Market Research. You must find markets that have a high probability of generating income. When you perform niche research you are actually looking for keywords and keyword phrases that you think will be used by individuals to find your niche website.

After you have your list of keywords and keyword phrases here is some of the information you will need to determine if you have hit on a profitable niche market:

· Does the keyword or keyword phrase generate a high of amount traffic?

· How many times do individuals use the keyword in search engines?

· Are their any Google and Yahoo AdWords campaigns and how many?

· How much does the keyword pay for Pay-Per-Click (AdSense) advertising?

· Does your competition make money the pay-per-click completion using the keyword?

How Do I Find a Niche Market?

Finding a niche market requires diligent research and is absolutely necessary to be successful generating income with a home-based Internet business.

Whether you have access to software that harvests the information you will need to select a profitable niche or you take a manual approach, you first start with ideas. Make a list of businesses, products services, and industries. Then, create a list of keywords and keyword phrases that you think individuals would use to search for these items on the Internet. Evaluate the results for each one.

Trying to get the details for a niche market by using several of the free software and websites is one way you can go. However, this is time consuming and confusing. If you go this route be prepared to spend weeks, maybe even months putting together the pertinent information needed to determine if a niche is profitable.

As with any business you need to use the right tools get the job done right, and, a home-based Internet business is no exception. Why spend weeks gathering relevant details about a niche market when you can accomplish this in hours or a day or two with the right tool. Make no mistake about it. Niche market information is complex and detailed and using a comprehensive Niche Market Research Software Tool will make the difference between success and failure.

A new Premier Software Tool is sweeping the Internet Marketing arena by storm. The software, Keyword Elite is used by webmasters and Internet marketers for advanced niche market research is. It is an incredible, comprehensive and affordable business tool that is feature rich and delivers up every detail that you need to evaluate you niche markets. There is more information on my website. Here are just a few of the features:

· Easily generate keyword lists of over 10,000 keywords in a few short minutes

· Allows you to find extremely profitable, high paying Adsense keywords

· Analyzes your PPC competition to find exactly which keywords are making them the most money, as well as which ones are losing them money.

· Get a quick glance at how competitive a

market is in terms of organic search engine listings, as well as PPC listings

· Plus so much more…

Conclusion:

Niche Market Research is an involved process that takes time and practice and it should be considered one of the most important steps to starting a Home-Based Internet business.

A Bonus Idea: once you have mastered researching niche markets consider starting a Niche Marketing Research Service and sell it on your websites. Customers pay good money for this service. However, make it easy on yourself and a comprehensive software tool to help you with niche research and get your fair share of the Internet Goldmine.

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Robert L. Ludwig is an Internet Marketer and Entrepreneur. He is trained as a public speaker and counselor and has written on various Internet topics including Internet marketing and Search Engine Optimization. He teaches how to start and run successful online marketing businesses. For more details: http://www.internet-entrepreneurs-center.com.

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Question by lehrke1881: Can anyone give me some tips as to how to promote my internet business?
I just recently started a work-from-home internet business, and I’m wondering if there are any tips or tricks to getting more traffic to my site? I don’t know alot of people that are interested personally, so I have to find prospects elsewhere. Any ideas or tips would be greatly appreciated.

Best answer:

Answer by answertoAll
1. Place copies of your circular on bulletin boards throughout your community, such as in coin-operated laundries, grocery stores, barber shops, etc. Concentrate of Fridays and Saturdays when shopping increases.

2. Check with local newspapers. Before going to press, many smaller newspapers have space left that needs filling.. Your ad may be just the right size to occupy this unfilled space and they will run it free.

3. Place your circulars on windshields of parked autos, Youngsters will be happy to do this for you for a dollar or two. Check first with city ordinances to see if this is permitted in your locality.

Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!