Starting a Web Host

Web Host SEO and Advertising Stage 7

Matt — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 12:35:06 +0000

I recently created a list of ways to promote websites and blogs. It may be useful so I have included it here:

1. Have Your Own Domain – If you use WordPress or blogger, try to avoid using sub-domains or free hosting services. Pay for some web hosting and get your own unique domain name. This will make your website more memorable and encourage visitors to return.

2. Create a Professional and Unique Design with Logo – Code your own template or modify an existing theme for your site or blog. What makes your blog so special if it looks the same as 1000 others on the Internet? Make sure you have a great memorable logo so when people see it; they know it’s your websites. Your design should be clean and simple so it’s easy to navigate. Once you have made it, test it and check everything works, a site with errors will lose visitors.

3. Content is King – You need to consistently write great content on your blog or website. The posts that you make need to be worth reading and have some impact on the visitor. If I am visiting your website for the first time, I want to be impressed and bookmark your website so I return to see what else you compose.

4. Post Linking – When a link is made to your blog from another blog, if activated, it places a link in that blogs comments back to the relevant post. This will help increase back links to your blog and therefore increase traffic.

5. Personality – Do not pretend to be someone you are not as a blogger. Be yourself and do not act otherwise. This is best because your readers want someone to connect with, someone who is a real person and not just a blog with no face.

6. Always Room for Improvement - Always strive to improve your blog or site any way you can. Play around with ad placement, colours and graphics and other features to make your blog more appealing. Ask for reviews to find area’s for improvement.

7. Reply to Your Readers – This means replying to comments and any e-mails that you receive. This is part of your personality and showing that you are a real person who exists and cares about the topic you are blogging about.

8. Real Posts – Ensure that you sound human in your posts. Do not post in the third person. Use words such as “I” and talk about your personal experiences.

9. A Picture - A picture paints a thousand words so why not show your readers who is writing the blog. Upload an image of yourself onto your about page, or if you are not quite comfortable to do that then have a cartoon of yourself made.

10. Comment on Other Blogs - This is a very powerful technique, I know I find myself clicking the link to a person’s website after I have read their comment and this is what you can achieve by leaving your comment on as many other blogs as possible. Blogs that are about the same topic will help you get targeted traffic. Ensure your comment is worth reading and not just a load of rubbish.

11. Question Your Readers – Ask your readers questions in posts, this will help to provoke a response from them. You give them an important role to play and they respond by commenting their opinion. This will encourage repeat visitors to respond to your posts with their opinions.

12. Internal Linking - Linking to previous posts that you have made will create more back links and also encourage readers to re-read or look at some of your older work. Readers of a particular post will be interested in related posts so ensure you link to them.

13. Alternate Text Images – When you use images on your site, ensure that you use alternate text “alt” tags to insert keywords or the name of the image. This will help get the images listed on image search engines and result in traffic from that source.

14. Submit to Directories - Submit your site to online directories. Do this to as many as you can to improve your PageRank. This increased back links to your website and there for you receive higher rankings on search engines. Quality back links are important so try and obtain some from high Page Ranking sites that have similar content to your websites.

15. Image Use – Try to use images when posting on your blog. These make posts more fun to look at and can break up boring text.

16. Join Forums – Join many forums and message boards that are related to your websites content. Place a link back to your website in your profile and signature and frequently post useful information to other members.

17. Keyword Rich Content – When writing articles or posts on your site or blog, ensure you include relevant keywords so that people searching for the topic will have an easier time finding your article.

18. Write Intriguing Post Titles – Ensure that you write intriguing post titles that have keywords in. This is what is going to show up on search engines so ensure your spelling is right and that you would want to click it.

19. Meta Data – Get as much use out of Meta data as you can. Try to have a different page description and keywords on every page of your website.

20. Write a Press Release – Write a press release about something to do with your website and publish this on news sites or press release websites along with sites that are relevant to your niche.

21. Merchandise – Create pens, pencils, t-shirts, mouse mats etc that have your websites logo and address on. Maybe sell the t-shirts from your website however give you the free pens in your local area.

22. Advertise Locally – Place an advert in your local business newsletter or in a local shop. List what the purpose of your website is and hopefully you will receive some interest. Local traffic can really help especially if you are selling something. Visitors will be much more inclined to purchase from someone locally than from the other site of the world.

23. Share a Secret - It is likely that your website will be based on something you have an interest in, so why not share some inside knowledge that many of your readers may not know. Let them know something that has helped you and only you in the past. Curiosity is a marvellous thing.

24. Advert Experiments – Naturally most will want to make some money from their website and therefore adverts will be on there. Try and experiment with your adverts placement to see which gets better results. Do not overload your website with adverts because this will deter visitors. Maybe implement a membership system that removes 50% of adverts when logged in.

25. Social Bookmark Posts Plug-in – If you have a blog then get a plug-in for your posts that allows your readers to click a button and this will then bookmark your site on digg, stumbleupon, reddit etc.

26. Ask for Diggs – There is no harm is asking your readers to Digg posts that you have written. This will help increase the number of dig users visiting your website.

27. Ask for Comments – Ask your visitors in your posts to post their comments about the post. If you are not getting as many comments as you would like then anything is worth a try.

28. Ask for Subscriptions – While asking for comments you may was well ask for other things such as subscriptions to your RSS feed. Ensure there is a big button that can be clicked that allows subscriptions to be made simple and stress free.

29. E-mail Subscription – Allows users to signup by e-mail so that your blog posts are delivered to their e-mail address. This will ensure visitors do not miss any of your posts.

30. MyBlogLog – This is a great service that shows an image of your visitors on your website if they are registered. There are similar blog social networking sites that can also be used for this.

31. Post Rating – Enable a plug-in on your blog that allows visitors to rate your posts. This is a simple way that does not require registration to enable readers to report on how good a post is.

32. FeedBurner – Using a service such as Feed Burner allows you to monitor the number of subscribers you have. Many readers will be interested to see how many other users are reading your blog and are subscribed to it. Use their publicize services to show the number of readers.

33. Commenting – Try enabling and disabling the “must be registered to comment” feature to see which yields more results. You should find that without registration, more comments will come through; however this does mean that you should implement some spam protection feature.

34. Online Homepages – Many people use Google for example and have iGoogle activated. This is why you should have an RSS plug-in that allows users to click and it adds to feed to such services.

35. Write a List Post or Article – Writing a bulleted list can sometimes be easier on the reader and writer if you have lots on information to roll off in one post. This is a list post and makes for easy reading.

36. Article Marketing – Write an article and post it on sites such as article beech or ezine articles. Ensure you include a link back to your site in the article. Make sure the article is great so that people will want to read more of your work.

37. Autopinger – use sites such as autopinger.com to submit your blog to lots of websites.

38. Submit Site to Search Engines – Manually submit your site to the major search engines on the web and also use auto submitter websites for lesser known search engines. Organic search engine traffic is great and will increase your ad revenue.

39. DMOZ – Submit your website to dmoz.org. if you manage to get listed this will really help your traffic stats.

40. Site Contests – Offer a prize to the 1000th subscriber or commenter to encourage whatever activity you want. The prize could simply be a text link on your website, however the more appealing the better.

41. Banner Exchanges – You could try a banner exchange service however you may not be able to choose what type of banner is placed on your site. Try and contact other bloggers with similar content and ask for a link exchange.

42. Site Load Time – Check how long it takes your website to load and increase the speed if necessary. This is important to ensure visitors are not leaving before the site has fully loaded. Try to use smaller images or multimedia if your site is slow.

43. Youtube – Create a YouTube account and add you link in your profile so that you might get traffic from people who view any videos that you upload. Make videos relating to your website content so any traffic is targeted.

44. About Us – Get your site listed at Wiki – About Us Wiki Page, this is another way to increase back links. On the site you can put information about your website.

45. Tags – Tagging your posts or articles on your website is a great way of entering keywords to help search engines. Make the most of these where you can.

46. Categories – If you have a blog then use blog categories with meaningful names that use keywords so that these show up in the websites URL and on SERPS (Search Engine Result Pages)

47. Permalink – Check to see if this features is enabled. If its not then enable it and have the post title in the URL.

48. Holidays – These are great for marketing so ensure that you are ready. Start making posts and site content about Christmas / Easter or whatever about a month before the event. This gives search engines chance to list your posts. Then when people search for Christmas XXXXXX your site will be there. – Maybe decorate your site to suit the holiday theme.

49. Interviews – Interview other sites and post the interview on your website. Alternatively get interviewed by other sites yourself.

50. Selling your site? – Pretend to sell your website. I sold a site recently and the traffic shot up. If you can list your site free then you have nothing to lose apart from responding to offers. However the chances of any of the traffic you received returning is slim. You may benefit from padding out your MyBlogLog section.

51. Surveys – Have a survey or poll on your website, not large, just a small one in the sidebar somewhere that allows visitors to vote on a controversial question or something that will change on your website depending on a vote.

52. Blog Networks – Create a blog network where you can link all your blogs together. This will take up a lot of your time, however if you have it spare the more the better providing the content is unique and remains at a high standard.

53. Create a Site Template or Blog Theme – As the title states, create a theme and have a link back to your website in the footer.

54. Plugins / scripts – If you have the know how, create a plug-in or script for a website and have a link back to your website.

55. Comedy Writing – If you can write funny content, this will attract lots of readers. I know I have returned to a blog in the past due to its humour.

56. Social Networking Site – Use social networking websites such as MySpace, gain lots of friends and then post a bulletin about your website.

57. Reviewing – If you are honest and able to post great reviews then review sites and products and post about them on your website. If this is successful then other sites will want to be reviewed by you.

58. Get Reviews – Go to other sites and ask them to review your website. No one like’s criticism so be prepared to take some. It is likely to benefit your site in the future though.

59. Post News – Try and be first to post breaking news in your niche. Get listed on news websites such as Google News which will increase your traffic.

60. Awards Program – Create an awards brand. Get webmasters to submit their site and you offer prizes or just a graphic that states they won or passed your tests for a great website. Use your imagination.

61. Resources – Write posts that link to resources that may be useful to your type of reader. A webmaster blog may link to free stock photo sites as a post and list them in order of best first.

62. Treat others as you wish to be treated – This speaks for itself. If a reader of yours needs a hand then take the time out to help them. They will appreciate you for it.

63. Edit Posts – Go back over old content on your website and update it if it needs updating. Insert relevant links into old pages that go to content that is similar.

64. Yahoo Answers – Get an account at Yahoo Answers and post your blog URL in answers where appropriate. Only do this when you have a good reputation and the content is relevant and will actually help the user.

Web Host SEO and Advertising Stage 6

Matt — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 12:30:41 +0000

The more links that you have pointing to your website, the higher it will appear on search results. The more you have will help to increase your PageRank. This is a measurement from PR0 to PR10 and the higher it is the better.

You can get back links to your website by submitting your sites link to web directories. There are thousands of these on the Internet and this is where a lot of your time promoting your site should be spent.

You should try and build links from websites that have a high PageRank. These will benefit you more than links from websites with a lower PageRank. This isn’t to say do not get lower PR back links.

Do not rush to get thousands of links all in one go. You need to manually submit your site to web directories to build back links over time. Getting many back links in one go can harm your PageRank. Start off with lower PR websites and then get higher. The best advice is to submit your website where and when you can.

Older directories should have a higher PageRank; however newer directories will not have as long a queue to get your site reviewed and listed. Here you need to balance between new and old directories to get a steady traffic flow.

Some sites list new web directories and update them regularly. This is one I used in the past, I am unsure if it is still updated:

http://www.addurl.nu/

I advise you to go through the lists provided and submit your site to the directories. There is no need to go for paid or featured links. Do not select reciprocal links either. Only choose the one way links that are free and submit yours there.

This can take up a lot of time and can be boring. You may wish to outsource services to do this for you; however when you have free time this will easily fill it and save you having to pay someone else.

Try to submit your website daily, to new directories and the ones provided.

Follow each directories rule’s and ensure that you pick a category that is relevant to web hosting, such as web hosting or Internet, computing etc.

Use keywords in the title of the submission and in the description also. Try to provide as much information as you can in the description about your company. Make it short and to the point.

Once you have written it, save it in a text file and then you can just copy and paste it into the field. I recommend changing the keywords in every submission for the title. You should also vary the description every so often.

Nearly all the directories will want an e-mail address, so don’t forget to submit it. Use the support one for your host such as: support@”yourhost”.com. The e-mail may be used by customers if it is listed on the site, if not it may be needed for verification purposes.

Try to avoid directories that require registration because this will make the submission process longer. I used to only submit to free directories that need no registration because I could do this quickly which saves time.

Many directories do not like deep linking. Where possible, when it asks you for the site URL, try entering links that connect to deeper pages in your website. These can be pages that list your packages, or your support page.

If the directory allows more than one submission then use it. Use sub domains for the blog and forum. You could submit the following as separate domains:

http://www.”yourhost”.com

http://forums.”yourhost”.com

http://support.”yourhost”.com

http://blog.”yourhost”.com

Earlier when I mentioned domain extensions, one is fine however if you have a unique good name you may wish to register other extensions and then park them on your server and have them direct to your main hosting website. This then means that you can submit all extensions of your domain to increase exposure. Just ensure that the descriptions and titles are different.

If you have a large amount of money to invest, you may consider purchasing ad space, preferably text links, on popular websites with a high PageRank or a lot of users.

You may wish to do this on webmaster forums and have your site link in the footer so it appears on all pages. Sites such as webmaster talk, phpBB or W3 schools. W3 schools is a good site due to its high PR, however this is expensive and results may vary.

Groups are a great way to attract people to your website. I suggest finding a hosting related group on popular websites such as Google and Yahoo.

Check forums & groups for up to date lists and also post on newly created web directories which have a far higher chance of faster approval and getting a back link quicker.

Web Host SEO and Advertising Stage 5

Matt — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 12:28:02 +0000

You need to create a site map for your hosting site. On it include all links to every page and directory on your web server.

You need to link to all pages and have the hyperlink names relevant to the page, see below for guidance:

UK Web Hosting – Cheap UK Host > This can link to the homepage.
Contact Us > To the contact page.
Hosting Folder > Link to the index file of the hosting directory.
Shared Hosting Pages > Link to the file that displays shared hosting packages.

Support > Links to the main support page
Blog > Links to the blog
Forum > Links to the forum

Web Hosting Blog > Change the words and repeat the blog link.
UK Web Hosting Forum > Change the words and repeat the forum link.

Do this for all pages and directories. This should be a normal page on your website that is linked to from the site footer. You can also use online tools to create and XML sitemap if you wish.

The basic idea of a sitemap is to create a list of links going to all pages on your website. The key thing is to ensure that the text inserted for the hyperlink has keywords in.

Web Host SEO and Advertising Stage 4

Matt — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 12:25:45 +0000

If you have followed the steps in previous sections and created a blog and forum then you can use this technique.

You want to try and make any visitors to your website be able to find your packages and information they want quickly. So let’s start with the blog.

All you need to do is change the template so that all the pages are affected. Load up the header and footer files in your HTML editor.

For the header create a line of links that are respective to the width of the blog. All these links should go to the products and services related to your website.

For example:

Cheap UK Hosting | Reliable Web Host | Fast Reseller Hosting

Those are just a few and should each hyperlink to different pages of your website. You should deep link to pages that may not rank highly on search engines to give them more exposure.
Use the same technique for the footer so now you have a line of links at the top and bottom of the blog. Ensure that all the links are different and they include links to your support system.

The blog categories should also use keywords. For example here is a list of categories that you may wish to use and blog about.

cPanel, PHP, MySQL, Cheap Web Hosting, Your Company Name, Windows, Linux, SEO Tutorials, cPanel Hosting, Shared Website Hosting, Web Development, CSS, HTML.

Write tutorials, information about your company including news, different hosting types, etc. When posting please try and use appropriate titles and create unique content. In other words, do not copy from other websites.

If I were to search Google for, “How to check my website stats”, you would want your page to come up with: UK Web Hosting | How to check your website stats in cPanel as the title or something similar.

It is not important to have your company name in the title tag as stated earlier. You will benefit more from keywords in title tags. Ensure that you have keywords in your blog and forum titles.

Depending on your forum theme, try to use the same technique as above. If the theme does not allow the links at the top and bottom while still looking professional then you could consider a sidebar with links on.

Try to ensure that the links blend in with the theme of the forum and the blog. Place links at the side, top and bottom if you wish, just don’t make the forum and blog look too cluttered. It is important that the blog and forum are on sub domains.

Try to blog as much as possible to get more pages of unique content on search engines. Users searching search engines to find answers to questions you may have blogged about could be potential customers. This means the more articles the better. I suggest about 1000 articles of unique content on topics relating to web hosting.

After you have reached this target, then try and gain one way links from websites that have related content.

Web Host SEO and Advertising Stage 3

Matt — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 12:23:36 +0000

Going back to what was mentioned in part 1 with regards to forums. Ensure that you make the most of the amount of links that you can have on your forum signature.

For example:

Your Site

Instead change the text to:

Cheap UK Hosting

This creates links to deeper pages of your website and helps get them listed on Google and other search engines.

Do not keep posting your services in threads on forums to try to get sales. This makes you look desperate which isn’t the image you want to create.

Your time is best spent helping other users and suggesting ideas to them about how to improve their website etc. When they require hosting you can talk about what you think they may require and kindly point them to your signature links.

As mentioned before, take advantage of market place forums that allow you to list your services. Try and build up a good reputation on forums by regularly visiting and posting.
Do not post your services too often. Strike a balance between your posts and advertising threads.

Web Host SEO and Advertising Stage 2

Matt — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 12:21:10 +0000

There are many automated submission services on the web that will submit your website to search engines to be indexed.

Search online for automatic search engine submission services. This should produce websites that you can use to submit your website to search engines that you may not have heard of as well as the ones that you have.

You can also submit sites manually to search engines.

Here are a few links that may interest you.

http://www.google.com/addurl/

http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html

http://search.msn.co.uk/docs/submit.aspx

You should also submit your website to DMOZ:

http://www.dmoz.org/

Ensure that you submit your blog too:

http://autopinger.com/blog.aspx

Web Host SEO and Advertising Stage 1

Matt — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 12:00:54 +0000

So now you have your basic hosting site up & running you can begin to start thinking about marketing your site to attract customers. The first thing to do is focus on the site itself.

Meta Tags

Every page of the website should have a unique title, description and keywords. Here are examples of the basics that you should have on every web page in the tag.

Use the above as a minimum. On the pages of your website also describe your company and what you do. Use keywords on your website for all pages and try to create unique content on every page. Try your best not to repeat yourself when creating web pages as it is best that all of the content on your website is unique.

Spelling

Run all the content of your website through a spell checker and also have a third party read it through. There is nothing worse than one of your clients seeing a spelling mistake or typo and leaving your website because of it. It creates an unprofessional image making you look bad.

Tip: Within keywords you may wish to add words such as hosting spelled incorrectly in case this is what a user enters in a search engine. However this is something that I avoided because I see this as an underhand way to get traffic. I place it in the same boat as spamming on other web hosting company’s forums.

Valid Code

You should validate all your web pages to ensure that they meet W3 standards. This is another part of being professional & showing that you care about your website and its audience. This is especially important if you are providing web design services. These should also be validated to a high standard.

Resource: You can check for valid code here: http://validator.w3.org/
I advise you to use XHTML 1.0 standard or higher at the time of writing this. Another tip is to have good quality image alternate text tags. These replace images on your website if for some reason the image does not show. This can also help your search engine rank in some cases.

Tip: Validate your CSS files as well as your HTML ones.

Images

Label your image files appropriately & have a separate folder for images to be stored. If you have an image of a server, then call it “server”. This can help especially if it is listed on Google images and it’s an image that many people want. This is another source of traffic and could lead to sales.

Title Tags

Use title tags on every page, you do not need to include you company name in these because that should be in the domain name.

Cheap UK Hosting | Reliable Linux Hosting | Fast User Support

Try to make certain that all pages have unique title tags. As above, keywords are used to aid SERPS (Search Engine Results Pages).

Web Hosting – Generating Traffic

Matt — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 11:50:29 +0000

Getting your website noticed is the most important part of this industry. There are the things that you need to do, and continue to do, so that you get regular website visits.

There are greater numbers of social networking and video websites which can be used to market your website. You can sign up to websites such as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook and market your company.

Post bulletins about your website and create videos with your site link in. Follow all the techniques listed next and you should soon have your site highly ranked on Google and other search engines.

Use Social bookmarking websites to create back links to your website.

Google have produced a starter SEO guide for webmasters.

Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Google’s SEO Starter Guide

View the PDF Here: http://www.google.com/webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf

Web Hosting Tutorials

Matt — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 11:45:28 +0000

Many users that you will be hosting may have no idea about web hosting. They may need help and support getting their website online. To take the pressure off you and free up your time this add-on for your website may help.

Assisting your clients personally is always best because you can explain step by step what to do. However if you think the issue can be resolved by a tutorial then send them the link.

These were an instant success when I added them to my hosting site and I was surprised by the small amount of space and bandwidth that they used. The tutorials were about cPanel and Web Host Manager and explained how to complete certain tasks. If you are only selling shared web hosting then cPanel tutorials will be fine. Ensure that you match the tutorials to the version of cPanel that you are using.

Resource: Flash tutorial providers:

http://www.demodemo.com
http://www.demowolf.com/index.php
Both sites have a wide range of tutorials, be advised that cPanel now has some video guides built in.

You can choose whether to have the credit link at the end of the videos if you wish. If you want a more professional looking site then have it taken off, however if you are on a tight budget then don’t spend money you don’t have on it. When implementing these videos onto your website I recommend that you create a new page for each one. This will take a while to set-up but it is worth it to have many more pages indexed on search engines with different title tags that are likely to be searched for.

For example if I search “How to create a sub domain in cPanel” your site has more chance of being found. The other way to add the videos to your site is just to upload them and link to the files on the server. This loads the video in a separate window with no links to your site.

By creating many pages with them on, you create more links from your menu’s to your own site. If a user is browsing a search engine and comes across your video they will click the link and then be able to follow another link to your products and services.

You may also wish to link to these tutorials from your site blog. Have a written explanation of how to do what the tutorial describes and then have a link to the video. This gives your users the best of both worlds.

Not Another Web Host

Matt — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 11:41:34 +0000

As I keep mentioning there are many web hosts on the internet. So you may ask:

Why am I bothering to compete?
What can I offer that other web hosts can not?

These are valid questions that you need to ask yourself. Here are a few pointers to get customers.

Offering web design services alongside hosting is a good idea if you have confidence in your skills. You will have free time while waiting for orders and support requests and this is a good way to make extra money and fill that time. The benefit is that if you design a website for someone, you can host the website as well. You will not be expected to host it forever for free so a renewal charge can be introduced at the same rate as your hosting plans.

You can target your family and friends businesses and get them online. A tip here is not to charge your family for web design, just explain that there are yearly domain and hosting fees. The experience will allow you to develop your skills at a reasonable pace and not be under as much pressure from family as you may be from an external client.

The next step from this is to show your friends some of the web design work that you have done and offer them and their family’s websites for them and their businesses. I suggest that you charge your friends at mate’s rates that include the hosting fee. After a year is over they will need to renew the hosting and domain fee.

Alongside this it is likely that they will want updates for their website, such as newer content etc. I suggest completing small updates for free and if they need large changes made then charge the appropriate amount.

On your hosting website if you wish to sell your web design skills you can create a portfolio. Explain the skills used on each site that you made and have screen shots of work you have done. Also include a link to the client’s website. This creates more pages on your hosting site that will be indexed by search engines.