All Entries in the "Blog Hosting" Category
What Kind Of Server Should Your Blog Be On?
When it comes to blogging, you can’t be too safe. The type of server you put your blog on can go a long way to your success. It helps to know what can kind of servers are available. Generally, you’ll run into one of the following types of servers, but which one is right for you?
I won’t get into the different types of broad category servers such as chat, application, and server platforms. This post is concerned with the types of servers you’ll find through web hosting companies. The kinds of servers you’ll use for storing your blog information.
I’m not an IT guy so if I get the technical defnitions wrong, please forgive me. But in general you’ll find shared hosting, dedicated servers, cloud computing, and colocation services, aka root servers.
Shared hosting is the most popular type of server environment. It’s usually cheap and that’s why many companies opt for this type of server, but it does have its risks. There are security risks as well as SEO risks associated with hosting on a shared server. If another occupant of the web server fails to update their blog or CMS software, it could pose a security risk to you. A hacker could gain access to that server through another company’s out of date software and your blog could spend a few days out of commission as your host scrambles to fix the problem. That’s why a dedicated server is usually your better option.
A dedicated server is just as its name implies. You have the server all to yourself. It is more expensive, but you know who your neighbors are. You don’t have any. You and you alone are hosted on that server. This is ideal because you can control what happens on that server by not engaging in risky behavior that could pose a security or SEO risk.
Cloud computing, like shared hosting, poses security risks. It essentially uses the Internet to disperse your information across multiple servers and possibly even providers. However, generally your blog will be hosted on one server while other web properties may be hosted on another server. This could have SEO benefits if your blog is on one server and the website it hosts is on another. But you’d still want both your blog and your website to exist on dedicated servers. Most cloud computing systems use a shared hosting format for all its servers.
Root servers, also called colocation services, provide managed server space for your servers. This can exist in a shared or dedicated format, but the idea is that another company manages your server at a location they provide. Another version of colocation is for a company to rent server space from the company that owns it.
When it comes to hosting your company blog you want to minimize your risks. That means ensuring that you don’t end up in a bad neighborhood or associated with companies and individuals that engage in risky behavior. To learn more about SEO hosting for blogs, visit SEOHostingProvider.com.
Why Do I Need a Blog?
Why do I need a business blog and why should I hire someone to manage it for me?
By now, most business Website Owners have learned there are advantages to having a company blog. But why do I need a company blog? How will it really help me?
Most bloggers, even those who have been blogging for a long time, do not truly understand all of the ways a blog can benefit your business. They are good bloggers. They even may know a little about SEO and can put all the keywords and phrases into your blog. But do they really know about blog marketing and what the benefits are for their clients? Do they really know SEO or the technical aspects of operating a blog?
Do you know all of the benefits of having a business blog?
Let’s see;
Why does my Business need a Blog?
A business blog is the most cost-effective way to add fresh content to your website daily.
It is the most affordable way to build link popularity.
A business blog can make you money through Conversational Marketing.
A business blog will help drive more traffic to your website.
It gives you a place to offer special deals, make announcements, issue press releases, and get feedback from customers.
You can have a private blog that your employees or shareholders read.
There are way too many ways your company can benefit from a business blog to list on one page. As they say; “Think Outside The Box” and create new ways blogs can be used. All the uses for a blog have not even been invented yet. Be the first to try something new. Call us at 786-317-8774 and get a free business blog consultation. We’ll brainstorm with you!
Your business blog can be within your website or on it’s own domain name.
Your company blog can be used to help capture a specific search phrase or phrases in the search engines.
You can have a company blog in your website and one on its’ own domain name, each achieving a different purpose.
You can have multiple blogs all working for you at the same time. The options are endless.
It is not a one-size-fits-all deal. Our Blog Consultant will talk with you, analyze your business, and come up with a strategy that benefits your business. Click here to get a free business blog management quote.
Blog Management and Marketing
Blog Content
Your blog content will make a lot of difference to how well you do with both the search engines and with visitors. Whatever your goal is for your blog, to make your blog popular to read, to make sales, to drive traffic to your website, to get people to sign up for something like a newsletter or affiliate program, or something else, you will need good, original content.
Not only do you need good original content on your blog, you need it every single day.
Blog search websites like technorati.com and Google’s BlogSearch list blogs by the most recent posts that match the user’s keywords. If you are not posting daily, you can get buried beneath all of the other blogs that do one post or more every day. Our daily blogging service will make sure your blog is updated every day or more often if you choose that option.
Blog Posting is more than just writing. If you want your blog to be interesting to user and also rank well in the search engines, you need to know how to structure your blog posts properly.
Do you know the proper way to write your blog post titles?
Do you know how to use keywords in your blog post for the search engines without seeming spammy or obvious to your readers?
Do you know how to use good anchor text and a proper linking strategy?
Our bloggers are trained to write relevant, interesting blog posts that are also optimized for the search engines. Read more about our Daily Blog Posting Service.
Social Bookmarking and Social Networking
Social Bookmarking and Social Networking are extremely beneficial to your blog. It can help you with link popularity, attracting more visitors to your blog, more comments on your blog posts, and even help you rank better with the search engines. However, social bookmarking is time consuming.
Many people try to automate the process for that reason. Automated social bookmarking will not get you all of the benefits that social networking will get you if you take the time to do it yourself. Most business owners do not have the time it takes to participate on these social networks. That is why Blog Content Provider does it for you. Our basic social bookmarking package comes with our Daily Blogging Service, but we also offer social bookmarking as a standalone service. Read more about our Social Bookmarking Service.
Professional Full Service Blog Management
Let our staff completely manage your business blog for you. We will handle everything. We will choose a domain name for you where necessary, provide blog hosting, do the installation, create or choose a blog template, optimize your blog for the search engines, provide the daily content, and do the social bookmarking. You turn your business blog over to us and we do it all for you. Read more about our Complete Business Blog Management Service.
Blog SEO and Programming
Blog Installation
Wordpress claims you can install wordpress in just 7 minutes. Some cpanels have fantastico that will automatically create a database and install wordpress for you. But is that all there is to installing a wordpress blog? No. There are better ways to securely install a wordpress blog on your server.
Then you need to choose the right plugins to enhance the usability and improve the SEO of your blog. Every blog is different. Every blog has different goals and obstacles. So choosing the right plugins is more than just going to someone’s favorite list of plugins and using them all.
Some blog service companies brag that they install wordpress with more than 80 plugins! Wow! 80! How many of those plugins do you really need? Usually just a few. We securely install your wordpress blog and choose plugins for you that fit your specific needs. Read more about Blog Installation.
Blog Setup and Configuration
A lot of people will tell you that choosing the settings in the admin area of your wordpress blog is self-explanatory. To who? There are a lot of choices to make in the admin area.
An experienced Blog Manager knows which settings are best to use from experience. For instance;
Do you know the best sites to put into your ping list?
Do you know the proper way to create categories?
Post Slugs?
Is time-stamping a good idea?
Do you know how to configure all of the plugins or get an API Key?
Our Blog installation specialists will set everything up for you. Read more about Blog Configuration.
Blog Theme Installation and Editing
Here again, it sounds easy. You choose a theme, upload it to your themes directory, and voila! You’re done right? No. Choosing a theme isn’t as easy as it sounds. There are tons of free themes on the web. You could buy one from a designer. You can have one custom made for you.
Do you know a good theme from a bad one? I mean besides how pretty it is. Did you know that sometimes free themes have hidden malicious code in them, put there by the programmer/designer?
Are you able to determine good code from bad code? Is the code in the theme written in a way that will hurt your chances in the search engines?
Do you know how to edit the php in the header.php file, sidebar.php, or footer.php to add the enhancements that will make your blog both more attractive and more productive?
Choosing the right theme for your blog is more than just finding one that looks nice. You do not need to have a custom blog theme built. You can use a free blog theme. But you need to know how to choose the right one. Our Blog Installation Service includes choosing and installing the right theme for you. If you want a custom theme, you can read more about Custom Blog Themes here.
Blog SEO
You need to optimize your blog for the search engines. That means editing the code of your blog theme, setting up proper permalink structure, creating the right categories, and even choosing the right plugins, among other things. Our Blog SEO specialists go over your blog theme line by line to get rid of unwanted or unnecessary code.
We fix the blog title structure. We install and configure your blog plugins. We create a proper permalink structure. We edit your blog template to install feedburner, email scripts, affiliate buttons, or whatever else you need. Our clients are very happy with the search engine rankings their blogs are getting. Let us show you how we can improve your results. Read more about Blog SEO.
If you are not sure what you need, call us at 786-317-8774 for a free business blog management or SEO consultation.
Should Your Blog Be In A Folder Or A Subdomain?
Where you place your blog can be critical to its SEO success. There are three places, technically, to put your blog so that it sits on a server and does what it is suppose to do. It can sit in a folder on your domain, it can be a subdomain, or it can sit on the root of a domain. Here’s what your blog URL will look like in each case:
In a folder:
http://domainname.com/blog
As a subdomain:
http://blog.domainname.com
On the root domain:
http://blogname.com
There are benefits to placing your blog on its own domain name and using it to drive traffic to your main website, but that’s a separate discussion. Let’s assume that you want your blog on the same domain as your website. Should it be in a folder or operate as a subdomain? I think you’ll get more benefit from putting your blog in a folder. There are several reasons why.
First, subdomains do not always receive the same benefits as the domain under which they sit. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. For instance, if your site’s PageRank is a 6, your subdomain may receive that same benefit or it may not. If your site has 1 million inbound links, they may tranfer to your subdomain or they may not. There is no clear policy or trend on how subdomains are treated by the search engines. Some subdomains are dismissed altogether.
A folder, on the other hand, always gets the benefit of the domain on which it sits. If your site is a PR 3 then that will benefit your blog. The blog could have a higher or lower PR than the website itself. Individual blog posts could have higher or lower PRs and each will have its own link popularity, but the link juice that flows from your main website to your blog and each page on it will be real benefits.
Another reason you want your blog in a folder and not on a subdomain is because if your blog is in a folder then it will benefit your entire rank’s search engine saturation numbers. A subdomain won’t do that. A subdomain is often treated like a standalone domain and doesn’t always carry the same benefits as a standalone domain.
There are plenty more reasons why a folder is better than a subdomain, but these are the big reasons. Can you think of any more reasons why you’d want your blog in a folder as opposed to a subdomain?
Why Is Your Blog Hosted By The Same Company As Your Main Website?
You decided to start a blog and buy a separate domain name so you can build links from your blog to your website. Good. Your knowledge of link popularity is beginning to show. But why are you hosting your blog with the same hosting company that also hosts your website? That’s not good.
The reason you want your blog hosted by a different company than your website’s host is to ensure that they sit on separate IP blocks. You can request that your web host put your blog on a different server, but that doesn’t mean they will do it. Some will tell you that they will then not do it. But if you are using the shared hosting plan that many hosts offer, most hosts will tell you that they can’t guarantee a separate box for your blog unless you pay for the dedicated hosting plan. It is just safer and more secure to go with a different host to begin with.
You might also register your site with a different registrar. The reason is because your registrar’s contact information shows up in your Whois data. That could be a clue to Google that both your website and blog are owned by the same company, especially if they have similar domain names (i.e. mywebsite.com and mywebsiteblog.com). Be sure that you register your blog under a different name; that way your name is not associated both with your website and your blog.
These are just precautions. There is no proof that Google uses Whois data to connect ownership of sites. But there is no proof that it doesn’t either. If you want the links from your blog to your website to count, it would behoove you to take these suggestions under consideration.
How To Ruin Good Blogging Advice
I found a great article about blogging online. I agreed with every word. Up until the last paragraph. It really was a beautiful article. Clear, sound advice. Then, the author made one huge mistake. I mean, HUGE. Here’s the article minus the mistake:
Blogging For Small Business – How to Build Your Reputation
By Barry Deen
Blogs have taken the internet by storm. More and more people are setting up blogs, and in the most part they die off within their first year, before they pick up any momentum. Most people set up blogs to build their reputation, sell products and get traffic to sell ads.
Although blogs have been around for a while, many small businesses are still not taking advantage of all the benefits a small business blog can provide to your bottom line.
* Creates awareness about your service / product
Many businesses have great, innovative products – especially in the technology sector. A major problem small businesses run into is getting the word out about their product on a small marketing budget. Creating a blog will create awareness about your product and ultimately drive sales.
* Builds your reputation as a subject matter expert
If you are an expert in your field, it is very beneficial to write about what you do and how you do it. The quality of your content is key. It may seem counter-intuitive to give away your “secrets” – however most people will find your articles because they are not the experts and are looking to learn.
* Strengthens your Search Engine Optimization strategy
The better quality articles you write, the more likely it is that other people will link to your articles. Link popularity is one of the most important aspects of SEO. Additionally, with correct code structure, you can create an internal cross linking strategy that will drive your PageRank higher.
This is all great advice. I don’t disagree with a single word. A blog is perhaps the most powerful marketing tool any small business owner can employ. If you can write then it’s a great free tool. If you can’t write and you need to hire a ghostwriter then it’s a low-cost tool that you can work to your advantage.
But the writer of this great article then went on to give some very poor advice. What was that? Here it is in all its pristine glory:
These are some of the benefits of blogging for small business. Setting up a blog is very cheap, often times free (www.blogspot.com or www.wordpress.com) and all you have to risk is your time.
Folks, I would not set up a business blog on a free host. You lose all control of your content that way. I have seen people set up 10 blogs at WordPress.com and lose it all overnight because one person made a spam report. It doesn’t matter if you think it’s spam. If WordPress or Blogger executives think it is spam then they can, and will, take it down. You lose it all.
Instead, spend $10 to buy a domain name that you have control over. Set up a WordPress blog on your domain name and write to it every day. That is the best SEO you will ever have and it will only cost you $10 plus the cost of hosting, which is usually no more than $60 per year.
The above article was written by:
Barry Deen is President & CEO of Web Strategy Canada and one of the top affiliate marketing specialists in Canada. For information on how to make money online, checkout http://www.makemillionsathome.ca For information on Barry Deen and his company, Web Strategy Canada, visit http://www.web-strategy.ca
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Barry_Deen
To learn more about business blogging contact a qualified blog consultant today.
Should You Host Your Company Blog On Blogspot?
I am still amazed to see businesses setting up their company blog on Blogspot. I would not use a free host of any kind (Blogspot, WordPress.com, Typepad, etc.) for my business blog. The reasons are numerous
- If you don’t own the domain name then you are at someone else’s mercy
- The costs for setting up a blog are too minimal
- You can have a well optimized business blog on your own domain name for less than the cost of a single sale in most industries
- WordPress standalone software is free and easy to use
- Having your own domain name is beneficial for a number of reasons, one of which is its resell value
- Control, control, control
- Owning your own domain name looks more professional
- You can design your own company blog with unlimited possibilities
- WordPress plugins allow you to expand your marketing options with a standalone blog
These are just a few of the reasons why you want to own your own domain name and put your company blog on that domain. Blogspot may be good for a personal blog, but I would not use it for a business blog.
Learn more about blog hosting here.
4 Ways To Make Money Online Without A Website
Did you know you can make money online without a website? Yes, without a blog too. And I can teach you how. Tune in today to BlogTalkRadio when Chris McElroy interviews Allen Taylor on 4 ways to make money online without a website. The show airs at 3 p.m. today.
While you don’t need to own a website or blog to do make money these four different ways, you can still use blogging to promote all four. You’ll have to use a free blog host like Blogger.com, which I usually don’t recommend. But you can do it.
Even without a blog, though, you can make money in these four ways that I’ll talk about today at 3 p.m. No website necessary. No blog necessary. Just use what you have right now and you can make money on the Internet. You don’t even need a computer. You can go to the local library and use free public computers to make money online. I’ll show you how today at 3 p.m. on BlogTalkRadio. Click the link below for the address, and if you can’t make it today at 3 p.m., listen to the archive.
Use A Blog To Market Your Business
Some of this advice is pedestrian and I’ll tell you which ideas presented are just that. But it is the same advice that we’ve been giving our customers for years.
How a Blog Can Be Used For Internet Marketing
Did you know that blogging can actually increase your sales? It’s true! Blogging is an effective internet marketing technique than can increase interest in your business and bring in more sales because it helps to broaden your audience with very little effort.
Creating a blog either on another page of your website or using one of the free blog hosts like Wordpress or Blogger allows you to speak more casually about topics related to your business. A blog is a more personal medium in which you can write, post pictures or videos of things that would be of interest or amusement to your potential customers. By including regular links to your site and products as well as a few posts specifically about your business, you are able to peak people’s curiosity and interest and give them easy access to your business.
This is the pedestrian part. You really want your own domain name. You don’t want a blog on a free host. There are several reasons why.
First, if you own the property then you control the property. No one can kick you off.
Secondly, you can have more influence on the neighborhood. The free blog hosts have a bad reputation for attracting spammers. By hosting your blog on the same servers as these spammers, you will get a similar reputation. Online, you are who you run with. But if you host your blog on a server where you know there are no spammers then you’ll get much better search engine results.
I’d never tell anyone to host their blog on a free host. A domain name only costs $10 per year. If you can’t afford that then you shouldn’t have a blog.
Examples of interesting things that you can blog about in order to utilize your blog as an internet marketing tool include: funny news about your industry, your products, reviews of sites that are related to your business (not your competitors!), news about new products to look out for, etc.
You can take the opportunity to post pictures of your products or upload personal videos about your company. Remember that your posts should be light, easy to read and informative, and again; sprinkled with links to your main website so that you are making the most of this easy internet marketing technique.
We use these strategies all the time for our clients and they work. Use your blog as a marketing tool and you’ll quite surprised by the results.
While blogging may be quite easy, far less technical and require less work than some other internet marketing techniques, you need to remember that it is still work. As with any other venture you embark on; the more effort you put in and the more time you invest; the bigger the pay off. Updating regularly and keeping your blog as fresh and interesting as possible is a must if you want to succeed. Also, make sure to use all of the same keywords for SEO purposes that you do with your website to help you as well.
If you are serious about making money online, I suggest you to check out The Golden Thread by Michael Cheney at http://www.thegoldenthreadreviews.com/
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Fransesco_Ronnie
Blogging is a powerful way to market your business online. Every time you post a blog post you add new content to your website and build new links. Both of these provide SEO benefits and you’ll be inviting the search engines back to your website to crawl it every time you post a new blog post.
For more information on how you can get a company blog, visit Blog Content Provider.
Is A Free Blog Host As Effective As Owning Your Own Domain Name?
I recently had a client ask me if setting up a blog on WordPress.com or Blogger.com is as effective as owning your own domain name. He wanted to set up a blog on the free blog post and said that it would get crawled faster. True. It would. But when it comes to blogging you have to look at the long-term benefits. Here are the long-term benefits that your own domain name provides that free blog hosts don’t:
- You own the real estate. It’s always better to own the real estate than to rent it. Free blog hosts are like half way houses. You don’t have to pay rent, but you have none of the benefits of ownership. Eventually, you’ll outstay your welcome.
There are two primary reasons why free blog hosts are undesirable. Since they’re free, a lot of spammers use them. That’s make it a bad neighborhood. By owning your own domain name, you can ensure that your site sits on a server where it will gain a positive reputation. Secondly, if the blog host is shut down or goes out of business, or the owner changes the business model of the site, then you’ll lose your blog. You’ll have to move all the content to another location or lose it. - The long-term SEO is more rewarding. While you can build links from a free blog host, you should seriously consider getting your own domain name for that purpose. Since you own the real estate and the content, you have more control (as stated above), but you can also tweak your software and site template more easily to conform to modern SEO conventions.
- It’s not that expensive. Sure, you have to pay for the domain name ($10/year) and the hosting, but you are more likely to rank for your key phrases if your content is well optimized over the long run. If you are writing a hobby blog then a free host may be perfect for you, but for business I’d strongly recommend your own domain name.
You can always augment your own blog with a WordPress.com or Blogger.com blog. The free web hosts shouldn’t be your first approach, but they work great as support tools. Just don’t copy/paste your blog content from one blog to another as you’ll run into duplicate content issues.
Need a professional blog manager?
Why Blogger Is Not Good For Business
I still talk to people who are sold on Blogger.com being a great place to host a blog. Just because it’s free. I hate to be the party spoiler (actually, I quite like spiking the punch, thank you!), but the reason Blogger.com is not a good place to host your blog is precisely because it is free.
Human error has a way of killing good grass. Sure, you can pull out the weeds one by one, but the more “free” something is the more weeds you can expect to see. And pulling out all those weeds takes time. So to make it go easier and more quickly, you have to create something to automate the process – something like an algorithm, which is a fancy word for a mathematical equation that is supposed to search out and find the weeds in a big field of grass. In this case, it’s the free blog host Blogger.com and the weeds are spam blogs.
Big problem. Google’s algorithm actually flagged legitimate blogs as spam blogs. Thousands of them. And some of them were rather high profile blogs that had been hosted at Blogger.com for a long time. If it could happen them, do you think it could happen to you?
For every day that your blog is down that could potentially be thousands of dollars slipping through a hole in your pocket. It may be just a few pennies a day, but if you don’t sew up that hole then you could lose thousands over time. That thousand dollars over the course of one year represents hundreds of thousands over time. When you consider what you could have that $1,000 do for you, earning you more in an interest-bearing account, for instance, the problem is a lot bigger than it at first seems. You can’t afford to lose even a dime to someone else’s error.
It’s better, if you can, to own the property. And since you can purchase a web domain for as little as $10 per year, why not do so? Imagine opening up a storefront on the busiest street in your town for $10/year. Would you do that? Or would you opt for the empty warehouse across the railroad tracks that gets graffiti spray painted on its face once a month just because it’s free?
Sorry for the graphic image, but that’s how serious this is. Don’t use a free host. You’re much better off paying $25-$30 per month for a secure host and $10 per year than you are using a free host that could flake out on you at any time. It’s a business blog, man. Run it like one.
