Every Website Needs a Blog of Its Own

If you want to have a presence online, don’t just make a squeeze page and static sales page and be done with it.

Always implement a blog platform on your site so that you can take advantage of one of the most powerful forms of social media in existence.

A blog is very easy to set up.

If you’re using a hosting company with cpanel, then it’s even easier!

All you have to do is log into your cpanel and click the Fantastico icon (it looks like a smiley face).

Choose the platform you want – most people choose WordPress, and click the New Installation link.

Fill in the form with your administrative name and password.

The directory you choose can be something like /blog – which will make the blog appear on your URL like this:
www.yourdomain.com/blog.

Once you finish the installation, you can go through the blog’s dashboard and fill in all of the additional elements you want your blog to have.

You can change the theme, for example.

There are many free and paid themes online that will match your niche topic perfectly.

You can have one custom designed for you by a graphics designer who specializes in WordPress.

Watch out for the free themes, because they often insert links to their own sites (some of them very seedy) and they could have other ads strategically placed in the theme itself, distracting your customers from what you want them to see.

Make sure you include some smart plug ins with your blog.

You can search and install free plugins that help your blog function better.

For instance, some will remove spam from your blog. Others will create a sitemap for Googlebots and other search engines to follow.

You can create contact forms using plugins, too!

Make sure all settings are properly listed.

For example, under settings, go to privacy and ensure that your blog is visible to the public.

Sometimes it defaults to be private and you’d never know, thinking instead that your website was a complete failure!

If you’d like your URLs for each blog post to help you get indexed for your niche keywords, then go to settings, and click on permalinks.

Choose the custom structure and paste this in the blank area: /%postname%/ because it will put the title of your blog post at the end of your URL, instead of something like yourdomain.com/blog/page3.

Once your blog is installed, the best thing you can do is start posting!

Make posts on your blog frequently – daily is best, but if you can’t post daily you should at least try to do it once a week.

The more you post, the more Google and other search engines will come by to see what content you have that can be passed along to the people who use their search engines.

How to Choose Website Hosting for Local Business

You will want to find a reliable, affordable website hosting service to use for your new website.

For various reasons it’s usually not a good idea to get your domain name and hosting from the same source.

There are a few things you’ll want to consider when looking for a good hosting service.

You’re probably thinking cost is the most important quality, but no matter what budget you’re on, it isn’t.

Reliable uptime is what matters most.

It doesn’t matter if your hosting is free – if the servers aren’t up and showing your site, your business won’t be going anywhere.

No company can promise 100% uptime, but you want someone who provides something really close to that number.

There are many hosting companies that offer 99.5% and higher uptime.

These are solid choices for your website.

Downtime occurs when servers are acting up and it means whenever your visitors click on a link to your domain, they won’t be able to access your site.

It can happen at any time without warning, and cause you to lose money.

Once reliability is locked in place, choose a hosting company that provides stellar customer service.

You may have questions or issues you need resolved and nothing’s worse than having to deal with unfriendly or uncaring customer service reps that keep you on hold and act put out because you need help.

The website hosting company you choose should act as if you’re the only customer in the world.

Your response time should be almost immediate.

Customer service should be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

And it should come in many forms – an 800 number to call, live chat, and email.

Ease of use is another element you want in a website hosting company.

Most site owners praise the use of the Cpanel.

It’s a newbie-friendly control panel that allows you to manage your domains.

You may want additional bells and whistles, but only you can decide what’s a necessity and what’s not.

Last, price should be a contributing factor in your decision.

You don’t want a free website host unless you don’t mind intrusive ads spamming up your domain.

You also don’t need anyone ripping you off by charging too much for hosting.

Find a plan that lets you have unlimited bandwidth (space) and unlimited domains for your future business growth.

One of the most popular, reliable and easy to use hosting services is Hostgator.

Hostgator ticks all the buttons, it runs via the recommended cpanel and also has a special tool called Fantastico that allows you to easily set up a blog, a factor I will be telling you about in a future article.

So head off over to Hostgator and have a look at their hosting plans.

I would go for either the baby plan or the business plan as these give you a little more to work with.

 Start With a Good Domain

Some people get very overwhelmed thinking about their lack of ability in making a website.

It doesn’t have to be hard and it will be quick and easy if you break the steps down into bite sized tasks.

You’re going to start by choosing a solid domain name.

When choosing a domain you’re going to need to think of a name and find an available extension.

An extension is the last part of the domain, such as .com, org, or .net.

There are many options – some cheaper than others – but you’re not going to want to go with just anything.

The name can go two ways.

You can follow the safe route and choose a keyword-laden domain name, or go with something catchy that you hope takes off in a viral manner all across the web (think Yahoo, Google, or Twitter).

Most people prefer to go with a keyword domain.

You want your website to rank well for your chosen niche, and keywords are the prime way you’ll achieve that goal.

You can use a free or paid keyword tool to make a list of the top keywords in your niche.

Go here to get the most popular free Keyword Tool

You can choose one with a high search volume (if it’s available as a domain), or go with a lower search volume that you’ll rank high for more quickly.

These keywords are called long tail keyword phrases and they have more words strung together, so the search volume is less, but so is the competition.

Let’s look at a couple of examples from the dog training niche.

A prime keyword domain would be something like dogtraining.com.

It’s probably not available because the phrase has 1.5 million searches per month.
But another phrase like protectiondogtraining.com might be available because it has fewer searches (over 12k).

When you buy your domain, you’ll be typing in the URL you hope to land, such as dogtrainingtips.com.

If it’s not available, the system will usually show you some alternatives that are available, such as dogtrainingtips.net.

Most online marketers usually only want to go with a dot com, dot org or dot net.

A few will go with a dot info domain, but it’s always best to find a dot com available in your niche because it’s the default URL most people remember when they go online to visit a website.

As you check out with your domain, many registrars will try to upsell you with all sorts of things, like hosting, privacy, site building tools and more.

You probably won’t need any of these from your registrar, but if you do, you can always add them on later.

There’s a bit of discussion about whether you should pay for a domain for one year or more.

Some people argue that Google prefers domains that have a longer commitment but you can always lengthen that later if you decide that you’re committed to the niche for the long haul.

My recommended domain provider is GoDaddy, they are one of the most popular providers of domain names.

To get your domain now visit http://www.godaddy.com have a play and see what is available.

Hi

Todays article is by Tiffany Dow a top class internet marketer whose background comes from ghostwriting for the top marketers on the net.

The topic is website hosting for your local business.

Best Features for local businesses

Local business owners can find that selecting the right web hosting package is difficult.

There are as many hosting options as there are fish in the sea and each one seems to look just as good as the next.

Unfortunately, this simply isn’t true.

Not all website hosting packages are a good deal just because they seem like it.

Many hosting packages will sell you on the glitz and glamour while failing to give you the essential tools you need.

When it comes to website hosting, best features to look for are often contained within cpanel, which stands for control panel, and it contains everything you need to build a successful website.

The first tool you’ll want to learn to use within cPanel is Fantastico De Luxe.

Fantastico is a server side program that allows you to install scripts on your hosting account.

This means you can use Fantastico to install blog software, content management systems and so much more.

The Fantastico icon is usually a bright blue smiley face.

Click on it to see the various programs you can install on your website.

Other programs you can install using Fantastico include discussion boards, e-Commerce options, image galleries, and mailing list tools.

If you’re building your first website and need an easy to use content management system, try using WordPress.

There are a variety of templates and plugins that can be used to add more functionality to your website than you’ll ever need.

To set up WordPress, simply click on the link in the sidebar.

Click on ‘New Installation’ and fill out your details. Make sure to note your username and password.

Losing these can cause you a lot of unnecessary frustration.

After you supply the needed details, click on the gray button that reads ‘Install WordPress.’

To access your WordPress install go to: www.yoursite.com/wp-admin/ and login.

Don’t panic if it’s not available.

Although usually ready within an hour, it can take up to twelve hours for it to process.
Once you’ve successfully installed WordPress, you’re well on your way to creating your new website.

The second website hosting best feature you should learn how to use is live chat customer service.

In order to use customer support chat, fill in your name, your domain and the department you’ll need help from.

Describe your problem in as much detail as you can including what happened right before the problem came.

For instance if you’re facing a software problem and you recently updated your content management system then share that information with the help desk.

The more information you give to the tech support staff, the faster they’ll be able to assist you.

Another website hosting best feature to use is the email accounts.

Some hosting providers allow you to set up an unlimited number of email addresses.

If your host allows this then click on the email accounts icon (usually a pale blue envelope).

First enter your username for your email address then the password and mail box quote (use unlimited if you’ll be using this as your main email account).

Click ‘Create account’ and you’re done.

There are many useful website hosting features in cPanel that you can use to build your local business online presence today.

What you need to know and fully understand is that Google Places is owned by Google.

Now that’s fairly obvious right but think about the benefits for your business.

Google is by far the most popular and frequently used search engine in the world.

Millions of people use Google’s search engine every day to help them find the information they need.

Not only that but Google are constantly tweaking and testing their search engine algorithm to ensure they give people the exact information they are searching for.

Now imagine how having a strong presence on the first page of Google’s search engines can benefit your business.

Increased visibility on Google equals potentially massive exposure.

Increased exposure on the first page of Google’s search engine will ensure surges of highly targeted traffic to your Google Places listing.

A huge advantage of using Google Places is that it’s very easy to set up your listing.

If you know how to type and operate a mouse then you’ve got the essential skills required to set up a basic listing everything is step-by-step although there are certain insider strategies you need to be aware of to maximize the effectiveness of your Google Places ad.

Hopefully after reading this article you now understand the key benefits of getting your business listed on Google Places.

Considering it’s free, owned by the number one search engine in the world and easy to set-up the decision to choose Google Places as part of your overall marketing strategy is an easy one to make.