SEO For The Common Webmaster

The basis of any good website is good hosting. I have had many websites over the years I have been on the Internet and I have been happy with very few. I decided after my recent problems to share some advice when it comes to purchasing hosting.

First of all, the term “you get what you pay for” applies when finding good hosting. I once purchased what seemed to be a great deal off of eBay. The company was Vamp Host and it was only $9.99 for a year with unlimited everything. I was excited, they had good feedback, seemed pretty solid and I could host all my sites in one place. I jumped on the deal.

Well as I soon learned, cheap is not always better. I updated my site everyday with new pages only to go on and check the next day and all my work was gone. I contacted the host and was told they had to switch servers and anything I change that day was lost. I was annoyed but I understood and redid all my work. Then it happened a total of 14 more times in the three months I was with them. I switched hosting really fast.

As you know from my last post, I recently received a free hosting account in exchange for doing a review. I had the account for a couple of weeks and I started having the same problems as with Vamp Host. I lost posts, they had server problems and I just did not want to waste my time and damage my website with such garbage. I am not saying that all are bad. Just be careful who you deal with and make sure they have a good reputation. There are some really good ones that are truly free and offer a great service.

I am with A1 Web Hosting Solutions and have been very happy with them. I started with them a couple of months ago with my other blogs. They have several plans with reasonable prices. I have not had any downtimes and everything loads quickly.

My advice when looking for hosting is to look for the best plan that you can afford. Do your research by searching for information on your future host. If a deal sounds too good to be true, it is. There is no such thing as unlimited anything, all servers have a limit. The problem is that many hosting companies oversell their servers and hope you never use what you paid for. If you use too much bandwidth or space, they end up suspending your account. This brings up a big point when buying hosting.

DO NOT purchase hosting from the same place you have your domain registered. I am sure many of these companies have great hosting services. However, it creates possible problems for you. First, if you overuse the server and they suspend your account, you also lose access to both the site and the domain. This could also happen if you are reported for something bad such as copyright infringement. It would suck to get your site suspended and not have access to the site. Of course it would be worse to not even have access to your domain. You can get new hosting and get your site back up if your site is suspended but if they also control the domain, you could end up losing everything.

As with buying anything in life, it is important to think before you buy hosting. Do not rely on testimonies on the website of the host, ask around and Google the company for real feedback from customers. Look for good uptime, good support, what they are compatible with as far as PHP and such, and what they offer for features. I recommend looking for a host that offers Fantasico which allows you to add many of the popular programs like WordPress with ease. This is important for people like me who hate to do any kind of coding.

Other important features you need to look at are how many add on domains you are allowed. If you plan to have more than one domain, you want to know how many are allowed on your plan. You need at least one SQL Database for every software you plan to load like WordPress or a Directory software. If you have five add on domains and are only allowed two SQL databases, you will not be able to do all five domains with certain programs. You also want to know how many sub domains you are allowed to have. There are many other features that you will need to check depending on what your needs are. Just make sure that you have the option to upgrade if your site becomes so popular that you need more space or more bandwidth.

Just be smart and do not settle on cheap or free when often times for a little more you can get what you really want.

You can build the best looking website on the Internet and do your best at SEO but it means nothing without the filling inside. The number one key when building a good website or blog is to have quality content.

When you build a website, it should not be built for Google or any other search engine, it should be built for the people you want to visit your site. It does not matter if you are looking to sale a product or to entertain people or just provide information, quality is what you should have inside your website.

If you have the ability to write everything yourself, I highly suggest doing it. However, if you are not a good writer, I recommend you hire someone to write articles for you. Make sure you look at some samples of their writing and do not accept garbage for your website. I personally write many articles for people and I am available to hire to write articles if you find the need arises.

If you decide to write for yourself, make sure to use a good spell checker and if needed a good grammar checker. I love to write and I think I am good at it but I can not spell worth a darn. Luckily, all of the major web browsers have add on spell checkers and if you use blogging software, those also include spell checkers. You could also write all your articles in Word and then copy and paste it to your website. This will both correct many grammar mistakes and spelling mistakes. Just remember quality is key.  You do not want a bunch of mistakes that make it difficult for your readers to follow.

When writing content for your site, know your audience. This means write in a way that is best suited to attract who you would like to read your content. If you site is geared towards the teen population, it is OK to have some slang in your content. However, if you are looking to sell business cards to professionals, it would be best to make sure you use correct terms and good grammar. A good example is this blog. I want to attract webmaster but I want the articles basic so that even the common hobby webmaster can understand what I am saying. My information is good for all webmasters but I do not try to talk over the new webmasters who are just starting out.

Another point is to know how much content you need. If your site is a sales page, you want to provide enough information to get your customer interested but not so much that they will get bored and leave your site. If you are an information site, you need to have a lot of content for your readers so they will keep coming back. Again, you need to know your audience and you need to know what they are looking for.

Updating your content and keeping it fresh and new is super important. If you have a blog, make sure to add content as often as you can. This also applies to information sites, people want new and fresh articles to read or they will visit once and never come back. If you own sales sites, make sure you keep the descriptions up to date and the prices. Nothing is more annoying for a customer than to visit a website and trying to buy something only to find out you no longer sell it or the price advertised is lower than the real price.

In the push to fill your blog or website with content, do not take short cuts. Duplicated content is frowned on by both the search engines and your readers. It is OK to repost a great article if you have permission to do so and you give a link back to the original source. Many webmaster take the easy route and just try to rewrite someone else work and pass it off as their own, this is a bad way to run your blog or site. Remember how we started this article, quality is key.

Quality content will not only make you look good for the search engines, it will also build a following of visitors and customers that could make your website the next biggest hit on the Internet.

I hope this article has helped you focus on content for your website and if you have a suggestion or question, please feel free to leave me a comment and I will reply. Please keep checking back for more articles for the common webmaster.