Shared Web Hosting

Sharing hosting plans typically host hundreds of web sites on the same web servers. This makes it possible to offer these plans at rock bottom prices. Shared hosting plans typically provide Apache web server with PHP support as scripting language, and MySQL support for databases. Shared web hosting plans are good for small web sites that are not resource intensive. Small business web sites, personal home pages, personal blogs are good examples. Shared web hosting plans typically advertise unlimited bandwidth, unlimited disk space and so on, however to utilize these resources your website would consume too much CPU, and that is not something allowed o shared hosting plans. Therefore, don’t fall for “unlimited” advertisement.

On a shared account, you cannot control some of the web server and database parameters. Some shared hosting providers allow SSH access that makes it easier to perform server side maintenance.

Good examples of shared hosting providers are Lunar Pages and Hostmonster.com. Lunar Pages does not allow SSH access but it is otherwise a reliable hosting company. Hostmonster allows SSH access which is nice, but they do measure how much resource your website uses. For every minute your site is above quota, it will be down for the next 1 minute. Therefore Hostmonster is not good for extremely busy web sites that consume too much PHP and MySQL resources.

This simple shopping web site is running on Lunar Pages and it has thousands of web pages generated via PHP with data coming from MySQL. For under $5 dollars a month, it is a good shared web hosting account.

This simple shareware / freeware software download web site runs on Hostmonster. It has thousands of web pages dynamically generated from a MySQL database and it is able to run within the bounds of Hostmonster shared hosting account.

VPS Hosting - Virtual Private Servers

VPS Hosting plans typically host multiple accounts on the same server where each account is isolated from the other using virtualization software. VPS solutions offer you more freedom in terms of web server and database configuration. VPS solutions typically allow SSH access which makes it easier to maintain your server. VPS solutions also allow you to utilize more of the advertised disk space and bandwidth allowances compared to shared hosting plans.

If you are a sophisticated user who needs freedom to configure your server, but you need cheaper hosting than a dedicated server, then you should go with a VPS plan.

A good VPS provider is WestHost They have VPS accounts starting from $3.95. ViewPosters.com sells framed posters and photography and runs on a $10 VPS account that has quite generous disk space, bandwidth and CPU limits. View Posters has thousands of web pages being displayed from a MySQL database.

Dedicated Server Hosting

Dedicated Server Hosting plans provide you the dedicated computer hardware to host your server. The entire computer will be under your control and you can use as much resources as you want. These are good for busy web sites that consistently require high amount of resources.

APlus.NET offers Cheap Dedicated Servers at $45 dollars. However, keep in mind that these dedicated servers are not as powerful as the big guns that are used to provide shared hosting. A bare minimum dedicated server cannot handle extreme spikes that a powerful shared host can. If you really need a fast disk, multiple CPUs, and plenty of memory, be prepared to spend hundreds of dollars a month on a dedicated server. Needless to say, you need to know how to maintain your server in a dedicated plan. Alternatively, you can use Managed Dedicated Server plans where you pay the hosting provider for the hardware plus the cost of maintaining your server.

Free Web Hosting

Some hosting companies provide free web hosting services. Most of them come with a gotcha that spoils the day. Many require you to display their advertisements, or they require some other form of barter.

One hosting company that provides decent free web hosting is 000WebHost. They provide FTP access, PHP scripting, and MySQL functionality. FTP is somewhat slow. MySQL cannot be accessed remotely and can only be accessed within your account. This makes populating the database slightly harder. However, it is a good plan for the price.

This International Phone Cards web site is an example that runs in a free 000WebHost account. You can use their domain names, or you can use your own domain name in 000WebHost free web hosting account. This Delphi for PHP web site is an example that uses it’s own domain name to run on a free web host account.

Another free web hosting provider is awardspace.com:

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SEO Expert Guide - Paid Site Promotion (Marketing) (part 7/10)

By: David Viney, Sun Mar 19th, 2006

In parts 1 - 6 you learnt how to develop your proposition, identify your key words and optimize and promote (for free) your site and pages. You were also introduced to our mythical Doug (who sells antique doors, door handles, knockers, door bells or pulls and fitting services) in Windsor in the UK.

Now we turn our attention to paid site promotion, which will be relevant to those of you trying to enter an already crowded marketplace, where your key words are saturated!

(a) Pay-per-click (PPC) Advertising

Run a search on Yahoo or Google for a popular consumer product like "MP3 players". In the results, you'll see a set labeled as ‘Sponsored Links’ or ‘Sponsor Results’. Some results will appear in colored text boxes along the site of the page, whilst others may appear in the same format as the main search results. All these results are paid advertisements from the sites listed within the ads.

The ranking order is a product of the bid amount (CPC) and the popularity of the ad (CTR%) and are purchased through pay-per-click (PPC) advertising suppliers. The largest two are Google's Adwords (displayed on Google, AOL, Ask Jeeves) and Yahoo's Sponsored Links - run by acquired company Overture (appearing on Yahoo!, MSN, AltaVista, and others). MSN are planning to release their own PPC scheme soon.

If you have tried and failed with free promotion tactics, the chances are that you are operating in a highly competitive area (where a PPC campaign may well be justified). After all, if you can make more money from a converted click-through than it cost you to buy the click-through, why wouldn't you look at PPC?

Look at your A-list of keywords. Refer back to your research on Overture. How many searches are conducted per month on your keywords? How much are you - and your competitors - willing to pay for those keywords?

For your first campaign, use a large number of relevant search phrases, so that you can test and learn what works best. Build unique ads for each search phrase, as this will help to optimize your click-through rate or CTR% (defined as clicks - or unique visitors - divided by page impressions on the ad pages - expressed as a percentage). This in turn means more targeted traffic, in some cases paying less per click (due to the methods by which advertising is priced).

Make sure you use a suitable (and perhaps even a dedicated) landing page for each campaign. Simply sending people to your homepage (from where they have to navigate your site) will not help your conversion rates (defined as sales divided by unique visitors, expressed as a percentage)! Help them to buy, as they are likely to be in a hurry!

The PPC providers give you useful interfaces with which to track the effectiveness of your campaign and overall return on your investment. Pay close attention to which keywords are delivering for you and make notes for future campaign planning.

Whilst there is no hard and fast rule, a CTR% of 1.8% - 3.5% is in an acceptable range (and anything over that represents a very good performance). On Google, if your ad achieves less than 0.5% CTR, your ad may well be de-listed. The lower your CTR%, the more you will have to pay in cost-per-click (CPC) to get into the top 3-4 results in your chosen keywords (vital if you want to appear on partner sites like AOL).

(b) Paid Directory Submission

I mentioned earlier that Yahoo! Express Submission is the best way to get a listing on Yahoo! Directory. With a node-level PR of 10, Yahoo! Directory carries much weight with Google and the $299 fee (whikst steep and not absolutely guaranteeing a listing) is probably worth the cost.

Do not submit to Yahoo! until you have really tested which site description works best on the free search engines.

(c) Express Search Engine Submission

In the past, it was only worth doing a paid submission with Ask Jeeves, as this engine continued to enjoy a small but loyal following but did not grow it's index as aggressively as the big boys. This meant paid submission was the only way to guarantee a good placement.

However, Ask Jeeves withdrew this service in 2004 (in favour of a strategy that mirrors the larger players). As such, I would not recommend paid listings with any search engines now.

Next we turn to tools you can use to monitor your ongoing optimization effectiveness...

Navigate the guide

Previous : SEO Expert Guide - Free Site Promotion (PR) (part 6/10)

Next: SEO Expert Guide - Black Hat SEO - Activities to avoid (part 8/10)

David Viney (david@viney.com) is the author of the Intranet Portal Guide; 31 pages of advice, tools and downloads covering the period before, during and after an Intranet Portal implementation.

Read the guide at http://www.viney.com/DFV/intranet_portal_guide or the Intranet Watch Blog at http://www.viney.com/intranet_watch.

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SEO Expert Guide - Paid Site Promotion (Marketing) (part 7/10)

(a) Pay-per-click (PPC) Advertising

(b) Paid Directory Submission

(c) Express Search Engine Submission

Navigate the guide