Archive for March, 2009

Blog Hosting: More Blog Hosting checklists.

Tuesday, March 10th, 2009

In a previous post, I outlined Top 5 Blog Hosting checklists. Today I want to take it a bit further as I share with you a few more checklist that will further make your decision process easier and help you stay away from all the troubles that do arise from using the wrong host while you concentrate on making your blog a success.

1) Disk space and Bandwidth allocated:
I want to advice that you should be very careful with the “unlimited” or “infinite” plan that most hosting provider do offer unless you are sure of their reliability or perhaps someone you trust recommends it.

What am I say in essence? If you are not sure, just look out for a hosting plan with a specific amount of space (say 100GB), with that you can be rest assured that such amount of space is most likely what you get (almost guaranteed).

But if you must settle for unlimited hosting, whereby you are looking at hosting multiple domains, I may as well recommend Kiosk, that what I personally use and having used their services for over a year and been that I got the recommended from a friend and mentor who himself have been using it for more than four years, I can boldly tell you that their service is good.

The same advice goes for bandwidth allocation, you will want to be sure of what you are getting. Whether it is a monthly bandwidth allocation or any other plan …be sure to look for a specific amount of space as well unless you get a recommendation.

You do not want your visitors landing on your blog and reading something like “Oooops: Bandwidth exceeded for this month” and more importantly you do not want any form of suspension on your blog activities …that will only cause your blog to suffer.

Why the above reasons may be a good enough reasons to avoid the unlimited plans. It is also a wonderful experience to know that you won’t be charged anything extra (if you chose any of the unlimited plans, just don’t host with a provider you don’t trust) in a situation where your blog suddenly experience a huge increase in traffic.

Another important thing I think I should mention is that you should not worry too much about the bandwidth and the disk space that they offer you.

You will likely not be needing anything that much unless you feel your blog will grow too soon and even at that you can always upgrades your hosting plan …just make sure they have different plans that you can easily upgrade to as the need arises.

2) Flexible Policy.
One thing you will likely discover with many hosting companies is the fact that they tend to offer you a free domain name just for subscribing to any of their hosting plan …helping you save some few dollars, mostly for that very first year, after which you begin to pay the subsequent yearly fees.

As tempting as this maybe I normally do advice against it. Make sure they have a very flexible Policy. For instance some hosting service provider just find it difficult to let you have the free domain name you registered with them …trying to keep you subscribed to their hosting.

So, you want to take extra care when choosing a hosting company or service provider. In fact you should find out from them what happens if for any reason you decides to change to another hosting provider.

3) Payment method:
You can only find quite a few hosting service provider that do accept payment from Nigeria and other countries that fall under the same category (country that are somehow regarded as fraudulent) . Therefore if you are residing in any of this blacklisted countries, make sure your hosting choice do accept payment from people of your country.

It just a pity that this is happening but I want to assure you that things are getting better, as more people from these countries are being honest with their online dealings.

…Just for the noting, don’t let the fact that a particular hosting service provider won’t accept payment from you stop you from hosting your blogs. If you have your card or any other payment means just go ahead and find those that will and move on, If you don’t find someone who do to help you.

4) Every other thing in between:
By this I simple mean you can always find out as much as you can. You may want to know how many email account you will be entitled to …depending on your need.

You may also need to find out what their paying customer are saying. Almost all hosting companies do provide customer’s testimonials on their websites. Read through to find out what their paying customers are saying.

Don’t just take what I have said so far and not even their customer’s testimonials. Do your own research. Google it …visit forums …check out honest reviews …read as much as you can from the hosting companies themselves.

Just like I have already mention …I use Kiosk and I fully endorse and recommend it. However, if i am able to find people using other hosting provide or if I can spare sometime to research on other web hosting providers be assured that I will be sharing my discovery with you.

Bonus: What happens if I have already made a mistake?

If you find yourself using a hosting service that is kind of frustrating your effort, that is to say you have made a mistake in your choice of blog hosting, then I will advice that you choose another one. Changing hosts shouldn’t be much of a problem and I think the company you are changing to maybe willing to help you out, just send them an email in respect to what you want them to do for you.

Here is a word of advice; I need you to know that there maybe times when something might just go wrong or there is a kind of upgrade your host is trying to do …it sure to happen once in a while, during such times keep in mind that things happens and before you go groaning, try to keep a backup of your blog.

Wherever you decide to host your blog …the decision is completely yours to make. However, always bear in mind that where your blog is hosted is one of the major components …behind-the-scenes component that determines the success of your blog.

What hosting service do you use? …Where is your blog hosted? …Are you really satisfied with there service? Feel free to share your experience and ask your questions.

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Posted in Beginners Guide, Blog Hosting, General | No Comments »

Buy domain name: Why buy a unique domain name for your blog?

Saturday, March 7th, 2009

“It’s their rules not yours …that simply means they are in charge.”

It is already a wide practice as a lot of bloggers today choose to buy their own unique domain name however there are still a lot of other bloggers who choose to start their blog on a free platform.

Whatever decision you are looking at making, today’s article will help you in making a better decision as I throw some light on why most bloggers choose to buy unique domain names for their blogs. Before I proceed you may want to take out some time and get to understand the importance of a domain name.

…Below are some of the most obvious and important reasons why most bloggers buy their own unique domain names.

1) Branding, Professionalism and Credibility:
Now why it may be possible for you to brand yourself with a free blog and still become successful, having your own unique domain name has more advantage.

When you take out time to carefully select a domain name whereby you are looking at branding yourself, just like this very blog (www.francisalaeto.com – self branding) or you are simply looking at branding your business, product, service etc …Such domain names helps build the brand and credibility of such a blog faster …unlike when you do not have a unique domain, where what you get is a domain name like “yourchoicedomain.blogspot.com”.

With a unique domain name, you will enjoy the privilege of having your own unique email addresses that is personalized with your domain name (such as name@yourchoicedomain.com), which enables your blog to be perceived as a professional blog. In fact, many people see having your own domain as a sign of seriousness and this can actually be a plus for building your blog credibility and brand.

With this you can easily and effective enhance the image of your business, product, service, company or organization for a very minimal cost …less than $10 for a year.

2) Blog Rankings and Backlinks:
As you keep blogging, your blog begins to gain links from other blogs as well as recognitions …over time all these can really shoot up you rankings, such as Page Rank (PR), Alexa Rank etc …enhancing your Search Engine Rankings as well. At this point the blog is already doing great but what do you think will happen if you latter choose to get your own unique domain name?

What happens to your backlinks? …What happens to all your hard earned rankings? …How would you love to start promoting your blog afresh? …I know you do not want this kind of experience; you will rather be in control.

3) Availability:
If you see yourself registering a particular domain name anytime in the future, especially when you have “your ideal name” in mind …you may as well register it now because this is the only way to be sure you will still find it available …even if you won’t be blogging on the immediate. The more you wait, the less the chance of buying your ideal domain name.

Also, If you are looking at having the domain name you end up buying to be same with that of a free blog platform that you are already using, you might as well buy it right away.

…You can always park it or better still point it towards your free blog

Quite a lot of people has discovered that when they were ready to start out with a “paid blog” …they just couldn’t find the name they were already using with their free platform especially when they had it at the back of their mind to latter register and use the same name but this time not as a subdomain – taken away the “.blogspot.com”

I can’t actually tell, but with millions of websites/blogs already exiting and more been created on a daily basic. You can never be sure you will find the name you have in mind, so it’s always advisable to secure a domain name, once a choice is made.

...You don’t want to be ready only to discover that your ideal domain name has been taken.

4) Domain ownership:
Personally, I see domain registration as the beginning of website/blog ownership. You own that name and no one can take that from you. This is the real reasons I prefer owning my domains names instead of having it as a mere subdomain (yourchoicedomain.blogspot.com).

Many bloggers also tend to agree with this as they see domain ownership as “VRE” – Virtual Real Estate. Though with free blog platforms like Wordpress and Blogger you may still be able to get and do (to some extend) what someone with its own domain can do since their platforms are quite established.

But with other new and smaller platforms, you may wake up one day and discover that your blog is no more just because the platform has been shut down or perhaps they just made an adjustment to their policy.

Another reason worth mentioning is the easy and convenience that comes with moving your domain. By this I mean …if for any reason, you decides to change host, due to a need for some kind of advanced hosting, you can actually do so without having any problem with your formal blog host.

Apart from having your blog completely on a free platform, there have been cases where you get a free domain name from a hosting service provider that you have an account with and when you are looking at moving it latter …they find it difficult to let you have the name.

…If this happens you will have to get a new domain name and start promoting your new blog all over again, even if this is no problem for you what do you think will happen to all the backlinks and rankings, you would definitely loss that and you do not want this kind of experience …you want to be in control.

When you are in “Control”, you will be free from all the limitations that comes with the free blogs and free domain names …Yes, “Control” that the watch word for having your own unique domain name, you can change hosts at any time …keep all you backlinks and rankings and still have your subscribes and visitor coming back to your site by simply typing in your domain name.

Bonus
One more thing to add to the above reasons is the fact that you can always use custom error pages/messages to direct and prevent your blog visitors from leaving your blog in case of broken links and any other error that may arise.

Finally, I need you to know that I am not disputing the use a free blog or getting a free domain name from your host.
However, if you put into consideration the above few points, especially the fact that your domain name and/or blog is totally not in your control …you may as well invest a few dollars to buy a domain name. It’s basically less than $10.

No matter how nice it can be to get something completely for free, I personally think getting more of that same thing for little a price is not a bad ideal at all.

…These are just my opinions and recommendations.

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Buy domain name: Just how importance is a “domain name” to your blog?

Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009

Once you are ready to start blogging, you will need to buy a domain name especially if you are considering using a “paid blog” but just how importance is a “domain name”.

Imagine discussing with a new friend on the phone and in the process he asked that you quickly come over to his office of which he gave you the address. On getting there you discovered that the address he gave you is an office complex with about 100 offices in it and it was just unfortunate that he forgot to give you the name of the business/company.

You quickly reach out for your phone …dialed his number but to your surprise the number could not be reached …remember how that sounds …”the number you are trying to call is unavailable, please try again latter.” After many repeated trials and same reply, you finally turned back and went home.

Why that wasn’t the only thing you could have done at that moment, the other option (just walking into the different office and making enquires) was just too stressful and would actually take so much of your time and that is if it doesn’t turn you into an object of ridicule. Though chances are you could be lucky to discover his office with only a few trails or at less find someone who knows him and can tell you the name of the office.

…That was an interesting piece, wasn’t it? …Good, let’s take it a step further.

Now, you and I know, it could be quite difficult locating such an office especially when you have limited time, its even worst when you happen not to know the nature of the business in question and even at that there maybe other business doing almost the same thing.

It actually no difference with the internet and your blog …your blog is just but one out of many others which may posses like content with your blog and target the same niche just like the business of “our friend” which is located in an office complex and whose nature of business is likely same with some other businesses in that same complex.

At this point it takes the name of your blog to identify and differentiate it from the rest. It is the first thing that uniquely puts your blog apart from the others. This is known as the domain name or the URL (Uniform Resource Locator, previously Universal Resource Locator) of the blog. For instance, the site URL (domain name) you are viewing right now is http://francisalaeto.com It is uniquely for this site.

What then is a domain name?

Simply put a domain name is the beginning of your online identity. Like I have already said it is uniquely yours …just as unique as a registered business name …It represents your online presence as does a registered business name. Some webmasters refers to it as your address on the internet.

Whichever way you look at it, no other person can have access to register the same domain name unless it expires and you are careless with it or just don’t need it anymore. If you have ever tried to register a business name, then you should be aware that once the name you are trying to register has been taken by someone else …you simply try another name. This is very much applicable to your domain name.

To add to all that is been said I need you to know that your domain name is an important business asset and I hope you see your blog as a business. People can only access whatever it is you have on your website/blog by visiting your domain name. All these point down to just how importance a “domain name” is.

Finally having a blog implies having a domain name. Whether it a “free blog” or a “paid blog”. You definitely need a domain name. The only difference is that you don’t pay/buy the domain name when using a free blog.

All you will be required to do is to fill in the blank space provided for that purpose with an available name of your choice however you get a domain name like “www.yourchoicename.blogspot.com” depending on the blog platform you end up using.

While that of a “paid blog” is paid for (i.e you buy a domain name with a domain registrar). With this you get the domain name of your choice (www.yourchoicename.com), however you need to first check for it availability as well.

Note: Your domain name may or may not be your business name.

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Posted in Domain Names, General | 1 Comment »