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8 Factors to Consider When Choosing A Web Hosting Company

Every business today needs a website to be able to compete with its rivals.

A good web host is however needed to help make the site live online, and accessible by all. This means finding the right web hosting company.  Although you might be spoiled for choice with various web hosts, you need to identify just the right host for your website. Several factors and considerations have to be made before deciding on a host. Factors such as performance, security, reliability, and popularity should be considered when shopping for a web hosting company.

Going for the wrong web host, or just the wrong package can hurt your business performance among several other factors. That said, you don’t want to decide in haste, but instead, take your time to identify the right service provider for your needs. Outlined below are some of the critical things to consider when shopping for a web hosting provider.

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1. Reliability

You will need a reliable service provider capable of ensuring your website doesn’t go down at any given time. You cannot risk having your website go down simply because you chose the wrong hosting provider. For starters, you will start losing potential clients, popularity and google rankings if you suffer the same.

For this reason, you need a provider that has at least 99.9% uptime and capable of delivering just that. To put it in another perspective, 0.1% downtime in a month equates to 43 minutes of your valuable time.  There are times when downtime is inevitable. Some of the best service providers have a way of keeping your website running and up even if a server fails. These providers use hardware failover through raid-10 configuration that offers both acceleration and redundancy.

2.  24/7 Customer Support in Your Language

Excellent customer support is one of the crucial factors to consider when choosing a web hosting company. For a company to have an excellent support team, it needs to provide easy ways to submit a ticket, email, or even an instant response to queries. Some companies take too long to respond to a ticket, while others are pretty good at it. Test the customer support system to see how fast they respond to queries, whether you will be put on hold for hours on the phone, as well as how fast they act on time-sensitive issues.

In addition to a swift response by customer support, it would be best to ensure they can communicate in the language of your choice. This makes communication much easier.

3. Security

You need an assurance that your website is protected and safe from hackers and other malicious people. With hundreds of malicious people and even rival companies, looking to steal your data, security is paramount for any website. A good web host should be able to provide:

Web Application Firewall: A firewall helps keep hackers, malware, and viruses at bay. A strong firewall should be able to repulse hackers thus making it almost impossible for them to exploit any vulnerabilities your website might have.

DDoS Protection: Commonly known as Distributed Denial of Service, this is a cyber attack that targets servers by sending requests simultaneously with the primary aim of overloading them. Reputable hosting companies put in measures to help protect their servers and clients from DDoS attacks.

Anti-malware Protection: DDoS protection and a strong firewall aren’t enough to keep your website and data safe. The host’s servers need to be scanned for hacker activity, malware, and viruses regularly to ensure client are protected.

Brute-force Protection:  This is a security measure that helps protect websites from unwanted guests, as well as limit the number of failed login attempts.

Two-factor Authentication:  This is a safety measure put in place to create an extra layer of protection to the website. Users have to use a secondary password to access the service.

Regular Automatic Updates: WordPress, among other content management systems, provide frequent and automatic updates which help fix any security loopholes in the system. A good web host should provide a similar feature to ensure hackers don’t manipulate loopholes if any.

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4. Storage and Bandwidth

The amount of storage offers determines how much content you can store on the servers.  This includes videos, images, files, pages, and databases, as well as emails. Bandwidth dictates the number of visitors that the side can accommodate in a month, and the number of downloads or video streaming users can stream from the site.

If running a small or medium sized business/website, a few gigabytes worth of storage should be enough to put up with your needs comfortably. The same cannot, however, be said for large eCommerce websites where users will stream, download, or even upload content frequently to the site. You will automatically need more bandwidth and storage to be able to accommodate all these services.  You will also need more disk space if considering to create multiple mailboxes or store lots of emails for your employees.

If possible, consider a web host that offers unlimited bandwidth and storage for your website, and at an affordable price. You however need to be careful not to fall for companies that have usage policies in play, whereby they include ‘fair play’ clauses to their agreements to protect their systems from misuse and abuse. To be on the safe side, contact the web host to discuss the terms of service before making the final decision.

5. SSL Security

The visitors too need to be protected from hackers too. Many sites today have adopted HTTPS which is more secure than HTTP. The additional ‘s’ is known as an SSL certificate that protects both the visitors and websites.

Secure Socket Layer (SSL) helps by encrypting the information being exchanged between the website and visitors. This makes it harder for anyone from intercepting or even eavesdropping. In addition to keeping the site and visitor protected, SSL plays a huge role in search engine ranking for the said website as well. This can be seen with various web browsers, such as Google Chrome that displays a ‘not secure’ warning on the address bar if you try to log on to an unsecured website.

The best web hosting companies bundle SSL certificates automatically with their plans. This is commonly known as AutoSSL.

6. Backups and Restores

A good web hosting company handles data backup every day as an extra measure to ensure client data is safe. This makes it possible or you, the client, to be able to restore data quickly and efficiently should you delete a file accidentally, or if your website is hacked. Automated daily backups for emails, databases, and websites is a common feature with many service providers today.

Backup retention is another factor you need to consider when choosing a web host. Although some companies keep the backup data for significantly longer, there are those that will only keep the backed-up date for some time, say five days. This means you won’t be capable of retrieving any data more than five days old.

For data backup to be efficient, it needs to be done daily and performed on different machines. This gives you extra protection should the web host’s backup be corrupted or compromised. This is what many term as external backups.

7. Professional Email

Professional email enables you to promote your company whenever you sent out an email. It doubles up as a communication and marketing tool for the business.

Some hosting providers include one or more email accounts at your domain name in their hosting plans. You might, however, have to pay for the same service with other hosting companies as well. It would, therefore, be wise to consider a provider offering email as part of the package.

Simply having a professional email service isn’t enough for the business. The service provider needs to ensure its Emailing system is reputable enough and not marked as spam. Some professional emails end up in the recipient’s junk mail, never to be opened. A reputable company will however ensure they have an efficient anti-spam, antivirus, and anti-malware system to help protect your email from such.

8. Performance

Almost everyone gets impatient when a page takes too long to load.  The average user will only wait for 4 seconds for a page to load; otherwise he will hit the back button. That said, you need to choose a web host offering faster loading times.

Several factors need to be considered when looking for a fast web host. These include:

The storage type:  Web hosts use Solid State Drives (SSDs) and Hard Disk Drives (HDDs) to store data on their servers. SSDs are considerably more reliable and faster as compared to HDDs, hence the most recommended option for servers. In addition to this, solid-state drives consume less energy while offering incredible speeds.

Data caching: This is known as specialized acceleration technology that helps improve a website’s load time significantly. When appropriately implemented, caching can help a page load 100 times faster. Be sure to check the load times offered by a service provider before making the final decision.

These pointers should help you make a more informed decision when looking for a web host.



How to Choose the Best Domain Name: Some Tips And Ideas to Consider

Are you having trouble choosing a domain name?

Discussed below are tips and ideas on how to choose one like a pro.

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 1. Include Your Brand Name in The Domain

Consider including your brand’s name in the domain to make it simpler and more memorable. People are more likely to remember your brand than anything else. An excellent example of this is Canadagoose.com, the domain for Canada goose is more effective than if it was named Canadianwinterjackets.com

2. Make It Descriptive and Intuitive

Let the domain name be reflective of what the business is about.  You can do this by including the main keywords that audiences will be searching for. Don’t make them guess what your domain name is. Affordablehomesinvancouver.ca, toysfortoddlers.ca, etc. are excellent examples of descriptive domain names.

You can use tools such as Google Trends and Ubersuggest to help you discover popular keywords that you can use as well. Google Trends lets you know of the latest trending and keywords related to your business. Ubersuggest will help you discover the number of searches entered for the said keyword in a month.

You might also want to consider including a keyword(s) in the domain as well. Although Google may not show much interest in it, adding a keyword or two to your domain name can give you an SEO advantage. This is particularly beneficial when used as an anchor text in link building.

Pro Tip

Use your brand in the primary domain name, then register an additional keyword-rich domain as well. This way, the domain name will help users identify your brand or domain while at the same time presenting information about specific services and products you have to offer.

3. Consider. Com and .CA First Before Anything Else

This, of course, depends on your target audience. If targeting shoppers across the world, then the .COM extension would be a much better fit than.CA.  The .CA extension however resonates well with Canadian shoppers if you are doing business in Canada.  Secure both extensions if they are available, you never know what the future holds.

Contrary to popular belief, the .CA extension is more beneficial if targeting Canadian shoppers as compared to using .COM. This is because the .CA extension identifies your business as Canadian based, hence customers will look there first.

4. Keep the Domain Short and Memorable

Try to avoid long domain names for they are not only easily forgotten but can also be misspelled as well.  For the best results, consider a domain name with not more than 20 characters. Avoid slang or abbreviations that could make the domain harder to spell.

A good example is PopularSci.ca and PopularScience.ca. Although the first domain is shorter, it is not as easy to remember as the second one.  It is worth noting that, short domains are rarely available online. 5-letter domains are scarce while 3-4 letter domains have already been reserved for popular extensions.

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5. Consider Separate Domains Per Language

If your website is serving bilinguals, you might then want to consider registering two separate domains. One domain will serve one language. If targeting English and French visitors, for instance, you will want both to find the right domain or site.  The Hudson Bay Company is a good example of such. It has two registered domains, labaie.com (French) and thebay.com (English).

Spelling may differ from one language to the other. Some words are spelled differently in British and American English. That said, consider using the right spelling for each target audience. This is if you are targeting Americans on one side, and British on the other

6. Get Creative

There are times when you won’t be lucky with a .COM or .CA extension. If this happens, you can then get creative with the hundred’s available domain extension. You will be surprised at the number of domain extensions you can use to serve the same purpose, or even better.

7. The Domain Name Should Be Easy to Pronounce

Go for a domain name that is not only unforgettable, but an easy to pronounce one over the phone or verbally. Easy to pronounce domain names get more attention and positive association as compared to the complicated ones. You never have to spell the domain for people to understand it.

Slang, hyphens, and numbers should be avoided when creating a domain name.  If you have to use any of these, say a number, then consider registering both the word and number version of the domain. E.g., Top10lists.ca and TopTenLists.ca. Domain names such as get-more4less.ca should be avoided but register getmoreforless.ca instead.

8. Consider A Localized Domain

This is important if targeting local audiences. Adding a province, region, or city to the domain name will increase relevance to the target audiences.  Experts recommend having a main website, then creating additional websites for a specific location using a localized domain and content. This comes in handy for individuals/companies looking to operate stores in different regions.

9. Steer Clear of Trademarks

Although the domain name may be available online, a registered company might have that name already. Using such will only lead to costly legal battles should the registered business decide to sue. For this reason, you need to steer away from any trademarked name and instead, create a unique name yourself. Coming up with a unique name helps avoid all these battles and the possibility of losing your domain name in the first place.

Check with the Canadian Trademark Database for trademarks that are already registered. You should also avoid using or including another company’s brand in your domain name. This is regardless of whether you choose to include typos or misspellings on the same. Doing so only attracts lawsuits.

10. Ensure the Brand and Visitors Are Protected

Registering domains with similar names is one of the best ways to protect your brand and visitors. Commonly known as defensive registration, doing this protects you from competitors and hackers from targeting you or your loyal customers. This eliminates potential showdowns and problems in the future. Defensive registration also helps increase your business’ success rate by increasing traffic.

The most common defensive registrations include:

a. Popular extensions – This involves registering your domain in all available traditional extensions. E.g.CA, .NET, .COM, .CO, and .ORG

b. Misspellings – look out for commonly misspelled words related to your brand, then register the popular variants. These include typos and reverse-spelling.

c. Alternatives – Possessives and plurals can be confusing to the user. For this reason, consider registering plurals and possessives or your brand. A good example is JoesOrganicFoods.com. Joeorganicfoods.com and Joesorganicfood.com should be registered to protect the brand.

d. Bilingual – If considering entering into another market or language, registering a translation of the domain would be a wise move.

Domains cost about $20 per year.  Taking on defensive registration can double or triple the amount very fast. You should, therefore, consider risk tolerance, the revenue the business is generating, and how valuable your brand is before making a move.

11. Use a Domain Spinner

A domain spinner is a tool that helps determine a domain accurately. This is because some domains may be already registered even though the website isn’t running yet. A domain spinner provides alternatives and suggestions for the entered domain name. It would, however, be advisable to look for an effective domain spinner to get conclusive and accurate results.

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A good spinner should:

1. Provide domain availability results fast

2. Search your domain over a multitude of potential domain extensions, as well as make suggestions

3. Allow easy and quick registration of a domain or more

4. Minimize service upsells

Conclusion

Thousands of fresh domains are registered every day. These are registered on a first come first served basis. Having your domain name registered before someone thinks of it will not only save you time but money in the long run. Some people choose to invest in a domain aftermarket for thousands of dollars. Although buying an already popular domain may seem like a shortcut, the satisfaction of registering yours is fulfilling. You also get the chance to protect the domain in ways the previous user never thought of.

 There are limitless opportunities that one can take to register his/her domain name. Using the tips outlined above, the process should be straightforward and without any hurdles. Registered a new domain opens the door for fresh new opportunities for your brand.



Five Ways to Help Get Massive Website Traffic

Are you struggling to increase your website traffic?

Do you feel like you have tried every method that exists but nothing helps?

Is your website not making enough money?

I have some good news for you!

You DO NOT have to be an expert in SEO or copy-writing to get more website traffic.

You may be wondering….

Why is getting traffic so hard?

The problem is most likely that you have been focused on measuring the wrong metrics, and you haven’t been reading the right content.

There are a lot of so-called gurus who want to help people to increase their website traffic. Some of them are OK, some of them have out of date knowledge. Very few produce actionable ideas that anyone can follow.

What we’re missing is a proven system. Something that can be implemented right now, and that will see your traffic go through the roof in a matter of a couple of weeks.

A good system makes it EASY to increase your website traffic.

Follow the steps, and you will see exponential growth in your stats.

There is such a system and I have been using it myself to get more traffic to the websites that I manage, with great success.

The system is easy to follow, and it is made up of just five simple and easy to measure and implement stages.

Step #1: Website Content Optmiziation

The core of the system is the content that is on your website. If you really want to get more traffic then you will need to make sure that your content is highly optimised. Otherwise all you will get is fleeting, temporary increases to your visitor numbers.

Step #2: Get Active on Social Media

Once you have a website that is prepared for traffic, you need to start driving more traffic to it. Learn how to do this with some creative and effective social media strategies.

Step #3: Guest Posts and Content Outreach

Social media is just one part, albeit an important part, of the traffic puzzle. It’s important to get your content out in front of new audiences. We can show you how to do this even if you do not have a lot of time to write guest posts.

Step #4: Make a System You Can Replicate

Being over-reliant on social media or search engines is something that can easily backfire. A site could lose its rankings and its traffic at any moment, with no notice. Social media sites change their algorithms regularly too. Diversifying, and having a system that puts you in control of your traffic, is a must.

Step #5: Make Your Content Work For You

It’s easy to tun a single piece of content into something that can be posted and re-posted in dozens of places, and distributed out to dozens of different channels. This increases your reach and can bring in a lot of traffic.




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