With so many hosting companies available, it’s easy to assume that all hosting companies are equal. But they’re not. If you want a site with very little down time, then doing a little bit of research about which hosting specifications you’ll need for your website is absolutely essential.
First, always check out the reliability of the hosting company because it won’t do you any good to have a website if it frequently goes down. An easy way to research a company is to go to Google and type in the Company Name + Complaints. If you see multiple complaints about the company’s reliability, then look for another company.
If the reliability of the company passes the test, then check out additional features. There are three major things you should look for. The first one is the Cpanel you’ll be working with.
You want an easy to use control panel since you’ll most likely be using your hosting company for years. The second thing you’re looking for is a mail host. Some companies will allow you to have as many mail accounts as you want, but they limit your storage to one gigabyte. Others will allow you to have a certain number of mail accounts, but they won’t limit storage. Be sure to read about any restrictions on the mail accounts.
The third thing you’re looking for is Fantastico. This system will allow you to install various software scripts to your website without having to pay a designer. Follow three easy steps and you can install WordPress blogs, forums and more.
Once you’re satisfied that your hosting company has these features, then it’s time to look at their customer service track record. A few minutes spent searching the web will show you if they routinely ignore support tickets or if their staff is unprofessional or rude.
Now it’s time to compare prices. You should expect to pay between five and ten dollars a month for hosting one or more websites, but not more than that. If a hosting company insists you’ll need to pay more than ten dollars, then shop around for a new one.
Hostgator is one of the best hosting options out there. It has excellent customer service and a long history of reliability. They allow you to host as many websites as you like for ten dollars a month and include unlimited data storage.
You’ll want to choose hosting based on where you’re going in the future with your business, not where you are now.
Do you feel that you have valuable information to share with your customers and prospects that just won’t in text format? Or maybe you know about some breaking news happening within your industry that your customers might appreciate knowing firsthand.
Are you live at an event that might change how business is done within your niche?
If you answered yes to any of the three questions above, you might want to consider hosting your own webinar for customers and prospects. In addition to allowing you to be on the cutting edge of news or change, a webinar allows you to interact with your customers in a brand new way that presents a more personable image.
Like a virtual conference where you’re the keynote speaker, you can establish your credibility and connect with customers and prospects from around the globe. Best of all, you won’t have to leave your office.
Hosting your own webinar doesn’t have to cost a lot unless you decide to pay for more advanced services. Those worried about the technical aspect can relax. If you have a working web cam, speakers, and a microphone, then you can easily host your own webinar.
If you already have these things, then you simply need an account at a website like Ustream or Livestream – both of which allow you to host your very own webinars live. If you’d like to do your own webinar, then there are a few simple tips to follow to ensure it’s a success.
If you’ll be treating your event more like a conference, then make sure you send out a notice about your event a few days in advance. Then, the day of the conference, send out one final reminder.
Make sure you account for time zone differences. For instance, if you live on the West Coast in the United States but the majority of your customer base is located in Japan, then you’ll want to use the time that will be best for your customers. But for those customers who can’t make the webinar, you can record it so they can still access the information later.
After you’ve chosen the best time for your event, make a few notes about what you’d like to say. Don’t write it out word for word. Just try taking down a few bullet points to help you stay on track during your presentation.
Don’t take questions until the presentation is over. Some people have complained that webinars become diluted by customer interaction and they had to leave before the presentation was completed.
Finally, before hosting your event, find a few friends and do a test run to ensure all of your technology works correctly and you can be heard and seen clearly. Now is the time to troubleshoot for annoying bugs or problems that you don’t want to discover the day of your webinar.
Regardless of what niche you’ve chosen, it’s important that you learn how to brand yourself online. Branding yourself in your niche can be as simple as creating a slogan or a tagline that allows others to easily recognize you. You want your ‘brand’ to be viewed as the top authority. You want to be the go to guru in your industry, so choose a brand wisely.
You can start by coming up with a few keywords that people already associate with your business. Look over what words are driving traffic to your site. Do visitors happen on your site after searching for words like ‘dog training’ or ‘caring for pets?’
If you don’t have sufficient website traffic to view the analytics yet, then try asking people familiar with your business what words they’d use to describe it. Once you’ve come up with words describing your online presence, look for an easy to remember tagline.
For instance, if you run a parenting website that also discusses frugal living, you could brand yourself as the frugal mom shopper. Once you’ve come up with a tagline that you like to describe yourself or your business, start sharing it with everyone.
Sign your blog posts with it. Use it on your website. Instead of having an about page, try having a page on your website ‘about the frugal mother.’ This provides you with one more way to brand yourself.
Add your slogan to your email and forum signatures. While you may have heard that no one likes a braggart, in the case of online marketing, it’s not only acceptable to brag about yourself, but it’s a way to rise to the top of your niche.
Businesses use this technique offline as well. For example, you’ve heard the phrase ‘Finger lickin’ good’ used by Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants. They wouldn’t say, ‘passably good chicken.’ Who’d want to eat there?
Brand yourself by building an audience that views you as a helpful resource and they’ll help spread the word about you, too. Word of mouth is very powerful in branding, so treat every prospect well.
If you’re pursuing article marketing, make sure that you add a short biography that mentions your slogan and your website. This biography should be the same for all of the articles so that visitors begin to recognize your name and associate you with your brand.
Brand yourself by guest authoring to an already established audience. Find a blog that’s similar to yours and offer to write a guest post. You can use one of your articles as a forum topic as well. Forums often rank high in Google because like blogs, they are continually updated. If you brand yourself as an expert, people will begin to think of you as one.
Don’t shy away from a niche you’d like to get involved in just because you see the competition is plentiful. All that means is that you have a good idea and it’s a proven moneymaker according to how many others want a part of that pie too.
Competition is a good thing because it can also prove the track record of a niche. What you want to do is bring something to the table within that niche that your competition is not offering.
For example, plenty of companies jumped on the bandwagon after the Kindle was released and began to offer protective cases in a variety of designs and colors to the public who purchased the Kindle and other electronic devices.
However, one company decided to create a niche with safety from theft in mind and created a cover that resembles an old book – protecting the Kindle from scratches and from the view of would be thieves as well. They took a niche and narrowed it down and charged ahead of the competition and are now making plenty in profits.
Any product that is specifically focused will always beat out the competition. If you want to work a niche on weight loss, you’ll discover that the weight loss niche is saturated with websites, books and other products dedicated to the topic.
It’s easy for consumers to get what’s called ‘blind eye’ when it comes to anything new on the weight loss scene because of that over saturation. So what you would do is take the topic of weight loss and narrow it down to only one small aspect of the weight loss topic.
You could narrow it down by focusing only on organic weight loss products or information. You could also narrow it down by targeting only women who’ve given birth and now want to lose weight and get back to pre-pregnancy shape.
The trick is to take an old topic and give it a fresh twist. Think of all the magazine headlines that you read. You never see a new topic – just a fresh twist on what’s already been around for centuries.
This is the part where doing your homework pays off. Once you’ve selected the niche that interests you, research all the competition on that niche. What are they offering? What audience are they targeting? Which audience is being left out? How can you take that niche and make it more valuable to the consumer?
One way to discover what people are looking for in a niche is by doing keyword research. You can find free keyword
One of the quickest routes to a business failure is to pick a niche that doesn’t have the potential to bring in the profits you’re looking for. The way to discover which niche has the ability to make money is easy. You have to do your research.
First, you’re going to want to select a niche that you’re personally interested in – even if it’s one that you don’t know a lot about. You can always learn what you need to know, but if the niche is too technical or you consider it boring, you’re going to be as happy working on it as you would be getting a tooth pulled.
Choose a niche that not only interests you, but one that you feel excited about working on. That way, you’ll stay pumped up and eagerly look forward to growing your business. To find a niche that’ll bring in the kind of money you’re after, seek what the big or even small companies look for.
What are the hot selling items? You don’t have to know this off the top of your head. Look for these top selling items on sites such as Amazon or eBay or other market websites. What services can you provide as a VA or telecommuter that would profit you month after month?
The bestsellers (just check to see what ranking the items have) will tell you what the pulse of the people buying is. So for example, if you see that on Amazon, a product sells well enough to be in the top ten, you know you’re onto something. Let’s say one of those products was a brand new fitness gadget and they were selling like hotcakes. You’d find plenty of potential by tapping into that market.
If you are looking at becoming a VA or other service provider take a look at the hot items out there today that would increase customer base or productivity/sales of the business, I.E. Social Media, Branding, Mobile Marketing, PPC and SEO to name a few.
If you become an affiliate, you’ll want to pay attention to the dollar amount you’ll earn by becoming an affiliate rather than the percent of commission. You’ll earn more money that way. Look for tangible products for your niche as well.
Make sure you don’t make the mistake of setting up a niche based on what’s considered a here today, gone tomorrow item. Remember the Beanie Babies? They were all the rage and people just couldn’t get enough of them. But where are they now? They fell off the scene because they were just a fad. You want to seek out a niche that has long term potential so that your business will thrive now and for many years to come.
