Posted: January 16th, 2011 | Author: Christian | Filed under: Business | Tags: web hosting | No Comments »
Anyone thinking of moving up from a free website on Blogger or WordPress.com will ask this question, “What is the best webhost?”
I currently host my PinoyTattoos.com site with Rackspace who many consider one of the best web hosts out there. It’s true but it comes at a price. I pay $100 a month. In an effort to cut costs because it’s easier to save money than make money, I’m evaluating LiquidWeb and WPEngine.
LiquidWeb is a big hosting company with 24/7 support with plans starting at 14.95. Signing up was pretty simple except for the annoying verification that took longer than expected. Since my site is pretty big it will be challenging to get the data on their cheapest plan. I would say that setup is pretty complicated for the beginner.
Benefits:
- Support
- Price
Cons:
- Complicated to setup for the beginner
WPEngine hosting is specifically for WordPress. On paper this sounds like a perfect solution but just like any startup, there are some issues. When setting up my site this morning, I accidentally blew away a configuration file. I sent in a support ticket and havent heard back anything after 7 hours. For the high hosting price, it’s unacceptable to wait 1 business day for an answer. My business is 24/7 365.
Benefits:
- WordPress dedicated hosting
- Supported plugins
Cons:
- Expensive
- Lacks support
Posted: February 16th, 2009 | Author: Christian | Filed under: Tips | Tags: brand, domains, spam, web hosting | No Comments »
Photo source
With the business environment to fragile, it’s never been more important to setup a website. It can be done with a very low budget and fast. While it’s now totally acceptable to use free web applications such as Youtube and open source programs such as WordPress to run your business, here are some things to watch out for when setting up a website on a budget.
1) Bad domain name
This is probably the 1st and most important thing you need to do. If your company name is not available, find out why. Find out who owns it and try to get it back if you have a legit argument to do so. If you have to register a new domain name, try to stay away from THEyourbrand.com. Not only is it confusing to customers, people may miss typing THE in front of your domain. THEcoolapps.com sounds weird. Register a .com. Stay away from .info, .cc, .biz, and .mobi. You don’t need them unless your bigime and need to protect your brand name.
2) Hosting your site on Blogger
If possible, try to host your own site on your own server. Stay away from free hosts such as Blogger and WordPress.com. These free services are not flexible enough if you grow your business. It may be difficult to implement ecommerce and other upgrades. Also, it makes you look cheap. These sites usually have a footer message “Get a FREE site”. If your still under a buget but need flexability of a self hosted package, check out Weebly.
3) Comment spam
Watch your comments. If your articles are overwhelmed with viagra and cialis ads, it looks like you don’t A) Have the proper technology to filter spam or B) Don’t care.
4) Inconsistent brand
Don’t do the Dr.Jeykle and Mr.Hyde with your online/offline business. If you have a professional tone offline, then you need to keep that same tone online. Would you talk in slang or swear in the “real” world? There should be no surprises when you lead visitors to your website.
