The Internet is a large collection of computers all connected together in one very bignetwork. A diagram of the Internet looks similar to a spiders web. A website is a place on that web, and website hosting means providing the physical location, the connection and, usually, the computer that “serves” the web site’s content to the PC that requests it. Web servers or computers are installed with special software designed to handle many users and services simultaneously.

The Internet is a global network, which means that communication can occur at any time. This means that a website should be ready to receive visitors at any moment. For this to be achieved there should be a constant connection to the web and a server that is always powered on running a stable environment.

The physical environment where the server is located, often called a Network Operations Center, or NOC is also very important. Data Centres have temperature controls, backup generators, earthquake-resistant architecture, and more, all designed to ensure your site is available at every moment.

When you are creating your website at your home computer, to upload it you need to send the files to your web server. FTP (File Transfer Protocal) is a service that allows you to do this. Once the file is on the server, whenever someone requests that file from the Internet either by typing in the web address or clicking a link, the server gives them the file they requested. Changing the content is as easy as changing the file and re-transferring it to the server.

In addition to web and FTP services, web site hosting almost always includes an email server that will receive email sent to your domain. This enables you to control mail delivery, create your own addresses, and present a professional image to your customers, clients, or constituents.

Shared Hosting or Shared Web Hosting is one of the most common types of web hosting available. It is a basic form of hosting where many websites share the resources on one server. This is the ideal hosting to get your first website started. If your website simply consists of html pages and has no scripting then shared hosting is ideal. Shared web hosting is currently the cheapest hosting solution.

Shared hosting is ideal for small websites that receive a small amount of traffic. This is because if you have a small website you are unlikely to need large amounts of disk space or bandwidth. There is no reason why you should pay for resources that you do not need.

See iUKHost shared web hosting plans here.

Everyone has different needs when looking for shared web hosting. You will need a certain amount of space and bandwidth for your website. You may also need databases, add-on domains, sub-domains and e-mail accounts. You should check with the host that the package will meet your needs.

Over Selling Resources

A small website will not need many resources; however people are caught in the headlights by large numbers. A large majority of web hosts on the Internet oversell their services. You may have come across plans that include 500GB Space and 2TB of bandwidth, this is overselling. If you were to actually use all these resources I’m sure the host would soon close your account on the grounds of “high CPU usage”. There is no need to get lots of space and bandwidth, simply get what you need at a moderate price.

Resource Limits

Most shared hosting will have resource limitations such as CPU etc. This means that you can only use X% resources for your site for X amount of time. If you are running scripts, check that they can run in the time limits set by the host. You should also check database size limits, and outgoing e-mail limits that may be in place.

You may only be able to have a database up to so many MB. If you have a forum then this is likely to grow and you may need to upgrade so you might want to plan ahead and see how easy upgrades are going to be. E-mail limits may be set hourly which means you can only send for example 200 e-mails an hour.

Reseller Hosts

Reseller hosting makes it easy for anyone to setup a web host. This means you need to check to see how reliable the host is. The last thing you want is a weeks hosting before the person running it ditches their hosting site leaving you with no money and no hosting. To avoid this look for a host that has good reviews from others and is well established. If you are insistent on going for a certain host check how long they have been operating for, if they are a registered business and you may also check there PayPal transaction rating if this is available.

More on Reviews

There are many review sites that you can take a look at, however it is likely that the host themselves have added their website to allow reviews. This also implies that they have the ability to edit and remove reviews that have been left. The best place to get reviews is from existing customers – how obvious was that? You can do this by running reverse IP on the hosts IP address. This will allow you to get some of the web addresses on that hosts server.

Hopefully you will not get other sites run by the host so check the WHOIS info to different details and send an e-mail to the site owner asking about the service. You may also want to Google terms such as “hosts name reviews” or “hosts name scam” to see what comes up. Forums are another good place to ask, however if someone simply keeps saying the host is great, check the website URL that they have hosted with the host to ensure they are not just self promoting.

Up time

Up time is very important in hosting and now many hosts have a service level agreement that ensure you receive X% of up time. You may want to use external monitors to see what the up time for a web host is like. The only real way to find the truth is to ask previous customers due to some monitoring sites allowing hosts to remove outages from statistics.

Support

This is one of the most important things in hosting. Check what types of support are available. Do they have Phone, E-mail, Instant Messenger, REAL Live Chat or Ticket Support? If there is a problem with your website you want it sorted asap so ensure that the facilities are there for you to receive help when you need it. Ensure their after sales support is as good as their before sales.

Summary

Always go with a host that has a good reputation for up time, pricing and customer service. New hosts with great deals might to be around for too long due to lack of experience. It only takes one thing to go wrong with a small host that removes their budget for servers so ensure that your host is there to stay.

Those are a few basic things to look out for; more advanced users may wish to check that the server IP is not black listed and that they have a good server infrastructure etc.

Robots.txt file is used to tell search engines what they are allowed to access on your website. The purpose of this is to stop search engines listing private and sensitive data such as admin login areas.

If you are happy to let search engines visit all files and folders that exist with your website then you do not need to use a robots.txt file. If you do not need to block any content then do not have a robots.txt file on your website.

If the file is incorrectly coded then you run the risk of blocking important content that you may want search engines to list.

If you want a robots.txt file to allow all the content and you really want to have one on your website then create a txt file called robots.txt and enter the following:

User-agent: *

Disallow:

For more information about robots.txt see here!

A web hosting package is used to host a website on the Internet so that it is accessible to the general public from all corners of the globe. There are many different types of web hosting package available to users. The reason that there are many different forms of web hosting package is because there are a great number of features available in web hosting and not all of them can be served under one package.

Control panels are usually included in most web hosting packagesto allow the user to manage their website with ease. A control panel on the web hosting server also makes it much easier for the web host to manage the clients. There are many different control panel software options available to web hosts. cPanel is a very powerful and popular control panel choice for most web hosting companies.

Shared Web Hosting Package

Shared web hosting packages are typically very popular because they are cheap to obtain and easy to manage. The provide a relianle solution to getting a website on the Internet in a short space of time. Shared web hosting is where many websites are all hosted on the same web hosting server.

Reseller Web Hosting Package

A reseller web hosting package allows you to create your own clients accounts and resell web space and other resources allocated to you. If you have restrictions on the number of domains you can host under a shared web hosting account, this may be the solution.

VPS Web Hosting Package

A VPS web hosting package provides you with dedicated server resources without the expense of paying for a full server. You are allocated a virtually created partition of the web server to host your website.

Dedicated Web Hosting Package

A dedicated server web hosting package is one where you are the only user or website using one or more web servers. This provides your website with many server resources which means it does not have to compete with other websites to run smoothly.

It is important that you choose the correct web hosting package for the needs of you and your website. There are many web hosting companies trying to offer you web hosting so ensure that you keep in mind your requirements so that you eventually get the package that is right for you with the correct control panel and features.

Make an effort to plan ahead and check what features you may need for your website in the future. You then need to contact your potential host to ensure that they will be able to meet your requirements.

1. Asking for Comments

The first thing to try to get comments is to ask for them.

2. Question Your Readers

By asking your readers questions directly you are likely to provoke thought in that readers mind. You comment box is a great place for them to express their opinion.

3. Reply to Comments

After asking your readers a question, its always nice to get a response from the person who wrote the original post. Interact with your readers and reply by commenting. This will increase your comment count and make visitors intrigued to what all the fuss is about.

4. Top Commentors

Integrate a plug-in into your blog that shows the users who comment the most.

5. Do Follow Comments

Blogs that provide Do Follow links are increasing popular. No Follow was created to reduce spam in comments, however reverse its purpose and website owners will comment for a free back link. They know that the comment has to look real to ensure its not marked as SPAM. Plugins are available to enable do follow links.

6. Comment on Other Blogs

Comment on blogs with similar content to yours to increase back links to your website. This will increase your blogs popularity and therefore encourage more comments.

7. Freebies

Everyone wants stuff for free, so take advantage of it. Create a free digital product, ebook, theme, script or whatever and offer it free to the most interesting comment you see in the next month.

1. Categories – If you have a blog then use blog categories with meaningful names that use keywords so that these show up in the websites URL and on SERPS (Search Engine Result Pages)

2. Permalink – Check to see if this features is enabled. If its not then enable it and have the post title in the URL.

3. Holidays – These are great for marketing so ensure that you are ready. Start making posts and site content about Christmas / Easter or whatever about a month before the event. This gives search engines chance to list your posts. Then when people search for Christmas XXXXXX your site will be there. – Maybe decorate your site to suit the holiday theme.

4. Interviews – Interview other sites and post the interview on your website. Alternatively get interviewed by other sites yourself.

5. Selling your site?– Pretend to sell your website. I sold a site recently and the traffic shot up. If you can list your site free then you have nothing to lose apart from responding to offers. However the chances of any of the traffic you received returning is slim. You may benefit from padding out your MyBlogLog section.

6. Surveys – Have a survey or poll on your website, not large, just a small one in the sidebar somewhere that allows visitors to vote on a controversial question or something that will change on your website depending on a vote.

7. Blog Networks – Create a blog network where you can link all your blogs together. This will take up a lot of your time, however if you have it spare the more the better providing the content is unique and remains at a high standard.

8. Create a Site Template or Blog Theme – As the title states, create a theme and have a link back to your website in the footer.

9. Plugins / scripts – If you have the know how, create a plug-in or script for a website and have a link back to your website.

10. Comedy Writing – If you can write funny content, this will attract lots of readers. I know I have returned to a blog in the past due to its humour.

11. Social Networking Site– Use social networking websites such as MySpace, gain lots of friends and then post a bulletin about your website.

12. Reviewing – If you are honest and able to post great reviews then review sites and products and post about them on your website. If this is successful then other sites will want to be reviewed by you.

13. Get Reviews – Go to other sites and ask them to review your website. No one like’s criticism so be prepared to take some. It is likely to benefit your site in the future though.

14. Post News – Try and be first to post breaking news in your niche. Get listed on news websites such as Google News which will increase your traffic.

15. Awards Program – Create an awards brand. Get webmasters to submit their site and you offer prizes or just a graphic that states they won or passed your tests for a great website. Use your imagination.

16. Resources – Write posts that link to resources that may be useful to your type of reader. A webmaster blog may link to free stock photo sites as a post and list them in order of best first.

17. Treat others as you wish to be treated – This speaks for itself. If a reader of yours needs a hand then take the time out to help them. They will appreciate you for it.

18. Edit Posts – Go back over old content on your website and update it if it needs updating. Insert relevant links into old pages that go to content that is similar.

19. Yahoo Answers – Get an account at Yahoo Answers and post your blog URL in answers where appropriate. Only do this when you have a good reputation and the content is relevant and will actually help the user.

1. Question Your Readers – Ask your readers questions in posts, this will help to provoke a response from them. You give them an important role to play and they respond by commenting their opinion. This will encourage repeat visitors to respond to your posts with their opinions.

2. Internal Linking – Linking to previous posts that you have made will create more back links and also encourage readers to re-read or look at some of your older work. Readers of a particular post will be interested in related posts so ensure you link to them.

3. Alternate Text Images – When you use images on your site, ensure that you use alternate text “alt” tags to insert keywords or the name of the image. This will help get the images listed on image search engines and result in traffic from that source.

4. Submit to Directories – Submit your site to online directories. Do this to as many as you can to improve your PageRank. This increased back links to your website and there for you receive higher rankings on search engines. Quality back links are important so try and obtain some from high Page Ranking sites that have similar content to your websites.

5. Image Use – Try to use images when posting on your blog. These make posts more fun to look at and can break up boring text.

6. Join Forums – Join many forums and message boards that are related to your websites content. Place a link back to your website in your profile and signature and frequently post useful information to other members.

7. Keyword Rich Content – When writing articles or posts on your site or blog, ensure you include relevant keywords so that people searching for the topic will have an easier time finding your article.

8. Write Intriguing Post Titles – Ensure that you write intriguing post titles that have keywords in. This is what is going to show up on search engines so ensure your spelling is right and that you would want to click it.

9. Meta Data – Get as much use out of Meta data as you can. Try to have a different page description and keywords on every page of your website.

10. Write a Press Release – Write a press release about something to do with your website and publish this on news sites or press release websites along with sites that are relevant to your niche.

11. Merchandise – Create pens, pencils, t-shirts, mouse mats etc that have your websites logo and address on. Maybe sell the t-shirts from your website however give you the free pens in your local area.

12. Advertise Locally – Place an advert in your local business newsletter or in a local shop. List what the purpose of your website is and hopefully you will receive some interest. Local traffic can really help especially if you are selling something. Visitors will be much more inclined to purchase from someone locally than from the other site of the world.

13. Share a Secret – It is likely that your website will be based on something you have an interest in, so why not share some inside knowledge that many of your readers may not know. Let them know something that has helped you and only you in the past. Curiosity is a marvellous thing.

14. Advert Experiments – Naturally most will want to make some money from their website and therefore adverts will be on there. Try and experiment with your adverts placement to see which gets better results. Do not overload your website with adverts because this will deter visitors. Maybe implement a membership system that removes 50% of adverts when logged in.

15. Social Bookmark Posts Plugin – If you have a blog then get a plugin for your posts that allows your readers to click a button and this will then bookmark your site on digg, stumbleupon, reddit etc.