SEO stands for search engine optimization. Search engines attempt to satisfy you (the searchers) by providing the most relevant results based on your keyword search. If you can easily find what you’re looking for from the search engine results, consider yourself a satisfied customer and you’ll likely return to that search engine in the future.

Results found on the left-hand side of the search engines are called organic or natural results. Achieving high rankings in these results is the aim of SEO.

In some aspects, SEO is similar to PPC with respect to keywords. Before you do anything, you should choose relevant keywords that you want to rank for. Keep in mind that it is going to be much harder to rank for generic keywords than it is for specific keywords. If you service a specific area, I’d suggest including a geographic indicator like a city, state, or region within your keyword.

Although there are many things you can do to optimize your website, SEO can basically be broken down to on-site and off-site optimization. This can literally be interpreted as optimizing your website structure and content (on-site) and optimizing the volume and manner of backlinks to your website on other sites (off-site).

Don’t be fooled by those SEO specialists or firms that guarantee you a #1 ranking or claim to do it in a short period of time. Many of these individuals use “black hat SEO” tactics. While it’s true that they may achieve a high ranking for you quickly, your ranking will just as quickly fall and your site will be penalized or even black listed from the search engines. In order for you to achieve a high ranking with longevity, it will take time.

Depending on how much work is done to optimize your site, the quality of work, and your keyword selection, it could take anywhere from 3 to 6 months just to see noticeable increase in ranking. To put it lightly, if you’re competing for common keyword terms, you should get comfortable and expect it to take more than a year before you reach your desired position.

If you’re able to achieve a high ranking for your desired keyword terms, you can expect to see more traffic than any of your PPC rankings. As mentioned in part I of this series, the majority of clicks from any keyword search go to these organic results.

I’m a big advocate of SEO. While the initial time and money—should you hire an SEO agency—can be a difficult investment, it can reap incredible results.

One might say that social media can be considered as any form of online interaction or expression. Think of it simply as online buzz. Social media has exploded online and it appears that, as the newest member of the online marketing family (PPC, SEO, online directories, social media) it has the potential to ultimately become the leader.

The reason why social media can be such an effective form of online advertising is because it can spread quickly, be done with little cost, and most importantly it carries credibility with it via word of mouth.

Here is a small sample of the reigning social media sites: Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon, Flickr, Sphinn, Reddit.

These days there are many businesses using social media as a primary source of marketing. With the recent surge of Twitter, great deals and promotions can be found in abundance from big businesses. If you’re capable of putting together the right kind of promotion, you can get quite a following.

Just last week on Twitter, Air New Zealand started giving away 1 free flight to New Zealand every day for the next 30 days. I started following KiWeets last Thursday when there were about 80+ followers. Now they have over 2,200!

Don’t forget that blogs are a big part of social media. Even if you don’t have many subscribers to your blog, sometimes it only takes one good post to put you on the map.

For me, it’s a no brainer to use social media to market your site because most of it is free and ready to use. Consider social media as a way to get personal with your target audience. The more time and attention you devote to them, the more loyal they’ll become to you and consequently promote your site.

Conclusion

In summary, online marketing can be an amazing tool because no matter what your site may be about, you can easily locate and serve a unique niche. Now get out there and find them, they’re looking for you.

There’s an old adage that says “If a tree falls in the forest and no one’s around to hear it, does it make a sound?” Although the answer is debatable, I pose a similar question pertaining to today’s internet world: If you create a website and no one knows about it, does it exist?

This brings up the omnipresent dilemma of marketing your website online in the hopes of drawing visitors. Regardless of what you have to offer on your website, your visitors are the lifeblood of your website.

So, how do you get visitors to your site? There are traditional marketing mediums to draw attention to your site, i.e., TV, Radio, Newspaper, Magazines, but I suggest online marketing. There is one big difference between traditional marketing and online marketing: Traditional marketing requires you to search for your audience, while most online marketing has your audience searching for YOU.

The main means of online marketing are online directories, pay-per-click (PPC), search engine optimization (SEO) and social media. I’ll go through each of these in detail to explain exactly what they are and how they can bring more visitors to your site.

An Online Directory is similar to a traditional phone book providing you with listings of local businesses. Just type in your desired product or service and your location. Results will render the name, address, phone number and sometimes short description of a business or website.

There are many online directories today. Some of these include Superpages.com, Yellowpages.com and Dexknows.com. Many online directories will offer a free listing option as well as an upgraded paid option.

Rather than submitting your information to online directories one at a time, you can consider using an online directory distributor like Inlocal.com or UniversalBusinessListing.com who will get your website listed in a network of online directories as well as search engine local maps.

If you don’t have a website but would like to have a dedicated page to list your business information online, then a free business profile like this one from InLocal.com is a perfect solution.

Online directories are an easy and inexpensive way to drive some added visitors to your site without having to do any future maintenance once your listings are up. If you want to go one step further, I suggest using an online directory distributor for even more exposure and affordable cost.

PPC stands for pay-per-click. Search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing allow websites to advertise through the “Sponsored Links/Results”. These Sponsored Results are called pay-per-click ads. These short ads show up on the right-hand side of the search engines and sometimes above the organic or natural results. PPC ads include a title, two-lined description, and display URL. You only are required to pay Clicks are paid for as

Basically you choose keyword terms that are relevant to your site and then bid on them. You can show up in the search engine results page (SERPs) for most any keyword term that you create. These keyword terms can be as long or short as you wish. Keep in mind that shorter and common keywords will most likely have more competition and higher bids.

As a general rule, the higher your bids, the more traffic you can expect to receive. Some keywords will only require you to bid around a dollar or two to get on the first page. Other popular keywords will have bids reaching the “teens” in dollars for first page placement. Search engines also include a quality score to determine ranking and relevancy.

To help you get the best results for the cheapest price, you must first take into consideration your ideal visitor. If your website promotes your local business, it would be best to include a geographic location within your keyword. This will help lower the amount of competition and bid price.

Let’s use an example; if you live in Portland and your business is renting mountain bikes, it would be best to choose keywords like “Portland mountain bike rental,” or “rent mountain bikes in Portland.” Bidding for these keyword terms will be cheaper than terms like “bike rental” or “mountain bikes” and they will also provide your website with more targeted traffic.

Depending on which search engine you use, PPC ads receive anywhere from 15 to 20% of all search engine clicks. This leaves the rest of the clicks going to the organic results. I’ll explain more about these organic results in part II of this post.

Although PPC can bring in a good amount of traffic, it can also be a time-consuming and pricey marketing option. Unless you’ve got the time and patience, you might want to consider using a PPC agency to handle your paid search. Depending on how much your monthly spend is, a typical agency will charge you around 12 to 20% of that spend for their service.

If you’re interested in trying PPC and you’re looking for new hosting, you can get a $50 Google Adwords credit here: Google $50 credit.

Look for part II of this post next week to learn how SEO and social media can be used to increase your site traffic.

Admit it, most of you with a job that involves staring at a computer screen for 8 hours a day have been caught surfing the wonderful Web. For many of you, this may have happened more often than you’d like to admit.

While in the middle of your reprimand did you ever have the chance to prove that your frivolous web surfing was actually making you more productive? Well, now you can.

A recent study conducted by the University of Melbourne found that “surfing the net at work for pleasure actually increases our concentration levels and helps make a more productive workforce… by about 9%.”

Now I’m not saying you should spend half of your day surfing and expect big results for all your “hard work.” Neither is this study. However, the study shows that if you keep your surfing to a bare minimum, your productivity can increase by 9%.

Too good to be true? That’s for you (and your boss) to decide.

If you are one who chooses to spend a small section of your day for a little surf, here are 7 fun sites to get your mind back on track.

1. Jackson Pollock

Unveil your creative genius while painting a Jackson Pollock-esque masterpiece.

2. BallDroppings

Create fun music through strategically placing panels across your screen.

3. Where’s George?

Enter George’s information and watch your money travel across the world.

4. aM Laboratory

Fill your inner DJ love by creating the perfect office tones to enlighten your cubicle. Mix it up even more with the enhanced audio tool!

5. iamawesome.com

Enough said.

6. Mr. Doob | Depth of Field

Better sit down while viewing this site, you might get dizzy. Mr. Doob makes your screen 3D with interactive depth tests.

7. Crazy Rabbit
   Watch an eager bunny chase your cursor, which he thinks is a carrot, but don’t let him catch it, he might not let go.

Disclaimer: This blog post is solely intended for entertainment and conversational purposes. In no way does it reflect the opinion of WestHost management. In fact, all WestHost employees who happen to read this are kindly reminded that their surf can be done comfortably during their lunch hour or scheduled breaks.

We started off the evening grilling hamburgers and hot dogs. There’s nothing quite like hamburgers hot off the grill on a beautiful summer evening. After socializing for a bit, we had some raffle drawings. I was lucky enough to win a cooler filled with candy.

Morgan (one of our Systems Administrators) won the ultimate prize of having the water from the cooler dumped out on him. Summer evenings in Cache Valley are about as nice as it gets. Although I love the fall, I’ll sure miss some things about summer.

The party was a great chance for us to relax a little bit and get to know each other better. While we do communicate around the office, it’s often nice to be able to have a conversation with another employee without using the words “Web hosting” or “domain registration” in a sentence.

So long Summer. Till next year.

Perhaps the greatest aspect of phpBB3 is the ability to customize it by installing any of a number of available modifications. You’ll see a list of modifications later in the post, but first things first: Installation.

Unless you are familiar with the PHP coding language, installing these mods can be a daunting task. That’s where AutoMOD comes in! AutoMOD is a mod installation utility that will insert the necessary code into your phpBB3 site quickly and easily.

Five Steps to Install AutoMOD:

1. Upload all of the files and folders from the “upload” directory to your site with the FTP client of your choice. Ensure that you maintain the correct data structure, i.e., files in includes need to go in the includes folder on your site
2. Once the files are in place, browse to the install directory (http://www.yoursite.com/phpbb/install) to run through the simple and painless installation.
3. Don’t forget to delete the install folder from the server or phpBB3 will not allow anyone to use the site.
4. To install the mod, upload the mod files and let AutoMOD do the work!
5. After you upload your mod files into the newly created /phpbb/store/mods folder on the server, the mod will be displayed in the AutoMOD tab in the Administration Control Panel. Next to the name of the available mod is an “Install” link.

AutoMOD will check all of the code changes necessary and alert you if there is a problem; for example you may have already installed a mod that affects the specific code that the current mod needs to change. In this case, you will be shown the changes that are required for the current installation and you can make the choice to continue or cancel.

If there are any additional steps needed to complete the installation, AutoMOD will tell you exactly what’s needed. If you decide in the future that you don’t want the changes implemented by a particular mod, AutoMOD can remove it for you as well. How cool is that!

There are literally hundreds of phpBB3 modifications available. The official phpBB site hosts over 300 mods alone, all of which have been reviewed for security flaws and obvious bugs. You can transform phpBB3 from a simple bulletin board system into a feature rich content management system, a near LinkedIn clone, or even a blog.

Here are some of the more common and useful mods you may wish to look at:

• Advertisement Management: Manage your banner ads, create rotating ads & filter viewers of advertisements
• User Blog Mod: Feature rich blogging system that can be available to all of your site members
• phpBB Smartfeed: Creates RSS 1.0, 2.0, and ATOM 1.0 newsfeeds so you can syndicate your site contents
• SEO Mod: Optimize your phpBB3 site’s ability to gain ranking within search engines
• phpBB3 Portal: Add a front portal page to your forum, effectively converting phpBB3 into a full CMS

With all of these mods at your fingertips, the Internet is your oyster!

Cody Erekson
WestHost Technical Support

Back in the late 90’s, when Netscape and AOL ruled the Internet, there was a new phenomenon called “Chat Rooms.” Remember? Chat rooms allowed online visitors to connect with each other on a virtual level that had never been known before. I know what you’re thinking, “Chat rooms are SO last decade. Welcome to Web 2.0!”

Better take a look in the mirror Mr. Web 2.0. Social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, are basically glorified chat rooms. Once again, what began as an unknown form of online interaction has become the biggest phenomenon in the Internet today.

Hard to believe? Let’s take a look at all the similarities between social media and chat rooms:

• Open discussion for everyone, everywhere
• Links shared and followed
• Random usernames and profiles
• Discussion groups and fan clubs of all types
• Facial expressions and emoticons still in use : )

Ironically, the Internet has come full circle with chat rooms of the late 90’s becoming the social media sites of today. If you find yourself asking, “So, have we reached the end of the Internet? Does this mean we’re back to square one?” The answer is “No.”

Although the same communication principle between chat rooms and social media sites applies, it’s obvious that sites like Twitter and Facebook offer more features and have easier ways to connect with one another to share information.

So if you loved chat rooms but just haven’t gotten around to adding yourself on Facebook, or creating a Twitter profile, I invite you to embrace the madness. Chatting with good friends and even complete strangers has never been so easy or fun.

What other similarities or differences do you see between social media sites and chat rooms?

If you’ve figured out how to use social media for business success or if you are getting a lot of traffic through other means you have felt the burden of making sure your site is up 24/7. This can be an arduous task if you don’t have good hosting services.

How do You Find the Right Fit?

With several variations on many hosting packages, finding the best plan for your needs can be difficult. Choosing the best hosting plan is similar to the way some women may choose a pair of jeans.

Their search begins by checking out other women and the way their jeans fit. Then they start combing through ads looking for deals, variations and the right cut. They search from store to store trying on every pair that looks remotely fitting. After enduring the clothing rack gauntlet the ceremonial event of finding the perfect fit arrives. It does not matter how much the perfect jeans cost or how long it takes to get them, if that style makes them look and feel good, they will buy.

The steps to finding the right fit for your hosting account are quite similar, but not totally the same; unless there is some way you think your Web hosting could make you look fat

6 Steps

The following steps will help speed up your process to find exactly what you need whether it’s an upgrade, a whole new account, or confirmation that you choose wisely.

1. Rely upon your online network – Talk to your friends and see what they use. With an attitude of openness for sharing information your online network will be glad to share their experiences, good or bad, about their Web hosting package. They will help you figure out what you really need and want.
2. Visit non-biased review sites – Check out what people outside your network are saying about their Web hosting. Keep in mind that some comments posted anonymously don’t reflect the company in the right light and are no more than a bored teenagers attempt to gain attention.
3. Visit company Web sites and compare packages – Most corporate Web sites will give you all the information you need to know about their hosting packages. Chat with their representatives online or call in and drill them with your list of questions.
4. Can you upgrade if you start to burst at the seams? – Does the hosting provider allow you to upgrade if your site is growing? If it’s your goal, and you do things right, your site will grow and people will come. It is important that you have options to expand when the time comes. In other words, it‘s time to face reality: we all gain a little weight when we get older. If you prepare now it will be a lot less traumatic later.
5. Do they have good technical support? – It is imperative that your hosting company have a good technical support team. Inevitably something will go wrong. Most of the time it is an easy fix and requires them to simply walk you through your mistake. Make sure they’re knowledgeable and accessible.
6. Other features to look for – There are many features tied to hosting services. In my opinion I want (1) a good Web analytics program, (2) a free Web site builder, (3) an email address @mydomain.com and (4) a strong guarantee.

Post your favorite jean and/or Web hosting experience below. Tell us what you do to find the right fit. Who knows, we may even include your story in a future post.

A few of us attended this years HostingCon in Washington DC. HostingCon is an annual event that gathers Web hosting professionals from around the world. During this three day convention, participants network with hosted services professionals to gain greater knowledge and learn of new resources within the industry that can help improve the services they offer their clients. It was an excellent convention and much was gained by our involvement. We were fortunate to have several representatives within UK2 Group attend this years event including staff from WestHost, Midphase, UK2.net and VPS.NET.

After the conference was completed, we were able to enjoy some of the sites around Washington DC. The monuments and museums within the National Mall are a powerful reminder of the sacrifices of many individuals throughout history who have helped to build and protect this great nation.