Choosing Keywords

One of most difficult parts of setting up a website, and marketing it, concerns determining best keywords to use. When choosing key words try to answer these questions. Do keywords really best describe your site? (relevancy is a must for Goggle!). Do they tell story about products you are selling? Will they target right customers? If you have a site, which is in a very competitive market you may have to be creative when choosing keywords. For example, Google returns, 594,000,000 possible pages for a search done on word, software-- Oh My- How would anyone find a site in that crowd!.

Websites most easily found by search engines are niche sites where there are fewer choices. However, it is hard to be niche site when one is selling popular products! Or is it?

Try using keywords in your meta tags and on you website which are more exact and create a niche. For example, if you are selling advertising, try California Website Advertising. I found help to expand my keyword list, niche it, at wordtracker.com and goodkeywords.com and by using Overture and Google Keyword Tools.

• Price – Generally speaking you should be able to find a good shared hosting plan for somewhere between $5 and $30 per month.
• Hosting Technologies – There are different types of server technologies, and a number of “add-on” software products that some web hosting companies bundle into their offerings. Generally speaking, more software that is included in your plan, higher price for your hosting services.
• Support – Depending on your level of sophistication in dealing with web technologies, you may want to consider paying a bit extra for a hosting company that provides better support packages. Of course, if you have a friend or family member that has skills in this area, or you are planning to hire a custom website designer or developer, then you can probably forgo paying extra for support.

When you are starting out with a new website, your primary concern with a web hosting company is going to be price. You do not need to pay a lot of money for extra bandwidth or other frills. By time you need extra bandwidth, you will have income stream to pay for it.

Web Hosting Technologies

Your primary concern with web hosting technologies is to make sure that host you select supports software you plan to use to create and serve your web pages. You will also need to make sure that any additional functionality you wish to include in your website is supported by hosting company.

• Server Technologies - You will need to make sure that your hosting company supports whatever server technologies you will require for your site. For new site owners this is usually not an issue since your web pages will be programmed in HTML that is supported by all web-serving technologies. However, if you are hiring a contract web developer to create a database-driven web application using PHP, ASP, JSP, or ColdFusion, then you should make sure your hosting company supports whatever language your developer is using. If you have questions, you can probably have them answered by sales or support line for your prospective hosting company.
• Development Technologies - If you are using Microsoft FrontPage to develop your website, then you will need to select a web hosting company that supports FrontPage extensions. If you are unsure about whether your web host supports your development software, then sales representative or support line should be able to answer your questions.
• E-commerce/Shopping Cart System – If you plan to sell products on your website, then you will want to select a web hosting company that offers a shopping cart system. Most shopping cart systems are customizable for your website. However, you may want to hire a seasoned developer to handle implementing your system to make sure everything goes smoothly.
• CGI/Perl Scripts – The most useful CGI script for new websites is for creating “email forms”. These allow you to collect information from your users via web forms and send it to yourself via email without paying premiums required for developing a database driven website. Some hosting companies offer these scripts, while others do not. It is generally recommended to work with hosting companies that support these types of forms because collecting information from users is one of primary purposes of most websites.

Different Ways of Hosting Your Site