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Mitch’s Marketing Book Project
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Since I now have 200 podcasts under my belt, and with a new year coming up quick, I thought now would be the perfect time to introduce to you my new project. I want to help you with marketing.
Mitch Does Marketing!
Now, I will not create a new podcast or a blog. Instead I am going back to my roots, and diving back into producing another book – shades of the long forgotten Lockergnome’s Guide to Web Hosting, which was the inspiration for this podcast four years ago.
So what can you expect? I’m not really sure just yet, other than I am looking to offer to the public at large tutorials, tips and advice on how to market your web site or online business, with as little cost to you as possible. Think of it as a good ol’ southern boy’s guide to marketing.
As soon as I have more information on the project, I’ll be sure to share it with you here. I hope it is as successful as my other projects are, and that most of all, you will get plenty of use out of it.
Like This Article? Listen to it and more like it on podcast #200 of the Web Hosting Show!
Add me on Twitter! Come follow my daily antics, links, tips and more @mitchkeeler on Twitter!© Mitch Keeler 2010 | Check out my firefox help site and my tech blog too!
Web Hosting Milestone – Podcast 200
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This is it, the web hosting milestone you have all been looking forward to. As the Web Hosting Show crosses into it’s 200th episode, I want to take a minute, not to come up with a semi-pointless introduction to today’s show. I want to thank you for sticking with me through 199 episodes so far, and many more to come in the future. The Web Hosting Show is now on the air!
Download the Web Hosting Show, Episode 200!
Running Time: 15 minutes | File Size: 6.53 MB
Here are just a few topics from this week’s episode:
- Maximize Work Space with More Browsers – Learn how to simply reorganize your customer support responsibilities, to get more work done in less time.
- How Anybody Can Install WordPress – I am here to help you get WordPress installed for the very first time. With WordPress 2.9 out this week, figured it would be a good time to reintroduce you to this great content management system.
- Mitch Launches a New Top Secret Project – In celebration of podcast number 200, I wanted you to be the first ones to learn about my new top secret project I have started production on. Hear it here first!
- How to Turn a Complaint into a Feature - We help Matt take complaints about his free hosting business, and turn those complaints into a brand new feature to his online business.
Starting this episode, I am going to also give you one quick tip on each podcast to help you out with your web hosting ways. Keep an ear out for them on each podcast from here on out.
Quick Tip #1 – Keep your domain name registrations and web hosting accounts separate. This way if your business relationship fall through with one, it won’t effect the other.
Do me a favor and help thank our sponsor! Via Twitter, tweet to @LayeredTech thanks for supporting webhostingshow.com
Hope you enjoy the podcast. If you do, drop in a comment and let me know or drop me an e-mail at mitch@mitchkeeler.com. If you want to ask your own question on the podcast, it’s an easy thing to do – just go to the submit a question page, send me your inquest and I will be happy to help on next week’s podcast (plus give your web site a free plug!).
Add me on Twitter! Come follow my daily antics, links, tips and more @mitchkeeler on Twitter!© Mitch Keeler 2010 | Check out my firefox help site and my tech blog too!
Selling Web Hosting and Design at Retail
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How would you like to drive down town and pick up a web hosting account?
The web host Slamdot hopes you’d very much like the idea of doing that. They announced they will begin selling professionally designed web site packages very soon through a retail store. The first store will be open in Knoxville, Tennesee offering web site design packages, support, and in-store training.
Other specialty stores like this, such as the Apple stores across the nation have done very well because they not only give a local and familiar face to the product, but they also create a different sense of community that you can not give online. Dropping an e-mail to a support team is very different than walking into a store and asking for help.
This is the type of new, innovative, out-of-the-box idea I really like to see, and I wish them the best of luck.
To learn more about Slamdot, be sure to go check them out at Slamdot.com.
Like This Article? Listen to it and more like it on podcast #199 of the Web Hosting Show!
Add me on Twitter! Come follow my daily antics, links, tips and more @mitchkeeler on Twitter!© Mitch Keeler 2010 | Check out my firefox help site and my tech blog too!
Small Business Solutions for Big Web Site Threats
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Large corporate enterprises are not the only ones that need to be careful about security and having the tools in place to recover from a web hosting disaster.
My good buddy Barry, from Layered Tech posed an interesting quandary to me the other day.
As someone who works for a major player in hosting, one of the biggest problems I see on a daily basis is people having their server hacked and used for some nefarious purposes such as spam, DOS attacks, and more. There are many ways to combat this costly threat, what is the most cost-effective way for the small to medium-sized business?
It is important for everybody to have a good offense and a good defense when it comes to all the proverbial “natural disasters” that can happen in the web hosting world. My best advice would be to have a good strategy in place first, so you can prevent the problems from happening in the first place. You have to be proactive, and not reactive.
Now, I know that might be hard to do in a tough economy, cause we are all short on money, time and man power. If you can keep an eye on a couple of important things, you should have less problems to deal with, and more time to devote to your web site and business.
Here are a few key things everyone should keep in mind:
Monitor your server usage, no matter if you are on a shared hosting plan or a dedicated server. Check in once a day or once a week to make sure your usage stays on average, and if you see a steady increase, you talk with your hosting provider to make sure you are ready for the time that increase means you need more computing power.
Stay on top of the latest updates for your scripts and plugins. Once a hole is found in a third-party script, it doesn’t take long for holes to be exploited. If you have a script installed, like WordPress or SMF, stay up to date on when it is updated. The faster you get updates done, the less likely your web site or business will be compromised.
Get help when you need it. For web hosting clients that go down the dedicated or VPS hosting route, find a web hosting partner that will be able to get with you quickly to tackle your problems. I have often said you can’t judge a web host by the cliché 99.9% uptime guarantee. A true test of a web host is how they react to a tough situation. In a shared hosting situation, it might be harder to get the attention needed 100% of the time, due to the fact that you are one in a hundred or more people on a server. That is one of the drawbacks to the shared hosting world.
Making sure your offense is as good as or better than your defense can solve a lot of problems before they happen. Small businesses should try to be proactive about problems in the long run, rather than reactive when the going gets tough.
Big thanks to Barry from Layered Tech for such an awesome question. Be sure to check them out at LayeredTech.com and give them a big thank you for being the number one supporters and sponsors of the Web Hosting Show podcast. If you have a web hosting or development question, give me your name, URL and question over on the submit a question page and I will be more than happy to help!
Like This Article? Listen to it and more like it on podcast #199 of the Web Hosting Show!
Add me on Twitter! Come follow my daily antics, links, tips and more @mitchkeeler on Twitter!© Mitch Keeler 2010 | Check out my firefox help site and my tech blog too!
Find CSS Element Stats with XRAY Bookmarklet
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This bookmarklet is perfect for anybody who spends any time working on web site layouts. XRAY is used to see the box model for any element on a web page. It will dim the area not selected, and give you statistics such as the CSS id or class assigned to it, the interface hierarchy, and the CSS code assigned to that section.
With that said, it is the perfect browser companion for people who pull up a web site and wonder, “how did they do that?” because it tells you everything right there on the web page. It works with Internet 6 and up, and every Webkit and Mozilla-based browser out there today (that includes Safari, Firefox, Camino and more).
To use it, all you have to do is drag the bookmarklet to your bookmarks toolbar. When you are on a site you want to see more about, click the bookmarklet and the semi-transparent XRAY window will pop up with all the information you could ever want. Go give the XRAY bookmarklet for webmasters a test drive yourself (then save it for your own CSS snooping) over at westciv.com/xray/.
Like This Article? Listen to it and more like it on podcast #199 of the Web Hosting Show!
Add me on Twitter! Come follow my daily antics, links, tips and more @mitchkeeler on Twitter!© Mitch Keeler 2010 | Check out my firefox help site and my tech blog too!
How to Turn a Complaint into a Feature
Posted by: admin | Comments Comments OffYou do not have to drastically change the way you do business though. If you are successful in one area of business, do not toss it aside to do something else that is more popular. I got a question submitted to me the other day from Matt, which touches on this very topic.
Here is what Matt had to say:
How can a free host become successful?
People are always skeptical when it comes to getting something for nothing, so as long as you give free services – you’ll always have somebody out there dismissing your claims of success because they think you’re a fraud. Thankfully, they might also think we never landed on the moon or one of the muppets assassinated JFK. The fact of the matter is there will always be somebody out there to complain.
My question is, do you have to pick one business plan, free hosting versus paid hosting, or can you have your cake and eat it too? I would suggest you keep your free hosting in place, it sounds successful, and you have happy customers – which is something many web hosts, free or not, can not claim. As a secondary service, roll out a paid hosting solution that offers a few perks over the free version. It could be in features, support or anything else you feel like you could offer a little more of to the people willing to pay for it. Then, once that is in place, start marketing your new paid hosting service to those customers you do have, and let them know that it is an option you are providing for them.
Some might bite at the proverbial worm you are tossing out there, and others may say no thanks. Past that point you can sell your new paid hosting option to the masses using the free service as a way to get your foot in the door, as far as seeing how great your hosting setup is. You might even sell it as you are so confident they will enjoy their hosting with you, you are willing to give it away for free.
Thanks to Matt for the question, and to check out his web site – or maybe send some more suggestions his way, be sure to check out ismywebsite.com.
Like This Article? Listen to it and more like it on podcast #200 of the Web Hosting Show!
Add me on Twitter! Come follow my daily antics, links, tips and more @mitchkeeler on Twitter!© Mitch Keeler 2010 | Check out my firefox help site and my tech blog too!