A blog or ‘Web Log’ was once a personal online diary where people would write about the many things that happen to them on a daily basis.

But soon, it has evolved into a ‘smart’ business tool, which if used correctly has the potential to bring in extra links, more customers & better visibility to a website.

Take a close look around you. Everyone has a blog. Be it individuals, corporate or Small to medium sized businesses.

If you have not started blogging yet, then it’s not too late to begin.

This brings us to the main topic here, ‘What’s the Best Blogging Platform?’

The Blogging Platform

The best thing about blogging now is that there are numerous high quality platforms to choose from.

There’s WordPress, Tumblr, Blogger, Typepad, Squarespace and more.

These can be further categorized into Free Blogging Platforms & Self hosted ones.

Your eventual choice should depend on a lot of factors. Here are some of them.

What is your goal? – Are you starting a personal blog that you will update once in a week or even less frequently? Then you can opt for a free blogging platform like WordPress.com, Blogger or Tumblr / Posterous. The advantages of going free are that you do not have to worry about hosting, domains or design. You just login and start blogging. A free platform also allows you the liberty to try blogging to see if it’s really for you.

What are you going to write? – There are some people who want to set up a portfolio to share their work. There is very little text on the site. So, you must opt for a more professional looking blog which in this case can be a self hosted one. You will have to invest in the domain and hosting though, which is not very expensive to start with. Feel free to email us to get advice on ad-hoc hosting solutions for bloggers.

If you are looking for recommendations then, WordPress.org is a great choice. With over thousands of design & plugin options, it makes life extremely easy even for the novice blogger.

With a WYSIWYG editor, you can see the way your content will be displayed and tweak it in innumerable ways to improve the presentability.

I hope that was helpful. There are a plethora of options for bloggers. The platform you select should largely be based on personal requirements. Do your research and choose wisely. Happy Blogging!

How to Improve the Visibility of your website

Every day millions of websites are launched on the Internet. Some are personal web logs or blogs. Others are created with the intention of carrying out business.

And when they start off, they are invisible. They are hidden deep inside the catacombs of the World Wide Web unknown to people and search engines.

How does one get such an invisible website to a more prominent position that improves visibility? There are numerous ways of doing it.

Understanding Visibility

What does the term ‘Visibility’ mean on the World Wide Web?

‘Visibility’ stands for being found when people search for products related to you. For example, if you manufacture and sell ‘T-Shirts’ and someone searches for it on Google or any search engine, your website should be visible on search result pages.

The success of your online business is directly proportional to its visibility.

The more visible your site is, the more successful you will be.

How to Increase the Visibility

Ok, all said and done, how do you increase the visibility of your website?

There are numerous methods.

1. Search Engine Optimization: Undoubtedly, the most important and most successful method of increasing the visibility of your website is SEO. Most people rely on organic search results and SEO is the only way you can get there. The drawback of SEO (if you consider it to be one) is that it is a slow process that requires consistent efforts. Do not expect your website to be ranked overnight. It might take months or even years to achieve that dream ranking.

2. Pay Per Click: The tiny blocks of text advertisements that you see on the right hand side and sometimes on top of the organic search results are Pay Per Click ads. As the name suggests, you pay for every click that comes through to your website. PPC is like a quick fix. It is fast, it is effective but if you do not handle it correctly, it can drain out your marketing dollars sooner than you think. A lot of people combine it with SEO to enhance their marketing efforts.

3. Social Media: Nothing has influenced the world more than social media in the past few years. And the impact can be seen in the way businesses are functioning. Social Media provides you with an effective and inexpensive way of increasing the visibility of your website.  MySpace, Facebook, YouTube & Twitter are some of the most popular places that can be implemented into your marketing strategy.

I hope that helps you understand how you can work to improve the visibility of your website.

A lot of the hosting solutions you see online are off-the-shelf, meaning you get certain services for a certain price.  For example, getting unlimited domain hosting, unlimited storage space, unlimited file transfers, the use of Web page building tools, templates, even the software involved such as SSL, Secure Shell and FTP at a certain rate.

These packaged services are great for those who want to run a typical website using the typical tools on a typical server.  Off-the-shelf hosting solutions would benefit individuals and small businesses that do not rely on their websites for revenue and other business critical tasks.

Off-the-shelf hosting solutions are usually inexpensive and getting support and troubleshooting help is typically easier.  Plus, packaged hosting solutions are simpler to manage.

However, not all businesses have the same needs and you might need different kinds of services and tools from your hosting solutions provider.  This is why there is a growing market for bespoke hosting solutions.

The Benefits of Bespoke Hosting Solutions

As businesses grow, their needs and requirements also grow.  You will need complex solutions to be able to do more with your website and hosting.

The benefits of bespoke hosting solutions are numerous.  For one, you have all the solutions you need to ensure that your site is very reliable and is up all the time.

Also, you only need to pay for services that you actually use.  No more paying for solutions that you are not using but are part of the package price you pay for.  On the other side of the spectrum, you could easily add on specialized services that you need such as cloud services.

Bespoke hosting solutions providers also take care of configuring, installing and managing your hosting requirements.  So, you really don’t need to settle for a Windows operating system when you want Linux, nor do you need to learn server management as well, leaving you with more time to do business tasks that matters.

In some cases, you would also get better technical support because you are dealing with experts on the solutions you get.  With off-the-shelf hosting providers, you may get rehearsed answers from inexperienced customer service agents who are just reading off a script that they themselves do not understand.

With an excellent provider like Dade2, you also get a hosting provider that also acts as a consultant.  A good provider would give you alternatives and choices designed to make your hosting perform better and give you more for your money.

In the final analysis, bespoke hosting solutions are better in the long run because you get to save by merely getting the solutions that you actually need and use.  And because your business is not just one of the thousands or millions of others using the same hosting provider, you get better performance from a provider that has a better infrastructure in the first place.

Dade2 provides highly customized hosting solutions to our customers.  Call us now at +44 20 3239 1536 (in the UK) or +1 323 522 5543 (in the US) to talk to an expert and schedule a free consultation to see what your real needs are and what solutions are best for you.

This is just to remind you that currently you can get FREE SETUP on all Dade2 Dedicated Servers saving $100!

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