Daily Archives: June 25, 2015


How Many Keywords?

Folks have abused keywords in a misguided effort to manipulate the engines. This involves “stuffing” keywords into text, URLs, meta tags, and links. Unfortunately, this tactic almost always does more harm than good for your site. The best practice is to use your keywords naturally and strategically. If your page targets the keyword phrase “Eiffel Tower” then you might naturally include content about the Eiffel Tower itself, the history of the tower, or even recommended Paris hotels. On the other hand, if you simply sprinkle the words “Eiffel Tower” onto a page with irrelevant content, then your efforts to rank for “Eiffel Tower” will be in vain. The point of using keywords is not to rank highly for all keywords, but to rank highly for the keywords that people are searching for when they want what your site provides.


Do You Need to Optimize Your Images?

Image optimization. Images often account for most of the downloaded bytes on a web page and also often occupy a significant amount of visual space. As a result, optimizing images can often yield some of the largest byte savings and performance improvements for your website: the fewer bytes the browser has to download, the less competition there is for the client’s bandwidth and the faster the browser can download and render useful content on the screen. When a customer goes to your site, it can take a while depending on how large your files are. Specifically with images, the larger the file size the longer it takes a webpage to load. If you can decrease the size of the image files on your webpage and increase pageload speed, less people who visit your site will click away.


What To Look For When Choosing a Web Host?

Price  shouldn’t be the deciding factor.  Non-outsourced support and quality hardware cost money, and a hosting company that charges the lowest  per month likely won’t offer these features. Take a closer look at the features that each host provides, and THEN compare prices. Look into a company’s specialty or area of expertise before you buy, and go with one that understands your particular needs as a customer.  Understand whether or not they fit into your plans for the future. In other words, what you consider adequate hosting now might not meet your needs two years from now. Look at the Tech Specs  and Limitations. What kind of machines does your hosting company use? Hardware…can affect the performance of both their servers and your site. Look at the company Reviews/ Reputation.  E-mail Features. How easy is the Control Panel / User Interface to figure out? Does it offer room to grow?..

Choose a domain name registrar and hosting provider

A domain name registrar offers domain names for public use. A hosting provider rents out space on servers to store websites and make them accessible on the internet. Many companies offer both domain name registration and hosting services so you can pick your domain name and host your website through one central hub. There are many companies and bundle options available so make sure to research carefully before making your selection.

Here are some things to consider as you choose a reliable hosting provider:

  • Uptime: Uptime is the amount of time servers belonging to your hosting provider are up and running. Any hosting provider can go down sometimes but you want to find a provider with very little downtime so visitors can almost always see your website.
  • Bandwidth: Bandwidth shows how much data your site can send to the rest of the internet and determines how much traffic your site can support. Some hosting providers limit the bandwidth available to your website while others allow unlimited access.
  • Security: Familiarize yourself with safeguards the hosting provider sets in place to protect your site from external vulnerabilities. Understand if support will be offered when a security issue arises, such as if your site is hacked or infected by malware.
  • Customer support: If something goes wrong with your site, you’ll want good customer support to resolve any issues quickly.
  • Price: Hosting providers charge a wide range of prices; some are even free. You need to balance how much you’re willing to pay with the services you’ll receive in return.
  • Ease of use: Make sure the user platform is intuitive and easy to use for your needs. If you’re creating a site yourself, is it easy to get started or do you need to have advanced setup knowledge?
  • Additional services and features: Make sure the hosting provider offers the things your website may need, such as email accounts.