Earning, Blogging, Tips and More

The Best Forum Hosting Is Just Host

It is not only blogging that has boosted its presence in the Internet lately. We see a lot of lively forums and forumers going on and about in every corner of the World Wide Web. Internet forums, known before as message boards, get popular because discussion and interaction is high in such avenues. From a technological standpoint, forums are web applications managing user-generated content.

A common perception is that a forum is just an appendix of a website. But no. Forums can stand alone even without a website on its aid. Some popular forums do. Because of that, another "branch" of hosting was opened for forumers solely. We call it forum hosting. A web space is dedicated only to hosting a forum where a high number of users can join/register and interact. One important requirements of forum hosting are stability, reliability and uptime. Stability is needed when a very large number of forumers altogether access the site within a close time frame and the server's load capacity is tested. Reliability is how the forum itself protects the many accounts it hold from web thieves. Lastly, uptime ensures that the forum will be there to support 24/7 interaction between people and not go down and discourage users from participating more.

Finding the best forum hosting won't be a pain anymore. Web Hosting Geeks, a web hosting directory, ranked Just Host as the Best Forum Hosting in its website. From the website:

Just Host has been recognized as Best Forum Host thanks to the advanced software and top-notch support that they provide for the forumers. The forum software available with all Just Host accounts includes phpBB2 and SMF which are both really well known applications that offer the user tons of features.

Just Host, Ltd meets all BBBOnLine Reliability participation and Better Business Bureau membership standards and is authorized to display the BBBOnLine Reliability seal.

So if you plan to start up your own forums, you know where to look. If you want a blog plus a forum, try looking at the best blog hosting category too in the Web Hosting Geeks website.

Share your favorite forums below. Mine's our own Cebu Bloggers Society forum.

Where To Get Your List For Your E-mail Marketing Needs

As I've said in my previous post Why Venture In E-mail Marketing?, e-mail marketing is one of those marketing strategies that uses e-mail as a medium of commercial communication and selling to a specific audience. In simple terms, it is sending an e-mail to a potential or current customer for the purpose of acquiring a new one or engaging in repeat business. But with all those basic information, the next dreaded question comes in: where do I get the e-mail addresses of potential consumers?

Your e-mail marketing software would be practically useless not with a good bunch of marketing data to boot. What you really need before starting your e-mail marketing campaign is to get hold of sufficient telemarketing lists. What's this, you ask. A telemarketing list is a set of e-mail addresses of both business entities and potential consumers. You have e-mail addresses of businesses to gain potential partners. You also get e-mail addresses of potential consumers, those who might be interested in your campaign. But where to look? Some companies specialize in e-mail marketing lists. They provide such lists to businesses involved in e-mail marketing or telemarketing. They have done their research and analysis of data well to generate such effective list for companies to use.

The important thing in e-mail marketing is you get a list of potential buyers and not a list of uninterested buyers. For example, you might want to acquire a mortgage mailing list when you sell related services or products. You don't want to market your mortgage services to teenagers, right? A mortgage mailing list must have contained e-mail addresses of professionals or parents. Before you buy a mailing list, make sure it hits your target audience or consumer group. That way, your e-mail marketing campaign would be highly effective.

Why Venture In E-mail Marketing?

E-mail marketing is one of those marketing strategies that uses e-mail as a medium of commercial communication and selling to a specific audience. In simple terms, it is sending an e-mail to a potential or current customer for the purpose of acquiring a new one or engaging in repeat business.

Online businesses that have established blogs and websites soon will think about marketing their products or services. Aside from the normal online marketing/advertising, e-mail marketing also boasts its effectiveness. In 2006, around $400 million were spent on e-mail marketing alone.

So why venture to e-mail marketing? It is popular because of the following reasons:

it is low cost since it collectively sends information to a wide network of e-mail users at once
marketing can be tracked, so as ROI
time delivery is fast (seconds only)
you don't have to wait for the customer to visit your site (compared to online advertising)
repeat business transactions are easy
almost all people now have e-mail addresses (half check them everyday)
paper-free
metrics of user responses/reactions is possible

The biggest pros of e-mail marketing would be its affordability and hassle-free use. Once you want to get started with e-mail marketing, you can choose to opt to an e-mail marketing software that could help you build your marketing list fast and easy. For example, iContact. iContact is an option for anyone who wants to send out newsletters. Some of their good features are its inbox deliverability, easy-to-use interface, affordable prices, sleek templates for e-mail, autoresponders, surveying and blogging capabilities and more.

iContact currently has over 15,000 customers and 100,000 users. The product is used primarily by small businesses but also has a number of Fortune 500 companies like Bank of America, Ford, Nissan, Super 8 Motel, and International Paper, and political campaigns like Barack Obama '08.

iContact is only one of those e-mail marketing software that could help you in your e-mail marketing. To get started, you must know first what your business needs, who your customers are, their interests and from there, you can kick start your e-mail marketing and move forward to a growing business.

Inmotion Is Top Web Host Of 2009

Before all, let me greet everyone an advanced Merry Christmas! The holiday season is in a rush and we are almost there -- Christmas Day. And 2010 will be right in front of us in a blink. Before we end 2009, let's see who got the top spot for the top web host in the web hosting rating site, Web Hosting Geeks.

As said in my title, it is Inmotion Business Web Hosting who got the top place with a 98% host rating. With a monthly price of $5.95, you get the users' choice web hosting in your own fingertips. Second place goes to JustHost. It is the Editor's Choice Hosting. It has monthly price of $3.45 and a host rating of 97%. That's one notch difference between Inmotion's. But the price difference is quite wide. $2.50 is already something to think about. Would you have 97% with a cheaper price or the higher priced 98%? Third goes to WebHostingPad, tagged as Cheap Reliable Hosting because of it's $1.99/mo. and 97% host rating (wow!). Fourth goes to iPage, Trusted Web Hosting ($3.50/mo, 96% host rating) and fifth goes to FatCow, Cheap Business Hosting ($3.67/mo, 95%).

I included the top 5 web hosts according to Web Hosting Geeks because I believe these 5 are reliable ones. They wouldn't end up there if they didn't work hard to fill their customers' needs. For bloggers looking to self-host their blogs, you can see who won in the Best Blog Hosting. And if you are really budget-tight, see who won in the Best Budget Hosting category. Good luck and happy holidays!

How To Know Whether A Web Hosting Provider Is Reliable

Oftentimes, first time web hosting buyers (like bloggers or small businesses) don't really know where to look when looking for a reliable web host. The very first time I decided to get a web host for my blog, I only asked my friends what their web hosting providers are and if they feel good about their hosts. Answer number 1: Recommendation from friends.

You trust your friends, don't you? And if your friends trust this one web host, you would get an inkling to trust that web host too. Sometimes too immediately. One way to know which web host is right for you is to ask around your friends. Each one of them could have varying opinions but you must get the description of the web host which best suits your needs and capacity.

But let's say you don't have friends who are self hosting their sites, then you could make good use of online ranking resources. Answer number 2: Read around web hosting rating sites. There are a couple of them out there. The best way is to explore. Try hanging out in forums or user feedback areas. You can't just rely on what the web hosts say. Hear it out from their previous/current customers. Customers (most of them) always speak based on their experiences. Learn from their experiences, right?

Let me share this quote from Sir Colin Marshall, The customer doesn't expect everything will go right all the time; the big test is what you do when things go wrong. You can't expect a web hosting provider to be 100% perfect. When things go wrong, what do they do? Leave you hanging (like my previous web host)? The customers will answer your questions. Hear it out.

All I'm saying here is that before buying out a web host, read, search, think and weigh. Don't make the mistakes of impulse buying. Read reviews and rating sites first. Always know that a secure website offers a peace of mind. And you don't want to end up fast in a down-falling web host right?

Good luck to web host buyers-to-be. Read this hosting guide for reference. (:

Retweet To Share Tweets (BETA)

Twitter's got a new feature but it is still under Beta version. I'm privileged to be part of the Beta group and be able to test this new feature. It's simply a retweeting feature of tweets. Before, we have to manually write "RT" to indicate it is just a retweet. Now, everything's done smoothly.

The image above will tell it all. I'm also trying it now.

Notice the difference between a tweet and a retweet? It's the icon beside it!

I think Twitter must release this feature right away. For one, it is useful. Another it is really a cool feature. Kudos Twitter!

Thoughts On SEO Experts and English Grammar

I throw this question to all, specially to SEO experts, SEO "experts", SEO lovers and bloggers: Is it necessary that SEO experts be very good in English grammar and usage?

I am just curious really. I consider the likes of Problogger and Dosh Dosh to have excellent English skills (add people skills too). But ever since the advent of the "SEO era" where people seem so much informed about SEO, there was a sudden boom in the number of SEO-related blogs all around the world. People think that it's one speedy way to richness and fame. And so I made myself skeptic about this.

I've seen multitudes of blogs talking about SEO. Though there are excellent ones, I could not help but find out that a lot of SEO bloggers can't even make good use of the English language well. Some have noticeably a number of grammatical errors, a few have spelling errors.

No, I'm not saying I can use English perfectly. I have faults too. I just wonder if correct grammar (which is a factor to GOOD content) affects SEO. Is it absolutely fine to commit errors more than a few times if you "consider" yourself an SEO expert? Or are SEO experts required to be adept in using properly the English language?

For readers and bloggers, does it discourage you to read an SEO blog with grammatical errors?

Just a direct question really and I know we'll all learn something from thinking about this. How about you? What's your stand?