SEO or Search Engine Optimization is very effective in providing the results businesses of all sizes want to see. The good thing about SEO is that it allows these businesses to advertise online without paying a huge amount of money, or any at all. This gives equal chances to small businesses to stand out and reach out to as many people as possible.

Not everyone has the time to deal with SEO techniques though. It is something that needs careful attention. You should also follow up with your potential customers to make them feel that they are given importance. The time it takes to succeed in SEO is one of the reasons why SEO-friendly websites are essential.

Nowadays you can find readymade websites. They are designed in such a way that whoever decides to buy the website in the future, can use it as their own, as it is already established. There is only polishing and maintenance left to do to ensure the best results. It is not like other websites that have to be built from scratch.

This saves business owners a lot of time – not just in setting the website up, but in making it more popular. This is also the reason why even if readymade websites cost a lot, business owners still patronise them. Besides, they still receive technical support from the people behind the creation of the website.

Everything is set

If you are running a small business online, you have a lot of things to consider. Setting up a website and making it popular is a tough process, but it is just the first step. There are still a lot of other things that you need to do. Therefore, ticking one task off of your list is a good start.

You will also have the chance to learn how to keep the site running with lots of technical support. You won’t feel as if you have bought something and you are left to figure out how it works. This makes you feel more confident as you move along.

For sure, you still have a lot of questions in mind. You are not certain how it works or what benefits you will get out of it. You might also be uncertain if you will really earn more in the end. This is why it is great if you can check reviews online about Internet franchise options. You will find out that there are a lot of business owners out there who have also succeeded because they have trusted a company that offers websites that are already done. You can now go ahead and do other tasks related to your business. Your path to success is clear if you start making your moves now.

Introduction

When it comes to successful ventures through blog posts, frequency and quantity massively contribute to an individual’s business. However true this may be, blog posts optimization must be utilized for the published content to grab reader’s attention. Blog posts optimization also contributes to a higher ranking in search engines. What is more, an individual should capitalize on introducing offers that can have a direct impact on the efforts of a lead generation. The concept is as simple as the higher the number of visitors on the blog, the better the business. Here are ways to optimize an individual’s blog posts.

Social Media Sharing

With the current generation vastly employing social media in business and events, sharing blog posts will encourage readers to share the content through the sharing button. It is, therefore, vital to include a sharing button on the published content. As a result, the content will reach a vast network and expand its coverage beyond the writer’s reach. As a small enterprise, the utilization of social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Google create massive connections comprising potential clients and current customers. That is why an individual should capitalize on these sites for greater web exposure. Some of the sites also have free programs for a promotion like Hootsuite. The feature makes it easy for a blogger to post the latest contents of all social media accounts with a few clicks. Hootsuite allows a blogger to schedule posts ahead of the set time.

Compelling Images

Images play a good psychological game with humans. A compelling image insinuates attraction while explaining what the blog post is about at the same time. This ensures that the blog post presents an appealing visual picture to readers and prospective clients. A blog post containing an element of visual impact contributes massive traffic to the content. From photographs to graphic images, visual features generally perform better than just a post full of writing. Whenever an image is uploaded to the blog post, it is essential to include keywords. The keywords should strategically be inserted in the name of the file. The alternate text field should also be filled with a brief of the keywords and a short description of what the image portrays.

Utilization of Key Words

After a proper identification of the target market when coming up with a blog post, identify keywords. These words must be relevant and valuable to the blog posts. Inserting keywords in the right places is essential. The density of use must also be identified and utilized accordingly. The keywords must be placed where they shall have an enormous positive impact on readers. They should easily be spotted too. It is important for an individual not to engage in keyword stuffing. Key word staffing refers to the overuse of key words in the content. This will end up cluttering the blog post. It also becomes difficult to read through the content. Apart from irritating the reader, this is worth a penalty from Google. A couple of key words strategically placed will massively contribute to traffic build up on the blog posts. An individual should try to include the key words in the following listed places:

• Title

• Introduction

• Concluding paragraph

• Title Tags

• Meta descriptions

• Headings and subheadings

Make it Actionable

Whether readers found the blog post using a search engine or email, or better yet the social media network, it is evident that it was because an individual needed a problem solved through the posted article. A reader shares a post because of an actionable insight it offers in problem-solving. It is, therefore, essential for a blogger to provide clear takeaways. Additionally, the blogger should generate actionable steps in the blog posts. These steps must resonate with the ideas with the reader’s needs.

Synergize Relevance and Entertainment

Metaphors are useful and timeless narration elements. They should not only be left to novelists and authors. They should be included in blog posts when comparing different things and at the same time illustrating connections between them. Metaphors are a valuable approach to synergize content relevance and deploy more interests from a subject. On the other hand, informative does not mean boring. Blog posts should include cutting –edge entertainment to attract readers. Conclusion

There are many blog posts in the world. If a blogger is convinced that their blog posts should stand out from the existing blog posts, it is necessary to implement necessary work towards the initiative. Optimization of blog posts drives more traffic to the posted content.

A business that wants to thrive in the 21^st century doesn’t really have a choice when it comes to modern technology – that business needs to have a website, if for no other reason than to be accessible, and for potential customers to get a feel of what the business is all about. Creating a good website doesn’t have to be expensive, but it’s essential you do it, and that you do it well.

However, designing a website is not as easy as you think – there are a lot of things to think about. On the other hand, it certainly isn’t mission impossible. All you have to do is keep some basic rules in mind. Do you want to have a truly effective website? Here are the essentials you should know about.

Be bold and clear

A visitor to the site will not have patience when it comes to looking for information; it needs to be presented to them on a silver platter. Be bold and clear when it comes to who you are, what you represent, and what you have to offer. Think of your main page as a calling card: a visitor must understand immediately who you are and what you are about.

Contact information

Your contact information should be proclaimed at all times – and it would be very useful if you have a ‘contact us’ section in order for the customer to be able to send you a note right there and then. Making your contact information visible is very, very important – this information should be displayed on every page. You want your contact details to be visible before the visitor moves on to a competitor.

Simplicity and speed

There was a time (a long time ago) when visitors to your site might have had the patience to sit in front of their computer, waiting for your site and pages to load. These days are long gone – if your page isn’t loaded within three seconds, it’s a bad sign.

Have features available

Offer something interesting: calculators, recipes, anything that visitors may like.

One other thing – an important one, if you want people to come back to your site again and again: keep it fresh and update it frequently so users find something new every time they visit. The new aspect could be a new article, a new tool, new information, or new pictures. Whatever it is, potential customers are more likely to visit your site again if they know that it is regularly updated and if they think they can learn something new. Be fresh, and be flexible. It’s important to have new customers come to your site, and it’s even more important to keep them coming back, as web design Oxfordshire experts from Xist2 confirm. Happy designing!

Image attributed to Stuart Miles/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

There is no denying that choosing the right web host is critical to running a reliable and overall successful business website. There is a lot of information out there on how to choose a good hosting company. Eleven 2 review and other similar reviews are great sources of first-hand information on what to expect from a particular web hosting company. It is important to realize that not all of these reviews are real or genuine. The trick is in identifying useful and genuine reviews that can help you make an informed decision.

Less emotion and more information

One of the tell-tale signs of a paid or fake review is emphasis on emotions with little useful information. A review that exaggerates the speed at which customer support resolved a problem without indicating what the problem was in the first place should prompt you to consider the reviewer more carefully. Choosing or working with a web hosting company is not a particularly joyous or exciting experience so any review that seems overly emotional and enthusiastic is likely to be dishonest.

Little or no superlatives

Superlatives such as “best” “fastest” “cheapest” and so on should be treated with caution. A few of these words here and there is not exactly a bad thing. The reviewer might have genuinely had a great experience. An Eleven 2 review filled with exaggerations with no supporting evidence or comparisons means that you might have to get your information elsewhere.

Realistic claims

A credible review makes realistic claims regardless of how great the service provider is. The truth is that there is no such thing as 100% uptime. A reviewer who claims to have zero downtime or absolutely no issues in say four years of working with a web host is being dishonest. An honest review makes realistic claims and mentions problem areas or potential areas that might be improved upon in his opinion.

Reliable experience

The ideal Eleven 2 review or web hosting company review should be written by an expert, or at least a client who has technical knowledge on the subject. Reviews that seem to offer little or no technical details or information such as features may indicate that it is written by a paid reviewer. In addition to this, a good review offers in depth insight on why you should choose the specific host, while remaining objective and mentioning possible downsides or disadvantages of working with the host.

Website hosting reviews are great for finding the best hosting company for your business website. It is however important to consider that not all reviews are honest or accurate and to find a review that serves your purposes.

Moving to a new hosting provider most definitely gets easier the more often you do it. In fact, the second move is often the hardest – particularly if you’ve spent a lot of time, effort and probably money in getting your site setup on your current host in the first place.

This article is not designed to be a complete guide as to how to move host, far from it. It’s just a quick run through for things you should really consider before undertaking the process. If nothing else it’s meant to be somewhat thought provoking on the off chance you’ve missed something!

Choosing The Host

I’m going to assume you’ve already chosen a host or at least have one in mind if you’re planning to do a migration. But did you know there are some hosts which offer a free migration? HostPresto.com is one that comes to mind if you really don’t want to go through the hassle of doing it yourself. But of course there are others out there, just search for web hosting free migration or something similar and you’ll find a ton of them.

If you are dead set on doing it yourself though then all you really need to make sure of is that the package spec you’ve chosen is able to run your site. So choose something the same or better than what you have currently. If you’re going with a lower spec package just to save a bit of money then it is most certainly a recipe for disaster.

Backing Up

Unless you’re using one of these fancy hosts with their fangled migration tools then you’re going to need to do a backup of your files from your existing host. There are typically two ways to do this. You can connect to your FTP space and manually pull your files down to your desktop or you can use one of the backup applications that come with your control panel or host itself. Most websites are hosted on cPanel servers these days and cPanel has a great backup and restore application. But regardless, the choice is yours.

One thing people often forget about is their databases and e-mail accounts. They think they can download the files from the FTP space and that’s that. Wrong. If you are doing a manual backup be sure to export your MySQL (or similar) database and all of your e-mail and their corresponding accounts. There is nothing worse than moving hosts and realise all your e-mails and databases have disapppeared – especially if you’ve already cancelled the old hosting!

Needless to say, if you’re using something like cPanel’s backup software all this will be done for you or at least you’ll have the option to select what you’d like to include in the export.

Getting Setup

Of course it goes without saying that you’ll need to upload your files to the new host but be sure to setup your database correctly. One of the most common problems people run into is the database credentials being incorrect. You’ll setup your database with a random username and password, insert your data and then wonder why your website won’t connect to it. In this case be sure that the credentials in your website configuration files match what you’ve just setup or if they are different that you update them to reflect the new ones.

It’s also a good idea to do a bit of maintenance with your new setup too. Remove any old files you’re not using, particularly installation files if you’re using something like Joomla or even old log files which you’re never likeky to need. There is no point filling up your new FTP space with junk.

Changing The Nameservers

You should only update your nameservers once you’ve got all your files setup and your site functioning on the new host. Most hosts will offer a way for you to preview your site via a temporary URL or similar. Once everyting is working you can perform the switch.

So that’s that. We hope this article has given you something to think about if you’re considering choosing a new host.