Reading Time: 3 minutes

We’re all familiar with what it means to ‘vouch’ for someone or something. That is, to say that you can attest to the quality or reliability of that individual or product. Many of those competing in the online world may not know the value of link building, however, but your Canadian web hosting provider will be explicitly aware of that value. Google of course is the world’s premier search engine, and it uses links to measure the authority of web pages. If a web page attracts links from other pages Google’s algorithm, the software it uses to rank pages and decide which page is number one for a search result increases the importance of a page – and thus how high it places in search engine results.

So in a sense it’s just like a vouch for that page – you feel there’s value there, and you’re recommending visitors might want to consider visiting it via your page to gain more in the way of quality information on the subject.

So let’s now take a look at some of the more common link building techniques, and ones that will be much easier to incorporate into your webpages, blog, or other digital communications.

Forums

Link building techniques using forums typically involve creating a profile page and a signature link. Signature links allow links to be created at the bottom of posts or comments left in a forum. Signature links tend to be regarded as low quality though, and while they may send a measurable amount of traffic they likely won’t have any long lasting impact on the pages you link them to. These links are not merit based, and search engines – Google in particular – are getting better at ignoring these links and assigning them no value.

Link Farms

The link farm technique is a standard approach form SEO companies. A link farm can often have a vast number of websites and web pages within it, all under the control of the individual link builder. Building a link farm link allows them to offer a set number of links for a specific fee, and the extent to which this can be done is pretty much unlimited. Where link farming becomes problematic is when it’s discovered by the search engines. If that occurs – and it does much more frequently these days – the links within them will cease to have any positive impact on the sites they link to.

Directories

These are useful and can create links that are nearly guaranteed to provide some value in the sense of attracting traffic to your website. However, they are a form of spam and, as with other spam techniques, links from directories tend to not be merit based and will almost always carry next to no weight in terms of helping to increase your ranking. Notable exceptions here include the DMOZ directory and Yahoo, among others.

Hubs

These are pages created on services like Squidoo. Hub pages, or lenses as they are also referred to, are a great idea and allow people to create pages about a subject matter they are passionate about. The issue here is in the fact that spammers have also realized it’s an easy way to create pages for more illegitimate link building. As a result, using hubs as part of your link building for better SEO isn’t as highly recommended.

Blogs

Genuine blogs are a great source of landing spots for outbound links with your link building. But be wary of those that are known as SPLOGS, meaning spam blogs. They tend to be a favourite spot for link spammers. The most common technique for this spam approach is to leave a comment and associated link to their client’s website. Long story short, an outbound link of this variety will have little value other than a very small amount of web traffic, unless your comment happens to be on a high traffic popular blog. Most however tend to be deleted by the blog’s webmaster.

Social bookmarks

Once upon a time in the early days of Internet marketing, social bookmarking sites were a source of valuable links. Yet again, link spammers have spoiled that for everyone. Most of the credible bookmarking sites now categorize these links as nofollow links, so it’s best to look past them when weighing which ones might work well for you.

Be in touch with us here at 4GoodHosting to learn more about the most effective ways to improve website SEO, including ways to incorporate link building. We want to get ahead, and we imagine you do too. Let’s talk!

For SEO Services please visit http://4goodhosting.com/seo-services.

Reading Time: 5 minutes

It’s increasingly rare these days to find a business that doesn’t have their own website. As is the case with every one of them, there’s a whole lot of work that goes into a website – planning, designing, and the actual construction of the different HTML elements that together make up those web pages we’re happy to just visit and browse through as we like.

Be aware that there are choices you can make when putting your website together, however, that can have negative repercussions down the line and quite possibly sabotage the successes you envisioned for yourself when you decided to take your business onto the World Wide Web.

Start with the Right Conceptual Thinking

First off, all of the following are FALSE:

1. I need a flashy website that looks ‘cool’

Believe us when we tell you that substance trumps flush in a big way when it comes to the entirety of your online presence. Stressing to your web designer that it’s all-important to have a ‘cutting edge’ site is creating the wrong perspective for what you want to be accomplishing here.

Keep in mind that this isn’t a competition about ‘looks’, it’s about effectively conveying to your customers THAT WHICH IS IMPORTANT TO THEM – which, in nearly every instance, is a quality product or service that’s priced reasonably and comes with positive reviews from buyers just like them. What your website looks like will pretty much be the last of their considerations.

2. It’s always good to save few bucks by having my friend / relative / other design my website for a discount

For sure, hiring designers or developers with many years of experience and a proven portfolio of work can be expensive. The best professionals can and do charge what they do because – in addition to designing the website – they also often research, plan, and strategize the entire conversion process and site flow as well.

Needless to say, you stand to benefit IMMENSELY from this value-added part of their service, and these types of analytical approaches are very likely going to be beyond the ability of the guy or gal you know.

Hiring a qualified design pro can also mean that your project isn’t completed as quickly as you’d like. Without going on at length, we’ll just suffice to say that – again – any delay that’s related to making your website a more soundly constructed portal THAT WORKS TO SERVE YOUR MARKETING INTERESTS effectively is very much worth it in the long run.

Conversions, sales, followers, in-store visits (if you’ve got a brick n mortar) etc etc. – you want them, and working with a reputable and experienced web designer / developer is the straightest path to getting there.

3. A simple ‘electronic brochure’ is really all I need from my website

Maybe so if you’re fine with just staying where you are in as far as the size and scope of your business (and its success). In all likelihood though, you’d like to see more out of your business and in this day and age the BEST way to build your business is to promote it effectively online. And if we were to tell you that there’s not too much involved in going from an electronic brochure to a fully-vamped website, why wouldn’t you choose the one that’s going to give your more sales / service opportunities and make your brand all the more visible?

Right then.

Taking the Right Approach

This starts with answering one direct question – what is it that you need your website to do? The answer can vary, but it’s safe enough to assume that anyone who’s in business will have ‘helping us sell more of our product(s)’ at or near the top of their list.

So, with that understood, your website MUST:

• Attract the right customers

Determine what your customer demographic has for a ‘buyer profile’ – how do they buy, when do they buy, what types of advertising / marketing collaterals are they attracted to? If you can’t answer these questions yourself, it’s very wise to hire someone who can analyze these correctly for you

Once these questions are answered, your designer should be able to start making design choices that are in line with the findings. Your website’s primary focus must be on attracting the right prospective customers to your site, keeping them there, and converting many of those visits into conversions etc.

• Be optimized for people and their searches through Google, Bing etc.

Are you familiar with the acronym SEO? You should be, and if not then – again – you REALLY need to hire a web copywriter to put together your site content. SEO is search engine optimization, and having quality SEO for your content means your site will be presented higher up in search results conducted by potential visitors / customers

• Be sufficiently easy to use

A frustrated or flustered visitor is never a good thing, and 9 times out of 10 they become a contributor to your site’s bounce rate (also a big negative). Your website must be explicitly user friendly, where content is supported, messages are clearly communicated, calls-to-action are firmly identified, and visitors are guided – subtly – toward a conversion.

• Help you stand out in the crowd

This one tends to be overlooked sometime, but it’s important to remember that there are likely hundreds, if not thousands, of websites out there that are similar to yours. You need to distinguish your site from them as best you can, ensuring that your visitors are likely to remember you, respect you, and – down the line – even refer you!

Some of this stuff can be very overly-conceptual for many folks, so if it’s above and beyond your comprehension then do trust your website to a digital marketing professional. You’ll be glad you did.

Determining the Best Website Strategy

Every page of every business website has some type of conversion objective, even if that objective is simply to redirect them to the page where you’re making your primary conversion objective accessible.

This last part if important to keep in mind, because it’s a fact that not every visitor to your website will enter it via the landing page. A clear, comprehensive website strategy outlines the paths to conversion from multiple entry points on the website. How they move from their entry points, and what type of information they request on their way to a) buying or b) bouncing is very relevant to take into consideration.

So, we’ll now introduce the 4 types of content found on effective websites;

‘Know’ content – lets them learn about you, your brand, and the products and services that you believe will be of value to them. Always be sure to show yourself to be an authority with your subject matter.

‘Like’ content – helps visitors see who you are, where you stand on certain issues related to your products / services, and what you have to say. It can offer quick looks into your personal life, your personality, and your opinions

‘Trust’ content – to attach credibility, reliability, and trust to you in the eyes of your visitors. Shows you to be an expert with a history of proven results, and conveys an understanding that there’s no risk to choosing you as a retailer or provider.

‘Conversion’ content – utilized to persuade visitors to take specific actions and convert new visitors into clients, customers, subscribers, or any other role in the promotion of your business online

Let’s Get Going

Now you’ll have a more broad-reaching conceptual approach. Remember – don’t rush headlong into anything, think things through and get second opinions along with revisiting your own.

When you understand your website’s function, eliminate distractions, establish multiple different paths to conversion, and apply the 4-type content process highlighted above, you’ll be on the right path for sure. Last but not least, keep in mind that all websites need web hosting, and quite often a web hosting service provider in Canada will offer Internet Marketing services that include optimizing your website. 4GoodHosting certainly does, and you’re encouraged to learn more at www.4goodhosting.com

Reading Time: 3 minutes

In all this talk about, servers, databases, cloud storage etc etc., fibre optics have been a bit of a lesser light despite being the unsung hero in the successes we’ve seen in the supercharging the digital world. Now some of you will know what a Terabyte is, and others won’t. Most of you will be familiar with a Gigabyte though, and a Terabyte is 1,024 gigabytes.

That’s a lot of capacity, and with that understood fibre optics cable these days can achieve transfer speeds up to 255Tbps. Simply put, that’s blazing fast and nearly every Canadian web hosting provider we don’t overlook the value those transfer rates have in letting us work with our clients in making their websites – and in the bigger picture their online marketing efforts – really pay off.

What’s different nowadays is that it’s not just one single-core fibre. Fibre optic cables now feature a multi-core glass stem that allows for an enormous load of data to flow through it. While this technology is still a long way off from being used extensively throughout cities, it’s setting the tone for the newer upgrades poised to hit the fibre optics market, and they’re not far off.

Information Super Expressway

Many cable providers plan to upgrade their lines, with some of the major cities in the world soon to see cables capable of handling 400Gbps. That’s a huge upgrade from the current standard of 10Gb/s that many companies use. The newer fibre optic cables also include a host of upgrades and capabilities that really outdistance them from their predecessors. Here’s a quick reference of the improvements:

Security – The integrity of an optic cable actually plays a role in how easily hackers can force their way into data stores. Now, fiber optic cables use light. That makes it tough to ‘grab interference’ as the term goes. About the only way to break into them is to physically break the cord. Since they use light to transmit data, all of the light escapes and makes it easy for network security to notice breaches in data.

Design and Speed – These newer materials are lighter and thinner too. They can be more easily wrapped in a protective coating and hung from poles. In North America the majority of wires are still suspended from poles and not buried in the ground, so weight is a major issue. The reduced weight also allows them to be thicker, which means more data transfer.

Reliability – Since all of the data is transferred through a core of glass, it’s by in large entirely insulated from any threat that might interrupt or shut down transfer. There’s no fear of electrometric interference or radio-frequency interference, otherwise known as EMI and RFI. There’s also very little risk of impedance or crosstalk. Although it’s still susceptible to temperature changes, it’s more reliable when running through water or industrial equipment.

New fibre optic technology continues to expand in leaps and bounds, and it’s not a moment too soon with the way demand for internet usage continues to skyrocket in North America. The aim course is to reach the point where the world is full of nearly instantaneous data transmission, and with us being as much as an eager beaver as can be when it comes to web hosting and online communications – that sounds pretty darn great!

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Anyone familiar with the acronym ARPANET? Perfectly understandable if you aren’t, even many in the IT World likely wouldn’t have a clue.

So let’s introduce ARPANET and it’s significance to one of the more predominant technical developments in computing these days.

ARPANET is the network that became the basis for the Internet, and began with the interconnection of four university computers in the late 60s. ARPANET sent information in small units called packets that could be routed on different paths before being reconstructed at their destination. The development of the TCP/IP protocols in the 1970s made it possible to expand the size of the network in a much more orderly way.

The initial purpose was to communicate with and share computer resources among users at the 4 different connected institutions, and with that connection the application principle behind cloud computing was born.

Today, we often hear the term “It’s in the Cloud” or “that’s Cloud based”. But what does that mean exactly (and as some might ask, ‘why is Cloud capitalized?’)

To put it simply, data existing in a cloud simply means that it exists on multiple computers at once. Before understanding cloud technology you’ll need to have a basic grasp of server technology. Servers are powerful computers, similar to the technology in a desktop computer, just must more dynamic. When you take all the CPU power and memory of a server and make it a virtual server, the advantage becomes that it doesn’t physically exist anywhere, and can be moved from one host to another as needed and automatically.

This is the “Cloud”. The virtual server that is created can move from one host to another as needed and be given more resources or drive space by grabbing more from the storage servers, known as SANs (Storage Area Network).

Trends in Cloud Technology

So despite being 48 years in the making, it’s only in the last 15 years or so that Cloud computing has established itself. Even that number may surprise some who would think it’d be much less given the ‘newness’ of the technology to the public. In the early 2000s, Clouds were used, but they were more privatized. A single company might have a datacenter that contained clusters of physical and or virtual servers where they host websites, email, or in-house applications for clients.

It was 2007 when we began to see the advent of public cloud space services such as Dropbox and Google Drive. Users were now able to house their personal files in a secure space. Basically, these spaces are folders that exist within a company’s data centres. This data is hosted in clustered environments so that their users can enjoy guaranteed uptime and recovery. Existing in these datacenter’s virtual spaces also allows the data centres to offer their services for very little cost, or free, if the space is small enough.

Further, we now have cloud-enabled services such as Google Apps Marketplace and SaaS (Software as a Service) products like Microsoft Office 365. These new technologies allow the cloud to be, not just a place that you can store data, but utilize entire applications and services such as word processing, spreadsheets, CRM programs, creative suites – you name it.

Cloud Computing’s Future

As this technological entity is still evolving, we continue to see new developments but none is as significant as the trend towards mobile device optimization. Clouds may merge more aggressively and we may also see the forced de-privatization of clouds as larger companies force small and medium-sized businesses to bring their data into these more expansive environments in an effort to reach prospective customers more effectively.

Choose 4goodhosting.com and have a web hosting provider that has their thumb on the pulse of digital marketing and web hosting trends.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

There’s no debating that Google is the world’s #1 search engine, and any website that exists for e-commerce should be tailored to match (at least reasonably) Google’s ever-changing search algorithms. Reliable web hosting is one thing and gets you solidly set up on the information superhighway, but you need to compete.

But what about Bing? Some people are quite surprised to learn that Microsoft’s search engine is still a legitimate competitor for Google when it comes to being someone’s go-to searcher. Bing is also holding its own when it comes to being a destination for Search Ads, and it seems there’s a good number of reasons why some businesses are still considering Bing for at least part of their ad placements.

Currently, Google owns 65% of market share for US searches, but that’s down from 72% since 2010. Where’s that 7 percent gone? You guessed it – Bing’s had the most growth over the last year, moving up to 19.7% (in part continuing to be powered by Microsoft’s acquisition of Yahoo years ago).

So when it comes to cost-effective search ads – what’s the better choice – Google or Bing?

Bing

Keep in mind that Internet Explorer is still the default web browser for a Windows device, and Bing comes as the default search engine.

This is a clear reflection that most Bing users are:

• Less computer savvy, given the fact that they’re not able to or not interested in upgrading to a more modern and functional web browser
• Generally over 35 years of age
• More of the blue-collar employment type as compared to white-collar

It’s not difficult to identify how these findings validate Bing as a still-popular search engine. The blue-collar, over-35 working middle class crowd makes up a HUGE part of the purchasing public in both Canada and America and – you guessed it – because their PC came with Bing as the default search engine, more often than not Bing is their search engine.

Google

Google has hundreds of thousands more total searches and holds more of the market share in all countries except Russia, China, South Korea, and Japan. Research suggests that Google users are:

• Generally younger
• College / University educated
• More white-collar than blue-collar
• Much more tech savvy
• Facebook users
• Less likely to have children

So if your products and/or services mean that you create a large scale or worldwide campaign, Google’s your place. But if you have ones that are likely to be best targeted to domestic customers, you should still at least consider Bing. This will be particularly true if you are marketing a product or service that – for example – is geared to older, male buyers predominantly. You know the ones who very likely wouldn’t even consider installing a different web browser.

Google is much more expensive for CPC (cost per click) rates, rising 26% since 2012 and expected to continue to rise. Conversely, Bing’s current CPC rate is nearly 0.75$ less, 33.5% less expensive overall and clearly offering a much more appealing cost-per-lead rate. That’s really something to take into consideration, especially if you meet the aforementioned criteria for a certain product or service that goes with an older demographic.

Google is still the undisputed king of search engines, but don’t count Bing out entirely. And as always, content is king. Learn how to create smart ads that bring prospective customers to your website.

Here at 4goodhosting.ca we are always keen to share digital marketing insights with our web hosting clientele. Get out there and get click-throughs!

For SEO Services please visit 4goodhosting.com