Dedicated Server Reviews

If you follow my blogs, you already know I have a personal web site, www.words2u.net, which I am trying to coax into making money. Sadly, this personal site is not that appealing to people other than myself, and this limits its earning potential.

The site is harassing me, its owner and designer, to pander to the perceived taste of my anticipated public, and is demanding changes.  It tells me this is marketing, not pandering. Either way, once I decided the site has to earn its keep, it has taken a life of its own, and wants to go places without me.

For example, my blog (blog.words2u.net). Originally a platform to vent, rant and rave, it has become politically correct (or rather, non-politically correct), because strong opinions might  offend people. Now the blog is G-rated, and I have very little to say to it.

Then there is the site design. Until today, the side bar, the navigational tool common to the whole site, was equally divided between my content and PmWiki's links. Content is diffuse - tracks include walks, short car rides and long trips; points of interest include malls, parks, dining spots, and so on. Only bus routes is a tight group (note: I have recently started adding categories such as 'stores' and 'miscellaneous' to the side bar).

The home page spends valuable real estate to explain the site structure, because of its lack of intuitive segmentation and its use of Wiki links and GPS terminology (a GPS device captures tracks and points of interest). In order to be more appealing, it must relate to things that interest my presumed public.

Which leads to another question - who should the site target? Tourists? Costa Ricans? Should I try and reach a particular demographic?

To target locals, I have to use Spanish, which, considering my mastery of that beautiful language, is a bad idea. So for now, it has to be English speakers - tourists, expatriates, and educated natives. Further segmentation will have to wait till later.

So what is a tourist, visitor or foreign resident be looking for in a web site? To find out, I looked at Fodors and Lonely Planet web sites, and print guides, as well as a bunch of sites from and about Costa Rica. I am going to pay them the most sincere form of flattery by breaking up my content the same way they do.

I also plan to make more efficient use of the navigation side bar, and to use the home page to make the case for the site's uniquness, added value, and 'wiifm'.

If you look at the site now, and visit again in a few days, you will see what I mean.

Having an association to call all our own isn't a new idea in the hosting industry, especially since we've seen various attempts at achieving this uber challenging goal in the last few years, all of which have, rather quietly, disappeared.

The last time I remember hearing about an initiative like this was in June 2006 when a gentleman by the name of Tony Holloway became one of the driving forces behind what he hoped would be the first official industry-wide association (the tentative name for it at the time was the International Providers of Internet Technologies and Hosting Association).

There seemed to be some definite interest and discussion stirred up at the HostingCon that year (yes, this was the one in Las Vegas) but after all was said and done, from what I gather, there just wasn't enough overall support from ALL the different players that would have to be on board for such an organization to effectively work. And as Liam pointed out in his blog post "earlier efforts at forming hosting associations have also been determinedly and unmistakably small-potatoes." The association has to not only be there to serve the needs of the smaller players, but of the giants in our industry as well. Of course, this all goes without saying, though.

This brings me to the present HostingCon 2008 that just passed a few weeks ago. We took a moment to have a chat with Paul Hirsch about a new initiative he and a couple of others (specifically Dan Garon, who does marketing and PR work for hosting providers and Michael Yablonowitz, CEO of Uplinkearth) have been working on to help create, what could be, our very own industry-wide association. More specifically, the Association of Internet and Hosting Service Providers.

Building your website using WordPress, Joomla, b2evolution, ExpressEngine, or any of the other amazing Content Management Systems or tools out there can take the trouble out of designing your dedicated server’s website. WordPress, for example, is one of the best resources available for websites, blogging, and even business web hosting. Many businesses are catching on that not only does WordPress look nice but it’s also easy to understand, even for a technological newbie, and it works hand in hand with Google and the SEO search engines.

With that said, here are some WordPress design resources to help you get started on your dedicated server site.

Free WordPress Themes

If you are looking for quality free WordPress themes, this link from Lunarpages Web Hosting Blog is sure to do the trick. These contests have accumulated hundreds of free WP themes for you to choose from and customize to your server’s unique website look.

Free Webmaster Tools

Need to learn a bit more about SEO and keyword analysis before you are done with your WordPress website? Well check out these amazing free webmaster tools from Lunarpages, which can not only help you research keywords and check out competitor data but submit your website to the search engines as well. This is a very, very useful site to have handy.

300 Tools for Running WordPress Blogs

This is by far the biggest resource for free WordPress tools you will ever find. Check this out for helpful URLs to plugins, comment assistance, removing NOFOLLOW tags for SEO, and more.

One of the issues that came up in the metrics that matter panel at HostingCon was the Rackspace IPO. Rackspace's Red Herring estimated a $12-$16 price.  Lou Honick believed that the IPO would price out in the higer range ($14 to $16) Elliot Noss in the lower range ($12 to $14).  Each bet $500 on their position.  Based on a final price of $12.50 (and falling), I say that Lou needs to fly up to Toronto and deliver the novelty check in person.

Your business is very important to you, and the image you portray on the internet for that business should be just as vital. When you purchase a dedicated server from a reliable hosting company, you should automatically get a domain name. If you haven’t already created one, here are some tips for creating the perfect domain name:

* Shorter is better! (Name.com instead of ThisIsMyName.com)
* Keep it simple
* Hyphenless trumps hyphenated (firstlast.com instead of first-middle-last.com)
* Catchy is key (Google sounds so much better than SearchEngine1)
* Words that are easily misspelled can spell doom
* Go easy on the web 2.0 slang

These tips will help you when choosing the perfect domain name for your dedicated web hosting account.