How many of you want to pay more for your hosting provider? No, it’s not a trick question but seriously, if you’ve already set up your hosting, when was the last time you comparatively shopped prices?

Just like car insurance, the number of people who don’t even shop around and just keep overpaying year after year is shocking. Next time, rather than simply clicking the renew button, how about taking a look at other web hosting options out there?

To the people who already have a site

As many of you already know, I run several sites. One thing I want to just ‘set and forget’ is my hosting provider. I know it’s really easy to fall into the trap of using the same partner again and again, even if overall satisfaction isn’t perfect.

So how do we determine what the best web hosting is for us? If you ask me, if a hosting company can bring me a similar level of (or better) reliability, site speed, and customer service that I’m accustomed to, then cost is likely the deciding factor.

For most of us, we don’t contact our hosting company just to tell them how great they are. We typically only reach out to them when we have issues. As a result, it’s very hard to find great, minimally biased reviews on hosting companies. Go ahead, do some searches about hosting companies and you’ll find that nightmarish experiences outnumber raving reviews by at least a 10 to 1 ratio.

The truth is, you’ll never know how amazing a hosting company is until a problem pops up. If you aren’t completely satisfied with who you are currently using, swing by Web Hosting Clue if reducing your operating costs is important to you. You’ll find a list of top hosting sites as well as valuable coupons all in one place. And these aren’t no-name brands — we’re talking GoDaddy, HostGator, BlueHost and other leaders. (Please see my disclosure.)

To the folks who are ready to start a site

I remember the days when I was starting up my first site. Cost was a huge factor! I mean, don’t we all try to operate on a shoestring budget from the get-go? Even though I had the money, I actually didn’t want to spend a penny more than I had to. It’s not that I wasn’t committed; rather, I was conscious of how much money was going out relative to what was coming in — which in the beginning is a big, fat goose egg. You see how torn up people can get just wrestling with the idea to purchase their own domain name for about $7 a year! Every dollar counts when it comes to your monthly hosting fees.

Web Hosting Clue provides you with an affordable way to get started by giving you reviews and coupons. Instead of approximately $80 a year, how does less than $50 sound? Again, if assuming all other things are equal, saving $30 is a pretty big deal when your site earnings are zero.

Hosting summary

If you are in the market for a hosting company, whether you’re new and looking for the best blog hosting available or you are already running a site on your own, when you are in the market for a hosting provider, look to Web Hosting Clue for viable, low cost alternatives.

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About a decade ago, I worked with an interactive agency and one of the add-ons to our offerings was what we called an admin tool. We sold these left and right because there was a need for business users to update content, such as adding copy/images or introducing a new product, and they didn’t want to rely on an actual developer for these minor edits.

Since that time, Content Management Systems (CMS) have replaced those types of admin tools. In fact, CMS has allowed many business owners to self-serve so even the least tech savvy users can get by with little to no help. I’m not saying that we can cut professionals out completely but the point is, almost anyone can have something — how good it is is another story. (A perfect example is that anyone can use a pencil but the actual picture drawn with it can vary drastically depending on the skill of the user.)

There are so many CMS choices today: from free (Posterous) to low monthly fees (Typepad – under $10/mo.) to crazy expensive (Vignette – over $200,000!!!). What I’d like to do with this article is compare some of the more popular free CMS offerings: WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal. Keep in mind that when I say ‘free’, although you’re not paying for the CMS platform, there may still be costs such as domain name registration, hosting provider fees, and maybe even some design and development investment.

I know, here comes the peanut gallery about WordPress being a CMS. It’s like saying Excel is a database which is always open for interpretation and interesting arguments (I’m on the side that Excel is a database, even though it’s not a relational databse). Sure, WP started as a blogging platform but it has evolved into a pretty robust CMS over the years. So much so that when small businesses look for a CMS for their websites, WP is often on the list of potential candidates!

WordPress

Why it’s awesome
It doesn’t get any easier than this! If you’re looking for something that’s realtively simple to use, read no further. That said, you still have to know your way around admin interfaces a little bit. And if you want to make your site look different from the plethora of cookie cutter ones, get ready to do some fine-tuning. The best part is the incredible number of plugins that are at your disposal and the vast support community that can help.

Why it fails
WP isn’t a great tool if you’re looking to have total control like you would with a blank sheet of paper. It starts you with a framework to build off of, which is a great thing for some, a not-so-great thing for more techie folks. It’s also not as mature when it comes to ecommerce as Joomla and Drupal.

Joomla

Why it’s awesome
Joomla gives you a lot more customization options than WP with just a slightly greater learning curve.

Why it fails
The development community is lacking compared with WP and Drupal. The good news is that you don’t have to be as technical as someone who uses Drupal. The bad news is that if you’re stuck, it’s possible you’re on your own.

Drupal

Why it’s awesome
This platform can do just about anything and has an amazing support community.

Why it fails
You better be willing to pay for a tool that can do anything. Not in money but in time! Drupal requires a bit more technical knowhow than Joomla and it’s a mountainous technical gap from WP.

CMS Wrap-Up

It’s impossible to pick a winner here since it really depends on your needs.

In short, how savvy are you? In order of simplicity, WordPress is probably best for the “every-man”. Joomla is for those who are a bit braver, looking to do a bit more, and have graduated beyond minor code edits. Leave Drupal for the advanced folks who are looking for a challenge who also happen to be control freaks.

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How many times have you mentioned your blog or website to a family member, a friend, or a potential customer and didn’t have anything to give them as a take-away? We all know that you have to treat your site as a business but would you take any business seriously if the owner spoke to you on a chance encounter and when you asked for a card, he replied “uh, I don’t have any on me”.

That means one of two things: (1) he hasn’t made any money so he doesn’t have business cards or (2) he actually didn’t bring any cards with him. Both are downright scary and sure sign that you won’t be the first sucker on his site.

If you plan on marketing your site, how can you totally ignore offline marketing? Everyone writes about online marketing strategies but it’s amazing how often we underestimate the power of a face-to-face encounter. Something as easy to get as a business card is such a small investment but could make such a big impact.

Funny thing is, when you actually do decide on getting business cards, here’s my suggestion: don’t make them yourself! Forget about the hassle of trying to line things up and buying the right stock just to be left with perforated edges!

Enter Next Day Flyers

When I first started my own businesses, one of my the greatest moments is seeing a business card that I helped create. Seeing my name and logo on a little 3.5 x 2 inch card may as well be my name in broadway lights. What Next Day Flyers can do is get you that very same feeling I had for less than a the price of a movie, drink and popcorn.

Let me run an example by you. Let’s say you want 1000 business cards in full color front and even a black/greyscale back (perfect for printing your URL). You’ll be getting that for $16.95, or less than 1.7 cents a card! I’d bet the last time you felt foolish that you didn’t have a business card you would’ve traded two cents for something to hand them.

Here’s the best part, you don’t even have to start from scratch. I mean sure, you could start with a logo but even if you don’t have anything other than your name, URL and email address, you can leverage their templates for free! Their business card template is super-easy to use. Trust me, this might be a partner of mine (read my disclosure) but I walked through the entire process myself. Those of you who know me know that I would never post an article blindly.

So stop waiting around and go get yourself a nice set of business cards so the next time you talk to someone about your site or blog, you don’t look like such a fly-by-night. And if you have them already, check out what these folks can do with brochures!

What have you done to market your site in person?

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How many of you care about your bounce rate? Generally speaking, many bloggers and webmasters love looking at bounce rates with a high level of scrutiny. Personally, not only do I not really use it, I totally ignore it!

Quick bounce rate explanation

First, let’s make sure we know what a bounce rate is. If you use a tool that tracks your site metrics, I use Google Analytics, a bounce rate can show you how many people leave after visiting just one page. In other words, if Visitor A lands on your home page (can be any page really) and leaves to another site while Visitor B and Visitor C land on your home page and click on another article on your site, you have a bounce rate of 33%. Visitor A left and the other two stayed. It doesn’t matter what the duration is as long as they went to another page within the site.

We’re led to believe that a low bounce rate helps us understand that visitors are staying around your site and reading multiple articles, pages, and whatever else you have going on. Think really hard. Is that really helpful? Maybe, right?

Why bounce rates may matter

For some folks, a low bounce rate might be a goal you want. For example, if you have a marketing or SEO campaign that directs users to a specific page but then need them to drill down to another page to purchase or sign up for something, then a high bounce rate hurts you. You don’t want them leaving until they get to the page where they can do what you want them to do.

Why some of you shouldn’t care about bounce rates at all

Consider this, how many times have you been to a site and browsed for what seems like an eternity but didn’t actually buy anything (visitor who didn’t bounce)? Now think about how many times you’ve popped into a site to get information, like directions, hours, etc (visitor who bounced). Which of those scenarios is better for the site owner?

In many cases I believe if you set up your pages right, you could get your visitors to your goal without having them click anywhere else! I mean, I think it’s great if a visitor spends an hour on my site reading twenty different articles but is that better than a visitor clicking on one of my affiliates? I mean, my call to action is basically asking for visitors to click on those links when I’m trying to sell something.

Of course, there are some huge buckets of exceptions like if you’re running an ecommerce site where a lot of browsing takes place or a company/organization site where you want visitors to explore and learn about your offerings. That said, neither of those are me!

Bounce rate isn’t really a great metric

You might call it short-sighted but the truth is, branding and loyalty doesn’t pay the bills unless you’re well-known. Besides, those things will come in time and a bounce rate can’t measure them well. The point is, bounce rates are situational and may not be relevant depending what you’re trying to achieve.

So come on in, click on an ad, and then come back tomorrow to do the same thing. If everyone did that, I’d gladly take a 100% bounce rate!

Like I said, I don’t use it as a measurement and lowering it isn’t part of my strategy but, for those who are curious, freebloghelp.com’s bounce rate is 67% over the last 12 months.

What’s your bounce rate? And more importantly, is it even useful for you?

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How many of you exercise on a regular basis? If you do, then you certainly understand that persistence pays off. But there’s more to the formula.

As someone who has been blogging and exercising for many years, I’ve come across some major similarities.

If you’re not fully committed, you might as well not do it at all

If you exercised for only one hour per month how would that affect you? Probably not at all, right? Then why do it? The same goes for blogging. If you can only work in an hour a month, then what’s the point? That’s not even enough time to write an article, promote it properly, and respond to comments on it. Moreover, the frequency of the articles would be so poor that you won’t even gain any traction in terms of a real following or SEO. You must commit yourself to see any progress.

Schedule time for it or else it can easily be skipped

If you don’t set a time for it, then it can easily take a backseat to everything else going on in your life. So whether it’s two hours a day or five hours a week, know what it takes to accomplish your goals and stick to it. If you think you can work on your blog when you find the time, then you’ll never find the time in the long run! That’s surely a recipe for failure.

Monitoring progress and making adjustments are important

You’ll have to figure out what metrics you’ll be using to gauge success. If the goal is to run a 5-minute mile, then you’ll have to work toward that by tracking your practice sessions. If you want to bench press 10 reps of 200 pounds, then you’ll have to mark your results as you train. The same applies to obtaining a specific number of visitors or earning a certain amount of money a month. Regardless, you need to pay attention to how you’re doing and make any adjustments along the way. So if something is no longer working, you’ll have to find something else

Checking results daily can be disappointing

It’s really tempting to look in the mirror or stand on the scale after each workout but those results will be minute. It will seem like you just worked so hard for nothing. Instead, keep track of what tasks you’re doing and only measure results in intervals. For instance, look at your visitor stats once every few weeks and you’ll be able to watch your performance change over time in a more satisfying way.

If you don’t challenge yourself, your growth will be limited

At some point, you will reach a plateau. That means you can continue to do the same exercise but won’t see any results. That’s because your body has adapted and your growth will stop or slow greatly. As your blog grows, you will be expected to add more value. Your visitors will expect more, either from your writing or from your functionality. Either way, you’ll be expected to provide greater value as you get better at what you do.

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Do you know what it really takes to run a successful site? The answers may surprise you. It’s not an uncanny technical skill or a tremendous wealth of internet knowledge or a marketing degree or a boatload of cash.

As a blogger who has been in the web space for over a decade, I’d like to think that I’ve gained valuable insights on what separates the truly successful site owners and the rest of the blogsphere. I currently run several sites, including four of them on WordPress. They are in very specific niches and are doing well in their own right. With hundreds of millions of blogs and 80-90% of them being abandoned, going 4-4 is something I’m pretty proud of.

That said, Free Blog Help will hit its first birthday later this month. Have I learned new things? Of course I have! However, the core lessons still remain. In the last year of running this site, I was able to reinforce what I already believe are the key ingredients of being successful.

What it takes to be a top blogger

The eagerness to learn

The eagerness to learn is more important than skill. I know so many technically sound people in web development, SEO, marketing, and so forth. Why can’t all of them make money online? Because many of them don’t have the willingness to pick up the parts that they don’t know well. Their core competency can only take them so far.

They have to be willing to be a student to fill any gaps in their skillset. Besides, regardless of what their expertise is actually in, there’s a good chance that they’d have to adapt over time within their own area.

The ability to apply lessons learned

The ability to apply lessons learned is more important than the eagerness to learn. Anyone who is willing to learn can accumulate knowledge. But what good is it if that person doesn’t have a knack for applying that knowledge? I believe one must be able to apply knowledge and learn from successes and failures. Then repeat.

I’ve trained many professionals to get their certifications. Only a small number of them are able to translate their learnings into real world applications. They know how to take something on paper and make it come to life. They also happen to the ones making the most money.

Passion

Passion is more important than the ability to apply lessons learned. You’ve heard me say it before. Passion is something that you must have for your niche, your site, and your writing. For instance, if you choose a niche you’re not passionate about, you’ll quickly lose interest.  Be passionate about the decisions you make and be passionate about following through.

You must be willing to build your site without making any money because that’s the way it’s going to be for a little while. Get used to it. Passion will help keep you going when things don’t look so hot.

Perseverance

Perseverance is more important than passion. You can be passionate about something but that can only take you so far when it seems like you’ve spent hundreds of hours on your site and are in the red from your small domain and hosting investment.

Successful people are often willing to grind away knowing that they will outlast the masses. They will look at problems as learning opportunities and are determined to hit their goals. Putting sweat equity into something makes them even more engaged. There is no stopping someone who is truly prepared to persevere through turbulent times. And you know what? There will be many of those when running a site or any business for that matter.

Do you have it in you to be great?

You see, many of the folks making money by blogging about making money online aren’t telling you the entire story. Their articles are usually geared toward the very tactical side. Those are topics that both newcomers and veterans can easily learn and apply. In spite of this, why do so many of their visitors still fail? More often than not, they are missing at least one if not all of the elements I listed above.

What I’m saying is that the biggest factors are those that are inherent in you. Use whatever words you want: hunger, drive, determination, resolve, fortitude, etc… The bottom line is that you need the essential internal makeup.

People with the eagerness to learn, the ability to apply lessons learned, passion, and perseverance will be successful in anything they touch, not just running a site.

Do you think you meet the criteria?

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