We have already published several articles regarding WordPress. Those were mostly dedicated to the use of this popular blogging script and you might have noticed that while evaluating its capabilities, we mentioned VPS servers as a desired WordPress hosting platform. Although a virtual server is the most recommended hosting solution for a WP blog, it is understandable that many users would like to find a more affordable hosting ground to run their blogs on. Today we are going to reveal the main peculiarities of shared web hosting services use in terms of WordPress blog deployment and deliver some friendly tips.

Part 1: Choosing Your Shared Web Hosting Provider Read the rest of this entry »

Everyone is searching for reliable hosting. Stability and reliability are actually the key features of any services offered on the market, but what makes those features so crucial when it comes to hosting? The trust and respect of the visitors, of course! If your website or online store goes down all the time, your visitors will not be interested in dealing with it. Nor will they care if it’s the store owner’s fault or the fault of their hosting provider. They will simply start purchasing products from a different online shop, which does not experience such issues. However, one should understand that 100% uptime is not possible and that different server side issues can take place. This primarily concerns small business websites using budget solutions. Thus, if you own some web service and cannot cover the server side aspect of hosting (e.g. if you use not a VPS or a dedicated server but a shared hosting package) you may need to use some recovery tips. Those are not actually aimed at downtime minimization, but they can lessen the impact on your customers and might help decrease their irritation.

1. Report on the Issue Read the rest of this entry »

Choosing The Right Solution. Image source: planetgreen.discovery.com

Last time we spoke about making a choice of a Virtual Private Server in terms of the configuration varieties. Today we are going to continue our research and tell some useful facts about types of websites, applications and services one may use on a VPS and the related dependencies.

There are many types of websites and online services on the Internet that differ by system requirements, performance or way of work. Sure, most websites work with a standard configuration and software set but some websites and especially services need an accurate configuration pick and fine software tune up. In this regard we are going to list the most popular services and applications in the today use and find a correspondent VPS-based solution for each. Well, let’s start.

1. Email and ftp transfer services

Email and FTP transfer

VPSes are widely used for establishment of certain separate services on them. If you want to get a simple email or ftp server which would need no constant web-access, you may get the simplest custom configuration of your virtual server, which would include just the OS and basic mail exchange/file transfer services. If you wish to run some additional scripts, you have LAMP installed as well (you will anyway need Apache in order to provide webmail access or check the uploaded files via web). In such cases the control panel is not essential (some users do not even include it to their orders) what makes the choice of the OS not crucial as well. Neither is the choice of the virtualization type. Such web-inactive resources do not usually require severe monitoring or many maintenance efforts, especially when strict connection quotas and transfer rate limits are set. CPU/RAM parameters may also be minimal, however those exactly parameters will let you define, which limits to set. Read the rest of this entry »

Blogging for Promotion. Image Source: flickr.com

Nowadays any serious company aimed at constant growth and concerned with its reputation is being actively promoted in social media. B2C relations and behavior models have changed, so now the companies do not just inform their users – they communicate with them, expecting feedbacks, alternatives, suggestions, etc. Those relations become more and more bilateral; therefore it is very important to work out a social media strategy.

First of all, a company should use social media as a mean of communication with its customers. It is very important, since the more customers share their ideas and suggestions, the better the service will be. Another point is inter-customer communication which is important for community building. Finally, building brand advocates around a company will definitely attract those, who may become customers later.

Social media strategy usually involves constant and active communication with customers within social networks. Twitter and Facebook are the most popular ones. Another means are newsletter delivery and launch of the corporate forum on community building purposes. Additionally, if a company sells some goods, the social media marketers may create a dedicated YouTube channel to release videos with their products commercials, tests and how-to’s, etc.

Today we are going to talk specifically about blogging as a means of social media promotion. Read the rest of this entry »

Choosing The Right Way. Source: thefrisky.com

When website owners decide to purchase a Virtual Private Server for their websites, they are often concerned about its configuration. If upgrading from a shared hosting account, a user may pick a too weak server and put it down right after the website launch, as virtual servers do not have such strict limits on resource usage set, as shared ones do.

If someone is purchasing a VPS at once, without having the site actually tested elsewhere before, its owner may pick a wrong software configuration and not even have the website started (we don’t think that error pages hosting is funny or profitable).

A fair question is “Which VPS configuration to choose to provide my website with the most optimal hosting solution?” Here go the answers.

VPS Configuration Types

Virtual private servers differ in their configuration by many parameters. Those usually depend on their vendors’ likes and commercial interests; presence of trained personal, able to work with this or that software; welfare and funding, etc. Studying the market of VPSes we can define the following main configuration options: Read the rest of this entry »