…choose wisely.

I spent months, literally, looking around at different web site hosting companies before I decided who would host my blogs. I still have my static websites hosted by my former husband’s cousin’s business (is that convoluted enough for you?), but I’ll be moving them over soon as well.

There were several companies I liked when it came down to the results of my research. I was looking for hosts that had solid uptime, ever-present customer service, the right features for my needs, a low price, and most of all – had been around long enough that I could trust they would not just disappear without notice overnight.

One of the web hosting companies I thought had a solid reputation is Network Solutions. Back in the day, I worked with them a lot of register domain names for my employer. They were the only game in town then. In fact, I still have two of my older domains names registered with them. They’ve been around since before I started building websites in 1997.

Network Solutions is so synonymous with domain registration for some people that they might not realize the company also offers website hosting. All of their hosting packages include a free domain name with an annual purchase, generous disk space and data transfer, a huge list of pre-installed programs and scripts, around-the-clock customer support, and an impressive record for uptime.

And while the per-month fees might be a dollar or so higher than some of the cheapie hosts out there, Network Solutions is selling you their quality and long-running reputation in the industry. They are not a fly-by-night company and you can count on them being around tomorrow. In fact, FindMyHost.com gave them their Editor’s Choice Award. Not too shabby, huh?

I think this might be a new series. It is inspired by my friend, Xtine, and something she said on her blog about men who go to dance clubs and do that dance where they rub their crotches up against you. That is creepy. Women do not like it, and if they actually DO happen to look like they are enjoying it — they are probably drunk or not legally permitted to be in public alone.

 So, my first in this particular series will be about older men who use MySpace in libraries.

Creepy. Very creepy.

1. Most of them are either wearing wedding rings or have a tan line on their ring finger. If you happen to look over at the profiles they are cruising, or their friends list, they are looking to communicate with women (mostly purportedly single) who use desperate looking profile pictures.  I have had the bad fortune to sit down to use a computer at my library and on three separate occasions this 50-ish man with a wedding ring and a business suit has sat next to me, logged onto MySpace, and gone on to send and receive pornographic messages. These computers are close, I am occasionally nosy, my peripheral vision is awesome. I have seen him make at least 6 dates to meet women in hotels.

Creepy.

2. All too often they bring their kids with them while they troll for trysts. Ew. Whether or not they are single, the fact that they would use the library to provide quasi babysitting while they look for someone desperate enough to sleep with them is creepy. As a mother, this is something that points out the man’s lack of respect for his kids.

Creepy.

3. Public libraries give you a way to see things you would not normally see. If a hideous man puts up a MySpace profile using someone else’s photo in the privacy of his own home, you might never know. When they log on in public, people can look right over their shoulder and see the truth. Do you even have any idea how many very fat, very smelly, very disgusting men I have seen sitting at a compute picking their noses while they use a picture of a hot man to communicate with overly-bleached-blonde bimbo types on MySpace? Let’s just say, enough to give me nightmares.

Creepy.

4. How about the man sitting next to me right now. He is a mouth-breather. He is easily 15 years older than his profile states. He is receiving long, thoughtful messages from pretty women. his replies are all one sentence long, pecked out using one finger, and sexual in nature. He looks like he is in here while on a break from the office. I am going to go out on a limb and say he looks like he has a good job, plenty of money. I would assume he has computer access at home and at work. So, why use the library to do social networking? Probably, because he is cheating or attempting to cheat.

(OK, you may ask why I am using the library to blog when I have access at home? Good point. I am sitting here waiting for story-time to be over for my daughter and thought I might jump online for a minute.)

I maintain a mailing list of over 1600 work at home moms who own small businesses selling crafts and handmade accessories. As you might guess, I get a lot of e-mail on a daily basis from women who want advice about setting up an online presence for their businesses. Generally, it begins with the dilemma of how to choose web hosting, how to get their site designed, and the first steps of getting their site online and indexed in the search engines.

I am always more than happy to help. I wish I’d had someone to ask these same questions years ago, but I had to puzzle things out on my own. So, it makes me happy to help others now. I spend at least 4 months doing research before I chose my own web host. I looked at every possible parameter. And, I have to say that more than a year later; I am still thrilled on a daily basis with my host.

I don’t always have all the answers, nor is my point of view the only correct way to look at things. I like it when I can find a depository of applicable articles to show people who have questions. That way, they are getting a more varied view of how to go about choosing a web host and similar topics. More often than not, people are looking for information on windows web hosting. The WebHostingRating.com website has a pretty varied selection of article that all address the choosing of a web host. A lot of the articles center around figuring out if a web host is reliable and worth the cost.

I suggest taking your time to do research, read articles like the ones on the site I linked, and ask people you know who they use for hosting and if they have been satisfied. More often than not, a solid personal referral is your best bet.

Think back 10 years. Think about what you had to do to have photos or business cards printed. Although some businesses were offering such services online, we just weren’t a fully digital society then. And that was just ten years ago.

Most people have digital cameras and high speed internet and at least a simple version of design software these days. So, the printing industry has stepped up to meet the digital call. There are quite literally thousands of websites where you can get photos printed or business supplies prepared. The hard part is choosing the best business for your needs.

Personally, I tend to use Vista Print more often than not. They are a large company with a fully transparent reputation. They do a fantastic job, have consistent quality, and if they mess up an order, their customer service is responsive to the point that a re-print is in the mail before I can blink.

Just because digital printing is widespread now does not mean it is inexpensive. However, Vista Print always has a plethora of great coupons that anyone can use. Most printing companies offer coupons, but they generally only let new customers take advantage of them. Vita Print lets you use coupons and codes and special deals every single time.

If you don’t have the know-how or patience to hunt down their current codes, you can simply use this Vistaprint coupons webpage. It’s a quick way to find some of Vista Print’s best prices. I find it to be a handy tool to refer people to if I cannot find the coupon they want using my affiliate account (I can often find coupons for free products).

I was always taken by the character of Don Juan’s mother in Lord Byron’s epic version Don Juan. She was portrayed as a woman who knew just enough about everything to be charming and interesting at parties, yet there were no topics at all where she had deep knowledge.

Use Your Knowledge
I’m sure you could have done without the literary reference, but what I’m saying is that it’s great to be an expert about something. When you have a lot of useful knowledge about any given topic, people will generally look to you as an authority in that area. Why should you let that be something that only happens when your friends and family come to you for advice? You may as well capitalize on it.

“Bee” an Expert
The internet gives you the entire world as your audience. Take your expertise and write articles that will educate and assist others. eBuzz is an appealing little website (with the fun motto “Bee an Expert”) that gives people everywhere a platform for their expert status. It doubles as a social networking site, allowing writers to connect with one another, find peers in your interest area, send and receive private messages, ask other users questions, and much more.

If your articles become popular enough, you can even win prize money. How’s that for an incentive?

All Topics are Fair Game
eBuzz.com is easy to navigate. Topics and subtopics are clearly labeled and you can even browse articles according to their popularity and usefulness. The subject areas are boundless. I’ve read great articles like “What Vitamins Help in Acne Problems and Treatment,” “How to Find a Good Dog Trainer,” and “Choosing a Bicycle Rack for Your SUV Vacation.” Seriously, there is an expert out there for almost anything you can imagine.

When most people hear about a new product, the first thing they want to know is what other people think of the product. I think that is why companies like Consumer Reports has done so well for so long. They actually test out products and then give an unbiased review.

I don’t put a whole lot of reviews on this blog, but I will tell you that some of the highest traffic I have received on individual blog articles on Suncoast Scribe has been for when I reviewed Pizza Hut’s Pizza Mia, the movie Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium, and Kids 2 in 1 Smoothers by Suave. Readers like to know they are getting a real product review from someone who is not sitting behind a desk at an ad agency.

(To be fair, I actually have worked in public relations, advertising, and television production in my past, so I understand HOW to write a review. Still, I pride myself on this website for giving honest, unforced opinions.)

Anyway, all of this is to say that I also appreciate reading honest reviews written by others. I have some friends who actually write blogs 100% dedicated to reviewing products, usually from the point of view of a mom. One of those blogs is Lisa Reviews. Lisa actually writes several highly-readable blogs, but this particular blog is dedicated to relevant, topical product reviews.  Recently she has reviewed Town House FlipSides, Bee Movie, and the LeapFrog LeapStart Learning Table — just to name a few.

I think you’ll really like it.

When you are a mom, it is somehow a great comfort to read about the everyday lives of other moms. It makes you feel more in tune, more normal, and a lot less alone. I’m not sure I would have said I liked to read about the day-to-day musings of a mom before I had my own daughter, but I can sure say it now.

I love to read blogs written by Mommy Bloggers.

Looking at the demographics of this blog’s traffic, there is a reasonable chance that if you are reading this right now, you are also a mom. So, with that in mind I will pass along to you from time to time the blogs of other moms. In fact, here’s one for you now: My Take, the blog of a New York mom with a background in education. Give it a read.

There is sticky and then there is sticky. I am not talking about the kind of sticky that gets on your fingers after you’ve eaten a honey comb. I’m talking about the term people use to describe a website that has all the right elements needed to keep your visitors coming back over and over.

There are a number of things you can go to bring visitors back to your site:

1. Keep It Fresh
Make sure you keep the content fresh, new, and ever changing. When people know that they will always see new articles and information when they return to your site, they will eventually make returning a port of their internet surfing habits.

2. Incorporate user-generated content.
I use a discussion forum one of my websites. The members of the forum are constantly making posts that add to the useful content of my overall site. People come back daily to check and see what it new on the forums. Once there, the main site is not far from there I minds anymore.

3. Use a newsletter and a mailing list.
This is my favorite option, because it is not dependant upon people remembering on their own to return to your site. You are reaching out and bring them back.

So, let’s elaborate on my last point: a newsletter. It is easier than you think to put together a simple e-mail newsletter that you can send out weekly or monthly to your site’s visitors to keep them abreast of what’s happening on your site. You send out the hook and they come back to read more.

You might think it would be a lot of work, but you can actually use content you have already developed. By using Zookoda, a free application designed with bloggers in mind (though content providers with rss/atom feeds can utilize it as well), you mail out a summary of your latest blog entries as often as you like.

Your subscribers are people who have sited your blog and use the custom newsletter subscription forms that you place on your site. Once you’ve created your mailing list, you just schedule broadcasts for each day, week or month. Your newsletters can even match the design of your blog, and they can be formatted for mobile readers.

Creating the e-mail that will go to your list is as easy as filling out a few fields.

 

Sticky. It’s all about sticky. Bring those readers back to your site, to your blog, to your business. And, keep them coming back on a regular basis. Before you know, you have a solid, regular reader base and a more successful website.

I don’t thank my reader enough. Some leave comments. Others e-mail me. I almost always pick up some great tips or new insight about a topic. Earlier this week I was talking about finding a Vegas hotel for a girls’ weekend away and one of my friends suggested an alternate hotel, giving me new material to research. I’m often handed viewpoints about news issues that did not occur to me when I initially wrote my articles. I’ve received a lot of insightful e-mails regarding the teacher-student sex scandal in Pasco County, FL. They have been eye-opening, to say the least, and have shown me more than I ever wanted to know about my old neighborhood. (I don’t miss Longleaf at all!)

I love the interaction of a blog, and I want people to know I enjoy the input and comments. If you disagree, I enjoy knowing about that as well.

I have a mailing list that is affiliated with one of my non-blog websites where I mentor women who want to start small businesses in the crafting industry.

Since the group has almost 1500 members now, I tend to hear some of the same questions over and over. Many of them are very basic business questions and I truly don’t mind answering them more than once. I am finding that my best move would be to develop some useful articles to address some of the more frequently asked questions, though. So, let me start now.

What is web hosting?

When you first decide you want to have an online presence for your business, you will want to take the first steps to establish your own website. Doing this is not a one-step process. You have to secure a domain name for your site, which you will register with any of the online registrars out there. You pay a nominal annual fee for the right to “won” this domain name. This is something you need to renew as the years go on.

Separate from your domain name is web hosting. A web host is the company you will pay to host your website for you. Your website’s files will actually reside on their servers, which will be on all of the time so that your customers can access your site day or night. You pay the hosting company either monthly or annually, and prices vary tremendously.

You have to do some research before choosing a web host. Price is not the only factor to take into consideration. You want to look at the company’s longevity, reputation, average up-time, and what they are offering you in the hosting package.

You may just want simple pages with information about your business and what you offer. In that case, you can go with a basic hosting plan. On the other hand, perhaps you are looking to make your site fully interactive with a working shopping cart, discussion forums, blogs, and other features. If that is the case, you will want to make sure the package you contract includes those possibilities. Do you need to accommodate lots of traffic and bandwidth? Will your site be image intensive? These are just a couple of things to consider.

Once you have a good idea of what you need, your best bet is to use a website that reviews and rates popular hosting plans. Generally, this is where you can find feedback from existing customers, a synopsis of the plans and prices, and an overall rating. Such websites are great tools in your search for web hosting.

What page do you have set as your “home page” for when you first open a new browser window? Do you know what I mean? When you open Explorer or Firefox or Opera, which comes up on that page before you go surfing off to other sites? Is it your ISP’s default page, or maybe a blank page, or your fave search engine like Google? Right now I have a blank page set for Explorer and Speed Dial for Opera, but here is something absolutely cooler.

At HomePagle, you can effortlessly and fully customize your browser’s start page or “home page”. You choose the image you want (there are so many cool shots to browse through on their site). Then, you simply click the “Make My Homepage” button and a little window will pop up to tell you how to set your home page on whichever browser you are using. I was using Opera and Homepagle gave me a super easy step-by-step diagram showing me how to set the page in my browser.

Of course you can choose absolutely any image by just uploading it from your hard drive to the Homepagle servers. They will walk you through that, too.

I am feeling Spring in the air, plus I was just outside weeding my rose garden, so I picked the most stunning rose photo off of the Homepagle site and used it to set a new home page for my Explorer browser. A Google search box was automatically inserted, Here, this is what my new home page looks like:

And, here is a sample of one created using pics of Borat and the ever-amazing Captain Jack Sparrow.

Recognition is all about branding. When you see those golden arches from way down the highway, you know you are getting close to a McDonald’s restaurant. When you see someone running by with a Swoosh on their shoe, you know they are wearing Nike.

Children learn symbol recognition very early. They do not need to know how to read to know if they are looking at Coke or Pepsi. They just look for the branded symbol.

If you own a small business and do not have a logo that sums up your enterprise, you need to get on the ball. In fact, even a blogger will benefit from branding – the name of your site, a logo, even your colors. You want someone to be able to recognize your business simply by glancing at your logo. You want to find a logo design that is unique, simple, and speaks of what you represent.

I’ve worked as a graphic designer for years. I have worked with businesses to develop logos and full identities. It can be an expensive and time consuming process. That is why I was thrilled when I was asked to look at the LogoYes site, a DYI (do it yourself) logo design company.

I have nothing against people designing their own logos, but all too often I have seen people use low resolution clip art that will not print well when resized and looks unrecognizable if it is not printed in full color? Who has the money to print everything in full color? You need to have a scalable image that looks good even if it is stripped down to black and white.

All of the LogoYes elements are designed to look great no matter how large or small you resize your image. And, they print well in black and white. Plus, the design process is super fast and simple. You just need to choose how you want your logo to feel, as in bold or with flair. Then, you choose a logo, text, font, and colors. You can resize and move elements around on the page. It’s that simple.

I gave it a try and in about two minutes I had a logo for Suncoast Scribe that looks great.

Sounds too wild to believe, huh? It’s true, though.

Top Hosting Center (THC) is offering a one-of-a-kind new web hosting plan that works like this: You pay $95 USD and you get total web hosting and a free domain for life. They are only offering a limited number, to keep costs workable.

The special plan is called Rudolph, which is apt since this plan came about just before Christmas last year. It’s like a little gift in and of itself, too. In my opinion, this is the perfect plan for bloggers who are currently using free hosting somewhere. I have talked enough about the myriad of reasons why you need to have your own hosting plan and 100% control over your own blog. For $95 flat, you are getting some of the best hosting for your life and it costs less than some plans cost for one year.

One of my favorite Christmas presents I gave out this past year was a calendar I designed individually for each person who received one. I made one for my mom, for example, with pictures and layouts featuring the grandkids. I used digital scrap booking elements to make adorable designs, uploaded the pictures to Vista Print and ordered the calendar. Despite everything else my mom received as gifts, this was her favorite. In fact, when I got hers in the mail I was so impressed that I designed one for myself. I get SO many compliments on it.

I used to use a local print shop to do small jobs for me, but lately I have been relying more and more on Vista Print. I can upload my designs from home and complete my order in minutes. Then, they final product is shipped to my house. It’s never very expensive, they are forever offering free promotions, and their quality is fantastic.

I know you probably see the promos for free business cards all of the time, but Vista Print actually does everything from rubber stamps and brochures, to calendars and event invitations. In fact, right now they are running a special where you can order 10 free invitations just by using the promotional code BlogInvite10 when you check out.

I do freelance graphic design and web design. I also like to do digital scrap booking and other crafting that involves my skills in graphic design. With that in mind, I have to say that adore fonts. I love fonts. I gaze longingly at some of the more unique and pricey fonts. I am smitten.

If your eye is even a little bit attuned to the subtle differences a font can make in the look of a page or other design, you will understand why I often find that the most time consuming part of a design is the choosing of the right font. I can change the title font on a brochure and the entire feel of the piece changes. I can make a small change to the style of the font in a paragraph and instantly the whole document is easier to read and simpler to mentally digest.

Sometimes it is as subtle as the slope of a serif or the boldness of the cross stroke on the letter A.

While many fonts are free, you will find that the more high quality and versatile fonts are not. Buying each font individually can be expensive, but often you can find package deals and save a bundle by purchasing a set of five or six complementary fonts. FontMarketplace, in fact, has a pack of Valentine’s Day fonts on sale right now for under $10. Not only is it a super deal, the fonts in the pack are versatile enough to use all year around and for an assortment of projects.

Here, I will just paste in the press release so you can get all the groovy info:

FontMarketplace.com introduces Valentine’s Day Fonts
Specially-priced set of fonts with matching Microsoft Word templates for St. Valentine’s Day cards, invitations and other projects

Elk Grove Village, IL – January 29, 2008 – Ascender Corporation, a leading provider of advanced font products, today announced a new collection of Valentine fonts available exclusively from its FontMarketplace.com website. The Ascender Valentine’s Kit contains five Valentine-themed fonts matched with five expertly-designed Microsoft Word templates. The software package is available as a convenient digital download with a special price of $9.99 at http://www.fontmarketplace.com/font/ascender-valentines-kit.aspx?ilbcode=679

“Valentine’s Day is an important holiday to express love and friendship, and it’s important to use the right font to project the image or personality that best captures your sentiments.” said Bill Davis, Vice President of Ascender Corp. “The Ascender Valentine’s Kit contains a fresh set of distinctive fonts and unique templates that can be used to make attractive Valentine cards, invitations, flyers, scrapbooks and many other projects.”

The Ascender Valentine’s Kit contains five TrueType fonts that are well-suited for Valentine’s Day and all year-round. They are matched with an original set of professionally-designed Microsoft Word templates for a variety of Valentine’s Day projects including cards, flyer, postcard and invitation.

The Ascender Valentine’s Kit is priced at $9.99 with a single user license and is available for immediate download from http://www.fontmarketplace.com. The price represents a savings of almost 60% compared to buying all five fonts individually. The Valentine’s Kit is available with an automatic installer for Microsoft Windows XP or Vista, or as a compressed .zip file for Mac OS or other systems.

FontMarketplace.com features affordably-priced professional-quality fonts packaged individually and in sets. The website offers a wide variety of popular type styles from text and display to script fonts, and an assortment of multilingual fonts, all displayed in creative ways to showcase the fonts in use. The FontMarketplace.com website was designed to make it easy for first time font buyers and creative enthusiasts to browse, download and install fonts. All of the fonts are Certified TrueType fonts, developed and tested by the font experts at Ascender Corp.

About Ascender
Ascender Corporation is a leading provider of advanced font products. Ascender’s founders are font industry experts and have been involved in developing many of the most important and influential fonts used in computers and mobile devices. Ascender provides multilingual, custom font development for a wide range of customers including creative professionals, enterprises and hardware & software developers. Ascender also provides fonts for download to graphic designers and consumers through its font websites and mobile phone software with ringtones, wallpapers & themes.

Contact:
Bill Davis
Ascender Corporation
25 Northwest Point Blvd, Suite 225, Elk Grove Village, IL 60007 USA
Phone: (847) 357 0730
http://www.ascendercorp.com
http://www.fontmarketplace.com