HELP!

It is your good friend, the web hosting industry’s media rock star, here with a ‘bit of a problem that I hope you can help me with.  You see, the podcast has been on a ‘bit of a hiatus as of late – and I am sorry for that.  However, I have just about run out of ideas and topics.  To me, it seems like I have covered just about everything there is – so I need your help.

Let me know, what new topics would you like to hear talked about on the Web Hosting Show? You suggest it – and I will do it.  It is as simple as that.  This podcast isn’t for me, it isn’t for them, it is for you – so if there is a topic you would like to learn more about, and it has something to do with the web hosting industry, please send it my way.

Even if you have never commented here or left a message on any website before, I want your opinions, your ideas.  Let me know how I can make this resource better for you and I will do it. So how can you send me these ideas? You can either leave them as a comment on this post or use my nifty contact page to send your message along.

Thank you for your support and for your ideas for future episodes of the Web Hosting Show podcast.

- Mitch

So, why is this happening?  I do think that costs have a big part to play in it.  Dedicated servers cost more to run than some of the alternatives out there.  They are bulky and hard to maintain once they get so old.  It would be like you buying a pair of shoes and the company that makes the shoes has to guarantee they still work, so every couple of years they send you an update pair.  In the long run, dedicated hosting has reached its peak of usefulness. 

VPS hosting has also grown by leaps and bounds as the eventual successor to the dedicated server hosting setup.  It is much easier to scale, setup and maintain. The only drawback for some would be the fact that it doesn’t exactly offer the customizability you might have with a dedicated server.

Some people might call me crazy for saying dedicated hosting is on the way out.  However, those same people might have never noticed the free hosting providers of the world going out of business left and right either. 

As we enter year six for the Web Hosting Show, both as a podcast and as a website project of mine, I thought it was about time I apologized to you, said the unsaid and give you a look into the year to come for this very website.  It is hard to believe this website has been around over half a decade and let me start things off by saying that I am not going anywhere soon.

The Apology

First, let me apologize for the lack of content in 2010.  I had a big change in my own life when I switched jobs and with that and keeping my other projects up to date, I am afraid the Web Hosting Show got bumped to the sidelines more times than once.  Going into 2011 I have a great outlook for the new year, I am totally recharged and I am really wanting to put a lot into this project and I hope you will join me along for the ride.

The Unsaid that Needs to be Said

Every so often my professional life and my side project life kind of clash, and this podcast might be where that happens the most.  When I started this podcast I was only doing freelance writing at the time, and I thought my career in web hosting was probably said and done with. Things don’t always work out the way we think though.  Since then, I have enjoyed a very prosperous career at both Lunarpages and now Site5.  This website will never be an advertising platform for whomever I work for.  Rather than to tell you, this web host is the best – go with him I would rather teach you what to look for so you can find the best web host on your own. 

Now that is not to say other webhosts are not welcome to be apart of the Web Hosting Show.  I want to hear from web hosts both big and small.  However, from this point on I am more interested in what you have to say and not so interested in delivering a platform for a sales pitch. I think there is an honest and open debate we can have about how best to do this or how that might be changing the world without the worry that somebody is in anybody else’s pocket.  My job here is to help teach you how to fish, not to point you at the fish that will give you unlimited disk space and bandwidth.

The Future

I have spent some time looking long and hard at where I want to take the Web Hosting Show in 2011 and think I have a pretty good idea of how to get it done.  I want to do more video tutorials, more podcasts and more regular content that you can learn from.  I always love to hear your thoughts on what you want to hear, see and read so please feel free to contact me at mitch@mitchkeeler.com with any ideas you might have. 

Before I sign off, I want to thank all of you who have made hosting the podcast and running this website such a delight over the past six years.  Without you, I would have put the nail in this project a long time ago.  You are the ones who keep me going though and keep this website alive.  So thank you for your support.

There are a lot of different file types out there, and here are three that you should make sure you do not ever upload to your own hosting account:

Personal Documents or Files

A lot of the time I see people trying to upload backups of personal documents and files to their web hosting accounts.  Not only may this be against your web host’s terms of service, it also might not be the best way to store your data.  The question you should ask yourself isn’t will be server have a security issue, it is when will my server have a security issue.  Out of date scripts, server flaws and everything else will give you trouble on the shared hosting account you are on – so uploading personal documents to store there is not too safe.  The better solution would be to go with a company that specializes in off site backups, such as Carbonite.

Website Backups

Another type of file I see people keep or upload to the server is a website backup.  Now, you might think you need to keep your website backup handy, so storing it on the hosting account might make a little ‘bit of sense.  Actually, just to be blunt – this is as intelligent as keeping all your money under your mattress, then complain that your broke after your house burns down.  The last place you want to store your website backups is the place you are hosting those files from.  I would recommend downloading a local copy to keep on your personal computer – then burn the files to a DVD or save them to another hard drive.

Illegal Files

Last but not least, we have illegal files.  Let me just keep this one nice and simple.  Don’t go uploading your favorite movie or music album to your hosting account.  Yes, it is illegal to share the files that way and yes, your web host will most definitely terminate your hosting account if they find out.

I hope this serves as a good reminder to all hosting customers out there today as to which files they should not upload to their web hosting accounts.  Now with some of these topics, there might be debatable points – however, I am just looking out for you and hopefully keeping you from getting your website taken offline or worse because of a lapse of judgment.

The DMCA is an abbreviation for the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which was signed into law in 1998.  Now the big reason most people do no like this law is because it put in place questionable laws about circumnavigating copyright protection for personal backup use or the overall vagueness of the law in general.  However, that really has nothing to do with web hosting – so I will not be discussing this issue today.  The issue we will be talking about is the way the law made it easier for copyright holders to get stolen material off a website that doesn’t have the right to distribute it.

Are Web Hosts Protected in DMCA Cases?

What you might not know is that the DMCA has built in protection for web hosts, so they can not be held liable if a client is hosting a website breaking the DMCA.  In exchange, the web host has to promptly remove or block access to the content in question.

What Are DMCA Take-down Notices

If you go from web host to web host, you will see the pages detailing how they deal with the DMCA and DMCA take-down notices are very similar.  They will often ask for these details:

• The signature of the person claiming their copyrighted material was stolen
• Links or details about the copyrighted material that have been used elsewhere
• Your address, phone number and other contact details
• A statement by you that the copyrighted material is yours, and you wish for it to be taken down

Most of the time, in small claim situations, that is enough to get the infringed content off the website in question and you can go along your merry way.  However, sometimes this will lead into a legal battle between the two parties (especially when the copyright of the material is not clear) but at that point you need to really be talking to a lawyer, and not to me.

I hope that helps to explain what the Digital Millennium Copyright is and how it pertains to web hosting companies.

Want More? – Check out the rest of the DMCA conversation in Podcast 210!

Search engine optimization (SEO) is an often talked about, yet rarely mastered trait that gets brought up in web hosting discussions.  Most people usually come down on SEO tips and tricks one of two ways.  They think it is legit and the business works, and others think it is all nothing but snake oil.

The truth of this age old debate is that search engine optimization is a legitimate business and way to get more traffic to your website.  However, there are SEO snake oil salesmen out there that have given the business a bad name.

Search engine optimization is the art of maximizing the volume or quality of traffic to a website from search engines via regular or unpaid search results.  The higher your webpage is in the results, the more traffic your website will get.

Is it Wise to Invest in Search Engine Optimization?

Now there is no secret voodoo at work with this.  Any one of you out there right now could do the same thing that any SEO expert could do.  Then again, you could also all build your own house brink by brick too.  The point is, SEO as a business is there to do the work for you, that you don’t have the time to do.  You may not have the desire or knowledge on how to build a house, so you go buy one instead.  The same could be said for buying the services of an SEO expert to make your website rank higher on the search engines out there. So yes, you can pay somebody to optimize your website for the search engines.  It is just like hiring the kid down the block to mow your lawn.

The big search engines out there have also come to realize that this business, in the most part, is there to help them and have provided webmasters with information on how to get a higher search engine ranking.  They all try to nail the fact that you need quality content to succeed too.

I would suggest that any small business out there that does not have the budget for an SEO expert to learn more about what you can do to optimize your website yourself.  This is just one more hat out of the many that you or somebody inside your business or website will have to wear to be successful.  Focus on the positive things you can do to increase your website rank – and you should have noticeable success.    Speaking as an example, I have learned a lot by reading up on articles and blogs about the SEO topic enough that my websites do fairly well.  Am I an SEO expert?

No, I am just the sort of guy who would rather build his house himself – brick by brick.

Want More? – Check out the rest of the SEO conversation in Podcast 209!

A web hosting company can not keep a customer base happy with sloppy support habits.  Think of your reply back to a web hosting customer as a sandwich.  You start out with the slice of bread introducing yourself, you have the goodies inside which represent your reply and you have the second piece of bread to finish things off.  If you learn how to build your sandwich reply, then you can handle support situations in a much faster way than the web host down the block is doing it, making your web hosting company just a little ‘bit better.

Introduce Yourself

First impressions are important, so you never want to jump right into the reply without letting people know who you are.  In the first part of your reply, you need to state who you are, what company you are working for and thank the customer for doing business with you.

Here is a perfect example:

Hello Bob,

Thank you for hosting your site with the Web Hosting Show.  My name is Mitch, and I will be helping you with the problems you detailed for us in your help desk ticket you sent earlier today.

In those two sentences, I was able to greet the customer, tell them who I am, what company I am working for and generally start the customer/client conversation on a happier foot.  Also note that I used the client’s name too.  This is very important.  If you know the customer’s name, make sure you use it to start the message.  This makes for a much more customized reply to the client.  They feel like they are talking to a real person, and not just reading some pre-defined message you send out for these types of situations.

Meat and Potatoes of Support

Next, you will want to give the proverbial meat and potatoes of the reply.  You want to make sure you give the impression that you understand the problem, clarify the issue (if needed) and then give suggestions for fixes they can do or thing you need for them to do.

Now this is highly flexible depending on the situation at hand.   Just make sure you read and re-read your reply before you send it back to the customer.  Make sure this makes sense to not only you, but to somebody who might be less knowledgeable on the topic than you are.

Wrapping Up Communications

At the end of a reply to a customer, you want to hit some of the basics you touched upon in the introduction.  You want to thank the customer for doing business with your company, and you want to leave the proverbial door open, just in case they have any other problems.

Here is another example:

Thank you for your time today Bob, and I hope this helps to solve the problems you were having.  If there is anything else we can do for you, please feel free to contact us again, anytime.

See what I did there?  I called the client by his name again, thanked him for his time and told him if he needed anything else, then to please let us know and we’d be happy to help out.

The golden rule comes into play in any customer/support team contact. You do not just want to get them the answer.  The golden rule says, “treat others as you would like to be treated”.  You must put yourself in that person’s shoes and think, what kind of reply would you like to see if the shoe was on the other foot?

Nobody likes having their web hosting account suspended for any reason.  Going through a server resource usage suspension though can be on of the more stressful combination of web site hosting problems because of the many factors that come into play.  Let me see if I can help you, to make your next server resource suspension at least go a little smoother, or at least let you know what you can expect.

Notification of the System Resource Usage Problem

Now the situation starts with getting some sort of notification via e-mail about the problem at hand.  Often, web hosts will give you details on where the script is hosted on your site that is causing the problem.  It is often up to you to decide what that script is though.

Next, you have to figure out a way to disable that script or disable the part of the script that is causing the problems.  For example, if you were using WordPress to manage your web site, turn off all the plugins.  I wouldn’t disable WordPress all together, but switching off the plugins or changing to the default theme might help find the cause of the problem.

Fixing a Server Resource Usage Problem

The truth of the issue is you will have to turn things on and off, disable this, delete that and more.  It will take some detective work to find the root of the issue that is causing the shared server’s RAM and CPU to go up so much.

Your web host will often review your account status ever 24 hours or so, to see if your changes are having any real impact in reducing your server resource usage.

Although it sounds like a way to get more money from you, upgrading to a VPS or dedicated hosting plan are a reasonable fix for the problem too. Your web site might have grown in popularity and usage so much, it is time to look for a hosting plan that will give you more proverbial “elbow room” when it comes to RAM or CPU usage.

I hope that helps with fixing your own server resource issues or, at least, lets you know what you can expect if you ever find yourself in a similar situation.  Feel free to post your own tips or questions in the comments, would love to hear what you have to say about this debatable topic.

Are you a web host looking for a way to bring in new customers, and reward current customers or web site owners for doing the dirty work for you?  Then you might want to look into setting up an affiliate program.  It takes some capital stored up to get started, but once you do – you will see your new accounts list grow and grow every single day.

Most of the time when a web host starts an affiliate program they either host and setup the script themselves or they let a third party control things.  If you go the self hosted route, you can always search Google for, “affiliate program scripts” to find some script suggestions.  I have not had much experience with scripts like this, so I will leave that as homework for you to do.  For smaller web hosts, letting a third party handle things might seem more efficient.  You have less to worry about and all you really have to do is dump some money in, and then decide who gets paid for what referral.

Two third party affiliate program providers you might check out are:

• Commission Junction
• Google Affiliates

Both have their own good and bad points, but have also established themselves as leaders in their field. I would highly suggest either one of them (or both!).

How Much Should You Pay Per Referral?

Now, how do you determine how much to pay out per referral?  On average, I would say pay out half the yearly price of your most popular plan.  So if your most popular web hosting plan costs $120 a year, you should pay your affiliate partners $60 per referral.  Not going to say you have to play by that rule, but I have seen it as a success time and time again.

Unless you have an endless supply of cash you will need to make sure you are still making enough profit in the long term to meet the discount you are providing now.

I hope that helps any web hosts out there listening with their own affiliate program questions.  Now I have to ask you, what have you seen that works as far as setting up an affiliate program?  Please give us all a few suggestions in the comments.

If you can remember the word M.I.D.G.E.T. you too can run a successful set of forums.

M ight Need to Setup the Rules First – The most important part of your forums are the rules.  They set the mood, and the guidelines for what people can and can not do.  Keep the general rules short and simple (under ten would be nice) so people will actually take the time to check them out.

I nactive Forums Are No Fun – Try your best to keep your forums active with new threads and topics every day.  If needed, you might ask a few of your friends to stop by and post here and there to help you get started, ‘till you have your own community built up anyways.

D on’t Forget Contest and Promotions – A good way to start building some free press for yourself, and to get people interested is to start a contest, giveaway or promotion.  People like free stuff, and they will flock to you for giving it to them.

G et Some Interactive Topics and Discussions Going – Whatever your forum’s main topic is, try to start some topics that encourage contributing to. Asking for people favorite this, that or the other is a great conversation starter, just as one example.

E void Controversial People and Ideas – OK, I know Evoid isn’t a word, but I had to make it fit.  People who like to pick fights should be dealt with quickly.  While some debate is healthy, make sure you run things, and you kick people who are ruining the party for everybody else.  Don’t let the inmates run the asylum.

T hanks for All the Fish – It might sounds cliche, but going to say it anyways.  Remember to have fun with your forums.  Enjoy what are building, and the community you are helping to found.

So there you have my few suggestions on how you can make your forums a little more successful from the start.

If anybody else out there in Web Hosting Land has any suggestions – feel free to leave them in the comments or drop me an e-mail.  Would love to hear your thoughts on this issue.