Short of sharing our opinions, sharing our goods and services (whatever they might be) is the biggest thing we do online these days.  Everybody has something to sell, but how do you get started in the e-commerce world?  I will be covering some of the e-commerce basic right here on this very podcast today.  Hopefully it helps you learn a little more about how to get your own shopping cart set up or how to setup a store though one of the free store providers out there.

You want to sell something online?  Then you have picked the right podcast to listen to.  I might not cover every little thing, but I will give you the information you need to get started in web hosting e-commerce.

Here is a summary of the topics we will cover this week:

DIY E-Commerce Basics

There is a lot more to consider when it comes to setting up your own online store on your website.  If you are serious though about becoming an e-commerce entrepreneur though, I will give you the basic things you need to have before you get started building your own online storefront.

3 Great Free E-Commerce Storefronts

If you want to start your own virtual store out there on the Web, you don’t have to go through all the hard work of setting up a shopping cart, lining up shippers, processing credit cards and all those other headaches that are often involved with e-commerce.  You could sign up with one of these free online storefronts instead.  While they might take a cut of the profits, in the long term – they might also save you money too.

Hope you enjoy this week’s podcast – and if you have your own e-commerce tips or shopping cart reviews to share, feel free to do it in the comments.

Download the Web Hosting Show, Episode 199!
Running Time: 12 minutes | File Size: 5.41 MB

Here are just a few topics from this week’s episode:

• How to Track Podcast Download Numbers
• Find CSS Element Stats with XRAY Bookmarklet
• Small Business Solutions for Big Web Site Threats
• Selling Web Hosting and Design at Retail

Help thank our sponsor! Via Twitter, tweet to @LayeredTech thanks for supporting webhostingshow.com

Hope you fully enjoy this week’s podcast, and if you do – drop in a comments and let me know.  Also don’t forget to check out two new additions to the Web Hosting Show web site:

• Web Hosts on Twitter (every host on Twitter listed here!)
• Web Hosting Coupons and Deals (only the best web hosting discounts!)

If you have a question you’d like to ask on the show, be sure to leave me your name, web site address, and question on the submit a question form.

Download the Web Hosting Show, Episode 198!
Running Time: 3 minutes | File Size: 5.14 MB

Brand new to the Web Hosting Show is the Web Hosting Show Coupons and Deals page, which – if you are browsing along at home, can be found at:

• http://www.webhostingshow.com/coupons/

What makes this page so great?  Well, it is my own hand selected web hosting coupons and deals I have found from around the Web.  That means no cutback to me, no wacky affiliate links, just straight forward links to hosts that are offering some amazing web hosting offers.

But wait, that’s not all!

If you act from now, until the end of time, you will also receive an RSS feed to subscribe to so you never miss a web host’s coupon or special deal.  Also, you can follow the Web Hosting Show’s Coupons and Deals page on Twitter too.  Just go to this link:

• http://twitter.com/whscoupons

and then click the, “Follow” button.

For web hosting clients this page offers a simple place to check and find the best deals for some of your favorite web hosts on the Internet.

For web hosts this page offers a clean and simple way to feature your coupons, specials and deals out there for the entire world to see.  Contact me, with your web hosting special, and you could see your own deals listed here too.

I really hope this is a new tool you will love, bookmark, visit often and share with your friends.  It is my goal to put together an honest list of coupons and offers for all of the Web Hosting Show’s listeners out there.  So, until next time – stay tuned for more great tools, more great offers and more great web hosting podcasts from the Web Hosting Show.

There are a great number of web hosts using Twitter for social communication, support and marketing.  If you get any big group of web hosts geeks together though, on this topic, the argument usually goes one of two ways.  Either people are really for it, or they are really against it.

For those of you who may not know, Twitter is a micro-blogging service that lets you post message under 140 characters online to your own page, (like the great and wonderful twitter.com/mitchkeeler).

Let us take a look at both sides of the argument.

Wasting your time? Some may say that your time is better served doing one on one support with customers, rather than virtually pimping your goods on Twitter.  Others might also not really understand what Twitter is all about, since it is highly referenced as that site where you type what you are doing, such as “about to mow the lawn” or “I’m really bored”.  There is a good side to this coin too though.

A helpful marketing and support tool? I have seen a lot of tweets that pretty much can be summed up as “_____ sucks”.  Now I ask you, wouldn’t it be handy to be able to go out and communicate with that person if they think you suck, and ask why?  Twitter can be used as a quick and easy customer service tool.  Also, posting news about your web hosting company,  links to your blog articles, or even coupons and deals can lead to a lot of new eyeballs seeing those, and coming into your digital empire.  Think of it as one more proverbial driveway they can drive into, to get to your services.

• Check out the large list of web hosts on Twitter!

My final opinion on the matter would be to go for it.  I think that it always helps to get your name and brand out there in every way possible.  I would really be interested to hear what you think though – do you think web hosts should tweet on Twitter?

Free Hosting – Two free web site elders that might someday share the same fate as Geocities are still around.  Both Angelfire and Tripod are still around.  Here are a few more to choose from:

• 50Megs.com – Offers users 50 MB of disk space to host their files.
• Bravenet.com – Also offers 50 MB of disk space and 1.5 GB of bandwidth.
• 110MB.com – You get 110 MB of disk space with them (who would have guessed?) and 10 GB of bandwidth for free.

Specialized Hosting – For those people wanting to host their own blog, you might look into wordpress.com and their free blog hosting service.  If you want to get started with a forum, check out freeforums.org.

Shared Hosting – For those people moving from Geocities to another location, it might also be time to look into shared hosting plans.  There are many low-cost web hosting plans out there to choose from, and they will give you much more disk space, bandwidth and resources to work with.

One more place to check out for free hosting suggestions would be TheFreeSite.com.  Hey have a lot of suggestions when it comes to free web site hosting.

Have a free favorite host you would like to plug?  Leave a comment!

BONUS! Here are a few other Geocities alternatives:

• Jimdo has a special deal for Geocities users!
• Lunarpages has a special coupon to use too!

If you find any more, let me know!

Be sure to catch the rest of our Geocities Tribute on Podcast 186 of the Web Hosting Show!

Web Hosting + Coupon = Win for Everybody!

This is a secret I have been sharing for a number of years, and now I want to let you know.  Search for them.  That’s right, any web host worth his disk space will have coupons and rebates out there on the Web.  All you have to do is search for the web hosting in question, plus the word “coupon” or “rebate”.

For example, let say I search for Random Fake Web Hosting Company #5 and coupon.  Via Google, I find a page that says I can get $50 off if I sign up with the coupon code “50OFF”.  Now, all I need to do is go to Random Fake Web Hosting Company #5’s web site and try the coupon out.  If it works, I just saved $50, if not – then I’ll go back out to the search results to find the next best deal.

Ok, so I am sure some of you might be a little disappointed with this tip, however you would be amazed by how overlooked it really is.

• Lunarpages.com – for $4.95 per month, you can get unlimited space and bandwidth!
• FastHosts.com – They are offering free unlimited reseller hosting for a year.
• HostColor.com – Host Color’s “THANKYOU2008″ promotion offers a 25 percent instant rebate on all Web hosting services to its present and prospective customers.
• GoDaddy.com – They are registering domains for only $1.99 with any new, non-domain purchase.  Regular .com registrations are marked down to $9.99.
• HostGator.com – You can get 20% off any order, if you use the coupon code “GREEN”.  On the site it says it was good till Oct. 1, however I just tested it and worked for me.

If your a web host with a special deal or offer going on, please let me know and I would love to get it featured on the Web Hosting Show.  We will all be spending plenty on presents and holiday cheer this year, so if we can get a little discount in our hosting – I do not see the harm in that at all.

Bonus! The fine people at aplus.net have also clued me into some of their great deals they have going on right now.  You can check them out here:  http://www.aplus.net/promos/

110MB.com

With 110MB Hosting you get 5GB of free no-ads hosting to setup shop.    So where is the catch?  They seem to get all of their income from upgrades and other related services.   You also get PHP 5, 300 GB of Bandwidth and MySQL 5.

AgilityHoster.com

Agility Hoster looks to use the free hosting account they provide as a gateway into other services too.  On the free plan, you get 2 addon domains, 5GB of bandwidth, and 200MB of disk space.

DotEasy.com

When looking for free web hosts out there, doteasy was the only one that stuck out as a name I had heard before.  The free plan they provide will give you 1GB of bandwidth, 100MB of storage and up to 10 e-mail accounts.

FreeHostia.com

I hate to say it, but Freehostia is probably one of the cheesier looking out of the bunch.  They do provide 250 MB of storage, 5 GB of monthly bandwidth and hosting for 2 domains.

HostWQ.net

HostWQ.net calls themselves the ultimate source for free and premium web site hosting.  Do they deliver?  Well for free you can get up to 300 MB of disk space and 10 GB of bandwidth a month.  Very promising, to say the least.

Are you a free web hosts or do you know of a free web host that can do any better?  Drop me an e-mail at mitch@mitchkeeler.com or leave a comment and let me know.

It offers a unique service for one.

Think about it like this, if you are comparing two web hosts and one has a special offer for you only good for 24 hours and the other has nothing special going on, which one excites you more?  I have said it time and time again, to get “buzz” in the hosting world we live in you have to strive to be different and unique in every way.

This is a way you can make yourself stick out like a sore thumb in a good way.  Not like that time you wore the sombrero to your high school reunion.

The first place I saw doing this was GoDaddy.com.  They have a special “Today’s Offers” section that is well worth checking out if you are needing some inspiration.  Last marketing tip for the day would be to also use this to pitch offers and specials to your current customer base too.  Try to find something you can offer them that is new and they would be happy paying for.  Perhaps you give them a special deal for being current customers or yours?  Now you are thinking along the “today’s special” line of marketing.

That isn’t all though, but this intro is running a little long.  Only other thing I am telling you right now is the Web Hosting Show is on the air.

Download the Web Hosting Show, Episode 161!
Running Time: 9 minutes | File Size: 4.07 MB

Here are just a few topics from this week’s episode of the Web Hosting Show.

• Deeper Look at the Hosting Industry Organization
• Media Temple does Cloud Spam Filtering
• .Pro Domain Registrations Running Wild
• Why You Need to Launch a “Today’s Special” Deal
• Verio Hands out Hosting to the Needy

Been doing a lot of socializing talk the past few weeks on the podcast, and today we’ll talk a little more about the LinkedIn group everybody is talking about.  We got that, plus a ton of hosting headlines and, well let me stop pitching the show and let’s start doing the show.