You have seen the deals out there all of your life.  They are for “a limited time only!” or “the special weekend offer”.   These are what I would call “today’s special” marketing pitches to your customers or soon to be customers.  I am amazed though that more web hosts are not taking advantage of this type of deal.

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.

For once a term in web hosting that says what it means and means what it says.  Type-in traffic is when somebody types in a word or phrase and just adds .com (or some other domain name extension) to the end of it into the address bar instead of searching for it.

For example, if you were looking for web hosting you might try typing webhosting.com.  Who owns that?  It redirects to AT&T.  So anybody who takes this route would have an instant gateway into AT&T’s web hosting services.

These days when you type in a phrase into the address bar and hit the “enter” key you are taken to a web search.  Before 2002 though, most people were taken to that phrase with a browser placed “.com” at the end.  That is how this practice of Type-in traffic began.

If your looking to move into this marketing tactic yourself, you may want to keep a few things in mind:

• Stay away from copyrighted names. Trying to buy, for example “hewlettpackard.com” might get HP’s legal team after you for cybersquatting.
• Your wallet better be pretty fat. Getting a generic phrase top level domain name is not going to be cheap. Get ready to pay top dollar.

Type-in traffic, if you can get it going, can be a great way to get people to your domain with little to no work at all.

For web hosts out there, from time to time they must wonder if it would help their bottom line to start up a regional web hosting franchise, such as those out there that do United Kingdom hosting.

For the clients looking for hosting, they too have a fair share of questions such as, will they get a better deal going with a closer hosting provider?

Although the web hosting business is a global game for one and all - one thing we can not get over is no matter who you are or what you do, there is always going to be somewhat of a lag when crossing the ocean. If you are wanting to deliver your services to a group of people in one region then it would make sense to have services there to cut out this issue all together.

It is a niche too or specialized hosting solution that gets attention. Which out of the two web hosts is going to get the most attention. The one that says they specialize in super fun windows hosting or the one that says they pride themselves in generic boring hosting that everybody else does. Saying that you specialize in UK hosting for an example is a good niche inside of the hosting world to separate yourself from some of the other players in the game.

One good example of a company that is doing United Kingdom hosting is UK2.net. With both shared and dedicated servers they have carved out a nice chunk of the UK hosting experience for themselves. They do dedicated UK web hosting that looks really exceptional and they are even using some US based servers too - so they are expanding themselves from one niche into another.

So remember that the regional-based hosting solutions are nothing to sneeze at. From a technical side of things they could give you a better connection if you are around their region and from a marketing standpoint it does a great job at giving you something to brag about to separate yourself from the rest of the web hosting pack.

These are some questions for the web hosts out there. Are you ready to retire? Want to get out of the web hosting game to do something else? Well there are a lot of legal loopholes and dotted lines that need tending to first.

How does one sell their web hosting company? I’ve got Errett Cord on the show today to answer your questions on this hot topic in hosting.

Download the Web Hosting Show, Episode 149!
Running Time: 9 minutes | File Size: 3.94 MB

Here are just a few topics from this special edition of the Web Hosting Show.

• Why would you want to sell your hosting company?
• Is it easy to sell a web host?
• What are some of the legalities and loopholes?
• How long does selling a web hosting company take?
• What is the best advice for anybody looking to sell a hosting company?

No matter if your looking to retire for the hosting business or you just want to get out now and do something else I have your exit strategy planned out and ready to go on this episode of the Web Hosting Show. When it comes to doing something new, why not talk with somebody who has done through it before?

I know what your thinking, what does a hot girl and web hosting have to do with one another? Well if you have no shame, and your looking for a marketing tool - having a hot girl talk about your hosting services might not be that bad of an idea.

This video to date has over 200,000 views and counting and is about as obvious of a commercial as you can get. It is simple, gets your attention and apparently keeps somebody coming back for more with that many views. If somebody was to get more creative with this idea I think you could really double the views even this video has.

Related Podcast Link: Listen to Episode 119!

When it comes to bringing in new folks into your web site you would be willing to try just about anything and everything, right? One thing that you might have not of considered is the idea of developing something for the public and then giving it away for free. A perfect example of this would be making a free layout for your users to use.

If there is one thing that gets attention it is free MySpace or free WordPress layouts. Those two seem to be the hot search items these days, and you should cash in on the benefits as well. First thing you need to do is find a designer or learn some basic design skills yourself. Read more »

The last time you picked up a cheap web hosting account, would you consider yourself a winner or a loser? I am going to look at the cheap hosting marketplace and let you know what you would be both gaining and losing if you decide to go down that route.

All that and oh so much more on this edition of the Web Hosting Show podcast.

Download the Web Hosting Show, Episode 119!
Running Time: 13 minutes | File Size: 6.17 MB

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

• Tips for Disabling “Index of” File Listings for Folders!
• Free File Hosting (Up to 1GB) With File123.com!
• Positives and Negatives of Cheap Hosting?
• Marketing: Free Layouts Are Traffic Hunters’ Gold!
• Who’s the Fastest Growing Domain Name Register?

Link of the Week: BlueFur.com’s Blog

From free file hosting to tweaks and edits you can make to your own hosting setup, we try to give and teach a little ‘bit of everything here on this show. What good is it to have a web hosting account if you are not using it to its full potential?