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Why Businesses Should Advertise on Twitter

Twitter has 328 million monthly active users, over half of whom earn more than $50,000 a year. And Twitter claims that over 66% of users have discovered a new small or medium-sized business on Twitter, and 69% have decided to make a purchase because of something they saw while on the site.

In addition to an engaged audience ready to interact with brands, Twitter offers less competition than other online ad platforms. They only have 60,000 advertisers, rather than the 2 million businesses advertising on Facebook and the 4 million on Google.  And possibly because they show fewer ads and the ads fit more seamlessly into the Twitter stream than on other platforms, their ad click-through rates are higher than that of ads on Facebook.

If all of that sounds to you like a good reason to be on Twitter, but you’re still not sure if paid advertising with them is worth it, their paid ads convert at twice the rate of organic tweets.

When you’re sending out a tweet at a time, every message you share is dependent on people seeing it in their busy stream of messages at the moment they’re online. There’s a blink-and-you-miss-it quality to the platform (or more like pay-attention-to-work-instead-for-a-few minutes-and-miss-it).

Paid ads provide more of a guarantee of actually showing up in the feeds you want to be in when your prospects are online. And lead generation cards that you can include as part of your ads make it extremely easy for users to provide you with their contact information. It lowers the barrier to entry so your prospects are that much more likely to take the step of interacting with you.

 

Types of Twitter Ads

There are three main types of Twitter Ads you can choose to use.

1. Promoted Accounts

twitter ads promoted accountsIf increasing your follower count is an important goal for you, you can use promoted accounts to help.

With these ads, your profile will show up in the list of recommended accounts users see in the top right screen any time they’re on the main Twitter page. Generally, your promoted account will show up alongside other accounts Twitter assumes the user will be interested in based on their other data.

Twitter has found that 85% of people say promoted accounts help them discover new businesses they’re interested in following.

If you want a quick way to grow the number of relevant people who see your organic tweets, promoted accounts will get your account in front of the people you most want to reach.

2. Promoted Tweets

twitter ads promoted tweetsWhen you pull up Twitter, the main place you focus your attention is on the central feed. That makes promoted tweets a particularly valuable advertising option.

These show up in the midst of the other tweets in your feed, making them hard to miss. Twitter users can interact with promoted tweets in the same way they do any other tweet – by liking, replying, or re-tweeting.

A user doesn’t have to be following you already to see your Tweet, so it gives you a chance to reach an audience you would otherwise miss on Twitter. And notably, they aren’t stuck in a moment in time on Twitter’s feed – a person doesn’t miss out on seeing the Tweet if they don’t happen to be on Twitter watching their feed at the moment you publish it.

twitter ads promoted trends3. Promoted Trends

On the left side of the Twitter page, you’ll see a box that includes trending topics for the geographic area a user’s located in.

If you buy a promoted trend ad, your chosen trend will show up in this list with the word “Promoted” next to it.

Users will be able to click on your promoted trend to see what people are saying about it.

If it’s a hashtag, seeing it included in the list of Trends will make people more likely to use it in relevant tweets.

 

Twitter’s Targeting Options

One of the big benefits of paid advertising on Twitter is being able to target the specific audience you most want to reach in your ads. Twitter offers targeting options that include:

  • Language targeting – Since the platform includes profiles of people around the world, you can make sure your ads just show up for those who speak the primary language you use in the ad.
  • Geography targeting – If your focus is local, or just specific to the United States, you can make sure your ads only show up for the people in the geographic area you serve.
  • Gender targeting – You can narrow your ad focus to users of a particular gender.
  • Interest targeting – Twitter uses data on the interests people commonly tweet about to allow you to focus your ad on those most likely to be interested in your products.
  • Device targeting – If your ad is optimized for one type of device over another, then you can opt just to show your ads to those using that device.
  • Behavior targeting – Twitter tracks user behavior when it comes to things like their shopping and spending patterns. You can target your ads at users most likely to perform certain types of behaviors.
  • Keyword targeting – You can set your ads to show up for people who have recently tweeted or searched for particular terms.
  • Tailored audiences – You can upload your own list of leads or customers in order to create an audience in Twitter for ads meant for people who already have a relationship with your company.

twitter advertising targeting options

There’s no reason for digital marketers to push out ads to people unlikely to care. Twitter’s targeting options make it easy for you to make sure you’re reaching the right people for the ads you create and the products you’re promoting.

 

How Much Twitter Advertising Costs

You don’t have an infinite budget to work with, so you have to consider cost before committing to Twitter advertising.

For promoted tweets and promoted accounts, Twitter has auction-style pricing and only charges advertisers when users take a desired action, similar to how Google’s pay-per-click advertising is set up.  You can set a maximum budget for your campaigns and choose between automatic bidding (where Twitter’s system makes bids for you) or maximum bidding, where you enter in the amount you’re comfortable paying for a specific action.

You can choose which of the following actions you’re hoping a campaign will produce:

  • Website clicks (for promoted tweets)
  • New Followers (for promoted tweets or promoted accounts)
  • Tweet engagements (for promoted tweets, includes all interactions such as likes, re-tweets, and responses)
  • App installs (for promoted tweets that promote an app)
  • Video views (for promoted tweets with videos, any video viewed 50% in view on the screen for at least 2 seconds counts)
  • Impressions (for promoted tweets for campaigns focused on awareness)

How much you pay will depend on how much the action you choose is achieved.  To give you a general idea of what you can expect, promoted tweets average about $1.35 for each engagement. Promoted accounts will typically cost you somewhere between $2.50-$4 for each new follower.

And promoted trends have their own pricing system that takes into account the much wider exposure they offer. These will normally cost you around $200,000 a day.

 

Twitter’s Advertising Analytics

Twitter offers useful analytics to all users, so you can learn a lot about how your Twitter presence is faring with your audience even before you start advertising. To those that advertise though, they provide a different set of analytics to measure your ad success rates by.

Your campaign dashboard displays:

  • The number of impressions your ad receives
  • The amount of engagement people had with your ads
  • Information on who interacted with your ads, based on categories like demographics, device type, and geographic location
  • The number of users who took your desired action for the campaign
  • The cost-per-action

Their analytics can help you track how well your ads are performing and easily determine ROI for the amount of budget you’re spending on Twitter advertising.

 

How to Get Started Advertising on Twitter

If you’re ready to start advertising on Twitter, your first step is to visit their business website and select “Start a Campaign” in the upper right hand corner.

start twitter advertising

The first thing you’ll be asked to do is select the goal of your campaign.

twitter advertising goals

Then set your daily budget and how soon you’d like to start.

twitter ads set budget

Next you’ll see a list of past tweets you can choose from to become the sponsored tweets in your campaign.

twitter ads choose tweets

Set your targeting options.

twitter advertising select targeting

Set your campaign budget.

twitter ads set budget

Review your choices, provide your payment information, and launch!

launch twitter ad

Conclusion

Brands today pretty much have to be on Twitter, but whether or not paid advertising on the channel is right for you will depend on your goals. If you want to make your time on the platform go further and increase the number of followers and amount of engagement you have, then spending a little money can make a big difference. If you do choose to advertise on Twitter, pay close attention to your analytics and test out different techniques. As with any other type of advertising, your efforts will improve if you take time to stop and learn from past results as you go.

By:


With the help of email, you can talk directly to your customers. But as your business grows, it becomes difficult to speak to every single consumer individually.

That’s where email marketing automation steps in. It gives your team the opportunity to communicate with specific customers without the time-consuming aspect.

Plus, email is evolving with technology and consumer behavior.

“What is dead are those random email blasts you used to send to your entire customer list.  In these days of social – personalization, customization and automation are king. Your email marketing needs to keep up,” writes Krista Bunskoek, a digital PR and content marketing consultant.

Save your team time by targeting the right customer. Let’s master email marketing automation together.

Benefits of Email Marketing

People receive several emails throughout the day. Their inboxes are swamped with messages from family, friends, and businesses.

Despite the increase in messages, email marketing still offers one of the best ROIs.

Direct Marketing Association revealed that “email marketing brings in about $40 for every $1 you spend.” It’s cost-effective and benefits your bottom line.

An Econsultancy study found that companies attribute 23% of their total sales to email marketing.

Email Sales

Answer to “What proportion of your total sales can you attribute to the email marketing channel?”

Over the years, email has become a staple in eCommerce culture. Social networks and mobile apps all require an email address to unlock online experiences.

That’s good news for you. As the number of consumer email accounts grows, your team will have access to more diverse segments of the population.

Another advantage of email marketing is the ability to target audiences right in their homes.

“People are liable to ignore billboards, throw away print newsletters, and turn over the page without even glancing at newspaper ads. However, they are more likely to pay attention to an innovative, creative, and effective email, and to end up becoming customers,” says Travis Balinas, Product Marketing Manager at OutboundEngine.

53% of people read email on their mobile devices. Are your emails optimized for mobile? Click To Tweet

Lastly, email is accessible almost everywhere. Hubspot reports that “53% of people read email on their mobile devices.” This allows your team to create personalized messages for the mobile consumer.

From sales to audience reach, email marketing is an essential strategy for your small business.

Email + Automation

Automation transforms the email marketing process. According to Silverpop, “automated email campaigns have a 15% higher open rate than regular emails and 79% higher click through rates.”

Automated email workflows offer you the convenience of reaching more people in less time. Each workflow uses a series of  “if this, then that” triggers to match each customer with the correct email campaign. Therefore, the customer’s behavior determines your next interaction.

Simple workflows may include one email after a customer registers for an online store account. Or they can become complex sequences as seen in the example below from Online Marketing Institute.

Email Automation

When creating workflows, think like your customers. Be mindful of their habits and whether the email content is relevant to their lives.

Damian Trzebunia, Product Marketing Manager at Bronto Software, recounts a bad experience with email marketing automation:

“For the first time, [my favorite clothing retailer] asked for my email address at checkout. In the following 10 days, I received 9 emails (two on the same day). None of them were personalized. Most of them promoted women’s items. Only one was remotely interesting – 10% off and free shipping on your next order.”

Always improve your workflows. A/B test them. You want to create a highly optimized system that will impress customers and build your business.

#EmailMarketing automation is all about nurturing not selling. - @alyssarimmer #goodadvice Click To Tweet

“Marketing automation is all about nurturing not selling. We avoid the hard-sell approach in favor of content that is personalized, relevant, and aligns with what our customers and prospects are looking for,” states, Alyssa Rimmer, Director of Marketing at New Breed Marketing.

Email and automation belong in your marketing toolkit. But always consider the customer’s needs first.

Types of Campaigns

Email marketing automation provides the functionality to execute a good communications strategy. Try different workflows to achieve your desired results. Here are four workflows:

1. Welcome Workflow

Set up a series of welcome emails when a prospect converts into a customer. It’s a practical way to start the customer relationship.

If your product requires training, use this workflow from Social Media Today to introduce helpful resources.

Email Marketing Template

Jordan Lore, Content Marketing Specialist at Wishpond, offers a few more suggestions:

  • Tell customers the next step in the sales process.
  • Show them popular content that may interest them.
  • Direct customers to your social media channels.
  • Prompt them to answer a survey.

2. Topic Workflow

Work with your team to create gated lead magnets, like ebooks, guides, and checklists. Once a website visitor signs up for the resource, supply the individual with more topic-related content via email.

For example, someone downloads a 20-minute dinner recipe guide. Follow up with emails about cooking on a tight schedule or how to make simple lunch meals. As the person continues down the conversion funnel, you’ll send a sales message about your new cooking product.

3.  Abandon Shopping Cart Workflow

The average online shopping cart abandonment rate is 68.63%. To decrease shopping cart abandonment, John McIntyre from ReEngager advises sending reminder emails to your shoppers.

After the shopper leaves your site, you can send them a personalized offer—free shipping or a 10% discount—to persuade them to return and complete the transaction.

Abandoned Cart Email

4. Product Review After Purchase Workflow

Use Net Promoter Scores as a tool to trigger workflows. Then, set an ideal customer happiness score.

When a customer meets the criteria, send an email asking the individual to provide a product review or leave a comment on Yelp. Reward the happy customer with exclusive content or a swag bag.

For your dissatisfied customers, ask them about how your team can improve the experience. Send them targeted workflows aimed at addressing those issues.

Email Automation Do’s & Don’ts

The rules of email marketing automation aren’t etched in stone. But experienced marketers offer some best practices to make your business better. Follow these simple rules:

  • Do purge your database. Set a criteria that models inactive behavior. Remove emails with high bounce rates.
  • Do segment your customers. Use rich behavioral data to create focused campaigns.
  • Don’t use automation to spam customers with unwanted emails. Make sure your team is complying with all CAN-SPAM policies.
  • Don’t operate on autopilot. Email automation requires monitoring. Your campaigns will need to be measured and recalibrated as your business expands.

No Substitute for Human Contact

Email marketing automation is an effective strategy to implement in your small business. It allows your team can interact with more customers while also removing the administrative stresses from your company’s operations.

However, automating your email systems isn’t a substitution for human contact. To build better relationships with your customers, you must build a personal connection. And the best way to achieve that is face-to-face or via a phone call.

#EmailMarketing automation opens the door to communication, but it is no substitute for human contact. Click To Tweet

Tony Zambito, a leading authority in buyer insights and buyer personas, says:

“Businesses today risk, in using new digital technologies fervently, losing the human connection with their customers and potential buyers.  Through such fervent activities related to automating marketing, organizations can unintentionally create the opposite of what they had hoped to accomplish.”

Automation only opens the door to communication. To continue the relationship, your team must engage with buyers one-on-one. It’s the only way to really understand how to serve them better.

Automate for Growth

Email marketing helps your small business connect with more customers. With automation, your team can efficiently deliver targeted messages.

Use email marketing to generate leads or foster brand loyalty. Experiment with different workflows to fit your consumers’ needs. And remember that email is no substitution for real human contact.

Email. Automate. Grow your small business.

Constant Contact is an excellent tool for small businesses to execute successful email marketing campaigns.  HostGator customers can learn more by visiting this link.

By: Shayla Price


There are so many ways to boost traffic to your website. However, the basic rule of getting more income is having a steady flow of visitors to your online business. If no one views your site, maybe something went wrong? To take in the situation, let’s consider the key principles and tools on how to get more traffic to your site at low cost.

Making websites more noticeable and discoverable on the web is one of the most important tasks for online affiliate marketers and entrepreneurs. To rank among most visited, top-rated web resources, companies spend big on ad campaigns and different marketing schemes. Such approach makes it all worthwhile since now they are in high demand, well earning, and big hitting projects. Though, it often happens so that small startups are limited on budget and can’t afford spending a fortune on such strategies. Does it mean they are doomed to stay in the shadow for ages? Whether you are running a large-scale web project or a small startup, you always have a chance to boost your traffic at minimum cost. In this blog post we’ll tell you how to achieve success.

How to Increase Website Traffic with Minimum Budget

As long as you update your website with unique and captivating reading, you should see a natural increase in traffic flow. If you want to reach wider audience and get more profit, there are many other things you can do to give your site a boost.

Blogging

This is one of the most proven ways of gaining visibility on the web. When properly organized and frequently updated with quality content, your blog could safely become the best channel to boost traffic. When reaching a post on a topic that’s trending and discovering something really helpful, people will most likely share this post with followers from social networking sites or elsewhere. Simply keep track of what’s in demand and write about it. You should know your target audience. Since you know who commonly reads your blog, you can decide on the content to share.

Guest Blogging

Sharing captivating posts on your own blog page is a win-win solution, however you can also try to contribute to other popular blogs in your niche. The benefits of guest blogging are endless. For instance, you can reach wider audience, share your thoughts and ideas, introduce your products/services, generate natural links, build relationship, etc. It’s clear that on someone else’s blog you are not in full control. Though, you will never lose if you try to introduce the auditory to something new and worthy of their attention.

Infographics

People have always preferred interactive infographics to pure texts. These are known as a great way of engaging more viewers in. Additionally, it won’t cost you much to create one. You can either hire a web designer or make use of such online tools as Easel.ly, Infogr.am, Venngage, Piktochart, etc. to create a great looking infographics and increase your visibility. Another thing to mention is that visual content in more shareable in social media than written data. So, delivering your message in a ‘picture’ form you can build good following.

Social Media

With so much being said about social sharings, let’s take a closer look at how exactly you can benefit from this to generate more traffic to your site. Those of you who are tough on budget should make special use of social media since it won’t cost you a penny to create an account. Whether you’re using Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram or any other social networking site, interaction is the key. Once again, always keep in mind what auditory you’re targeting. Some people look for inspirational posts and catchy reading, whereas others prefer funny stories, pictures to laugh at or any other stuff of this kind. Mixing different types of content you will make your page look appealing and balanced.

Comment on Other Industry Blogs

A blog comment can generate more traffic than you think. Subscribe to other industry blogs, leave a comment when relevant and appropriate. A great comment ensures fellow readers will come to see your website. Spammy comments like “awesome post” won’t work. Make sure your comment represents your business in the best light. Alongside with sharing your thoughts on the topic, don’t forget to provide two links – one directly to your site and another one to the latest blog posts.

Link Building

This is a highly effective strategy in the modern online world. Link building is all about providing links that point to your website or blog from other pages. You can make use of this while contributing to other blogs as well. The thing to remember is that everything should happen naturally as you write quality content. Here are several tips on effective link building:

  • When placing links to your page on other websites don’t forget to link back. Make sure you exchange links with trusted resources only since linking to low-quality site can hardly help.
  • Link back on blogs and communities related to your topic. Create a profile there, provide information about you site, share quality post, and give links to your project.
  • Build link with other companies in your field.
  • An RSS feed allows linking to your articles in a variety of other places. This should also come in handy when trying to boost traffic to your site.

Link to Old Posts on Your Site

When writing a new post, don’t forget to link back to the entries you’ve already published. This will make your posts more informative and let people stay on your blog for longer. The same can be done with old posts. Providing links to more recent articles you can keep the audience informed on when trendy out there.

Newsletter

Publishing a newsletter is one of the most effective ways of generating low cost website traffic. It may contain content and helpful tips to your blog subscribers. Additionally, you will never lose if you add a couple of links to your site. This will help users reach you fast and easy, click through your recent entries, and join the army of your avid readers.

Run Online Communities and Forums

This is a proven technique employed by the majority of online affiliate marketers. Starting a forum on topic related to your niche you can grow your online community. Answering questions and participating in hot discussions you will establish yourself as trusted authority. Interacting with the audience and helping out people in your community you can drive traffic to your website in an easy way. This is how it works – when posting a comment, your site URl automatically appears in the signature of your forum post.

Give out Freebies

Everyone likes freebies. Each time you provide free stuff, make sure you’ve included a link to your official website. This will not only help you make your business more noticeable, but also generate traffic at low cost. Depending on your niche, you can provide articles and reports, give out eBooks, run free online classes or seminars, provide free audio and video materials, shareware, free website templates, and more.

Speak up

Well, that’s it for now. These were 10 most popular techniques to generate low cost website traffic. Implementing them in your online business strategy, be sure you will never lose. We recommend trying a couple of the aforementioned tips and test which ones will generate maximum profit. There are dozens of other techniques to boost traffic implemented on the web. Which ones do you make use of? What would you recommend trying out first? Share with us under this post.

 


We all learn from our own mistakes in one way or the other. However, don’t you think it’s better to learn from others’ mistakes than doing it ourselves and then repent of them? If it’s about hosting your commercial website, you can’t afford making a single mistake.  An hour of downtime can not only cost you much, but also put your online reputation at a stake.

There are several such incidents where small businesses and startups became victims of poor web hosting service. If you keep an eye on some of the web hosting reviews, you will learn and feel the pain points. Every eCommerce website owner must do this exercise to develop analytical skills.

You’ll not only need a good web host, but a reliable and easily approachable solution provider. Anything less than that will simply not work. If your friends said that it’s so easy to put up a website and get going in online business, please think twice before you go by the rumors and surprises. It takes a plethora of money, effort and deep understanding of the WWW to run a show on the web.

You, as a responsible business owner should be completely aware of the pros and cons of a web hosting solution.

In the proceeding sections, we will learn the common mistakes people do while choosing a web host and the tricks to avoid them.

Mistake#1: Expecting the Cheapest and Free Web Host Solution

Nothing comes free in this world (except for the free WordPress themes), so why should your hosting be free? If someone promises you a free hosting service, for sure you are going to encounter at least one the following problems in future.

  • The web host may put unsolicited 3rd party advertisements on your website.
  • You may not be able to run certain scripts for animation or video.
  • There can be serious issues with website loading speed.
  • Someday you may receive a warning message ‘Upgrading or Shut Down’ from your host.
  • You may have no clue of when and why the server went down, leaving you as a silent spectator.
  • The hosting provider may not respond to your concerns with utmost care in case you need quick technical fixes.
  • You may not have the leverage to build or scale up your website, the way to want it.
  • Search engines may not give your site an equal importance while ranking it on search engine result pages (SERPs). This is certainly a huge problem. If people searching for your product will not find your store listed higher in the SERPs, you will definitely lose some cash.

Can you afford to take so many risks and live on uncertainties at the cost of couple of bucks? Inexpensive but paid web hosting, so far, is quite affordable and risk-free. Modern hosting companies like Hostt, allow you to host your websites for free, as long as the domains are registered with them.

Mistake#2: Shared vs Dedicated Hosting – Does It Really Matter?

Actually, it does. When you are on a shared server and in the range of $5 to $50 a month, you are sharing the retail space with at least hundred if not thousands of other site owners. Now if one of the thousand sites on a particular server consumes maximum resources or encounters virus and malicious codes you will have to suffer the consequences. There will be sluggishness in the website loading speed.  The technicians at the web host may also shut the server down for some business hours.

In short, your online store may experience several problems that cost you more than what you save with shared hosting.

Does this leave you any other options than going to a dedicated hosting? Of course, not. Ask yourself that if your site goes down for an hour, will that really affect your revenue and reputation. If the answer is yes, dedicated hosting is what you need. However, if you are a startup and selling less than 20 products in a day, you may not need to move to a dedicated server initially. You can always scale up when you need it.

Mistake#3: Not Communicating with the Technical Support

If 100% uptime guarantee is what you expect from your web host, you too have certain roles to play. Hosting service is a technical service, so you need a good technical support person who can assist you 24 x7. In case you stuck in between some operations, you should be able to talk to someone over the phone or access to quick live chat option for immediate help. It’s crucial that you have the emergency phone number handy.

Mistake#4: Not Paying Attention to Given Terms and Conditions

We all tend to ignore ToS while signing up for any service or deal. Sometimes this practice may turn out to be fatal. Generally, hosting companies highlight only those points that they want you to read, not what you need to know to avoid future issues. You should read Refund policy, Cancellation policy, ToS of agreement carefully and ask the provider for any clarification. It is your accountability to verify the service description, deliverables and related conditions before you make payment.

Mistake#5:  Not Having a Clarity on Disk Space and Bandwidth Usage

If you have already subscribed to 50 MB disk space and 10 GB bandwidth, you are all set to run a big show. With 10 GB bandwidth, you do not have to worry about transfer limit even if your site gets thousands of hits in a day. But if you start with 2 GB bandwidth and will not upgrade shortly your will face the downtime problem.

Mistake#6: Not Sticking to the Basics of Buying over the Web

There are protocols that every online buyer needs to follow while dealing with vendors over the web. Here is a checklist below in case you want to revisit them.

  • Can you find the phone number you can call to, and is it easy to find it on the vendor’s website?
  • Can you find customer testimonials or third party reviews of the host?
  • Can you find physical address of the business on the ‘Contact’ or ‘About Us’ page?
  • Are you buying the service directly from the hosting company or a third party reseller?
  • Do you find enough information about the technical support and customer service on the website?
  • Do you see money back guarantee on the website?

These are only a few tricks among lots of others you may consider while re-evaluating your web host.

Mistake#7: Not Having Detailed Information on the Support Portal and Its Use

Every web host maintains a support portal for its users in order for them to submit tickets and get real-time update on its status. In case, you do not know what it really means to you, just ask your host about it over the phone or a live chat session. The bottom line is that you should be able to submit, view, review and respond to the tickets until the issue is resolved.

Mistake#8: Not Understanding the SEO Implications of Web Hosting

If you think that any affordable hosting package will work as far as the host gives you a 99% uptime guarantee, you are possibly wrong. Hosting problem can actually overkill your SEO efforts. Slow site speed, database connection errors, shared hosting with poor quality spam sites can damage your site’s credibility to human users as well as Google bots. With exceeded bandwidth limit, prolonged runtime errors, internal server error you may even end up at de-indexing your site in Google. No matter how big your SEO team is or how good they are at building links, without a reliable host in place, you sure will not succeed in marketing your products.

Mistake#9: Not Exploring Your Limitations

You may have encountered promotional texts like ‘Unlimited’, ‘Free for Ever’ while browsing various web host portals. Does this really mean that you get everything for unlimited use? Does it stand logically possible?Apart from bandwidth and disk space quota, you should watch out for the other limitations that do not generally show on sign up page of the host.

Feel free to ask your web host if you can:

  • Maintain multiple POP accounts;
  • Use Secure Shell (SSH);
  • Add statistics to your account;
  • Install new software on your own;
  • Use shopping cart on your website.

In a nutshell, you should be able to figure out that your hosting company does not limit you from anything needful.

Mistake#10: Partnering with a New Hosting Company

There are brand new hosting providers who offer huge discounts, freebies, coupon codes, software, and cash awards to gain quick attention of business users.Their objective is to acquire a large number of customers and scale their business in order to make quick cash. Unfortunately, after a period of 6 to 12 months, they run out of server space and close down. It is important that you select a company that has been serving customers for more than 10 years and has gone through the pain of serving them successfully.

The above 10 mistakes are the broad level analysis of how majority of the business owners succumb to poor hosting solution. If you go deeper into the subject or listen to the victims in person, you will know more.

It’s always good to trust on your judgment than going by any advertisement or biased opinions. Once you read enough reviews, customer testimonials, blogs, tutorials and forum comments you will be in a better position to analyze and compare between a good and a bad host. If you have a gut feeling that the answers are not easily forthcoming from a host, you should discontinue the discussion and look for alternative.

Last but not the least, you should not miss out even the smallest things like a server backing up your website on a regular interval or sending you an auto update for disruption of service. All these factors determine if you have a good web host to partner with, and if you can really continue with the host for next 10 or 15 years.