I can get web hosting for 5 bucks

[rabiakhatun785]

When I hear those immortal words I am reminded of the old maxim "you get what you pay for". In this case it is never truer. When I think about just how much power we lay in the hands of the person or organisation that is responsible for making sure that your marketing remains visible and emails keep coming I often feel very exposed. Consider your choice of web host a form of insurance.

I read a great article in Smashing Magazine today that outlines some of the important things to be aware of in selecting a web host. Often the cost of one outage can more than cover the price of premium hosting. That's why Web Design Experts have professionally managed web hosting (managed by hosting experts, not web experts) with fully backed up servers covered by 24 x 7 support.


While it sounds simple the key that made it all possible was that he kept it relevant. There are a few sponsored posts (which were appropriate to the subject area) but he knew what people looking raster to vector conversion service for a holiday wanted to see. No price lists, no gratuitous links to his website. All posts speak to the main message of the page rather than a business or advertising purpose.

Obviously Facebook isn't the only social media vehicle out there. Actually, the possibilities are almost limitless. Blogs, forums, chats, photo audio and video sharing, anything that allows you to leave a comment, games, social bookmarking and many more. Wikipedia has a good list if you are interested. This is not about converting leads to sales, it's about establishing a community from which customers can develop.

The process of setting up a single social media page is fairly straight forward all you have to do is forget that you are trying to sell something and concentrate on the aspects likely to entertain, inform, intrigue or otherwise engage people in your target demographic. If you really want to integrate it into your internet marketing strategy then you need to develop a plan, initiate the processes (fan pages, video streams, podcasts or twitterings (to name a few)), keep it relevant and commit to regular updates and active monitoring to measure exactly what works.