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	<title>Host Department&#039;s Blog</title>
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	<link>http://www.hostdepartment.com/blog</link>
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	<lastBuildDate>Wed, 02 May 2012 15:07:34 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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		<title>How to Start Web Hosting Company</title>
		<link>http://www.hostdepartment.com/blog/2012/05/02/how-to-start-web-hosting-company/</link>
		<comments>http://www.hostdepartment.com/blog/2012/05/02/how-to-start-web-hosting-company/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 02 May 2012 15:07:34 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Host Dept.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Announcements]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[how to start a web hosting company]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[web hosting company]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.hostdepartment.com/blog/?p=705</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Many people are keen to know how to start a web hosting company. Before that let me tell you that starting a web hosting business is easy but maintaining servers is very tough and for that you need to have excellent knowledge in computer science. Some people may disagree to this because now a days [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Many people are keen to know how to start a web hosting company. Before that let me tell you that starting a web hosting business is easy but maintaining servers is very tough and for that you need to have excellent knowledge in computer science. Some people may disagree to this because now a days control panels are available but remember control panels has its own limitations. You can start a web hosting company by taking a <a title="Reseller Plan" href="http://www.hostdepartment.com/resellersandpartners.html" target="_blank">Reseller Plan</a>. But prior to this you must know some basic things which are mentioned below.</p>
<h2><span style="color: #008000;">Time to be spent:</span></h2>
<p>Now a days almost everyone is providing 24&#215;7 customer support and if you are about to start a web hosting company either with Reseller Plan or Owing own servers you need to provide 24&#215;7 support. If you take a reseller hosting plan at host department then you need not worry as <span style="color: #800000;"><strong>we do provide support for customers of reseller.</strong></span></p>
<h2><span style="color: #008000;">Familiarity with Software and Platforms:</span></h2>
<p>Every business professional need to be a versatile of his field like wise if you are a web hosting provider you need to be familiar with the latest software and on which platform it works. But with <span style="color: #800000;"><a title="Reseller and Hosting" href="http://www.hostdepartment.com/resellersandpartners.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #800000;"><strong>HostDepartment&#8217;s Reseller Plan</strong></span></a></span> you can sell your plans to <strong><span style="color: #808000;">both linux and windows</span></strong> and you also need not worry about software as <strong><span style="color: #800000;">our servers supports all softwares.</span></strong></p>
<h2><span style="color: #008000;">Expenditure:</span></h2>
<p>If you want to start web hosting with HostDepartment then your expenditure will be $24.95/month. It is the most cheapest way to start a web hosting company because if you want to own a servers it costs you thousands of dollars but at Host Department you can start a web hosting company at just $24.95.</p>
<h2><span style="color: #008000;">Hiring of Employees:</span></h2>
<p>If you provide 24&#215;7 customer support then you have to hire customer support agents according to your requirement like 1 per shift or two and apart from that you need a designer and developer. You may even outsource the designing and developing part.</p>
<p>Along with the above thing you need office and data center space(if you are going with server instead of <strong><span style="color: #0000ff;">Reseller Hosting Plan</span></strong>), registration of company, internet provider and Of course Reseller Hosting plan or Server based on your preference.</p>
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		<title>HostDepartment and Security</title>
		<link>http://www.hostdepartment.com/blog/2012/04/16/hostdepartment-and-security/</link>
		<comments>http://www.hostdepartment.com/blog/2012/04/16/hostdepartment-and-security/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 16 Apr 2012 14:07:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Host Dept.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Announcements]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.hostdepartment.com/blog/?p=698</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Our Holistic Security Approach In order to reduce security risks to minimum, a complete approach to security is required. Our security processes are born out of a clear definition of the threats to our system. Security threats are a result of the various interaction points that an application provides to the external world, and the [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<h2><span style="color: #800080;"><strong>Our Holistic Security Approach</strong></span></h2>
<p>In order to reduce security risks to minimum, a complete approach to security is required. Our security processes are born out of a clear definition of the threats to our system.</p>
<p>Security threats are a result of the various interaction points that an application provides to the external world, and the various users that can interact with these interfaces. For instance your staff, Our Staff, and Third Party Servers are interacting with our Systems at any given point of time. Each of these actors needs to have different access levels and different rights and permissions.</p>
<h2><span style="color: #800080;"><strong>Security Goals</strong></span></h2>
<p><span style="color: #008000;"><strong>Privacy</strong></span> - Information within our infrastructure and systems will only be accessible by authorized users</p>
<p><span style="color: #008000;"><strong>Integrity</strong></span> - Data and information within our infrastructure cannot be tampered with by any unauthorized user</p>
<p><span style="color: #008000;"><strong>Data Protection</strong></span> - Data within the systems cannot be harmed, deleted or destroyed</p>
<p><span style="color: #008000;"><strong>Identification and Authentication</strong></span> - Ensures that any user of the system is who he claims to be and eliminates chances of impersonation</p>
<p><span style="color: #008000;"><strong>Network Service Protection</strong></span> - Ensures that networking equipment is protected from malicious hacking attempts or attacks that threaten uptime</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h2><span style="color: #800080;"><strong>Our Holistic Security Model</strong></span></h2>
<p>Our Security platform and process leverage on multiple levels of security &#8211; consisting of Security Systems and Equipmentcombined with Security Procedures and Practices<sup>2</sup> and Auditing Processes, to ensure unparalleled security for all the services we provide. The platform tackles security at 7 different levels</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h2><span style="color: #800080;"><strong>Level-1 Datacenter Security</strong></span></h2>
<p>Our global datacenter partnerships are a result of a comprehensive due diligence process. Security and stability are two of the most important variables in our due diligence process. All datacenters are equipped with surveillance cameras, biometric locks, authorization-based access policies, limited datacenter access, security personnel, and similar standard security equipment, processes and operations. What separates us however is the fact that our outstanding attentiveness process also incorporates a measure of reactiveness demonstrated by the datacenter towards security. This is measured by evaluating past practices, customer case studies, and the amount of time the datacenter dedicates towards security research and study.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h2><span style="color: #800080;"><strong>Level-2 Network Security</strong></span></h2>
<p>Our global infrastructure deployments incorporate DDOS mitigators, Intrusion Detection systems, and Firewalls both at the edge and the Rack level. Our deployments have weathered frequent hacking and DDOS attempts (sometimes as many as 3 in a single day) without any degradation.</p>
<p><span style="color: #008000;"><strong>Firewall Protection</strong></span></p>
<p>Our round-the-clock firewall protection system secures the perimeter and delivers the very best first line of defense. It uses highly adaptive and advanced inspection technology to safeguard your data, website, email and web applications by blocking unauthorized network access. It ensures controlled connectivity between the servers that store your data and the Internet through the enforcement of security policies devised by subject matter experts.</p>
<p><strong><span style="color: #008000;">Network Intrusion Detection system</span></strong></p>
<p>Our <a title="Network Facts" href="http://www.hostdepartment.com/networkfacts.html" target="_blank">network</a> intrusion detection, prevention and vulnerability management system provides rapid, accurate and comprehensive protection against targeted attacks, traffic anomalies, &#8220;unknown&#8221; worms, spyware/adware, network viruses, rogue applications and other zero-day exploits. It uses ultramodern high-performance network processors that carry out thousands of checks on each packet flow simultaneously with no perceivable increase in latency. As packets pass through our systems, they are fully scrutinized to determine whether they are legitimate or harmful. This method of instantaneous protection is the most effective mechanism of ensuring that harmful attacks do not reach their targets.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h2><span style="color: #800080;"><strong>Level-3 Host Security</strong></span></h2>
<p><span style="color: #008000;"><strong>Hardware Standardization</strong></span></p>
<p>We have standardized on hardware vendors that have a track record of high security standards and quality support. Most of our infrastructure and datacenter partners use equipment from Cisco, Juniper, HP, Dell etc.</p>
<p><span style="color: #008000;"><strong>Host Based Intrusion Detection System</strong></span></p>
<p>With the advent of tools that are able to bypass port blocking perimeter defense systems such as firewalls, it is now essential for enterprises to deploy Host-based Intrusion Detection System (HIDS) which focuses on monitoring and analyzing the internals of a computing system. Our Host-based Intrusion Detection System assists in detecting and pinpointing changes to the system and configuration files &#8211; whether by accident, from malicious tampering, or external intrusion &#8211; using heuristic scanners, host log information, and by monitoring system activity. Rapid discovery of changes decreases risk of potential damage, and also reduces troubleshooting and recovery times, thus decreasing overall impact and improving security and system availability.</p>
<h2></h2>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h2><span style="color: #800080;"><strong>Level-4 Software Security</strong></span></h2>
<p>Our applications run on myriad systems with myriad server software. Operating Systems include various flavors of Linux, BSD, Windows. Server Software includes versions and flavors of Apache, IIS, Resin, Tomcat, Postgres, MySQL, MSSQL, Qmail, Sendmail, Proftpd etc etc. We ensure security despite the diverse portfolio of software products we utilize by following a process-oriented approach</p>
<p><span style="color: #008000;"><strong>Timely Application of Updates, Bug Fixes and Security Patches</strong></span></p>
<p>All servers are registered for automatic updates to ensure that they always have the latest security patch installed and that any new vulnerabilities are rectified as soon as possible. The largest number of intrusions result from exploitation of known vulnerabilities, configuration errors, or virus attacks where countermeasures ARE already available. According to CERT, systems and networks are impacted by these events as they have &#8220;not consistently&#8221; deployed the patches that were released.</p>
<p>We fully understand the requirement for strong patch and update management processes. As operating systems and server software get more complex, each newer release is littered with security holes. Information and updates for new security threats are released on an almost daily basis. We have built consistent, repeatable processes and a reliable auditing and reporting framework which ensures that all our systems are always up-to-date.</p>
<p><span style="color: #008000;"><strong>Periodic Security Scans</strong></span></p>
<p>Frequent checks are run using enterprise grade security software to determine if any servers have any known vulnerabilities. The servers are scanned against the most comprehensive and up-to-date databases of known vulnerabilities. This enables us to proactively protect our servers from attacks and ensure business continuity by identifying security holes or vulnerabilities before an attack occurs.</p>
<p><span style="color: #008000;"><strong>Pre-Upgrade testing processes</strong></span></p>
<p>Software upgrades are released frequently by various software vendors. while each vendor follows their own testing procedures prior to release of any upgrade, they cannot test inter-operability issues between various software. For instance a new release of a database may be tested by the Database vendor. However the impact of deploying this release on a production system running various other FTP, Mail, Web Server software cannot be directly determined. Our system administration team documents the impact analysis of various software upgrades and if any of them are perceived to have a high-risk, they are first beta-tested in our labs before live deployment.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h2><span style="color: #800080;"><strong>Level-5 Application Security</strong></span></h2>
<p>All of the application software that is used in the platform is built by us. We do not outsource development. Any 3rd party Products or Components go through comprehensive training and testing procedures where all elements of such products are broken down and knowledge about their architecture and implementation is transferred to our team. This allows us to completely control all variables involved in any particular Product. All applications are engineered using our proprietary Product Engineering Process which follows a proactive approach towards security. Each application is broken down into various components such as User Interface, Core API, Backend Database etc. Each layer of abstraction has its own security checks, despite the security checks performed by a higher abstraction layer. All sensitive data is stored in an encrypted format. Our engineering and development practices ensure the highest level of security with regards to all application software.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h2><strong style="color: #800080;">Level-6 Personnel Security</strong></h2>
<p>The weakest link in the security chain is always the people you trust. Personnel, Development staff, Vendors, essentially anyone that has privileged access to your system. Our Holistic Security Approach attempts to minimize security risk brought on by the &#8220;Human Factor&#8221;. Information is divulged only on a &#8220;need-to-know&#8221; basis. Authorization expires upon the expiry of the requirement. Personnel are coached specifically in security measures and the criticality of observing them.</p>
<p>Every employee that has administrator privileges to any of our servers goes through a comprehensive background check. Companies that skip out on this are putting to risk all sensitive and important data belonging to their customers, as no matter how much money is invested into high-end security solutions, one wrong hire &#8211; having the right amount of access &#8211; can cause greater damage than any external attack.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h2><span style="color: #800080;"><strong>Level-7 Security Audit Processes</strong></span></h2>
<p>In a vast deployment of globally distributed servers, audit processes are required to ensure process replication and discipline. Are all servers being patched regularly? Are the backup scripts running all the time? Are offsite backups being rotated as desired? Are appropriate reference checks being performed on all personnel? Is the security equipment sending out timely alerts? These and many such questions are regularly verified in an out-of-band process that involves investigation, surveys, ethical hacking attempts, interviews etc. Our audit mechanisms alert us to a kink in our security processes before it is discovered by external users.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
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		<title>Link Building or On Page Optimization</title>
		<link>http://www.hostdepartment.com/blog/2012/04/05/link-building-or-on-page-optimization/</link>
		<comments>http://www.hostdepartment.com/blog/2012/04/05/link-building-or-on-page-optimization/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 06 Apr 2012 07:20:49 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Host Dept.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Announcements]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[off page seo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[on page seo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SEO]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.hostdepartment.com/blog/?p=691</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[My week doesn&#8217;t end without hearing the question what is best, on-page SEO or Link Building, many people asked me whether they should spend their money on link building or on-page SEO. Though there are many SEO companies but if you ask them which is the best method they will suggest the method at which [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>My week doesn&#8217;t end without hearing the question what is best, on-page SEO or Link Building, many people asked me whether they should spend their money on link building or on-page SEO. Though there are many SEO companies but if you ask them which is the best method they will suggest the method at which they are good. If they are good at on-page optimization then they will say it is the best method and if they are good at backlinking they say it is best.</p>
<p>But the fact is SEO is depended on your site and each and every website has to be optimized according to its requirement. I’m going to walk you through 4 cases and explain how I’d allocate your budgets for each one.</p>
<h2><span style="color: #800080;"><strong>Case #1: The Specialist</strong></span></h2>
<h3><span style="color: #008000;"><strong>70% On-page</strong><strong>, 30% Link-building</strong></span></h3>
<p>The Specialist is an established site with a solid, trusted link profile and usually a good base of content. In many cases, it’s a site that’s evolved “organically”, which is a fancy word for “without a plan”.</p>
<p>The Specialist could be suffering from any or all of the following:</p>
<ul>
<li>Keyword research is 5 years out of date</li>
<li>Internal links have grown like weeds</li>
<li>Site architecture doesn’t reflect business goals</li>
<li>Page TITLEs overlap or are duplicated</li>
<li>Old but valuable (i.e. linked-to) content is 404’ing</li>
</ul>
<p>In many cases, no one notices, because The Specialist’s strong link profile and solid content keep it ranking well. The problem is that you’re sitting on a gold mine of untapped potential. Of course, The Specialist should keep building solid links, but a shift (even for a few months) to really planning and focusing on on-page issues, from keyword research on up, could produce huge dividends.</p>
<h2><span style="color: #800080;"><strong>Case #2: The Perfectionist</strong></span></h2>
<p><span style="color: #008000;"><strong>30% On-page, </strong><strong>70% Link-building</strong></span></p>
<p>The Perfectionist often comes out in new webmasters. They’ve read 500 SEO blogs and are following all the “rules” as best they can, but they’ve become so obsessed with building the “perfect” site that they’ve hit the point of rapidly diminishing returns. The Perfectionist wants to know how to squeeze 0.01% more SEO value out of an already good URL by moving one keyword.</p>
<p>It’s time for The Perfectionist to remember the 80/20 rule – there comes a point where your on-page is good enough, at least for now. You have to get Google to your site to put that on-page magic to work, and that means building links. It’s important to develop content (which is why I’ve left on-page at 30%), but put almost every other on-page tactic to the side temporarily and spend a solid 6 months developing and implementing a link-building campaign</p>
<h2><span style="color: #800080;"><strong>Case #3: The </strong><strong>Blistering Confusion</strong></span></h2>
<h3><span style="color: #008000;"><strong>90% On-page</strong><strong>, 10% Link-building</strong></span></h3>
<p>The Blistering Confusion  is a Google engineer’s fantasy (or possibly nightmare). She’s broken every single rule of on-page SEO, which worked fine for a while, but then came “May Day” and “Panda”, and now Google is even talking about penalizing her for optimizing too much. The Hot Mess has let something spin out of control, including:</p>
<ul>
<li>Blocked crawl paths and bad redirects</li>
<li>Massive URL-based duplication</li>
<li>Excessive internal search, categories, and tags</li>
<li>Aggressive ad-to-content ratio</li>
<li>Extremely “thin” content</li>
<li>Nonsensical site architecture and internal linking</li>
<li>Keyword stuffing that would embarrass 1998</li>
</ul>
<p>In some cases, this could be “over-optimization” and an attempt to manipulate the search engines, but in other cases the Hot Mess is just that – a mess. Whatever the cause, put down everything and start fixing the problems now. Chasing new links without fixing the mess is like having your carpets cleaned while your house is burning down.</p>
<h2><span style="color: #800080;"><strong>Case #4: The Bad Boy</strong></span></h2>
<h3><span style="color: #008000;"><strong>10% On-page, </strong><strong>90% Link-building</strong></span></h3>
<p>Finally, there’s the Bad Boy – he’s broken every rule in the Google link-building playbook, and they’ve finally noticed. This could be a large-scale devaluation or a Capital-P Penalty, including:</p>
<ul>
<li>Paid links</li>
<li>Link farms, networks and exchanges</li>
<li>Excessive low-value links</li>
<li>Aggressive anchor-text targeting</li>
</ul>
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		<title>Advantages of Content Delivery Network</title>
		<link>http://www.hostdepartment.com/blog/2012/04/05/advantages-of-content-delivery-network/</link>
		<comments>http://www.hostdepartment.com/blog/2012/04/05/advantages-of-content-delivery-network/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 05 Apr 2012 12:14:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Host Dept.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Announcements]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.hostdepartment.com/blog/?p=681</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Now a days people don&#8217;t like to wait and they want sites to load fast. Your site will lose 50% of the traffic if your site takes more time to load. Now the question arises is what to do to make your site load faster. One solution that comes to my mind is Content Delivery [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Now a days people don&#8217;t like to wait and they want sites to load fast. Your site will lose 50% of the traffic if your site takes more time to load. Now the question arises is what to do to make your site load faster. One solution that comes to my mind is Content Delivery Network.</p>
<p>Content Delivery Network (CDN) is used to speedup your network. Using CDN will definitely increase your website speed which will gives a best performance to the end users and also Search engine bots.In the previous articles I have told you about Your Website speed will affect the Search Engine Ranking.Google and Yahoo are already declared that,they will not going to allow slow loading websites in their search results,this is because to deliver a good content and navigation experience to their visitors.It is also our duty to ensure that performance of Website must be good.If you are using wordpress then this article is for you which helps you how to speed your blog.</p>
<h2><span style="color: #808000;"><strong>How to Configure your own Content Delivery Network (CDN) in your Shared Hosting WordPress Blog for Free :</strong></span></h2>
<p>We have many alternatives for CDN you can use external CDN network but it is cost effective,I think it takes $10 something for the Professional CDN services.Its performance is really good,it will improve your website speed 20 to 30%.But if you can’t afford that amount,simply choose to create your own CDN with the existing domain in WordPress blog using w3 total cache Plugin. Follow these bellow steps to configure the cdn network on your blog with the existing domain.</p>
<p>But before going further you must take a back up of your Entire My SQL database and the Directory data.Remember taking back up is very important,if anything goes wrong you can recover it from the backup,so don’t forget to take a back up.Here I don’t</p>
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		<title>FaceBook Advertising Facts</title>
		<link>http://www.hostdepartment.com/blog/2012/04/04/facebook-advertising-facts/</link>
		<comments>http://www.hostdepartment.com/blog/2012/04/04/facebook-advertising-facts/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 04 Apr 2012 10:58:13 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Host Dept.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Announcements]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[advertising facts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[facebook advertising facts]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.hostdepartment.com/blog/?p=673</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Facebook is known to have cultivated into the one of the biggest (if not necessarily the biggest) social networking sites on the web. Let&#8217;s check out some interesting statistics relating to this social networking site  It currently offers over 500 million (and counting) active members worldwide (In the event that Facebook were to be a [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a title="HostDepartment Facebook Page" href="https://www.facebook.com/hdllc" target="_blank">Facebook</a> is known to have cultivated into the one of the biggest (if not necessarily the biggest) social networking sites on the web.</p>
<p>Let&#8217;s check out some interesting statistics relating to this social networking site  It currently offers over 500 million (and counting) active members worldwide (In the event that Facebook were to be a country, it would be the one of the largest countries in the world &#8212; Ahead of countries like Brazil, Russia as well as Japan!), and there are usually close to half the billion of lively users surfing and checking out countless number of web pages on this one single social network site daily, including participating in the various Fb groups and share interests via this kind of powerful network.</p>
<p>The actual enormous popularity of Facebook has presented internet marketers and businesses having an opportunity for them to take advantage of this platform to expand their own business and contact even more potential customers worldwide.</p>
<p>When it comes to reaching out to potential prospects on Facebook, the best way to reach out to tens of thousands (if not millions) of them fast is to utilize Facebook ads.</p>
<p>There are many advantages to using Facebook ads to advertise your business, products and services, and in this article, I am going to share with you Two of the biggest advantages of Fb advertising, and why you should be using it you will find already done so!</p>
<h2> <span style="color: #808000;">Cheap Advertising To some Huge Audience</span></h2>
<p>When compared with advertising via Pay per click, it is much cheaper to generate and place advertisements on Facebook with Facebook adverts (there are times where you only must pay pennies for a click!)</p>
<p>The main reason is due to the fact that when compared to Google AdWords, the quantity of advertisers in Myspace advertising is much lesser. And as a result there are much lesser competitors eager for the advertising space available in Facebook and as such, the price of advertising is much less expensive.</p>
<p>2. Ability To Market Based On Demographics</p>
<p>In contrast to Google AdWords, where you focus on audiences based on the various keyword phrases (and nations around the world and states you would like your ad to seem in), with Fb advertising, you goal audiences based on class.</p>
<h2><span style="color: #808000;">In terms of census, you can target audiences according to:</span></h2>
<ul>
<li>Location</li>
<li>Age Group</li>
<li>Birthday</li>
<li>Gender</li>
<li>Keywords</li>
<li>Education Level</li>
<li>Workplaces</li>
<li>Connection Status</li>
<li>Interests</li>
<li>&#8216;languages&#8217;</li>
<li>Connections (to the numerous Facebook pages, groups, events, and applications)</li>
</ul>
<p>With this option, you can really pinpoint your targeted audiences into the very detail. So when you know who exactly to target, you will be able to experience very positive results out of your Facebook advertising campaigns.</p>
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		<title>Introduction to SEO</title>
		<link>http://www.hostdepartment.com/blog/2012/04/03/introduction-to-seo/</link>
		<comments>http://www.hostdepartment.com/blog/2012/04/03/introduction-to-seo/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 03 Apr 2012 10:01:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Host Dept.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Announcements]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hostdepartment seo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[search engine optimization]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SEO]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.hostdepartment.com/blog/?p=665</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[What is SEO? SEO is the abbreviation of Search Engine Optimization and it is a process to bring relevant visitors to your site by following the rules and regulations of search engines. The traffic which comes through SEO is unpaid, it is known as natural traffic or organic traffic. Whenever you enter a question in [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<h2><span style="color: #800080;">What is SEO?</span></h2>
<p>SEO is the abbreviation of Search Engine Optimization and it is a process to bring relevant visitors to your site by following the rules and regulations of search engines. The traffic which comes through SEO is unpaid, it is known as natural traffic or organic traffic.</p>
<p>Whenever you enter a question in a search engine and hit &#8216;enter&#8217; you get a list of web results that contain that query term. Users normally tend to visit internet sites that are at the top of this kind of list as they understand those to be more relevant to the query. If you&#8217;ve ever wondered why many of these websites rank better than the others then you need to know that it is because of a powerful web marketing technique called <strong>Search Engine Optimization (SEO)</strong>.</p>
<p>SEO is a method which helps search engines locate and rank your website higher than the millions of other sites in response to a search query. Search engine optimization thus helps you acquire traffic from search engines.</p>
<p>This SEO tutorial covers all the necessary information you need to know about Search Engine Optimization &#8211; what is it, how does it work and differences in the ranking criteria of major search engines.</p>
<h2><span style="color: #0000ff;">How Search Engines Work</span></h2>
<p>The first basic reality you need to know to learn Search engine optimization is that search engines usually are not humans. While this might be obvious for everybody, the actual differences between how humans and search engines view web pages are not same. Unlike humans, engines like google are text-driven. Although technology advances rapidly, search engines are far from smart creatures that can notice the beauty of a cool design or enjoy the seems and movement in movies. Instead, search engines like google crawl the Web, looking at particular site products (mainly text) to obtain an idea what a website is about. This short explanation is not the many precise because as we will see next, search engines carry out several activities to be able to deliver search results : crawling, indexing, processing, calculating relevancy, as well as retrieving.</p>
<p>First, search engines crawl the Web to see what is there. This task is performed by a piece of software, called a crawler or a spider (or Googlebot, as is the case with Google). Spiders follow links from one page to another and index everything they find on their way. Having in mind the number of pages on the Web (over 20 billion), it is impossible for a spider to visit a site daily just to see if a new page has appeared or if an existing page has been modified, sometimes crawlers may not end up visiting your site for a month or two.</p>
<p>What you can do is to check what a crawler sees from your site. As already mentioned, crawlers are not humans and they do not see images, Flash movies, JavaScript, frames, password-protected pages and directories, so if you have tons of these on your site, you&#8217;d better run the Spider Simulator below to see if these goodies are viewable by the spider. If they are not viewable, they will not be spidered, not indexed, not processed, etc. &#8211; in a word they will be non-existent for search engines.</p>
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		<title>Tips for PPC Advertising</title>
		<link>http://www.hostdepartment.com/blog/2012/04/02/tips-for-ppc-advertising/</link>
		<comments>http://www.hostdepartment.com/blog/2012/04/02/tips-for-ppc-advertising/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 02 Apr 2012 09:17:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Host Dept.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Announcements]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[tips for ppc advertising]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.hostdepartment.com/blog/?p=659</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[“Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.” -Michelangelo You don’t have to be the Michelangelo of PPC to optimize a campaign, but optimizing is much like chipping away at a block of stone to discover the beautiful statue within. 1. Define Your [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>“Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.” -Michelangelo</p>
<p>You don’t have to be the Michelangelo of PPC to optimize a campaign, but optimizing is much like chipping away at a block of stone to discover the beautiful statue within.</p>
<h3><strong>1. Define Your Goal</strong></h3>
<p><strong>What is it you want your PPC campaign to do for you? </strong>Before you can optimize you need to decide what you want to get out of your campaign. Hopefully your goal is related to generating more business, if not, it must be nice to have cash to burn.</p>
<p>Do you want more traffic to your site, to deliver a branding message, or to generate more sales, leads, downloads, conversions etc.?</p>
<p>Your goal is going to determine how you use the techniques below to optimize your campaign.</p>
<h3><strong>2. Keywords</strong></h3>
<p><strong></strong><strong>Be prepared to get ruthless with your keywords. </strong>You don’t have time or money to waste on keywords that aren’t performing.</p>
<p>A good rule of thumb is to give your keywords a minimum of 200 impressions before you do anything. If after receiving 200 impressions a keyword has less than 1% CTR, delete it.</p>
<p>For any keywords that are over 1% you’ll want to assign a keyword specific bid, or look to expand on it, which I’ll discuss below. If a keyword is barely over the 1% CTR, lean towards deleting it.</p>
<p>Be ruthless when deleting keywords and keep in mind that it’s good to have only high traffic and quality keywords in your campaign, even if you only have a small amount of keywords.</p>
<p>With PPC, being number 1 doesn’t mean you’re the best. So, set your bids accordingly and aim for position 3 or 4. Try to find your campaign’s “sweet spot”, where you are paying the least per click, earning the most, and still receiving a decent amount of traffic.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that the keywords you avoid are also very important. Add negative keywords by reviewing the search terms report and add any keywords that are unrelated to your campaign.</p>
<h3><strong>3. Ad Text</strong></h3>
<p><strong></strong><strong>No need to reinvent the wheel, just add variations. </strong>When optimizing ad text use the same rule as keywords. Allow for 200 impressions per ad text and delete ad text that has a CTR below 1%.</p>
<p>If none of your ad text creatives have a 1% CTR then you’ll need to create a variation of the best performing one and try a completely new ad text creative.</p>
<p>Remember, don’t reinvent the wheel, just try variations. Try testing title case, display URL variations (www.yourdomain.com, YourDomain.com, www.YourDomain.com, YourDomain.com/Keyword), switch up your call to action, or swap description line 1 with line 2. But, try to build on what works.</p>
<p>Each ad group should have 2-3 ad text variations at all times.</p>
<h3><strong>4. Display Network</strong></h3>
<p><strong></strong><strong>If you haven’t separated display and search traffic, do it now! </strong>These two traffic sources act and perform very differently, and you need to keep them separate in order to optimize properly. In order to optimize for display all you need to do is review your ad text (see above) and remove any undesirable sources of traffic.</p>
<p>With display network ad text and banner creatives aim for high CTR and constantly optimize by adding variations and new creatives. Keep things fresh! Review your automatic and managed placements and remove sources that don’t hit the 1% CTR, don’t convert, or are just undesirable.</p>
<h3><strong>5. Landing Pages</strong></h3>
<p><strong>Your landing pages are the one part of your campaign that you have 100% control of. </strong>They also make or break your campaign’s success. If you can increase your landing page conversion rate by even 1%, how would that affect your campaign’s success?</p>
<p>Not testing landing page variations? It’s time to start, even if it’s just a simple A/B test. There are a number cost effective tools and services you can use. Start with A/B testing and consider multivariate testing in the future.</p>
<p>Track any landing page test by ad group, you’ll be surprised at how different landing pages perform with different ad groups. If you have the traffic you can get more granular and target by keyword or site.</p>
<p>Once you find some successes continue to refine and increase conversion rates by testing slight variations, and again, build on what works.</p>
<h3><strong>6. Campaign Expansion</strong></h3>
<p><strong></strong><strong>Expand on what works! </strong>After a full review of your campaign you’ll know what keywords, creatives, and niches within your campaign work. Now take that information and expand on it.</p>
<p>Group your best performing keywords together in a new campaign or ad group, sort them by themes or niches, try new keyword match types, and use your best ad text creatives.</p>
<p>Take the top performing sites and put them in a new ad group. If you’ve found a site that works well, check to see if there are more placements available on the site. Then dominate that placement.</p>
<p>Create new landing pages that are customized for the niches, ad groups, keywords, and sites that work.</p>
<p>When you are expanding your keywords and sites be careful to pause the keywords or sites in their old ad groups to avoid competing with yourself.</p>
<p><strong>Bonus tip: </strong><strong>Keep in mind that quality score operates on multiple levels. </strong>So, deleting poor performing keywords, ad groups, and campaigns within your account can only help. Don’t be afraid to get ruthless!</p>
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		<title>Myths of Cheap Web Hosting Plans</title>
		<link>http://www.hostdepartment.com/blog/2012/03/27/myths-of-cheap-web-hosting-plans/</link>
		<comments>http://www.hostdepartment.com/blog/2012/03/27/myths-of-cheap-web-hosting-plans/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 27 Mar 2012 10:55:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Host Dept.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Announcements]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[affordable web hosting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[myths of cheap web hosting]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.hostdepartment.com/blog/?p=648</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Most people believe that affordable web hosting providers offer low quality servers and slow customer support which is nothing but a myth. Hosting companies provide cheap web hosting plans because of several factors and it doesn&#8217;t mean because their service is poor they are offering plans at low cost. Infact price has nothing to do [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Most people believe that affordable web hosting providers offer low quality servers and slow customer support <span style="color: #808000;"><strong>which is nothing but a myth. </strong><span style="color: #000000;">Hosting companies provide <a title="Cheap Web Hosting Plan" href="http://www.hostdepartment.com/webhostingplan.php" target="_blank">cheap web hosting</a> plans because of several factors and it doesn&#8217;t mean because their service is poor they are offering plans at <a title="Unlimited Web Hosting" href="http://www.hostdepartment.com/unlimited-web-hosting/" target="_blank">low cost</a>. Infact price has nothing to do with quality. </span></span></p>
<h2><span style="color: #800080;">Let us see the benefits of cheap web hosting plans</span></h2>
<p>The primary advantage of getting a cheap web hosting services is that, of course, it is cost-effective, if not even, free of charge. These cheap website hosting and plans are perfect for those who are building their particular personal web pages with only a very minimal use of images. Simple and fundamental websites are best managed by these budget web hosting services.</p>
<p>Despite the cheap value attached to some web hosting plans, most website hosting providers actually offer quality web hosting services. Subscribers of affordable hosting companies enjoy both the advantage of getting high-quality service in return for a budget web hosting support plan.</p>
<h2><span style="color: #800080;">Why Low Price?</span></h2>
<p>The primary reason why there are plenty of cheap web hosting service providers in the market today is a result of the increasing demand for web hosting services. Many hosting companies are arising to respond to this need. For that reason, there is already the saturation of gamers in the web hosting support field and thus, most of these key players or web hosting companies intentionally reduced their prices to be able to compete in the market.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h2><span style="color: #800080;">Inquire About Your Host</span></h2>
<p>With all those above-mentioned advantages of having an affordable web hosting solution, it is still wise to say that careful thinking is still the best economic driver in the online business. Careful choosing of a web host provider does not mean choosing the one that has the least price. Just like any other venture, finding a web host involve patience and intense planning. It is also better if you have already a clear picture of what your web site would look like and the purpose of it so that you will not have a hard time matching your set requirements to that of the services offered by the web host.</p>
<p>Learn as much information as you can from the web hosting company of choice. As mentioned, client feedbacks and testimonials are very important. Find out about the company&#8217;s image, profile, history and on how they intend to provide follow-up services to clients. It is also important to look into several plans from the same web hosting company in order to compare prices and services and get the one that will best fit your web site&#8217;s requirement.</p>
<p>Last but not the least, reliability and trustworthiness is also another thing to look for in a cheap web hosting company. Not only is it important that you are able to afford their services, it is also necessary that they can give you the service that you need when you need it, where you need it, and as soon as you need it.</p>
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		<title>7 Common Mistakes of PPC Advertising</title>
		<link>http://www.hostdepartment.com/blog/2012/03/26/7-common-mistakes-of-ppc-advertising/</link>
		<comments>http://www.hostdepartment.com/blog/2012/03/26/7-common-mistakes-of-ppc-advertising/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 26 Mar 2012 10:14:29 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Host Dept.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Announcements]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[common mistakes in ppc campaign]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ppc campaign]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.hostdepartment.com/blog/?p=638</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[PPC advertisement is one of the most effective methods to get new customers and leads to online business. It is a way by which companies expand their business and profits. But only few people gets success in their aim of growing traffic and profit while others fail to get because of mistakes. Lets us see [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>PPC advertisement is one of the most effective methods to get new customers and leads to online business. It is a way by which companies expand their business and profits. But only few people gets success in their aim of growing traffic and profit while others fail to get because of mistakes. Lets us see 7 mistakes of PPC Advertising.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h2><span style="color: #808000;">Redirecting to Home Page:</span></h2>
<p>Don&#8217;t redirect your visitors to home page because they will not be in a position to go through all the content in your site. Instead create a landing page which is in relevance with your ad and send your users there. This should include headlines, content, text, images, and call-to-actions. Find a more detailed explanation of conversion rate optimization here.</p>
<h2><span style="color: #808000;">Avoiding Geographical Target:</span></h2>
<p>It is a general psychology of the people that they usually prefer local brands or the brands which are meant for them. So instead of advertising all over the world target a particular state and post some ads by mentioning the name of a particular state. You will definitely get a good click through rate(CTR) and a low cost per click(CPC).</p>
<h2><span style="color: #808000;">Irrelevant Landing Page:</span></h2>
<p>Include the content of your advertisement in your landing page. For example, if you are offering 30% discount then include that in your landing page because visitors usually click your ad to see those things which has attracted them and if they don&#8217;t find them then they will leave.</p>
<h2><span style="color: #808000;">No Ad Testing:</span></h2>
<p>Ad tests are paramount in determining the words, phrases, and propositions that appeal the most to your target audience. Maybe it&#8217;s a tempting offer (free shipping) or a quick testament to your company&#8217;s credibility (90 percent success rate). Ad testing is a powerful way to improve campaign performance.</p>
<p>To start, try testing at three different ads per ad group (set ad rotation to even). I first recommend testing three philosophically different ads. Once you have a sample of 300 clicks per ad, you should be able to begin to determine winners and losers by ROI. Be careful not to judge by CTR alone, as high click through rates can actually be detrimental to a campaign if they do not result in conversions.</p>
<p>For phase two of ad testing, experiment with language refinement to further boost returns. You should find that strong adjectives such as &#8220;powerful&#8221; go along way in further improving your ad. Again, keep your first winning ad as the control.</p>
<h2><span style="color: #808000;">Sticking to Adwords</span></h2>
<p>There is no doubt that adwords is one of the greatest source of getting traffic and business and it brings almost double profit when compared to others but don&#8217;t stick to adwords as due to this you may lose huge opportunity that lies in MSN or any other network.</p>
<h2><span style="color: #808000;">Not properly managing negative keywords.</span></h2>
<p>At the core of your PPC campaign lie the keywords you choose to target in your campaign. Many times advertisers will use a broad match that connects keywords to synonyms and misspelled versions of keywords. Many of these broad match terms will contain words that demonstrate the searcher is not a potential customer.</p>
<p>For example, you may sell flowers but not flower pots. You choose a broad match so you hit phrases like “buy flower bouquet.” Your broad match might also draw in searches for “flower pots” on the keyword “flower.” If you mark “pots” as a negative keyword, this will increase your click through rate (CTR) and your conversions because your ad will appear before fewer non-interested searchers.</p>
<p>Negative keywords help you hone your ad placement, and you can find good suggestions of words to eliminate in many places. Start by reviewing the keywords on which your ads have placed. Look for obvious mismatches between the searcher’s goals and your ad’s offering. Check your Google Analytics reports as well to see keywords that do not reflect your goals.</p>
<h2><span style="color: #808000;"><strong>Using Telephone Numbers</strong></span></h2>
<p>Using a telephone number within your PPC ad is an eye catcher … that’s all. Not many people will pick up their phone and dial your number if they see your ad. So what you’re doing is just wasting space that can be used for a good message. Tests have been done and this was proven quite a few times … get rid of that phone number in the ad.</p>
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		<title>Understand Reseller Hosting</title>
		<link>http://www.hostdepartment.com/blog/2012/03/21/understand-reseller-hosting/</link>
		<comments>http://www.hostdepartment.com/blog/2012/03/21/understand-reseller-hosting/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 22 Mar 2012 07:35:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Host Dept.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Announcements]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.hostdepartment.com/blog/?p=630</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[What is Reseller Hosting? Reseller Hosting &#8211; Buying a reseller hosting plan and starting your company that sells web hosting to end users. Longer Definition of Reseller Hosting Reseller hosting includes selling any type of web hosting but usually refers to smaller hosting companies that buy one reseller hosting plan and then setup a hosting [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<h2><span style="color: #808000;">What is Reseller Hosting?</span></h2>
<p>Reseller Hosting &#8211; Buying a <a title="Resellers and Partners" href="http://www.hostdepartment.com/resellersandpartners.html">reseller hosting pla</a><a title="Resellers and Partners" href="http://www.hostdepartment.com/resellersandpartners.html" target="_blank">n</a> and starting your company that sells web hosting to end users.</p>
<h2><span style="color: #808000;">Longer Definition of Reseller Hosting</span></h2>
<p>Reseller hosting includes selling any type of web hosting but usually refers to smaller hosting companies that buy one reseller hosting plan and then setup a hosting company to sell hosting to other people. Even big companies who have thousands of servers are doing the same thing as the small guy just on a larger scale.</p>
<h2><span style="color: #808000;">Advantages of Starting A Hosting Company</span></h2>
<p>- Recurring revenue&#8230;<br />
- Huge market as everyone needs a website<br />
- Easy to find a niche with little or no competition.<br />
- Small hosting companies CAN compete with large ones.</p>
<h2><span style="color: #808000;">Example of Making Money With Reseller Hosting:</span></h2>
<p>You buy a reseller web hosting package with 50 GB disk space and 150 GB bandwidth. You then break this into 50 separate accounts with 1000 MB disk space and 3000 MB bandwidth each and then you sell these smaller packages to your customers. So if you sell each of these packages for $10.00 dollars a month you would be making $500.00 and your only cost is the reseller web hosting package which cost $24.95 a month. So your total profit would be $470 a month. To summarize, reseller web hosting is the act of buying a large web hosting plan or dedicated server and then breaking it into smaller parts to resell to your clients. This definition is rather simple but you now understand the basic meaning.</p>
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