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Web Hosting Service: 7 Questions To AskA good quality web hosting service can be difficult to find. There are a million companies all essentially offering the same thing, what criteria can you use to distinguish the competent from the pretenders? In this article I present my top seven questions that have to be answered correctly before I will sign up with a new hosting company, for my own company or one of my clients.
Web Hosting Service 7 Pre-Sale Questions
1.) Backups? – Ask about what is backed up you want to hear that all files and databases are backed up, not just files or just databases.
2.) Data Center Location? – Avoid hosting with companies that have their datacenter in areas that are subject to extremes of weather or are politically unstable.
3.) Phone Support? – Is there a support phone number on the website? If not find another web hosting service. If there is call the number and ask a couple routine questions from this list.
4.) Testimonials? – Can you find the name and websites of other sites that host with this company? Look for
web hosting reviews if you can find a reliable testimonial.
5.) Crowded Servers? – Ask how many sites do they put on each server?
6.) Spam Complaints? – Since you’ll be sharing servers, you’ll want to make sure you don’t have any bad neighbors.
7.) Patch Management? – How current are their software installations? What version of PHP are they using? Find out and then go to php.net and check the current stable version.
While this is not a completely exhaustive list of factors that determine the quality of a hosting service, it is a quick and useful way to avoid the most common causes of problems when choosing a web hosting company.
You may find the
web hosting basics guide useful.
Do you have what it takes to be a
Six Figure Blogger? Inflation: Your Portfolio's Worst NightmareI've been reading through my new copy of The Single Best Investment and right there on page one the author Lowell Miller, slapped me in the face with a very important reminder.
An often overlooked, or do I dare to say purposely neglected by most conservative personal finance writers and investment advisers is inflation.
Let's take a look at some facts about inflation from the book.
The average annual inflation rate for the past 60 years is: 4.10%
Inflation compounds.
Since 1945, there have only been 2 years when inflation has been negative.
What this means for your portfolio, and probably why most investment sellers don't talk to much about inflation is, you start off, on average 4.10% in the whole each year! That's before you even plunk your dough into the latest under-performing mutual fund, ohand don't forget your 2.50% MER.
How's that 7% annual return that the fund company is paying splash all over the sports page of your newspaper looking now?
Here's what inflation looks like in real life...you'll see what compounding looks like in actual terms.
A middle of the line Ford car, in 1980, cost $3,500. Today, approximately 26 years later,the same vehicle would cost you $20,000. This represents a period of higher than average inflation, but even on average, at only 4% inflation, prices will double every 18 years. That is without any other influence.
Since 1945 the Consumer Price Index reports that prices have risen over 900%.
Inflation and Your Portfolio, In Real Terms
What this really means is that if you invested $3,500 in 1980, if that investment is worth $20,000 now, pat yourself on the back...you broke even!
What I liked about the author putting this into his investing book was to encourage the average retail investor, his audience, to be more honest about the context of their investments.
It is easy, just as we investors tend to talk up the winners and quietly neglect our losses, to ignore the silent force of inflation when calculating our returns or even more importantly goals such as funds needed for children's college accounts and ourretirements.
The next time you're evaluating a fixed income investment don't forget to take inflation into the equation...if you do you'll see that these types of holdings, which are often sold as "low risk" are actually very risky...since when evaluated within the context of the virtually ever present monetary force of inflation that we exist with, they will almost certainly lose you money.
Do you have what it takes to be a
Six Figure Blogger? Promotional Pens Outperform Internet Ads There's a very interesting study over at
Maketing Serpa [which will only be available online for free until Feb. 24...sign up for their newsletter to get these articles delivered every week], which suggests that giving out tacky promotional pens may benefit the bottom line for your business more than buying ads on the web or during the Super Bowl.
76.1% of consumers studied said they could remember the brand name of a company that gave them a promotional item in the past year -- versus 53% who could remember a TV or print ad from the past month, and only 27% recalled an online ad. Promotional products -- from logo t-shirts to brand-stamped rose petals -- really work. And there's plenty of research data to prove it.
Which explains why in a search-marketing-mad world the promo products industry is quietly raking in nearly three times more ad dollars.
Yes that's right; they said 3 times as much spent on promo products as the online ad market. Read the rest of the article
here until Feb 24.
Do you have what it takes to be a
Six Figure Blogger? Qn: What has opened more doors than any doorman?
Ans: A Mastermind GroupStep by step guide to implement Mastermind Group Strategy in your business to create more growth and wealth.
For a FREE report, please visit:
http://www.Mastermind-Your-Way-to-Success.com/
