September 3rd, 2010
Steve
A Virtual Private Server (VPS) – is the next logical step up from a shared platform. Its scalability in resources versus cost makes it a viable alternative to dedicated server hosting.
While Virtual Private Servers – offer the same complement of operating systems and software components expected from a dedicated server, they vary from shared in that each virtual private server is isolated from one another, allowing concurrent execution of multiple operating systems – without allowing the execution of one partition to adversely affect the performance of another partition. Instead of allowing the kernel or operating system of a VPS to interface directly with hardware components, virtualization software intercepts requests, queues them, and manages their interpretation.
A Virtual Private Server platform – is ideally suited for:
Low End
- Stand Alone Services
- Private Proxies
- Small Email Server
- VPN Endpoint
- DNS Server
- Static Websites
Low to Mid Range
- Small to Moderately Dynamic Sites
- Repositories
- FTP Servers
- Databases
Mid Range
- Dynamic Websites
- Entry Level Web Servers
- Busy Email Servers
- Remote Linux Desktops
Mid Range to High End
- Large Dynamic Websites
- Hosting Multiple Sites
- Hosting Forums
- Hosting Complex Applications
High End (rivals most low end dedicated server packages)
- Hosting Tons of Client Sites
- Hosting Large Forums
- Hosting eCommerce Sites
- Windows Terminal Services
- File Servers
- SharePoint and Extensive Database Applications
As a rule of thumb – broad markets invite fierce competiton. Search queries that return in the tens of millions of results are going to be hard to rank on page one of any search engine. Why is that important even if you actually are selling to a broad market?
Online buyers are spending billions of dollars annually – and if not with you, certainly with your competition. The good news is that broad markets can be broken down into niches, with each niche targeted to draw buyers to your site. The key here is to do keyword research to determine the exact niche prospects are (currently) searching for, then optimize your site (using those keyword phrases) to increase your conversions.
Tweaking your site – to take advantage of current trends can be as simple as adding a URL and title description to exactly match the extended keyword phrases that are ranking highest (today).
As an example, I just this morning did keyword research on fitness equipment, which is a fairly broad market. Apparently, fitness equipment is searched for 82,000 times per month on Google. Drilling down, I saw that the extended keyword phrase of home fitness equipment drew 4,400 queries. If my site targeted fitness equipment, I could create a page with the URL of www.(yourdomain).com/home_fitness_equipment/ and include “home fitness equipment” in its title tag. Time and time again, I’ve seen this SEO strategy help sites with low (or ZERO) PageRank and minimal backlinks outrank sites with high PR and thousands of backlinks.
If you’re running a WordPress site – beware. The default for creating URLs looks something like ?p=1237. Sure your site may be indexed, but how many buyers are searching for 1237? By simply changing the default to Month/Name, the URL could look like /2010/08/home-fitness-equipment. If you’re searching for a custom title tag plug-in for WordPress, read the comments first and check it’s compatibility with your version (which should be updated to 3.01).
Increasing traffic is key – but great content and compelling calls-to-action take the reigns once your site is found. To optimize your conversions, you need all three ingredients.
To Your Success
- Steve
As you search the Internet for squeeze page strategies, remember that the rules (Google algorithms) were changed recently, and many once successful one page squeeze pages fell by the wayside. But before I get ahead of myself, what exactly are squeeze pages?
By definition – Once upon a time, squeeze pages were defined as a single web page with the sole purpose of capturing information for follow-up marketing. The ultimate goal of the page was to obtain the visitor’s email address. Why? To build a list of highly targeted prospects (seems fairly simple).
Times have changed – To avoid penalties and drops in SERPS (search engine results pages), squeeze pages are now being designed across multiple pages, each with relevant content. The goal however remains the same – to build a list that affords you the opportunity to present visitors with multiple sales messages over time, develop relationships, and cross-sell other products.
Conversion Strategies – will vary depending on your goal. The best conversion strategies focus on benefits and solutions. These can be either short or long term. Success stories work well, as do freebies – but we need to backtrack again. With the onslaught of spam, convincing anyone to give up their email address means your sales copy has to be compelling and you have to convey trust.
The Trust Factor – is huge, and I contend it’s the most important element of your site. Prospects buy from sales reps, businesses and organizations they know, like and TRUST. So how can you demonstrate trust online?
- Add Your Picture
- Add Your Signature
- Proofread your copy for spelling and grammatical structure
- Have a Privacy Policy
- Use Color Psychology
Successful Squeeze Pages – often use a short video and opt in form at the very top of the home page for visitors who want to sign up immediately, followed by content that essentially explains benefits and solutions in greater detail – with another opt in form at the bottom.
Xen™ – is a virtual machine environment that supports execution of multiple guest operating systems with outstanding levels of performance and resource isolation. Xen is Open Source software, released under the terms of the GNU General Public License.
Servers like – Hostirian’s Dedicated Servers are ideally suited to employ virtualization to present the illusion of many smaller virtual machines, each running a separate operating system.
Virtual machines – on one dedicated server are isolated from one another, allowing concurrent execution of multiple operating systems – without allowing the execution of one to adversely affect the performance of another partition.
XEN Hypervisor – is a layer of software running directly on the server’s hardware, replacing the operating system, which allows that server’s hardware to run multiple guest operating systems concurrently. It becomes the interface for all hardware requests such as CPU, I/O, and disk for the guest operating systems.
Server virtualization benefits
- dynamic fault tolerance against software failures (through rapid bootstrapping or rebooting)
- hardware fault tolerance (through migration of a virtual machine to different hardware)
- the ability to securely separate virtual operating systems
- the ability to support legacy software as well as new OS instances on the same computer
Featured Dedicated Servers
