Written by Brad Traversy | 31 August 2010

No matter where one is situated, businessmen always express their need to host their website. All of them want to have a perfectly well hosted website. There are too many demands that have to be met for many different kinds of websites to have an ideal factor for hosting a website.

All hosting candidates or companies meet typical requirements for standard hosting services, and companies in a foreign country often meet these needs for a lower cost than US or Europe based competitors

But the one question that arises here is should hosting be outsourced overseas?

Foreign web hosting present the same packages for substantially low cost, while some overseas companies may offer low rates, simply as a sales trick. Then there are others who offer or maintain their rates as per the cost of living in that specific country. Similarly these costs can be extremely lower in countries like India or Pakistan there by proving to be cost cutting.

This makes it really difficult to choose the top hosting companies as low cost can surely appeal to everyone. Even though lower rate of expense can be tempting, but that does not guarantee quality. It is not necessary that all low cost hosting companies may deliver equally higher level of quality that others do. Hence it’s not at all advisable for web masters to simply choose the ones based on rates as there are other factors that come in the light as well before selecting a web host for any company.

Location would also be a determining factor the closer the servers are to the clients the easier it will be possible for them to access that website. Any amount of Physical distance between the servers and users can bring a significant amount of difference.

Now a day’s most of the foreign companies are very well groomed for providing high class customer service whereby they are highly respectful of customers and other people around.

By customers we mean webmasters. Concern is the main concern for most of these companies as they understand very well that they have to work harder than other chief web hosting companies in United States in order to gain equal amount of respect and reputation.

Similarly hosting in different countries that have many different kinds of customs and traditions and at the same time the factor of being in completely different time zones can also be a matter of concern for the webmasters. This same problem also makes it very difficult to outsource effective web hosting as well .Communication gaps, confusion in understanding each other’s language sometimes , and all the problems arising due to inability to find a common time to work together  in spite of claiming to give 24 hours service can all prove to be a curse in individuals outsourcing hosting.

These problems obviously are not a sure side effect of a foreign country’s web hosting, but even then it is absolutely important that one determines or resolves this on an individual basis.

Written by Brad Traversy | 05 August 2010

People are constantly talking about pagerank and thinking of ways to increase it. Most SEO experts know this but the truth is is that PR (pagerank) does very little if anything at all to boost a website search engine ranking. Pagerank does hold a lot of weight at the moment when it comes to selling websites or advertising. People tend to spend much more to advertise or get backlinks on a high PR website but when it comes to what sites rank where, PR holds very little weight these days. Our site is a perfect example. We had a PR3 when we were techguywebdesign.com and since we have changed domain names we are now a PR0 BUT we do fantastic in the serps. We are at the top of the first page for Joomla web design, affordable web design and cheap web design which are all extremely competitive keywords. This is due to optimizing content and using white hat SEO tactics. I have no doubt that we will be bumped up to a PR2 or PR3 the next update but never the less we are a PR0 at the moment and generate great traffic from Google and other search engines. Im not saying not to try and boost your PR but just know there are other factors to SEO.

Written by Austin Gaddis | 26 July 2010

How much money are you spending on SEO? I have met to many people that spend hundreds to thousands of dollars on search engine optimization(SEO), but they continue to make the same big SEO blunder over and over again. This blunder is, not putting enough thought into the domain name. In this article I will go over a few tips, so you can choose the absolute best domain name!

When choosing a domain name, try to view it as someone typing in your website. It is proven that short domain names work much better than longer domain names. A shorter domain name is, easier to remember, easier to type in, and looks more professional. Overall a short domain name is what you are aiming for. Also, try to make it as easy to type in and remember as possible, if you can try to avoid numbers for words, or using z instead of s, you get the point. This also shows great professionalism.

Alright, you have the basic outline of your domain name, what now? You have to choose a TLD, the best thing to do here is always get .com domains, there is an exception if you're starting a network or organization. This is because people will always relate a website and the internet to .com. Like I said earlier, try to keep domain names short and professional, this also means try to avoid hyphens because they usually just add confusion to the mix of things. Try to avoid copyright infringement at all costs, this is a no-no.

When choosing the right domain name, try to think about what your doing. A domain name like rickscomputers.com, is much better than ricksstoreofstuff.com, the first is to the point, professional and targets the keyword computers. Something great to know is keyword research, this can make or break the SEO of your domain name and website. Keep things as relevant as you can to what your doing, and what your website is doing.

Now that you know some great tips to choosing the perfect domain name, you can go out and start your website without making the common blunder of many website owners. If you ignore these key elements, you are dooming your website to failure, so put all this knowledge into practice, and you will be making great domain names.

Written by Brad Traversy | 24 July 2010

Many people do not realize the importance of web page titles. Titles hold TONS of weight in search engine ranking. Some webmasters focus solely on keywords and meta tags when in reality they do not hold near as much weight as they use to. The search engine algorithms have changed. If you want your web page to come up for a certain keyword then put that word or phrase in the page title.

When you title a web page, you tell the search engine and the user what the web page is  about. All of us have seen the one sentence summaries in magazines, newspapers and TV guides. It allows for quick referencing and decision making by telling us what the page, article or show is going to be about.

This is one of the reasons that naming your page titles is so crucial to getting your site ranked well. There are TONS of sites on the web that have just the company name or even "untitled" in the page title. The webmaster of these sites obviously has no SEO knowledge what so ever or just does not care.

Having the company name on all the pagescan be sort of a branding strategy, chances are, your visitors do not know your brand name yet and are looking for a service or product that you are selling. You can add the company name into the page title, but it should be shown after the main keywords that you want to use.

Every page should have a different and unique title. Websites that are selling multiple products/services should have a unique title for each one. You must take the time to make the web page stand out or you will not get good results for that page.

You should try to place your keywords in the title. Search engines rank each pageseparatley, so it's very important to use the proper naming methods.

Aim for a 4 to 6 word title. No less and deninitley no more. Search engines only display 58 characters in the title the rest is then truncated and will not be visible to the reader. The longer the title is, the less weight is given to each of the words.

Always keep the reader in mind first when creating your page titles. Some phrases may rank well in the search engines but if noone is searching for it it is useless anyway. Sometimes the words and phrases work out for both the user and the search engine which is the goal.

Written by Brad Traversy | 16 July 2010

We at Tech Guy Web Solutions come across many different stock designs and web elements. I thought I would share these great advertising box/banner elements. These are great for any kind of hosting, design, web technology services or products. The full PSD is available for download below absolutely free! Keep up with our blog to receive more free web elements and graphics.

Download Now

Written by Brad Traversy | 27 June 2010

2009 and 2010 have been a big for hackers. Joomla security expert, Tom Canavan, stated that there has been an increase ofat least  600% in hacking this last year.

Hacking happens all of the time with all web content managment systems but Joomla seems to be one of the first to respond and improve the system against future threats. These are some tips on keeping your Joomla site secure and keeping the bad guys out.

Keep up to date

Typically, most dynamic, CMS based websites are more vulnerable to attacks by hackers that will spam, damage, or steal from your website. Joomla developers are usually one step ahead of the hackers, but in order for you to benefit from their efforts to keep your Joomla site secure, you need to make sure to keep your Joomla installation up to date. Always make sure to download and install the most recent updates and security patches. You also want to update any 3rd party extensions that you may be using. It states right on the Joomla website that "staying current with upgrades is the most important step towards protecting your Web site." The longer your system is sitting there not patched the more chances a hacker has to break into your infrastructure.

Keep only what you use

As far as 3rd party extensions, it is good practice to delete anything that you know you will not be using. This will help keep hackers out as well as optimize your site and keep it more organized.

Your password

Hackers have very high tech password cracking tools. Make sure you use an extremley secure password. You should use a combination of numbers, letters, and other symbols with proper usage of upper and lower case. To take it a step further, change up your password  every 30 days to help prevent threats. This goes for any important website that uses a password. You also might want to change the standard username from "admin" to something else more secure.

Admin Link

Anyone that knows Joomla knows that the link to get to the admin login is yoursite.com/administrator. I stumbled upon a fantastic little plugin called jSecureAuthentication. This plugin was made to make your administrator link much more secure and harder to find. It adds a questionmark with a word or phrase to the end of your link. The extension was free but has now moved to commercial. Get it here.

Backup!

This is an absolute must for any website not just Joomla. Always always always back up your site at least once per week and after every major change. I have learned this the hard way. Joomla has a fantastic component to backup all files and the database in one click. It is formerly known as Joomlapack but is now Akeeba. The component is free and easy to use so you have no excuses. If you dont want to do it we offer a website backup service.

Use the correct CHMOD for each folder and file

Setting your files and/or folders to a CHMOD of 777 or 707 is only needed when a script needs to write to that file or folder. All other files should use the following configurations:

• PHP files: 644
• Config files: 666
• Other folders: 755

Change Database Prefix (jos_)

SQL injections that are created to hack a Joomla site usually try to retrieve data from the jos_users table, so they can get the username and password for the super administrator of the website. Changing the default prefix into something else will prevent SQL injections.

You can set the database prefix when installing Joomla. If you've already installed Joomla! and want to change your prefix, do the following:

1. Log on to the back-end.
2. Go to global configuration and search for the database
3. Change the database prefix (Example: fgfgddg_) and click Save.
4. Go to phpMyAdmin and access your database.
5. Go to export, leave all default values and press Start. Exporting the database can take a while.
6. When done, select all code and copy it to notepad
7. In phpMyAdmin, select all tables then delete them
8. In notepad, do a Search & replace (Ctrl + H). Set the searchterm to jos_ and change it into your new prefix (Example: fgfgddg_). Press "Replace all".
9. Select everything in your notepad file and copy it. In phpMyAdmin, go to SQL, paste the queries and click Start.