Last summer, I moved most of my high traffic sites over to a dedicated server. I decided to keep Zander Chance and a few of my other sites on a shared host that was already pre-paid through March 2009. This was a mistake, and after watching my sites go down on 5 different occasions yesterday (all while I was working on a fairly long post), I finally decided to deal with it once and for all.

Now don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing wrong with shared hosting, as long as you’ve got a good service provider. I hosted a number of my sites with HostGator, and they were FANTASTIC! Speeds were great, support questions were answered promptly, and I never had a service interruption. If you don’t have a budget for a dedicated server, I recommend you host your sites with HostGator!

Unfortunately, I took advice from a bunch of “experts” on a popular web hosting forum, and went with this other company. Their price couldn’t be beat, and their reputation seemed to be solid. Unfortunately, their service started to suffer a few months later, and I was already locked into a 1-year contract with them. It was a bad move, but I had no choice at the time.

Last summer, I purchased a dedicated server from ThePlanet, and life couldn’t be better. I moved about 45 sites over to the new box, and everything has been running smoothly for the most part. Managing your own server is a job in itself, and through it I’ve learned how to better optimize my blogs to reduce the load it puts on our server.

A few tips to optimize your WordPress blog:

• Certain contact form plugins would cause the load averages to spike, so I’ve gone with a more low-tech approach that’s just as effective.
• Reduce the number of database calls by hardcoding the php variables in your theme.
• Limit the number of plugins you use. Instead of using the Gravatar plugin, I just hardcoded the WP 2.5+ gravatar code into my comments.php file.
• Monitor your CPU usage and load average when installing a new plugin, as some just don’t play well with others.

Making a few of these minor changes reduced my load average from 2.50 to 0.30. Not bad for 30 minutes of work.

I’ve also added an e-mail subscription box at the bottom of each post, along with some social media submission buttons. Hope you enjoy the changes!

Although I have mentioned that the best way to drive people to your site is to hire- promiting your site is also a key factor. Marketing might have been overlooked in your business plan OR you might have been underwhelmed by your prospects for affordable marketing options. There are a few really good reasons why you need to pay attention to how your site is promoted but they can be costly. Web site promotion has become a time consuming project and a new position in the web design industry, Search Engine Consultants, has been created. Here are the top ways to become your own best Search Engine Consultant, adding numbers, visibility, and profits for your business

1. Be consistent and “brand” your company. Use the same colors, logo, motto, etc. everywhere on your business website and printed materials.

2. Make your business web site trustable. Use brand names when you can. Paypal for instance is a great way to have customers trust you and your product.

3. Create policies that build trust: customers service, code of ethics, and privacy policies.

4. Ask your webmaster to name each of your pages using a keyword you have supplied them with.

5. Offer added values on your business web site that enhance your business and its image- This can include affiliate programs, books, and recommended links to websites.

6. Add a “Recommend this Site” button. If someone visits your business website and knows someone else who may appreciate it this tool is an easy way to enhance spreading your company image and message.

7. Provide a subscription box to your ezine or business announcement list, on your most viewed business web site pages.

8. On large business web sites create a “Whats New” page or even better, ask your web designed to design a “Site Map” for your visitors.

Much of your site traffic will come from search engines. Here are some search engine submission tips to keep in mind:

-Search engines look for certain things: titles, headings, meta tags- so it is crucial to make sure your site is search engine friendly. Search engines do not find your site unless you submit your sites information to the,. Below are some more ways to submit your website to search engines.

a. It is recommended that you submit to search engines individually (this is also a the way I do it and it works great!)

b. Since some people prefer to use a free service to submit their sites to search engines, I recommend that they open a free email address to use when you do anything for a free on the WWW. Two good search Engine submission services are Submit IT and Scrub the Web. You can pay for a program that will assist you to submit and critique your site such as Web Position Gold.

c. Visit the search engine information Sites- Search Engine Watch and Search Engine Guide for more ideas and standards. These are great ways to see how your site measures up.

Search engine submission is only one way to drive traffic to your business site. These are great ways to take that first step and see the financial results of your marketing.

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