August 2008

I wrote about choosing the right web hosting partner for your web business a moment ago, and through this post, I would like to take you to focus on how to look for recommended web hosting partner.

As you might already know, there are so many choices of web hosting today. I ended up changing web hosts several times during my journey in online business, just to waste valuable resources - time and money, that is.

Of course, a web host is better than the other in some ways, but choosing and testing each one randomly would not be the best way, and would not be fair for your business website visitors.

Moreover, doing so might damage your online business reputation, especially in term of website reliability, simply due to the fact that changing web hosting will cause your business website to be temporarily unavailable. And you don’t want that to happen often.

There are better ways.

You need to look for recommendation from the Internet, such as web hosting rating websites and personal blogs, to give you insights on what people think of their choice of web hosting.

Browsing for web hosting recommendations

The best way to choose the web hosting partner for your business is to look for recommendations from the Internet. Here is a tip or two on how to look for the best web hosting partner for you.

1. Personal blogs
   You can read what bloggers recommend from their own first-hand experience. Some giving honest reviews (and critics), some doing affiliate marketing - but all in all, bloggers are one of the best source for ‘unedited’ comments of a product!
2. Tutorial websites
   Webmaster tutorial websites is your source for web developing-related tutorials, including web hosting tutorials. Let the expert recommend you their choices of web hosting.

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This is actually a guest post, but I decided to comment on it.

You see, we always think that it is the home owners who suffer from the mortgages due to credit crunch today. Well, I just learned that the employees in the business are also severely hit by the credit crunch.

I admit, I personally never take a look at mortgage business from bird’s eyes view. Now I see the mortgage business is stretched, if not crumbling, right now - causing thousands of people losing their jobs due to lay-offs and downsizings.

People and businesses ought to be more resilient and creative, these days!

Here is the full story on mortgage business in the UK…

Jobs to go at HBOS mortgage sector

With the mortgage drought in the UK continuing since the onset of the global credit crunch last year, it is not only consumers who are suffering. Many people that work within the mortgage industry have also suffered as a result of the turmoil in the mortgage sector, and recently HBOS has announced that there are to be job losses in its mortgage loan sector. The closure of a specialist mortgage branch by HBOS is to result in the loss of 325 jobs by the end of March next year.

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Great business doesn’t have to be cutting-edge.

Many small businesses survive recession and stand the test of time. The businesses are typified as having long business life cycle, non-seasonal trend, and fulfill a need in the marketplace.

One of those strong survivors is ID card printing business.

ID Card printing business 101

In essence, ID card printing business involves card printing and the provision of complementary products and services.

The complementary products and services ranges widely, and are the main reason ID card printing business remains a lucrative one for a long time.

Some of the products and services include custom lanyards and badge reels, ID printer accessories and supplies, and ID card printing equipment, such as card printers and slot punches.

ID Card printing business prospects

Like I mentioned above, ID card printing business does survive recession. I know this because I have a small ID card printing shop :)

ID card printing shops definitely fill a need for ID in many organisations in wide array of industries - Employee IDs, member IDs, student IDs and event IDs (e.g. expos, conventions, seminars, etc.) to name a few.

Regarding the prospects, the potential of this business is actually limitless. For example, the recent issue of child safety creates a niche in ID card printing business - Child safety ID business.

Moreover, the characteristics of ID card printing business itself enable this business to be a work at home business, and even an online business!

Tips on starting an ID card printing business

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The ever-growing potential of the Internet, even though bringing competitors right to your door step, does do us good.

Consider the Internet as a business marketplace, a business tool and a business resource.

Business marketplace - the growth of eCommerce and Internet business as a whole is creating the Internet as one of the largest marketplaces in the world. With billions of dollars market capitalisation, the Internet is, no question, lucrative.

Business tool - The Internet is an exceptional place for your business marketing and promotional campaigns. Moreover, with plenty of productivity tools available online, the Internet provides all the tool you require to run and market your business.

Business resource - In my opinion, the Internet is the best resource of all - you can seek leads, prospects, and potential clients on business directories. You can also look for information about your competitors - and what their customers think of them!

Good business resource: business directory

Business web directories - the good ones - offer you business leads and potential clients. You can also list your business in business directories to expose your business well.

However, with tens of thousands directories exist on the Internet, choosing a business directory that fits your need is paramount.

How to choose a good business directory

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You have found the location you’ve been searching for ages.

You know that the 3 most important factors for your store are location, location and location.

Here comes the classic question - Should you rent or buy for the location of your store?

Before you answer the question, please consider your vision in opening a store, or starting a business in general.

Are you building a business or an asset?

Your answer to the above question is crucial in determining your vision and focus in opening a store.

Building a business

If you want to build a business, I would like to suggest you to rent the location. This way, you preserve valuable resources and use them to build your business, instead - releasing your business cash flow pressure in the early days of your business.

The main drawback of renting a location is, well, paying for rent. Moreover, the property owner will put a pressure on your rental agreement, especially knowing that your store is successful.

Building an asset

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If you own a blog, you must know how to use social bookmarking services.

Social bookmarking, in a layman’s term, is a personal collection of your favourite bookmarks and share them with other members. You can also see what others bookmark.

Some of the widely used social bookmarking sites are StumbleUpon, Digg, Technorati, Del.icio.us, and many more.

The main idea is to buzz an article or blog post to the community - if yours is good enough, you will see it in the front page and will get more attention from visitors and fellow members - ultimately, more fame and visitors to your blog.

Social bookmarking today: too artificial?

The potential of social bookmarking, and social media as a whole, is exceptional.

Techniques and methods to optimise the use of social bookmarking for the benefits of your business are discovered, developed, and shared among the community. This is the power, as well as the weakness of social bookmarking.

Weakness?

Yes - just like search engine optimisation (SEO), social bookmarking optimisation is a ’secret’ known to those involved in Internet marketing. The main idea is to get more links, as well as more visitors to your blog, increasing your blog exposure to both search engines and visitors.

Nothing wrong with those, actually. However, the social bookmarking service is, well, becoming more and more artificial these day. However, businesses will (still) reap the results, even though it is artificial!

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As you might already notice, there is a green badge on the right corner of this blog.

Yes - Noobpreneur.com is a proud Pro member of CO2Stats.com, a company that allow member websites to go green.

How Co2Stats works

The main idea is to make member sites carbon neutral. The following is how CO2Stats describes its service:

CO2Stats monitors your site’s environmental footprint and purchases renewable energy to neutralize it, so your visitors feel good about staying longer.

CO2Stats script placed on your site will calculate the number of visits, the length of visit and the power consumption estimates of your site, host server and visitors - all accounted and recorded.

The information will be used to purchase green energy at the end of each month, with an online certificate displayed when someone clicks the CO2Stats badge on your site.

There are currently 4 plans to choose, with 3 plans requiring members to contribute a certain amount of money monthly, and 1 free plan that allow your site’s first 100 visitors in a month to be carbon neutral.

The benefit of joining CO2Stats

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