Why did I wait so long to host my own sites on hostgator?? Sigh. No one will ever know. lol But I am loving it. Am not convinced yet that it is as good as SBI but now that I have learned what I have with SBI, it doesn't cost as much and am playing with a bunch of small niche sites to see what happens and what is so ultra cool is that I can use wordpress and host the sites on hostgator and it all creates still more traffic and links for my SBI site...and I can set up unlimited sites for $10 a month. Am totally having a blast with it and now I need more time that ever to do it all - the options are endless.
If you can do HTML / use an editor it's def worth going to a host like hostgator or bounceweb, or bluehost.. you'll be able to throw 100's of pages up for your PPC ads' or create separate content that links back to itself pretty easily.
BUT I still believe that hostgator and html and all that stuff won't be worth a hoot if you don't know something about seo and how to build something that gets the click out there. THAT is what I learned with SBI and OWM, and I would encourage anyone that is new and just starting out to use something like SBI (SiteBuildIt) first as it will shorten your learning curve immensely. Or if you're already doing stuff with Squidoo and blogs and kinda know how to do all that but are not getting google traffic to your stuff then you need OWM ( One Week Marketing).
Ultimately, any serious online marketer will need to move to hosting their own sites. It's just that for many learning about webhosting "stuff" is even more technical. But it's the way to go. I use webhostingpad and they have been great.
Wow! Interesting move for you, Viola. I hope you'll do well. Ironically, I just signed up last week for my first year of hosting with Bluehost. I'm starting out with just using it with InfinIt so that I can plug in a new function for my chocolate site. But, since I have it, I may eventually do some experimental stuff with it applying the basic SBI principles just to see what happens. At this point, I have no idea what I'm doing with Bluehost. I've outsourced some programming and so far haven't seen anything yet. The project is supposed to be completed soon, so maybe when I actually see it in action, I'll get the gist of the rest of the stuff. I'm probably going to have to watch some tutorial videos to actually get started if I want to branch out. For the moment, though, my hands are full. I have 6 SBI site now, if you can believe it. I need to get these ones to the point where they are more "hands-free" before I do anything else, I think. Anyway, I hope your adventure into hostgator is profitable for you. Blessings, Angie
Wow Angie - 6 sites! I am kinda testing it to see if I can possibly build some niche sites that compare with the results of SBI so will keep you posted. With bluehost I am sure you can do the same as with hostgator as far as using wordpress to build sites.... which is what I am doing.
mountainmom5 I also use Bluehost and have had a great experience with them and their service team. I do not have any experience with SBI -and had never heard of them until finding forums such as this for home based entrepreneurs. I am definitely going to continue researching SBI though. Looks interesting!
Thanks, Viola. I'll look forward to hearing your results. By the time I get around to actually being free to try it, you should have a pretty good idea of whether or not it was worthwhile and can steer me in the right direction. At this point, I'm at the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" stage. I'm always pinching myself at how well my SBI sites are doing and I hesitate to make any drastic changes just to save a few dollars - particularly when there's another huge learning curve waiting for me. You may provide incentive enough for me to give it a try if you do well. The main reason I'd been considering it, isn't so much for the savings on the SBI fees, but rather because I'd like to start outsourcing a lot more stuff and I don't want to give my SBI account details to people I don't actually know well. I'm hoping that they'll come up with a resolution to that soon (extra user passwords or something). Anyway, all the best. Blessings, Angie P.S. Yes, Dennis, SBI is well worth your research. They're system for building a web based business that actually is successful is top notch and the best I've seen. Have fun!
mountainmom5: Why did I wait so long to host my own sites on hostgator?? Sigh. No one will ever know. lol But I am loving it. Am not convinced yet that it is as good as SBI but now that I have learned what I have with SBI, it doesn't cost as much and am playing with a bunch of small niche sites to see what happens and what is so ultra cool is that I can use wordpress and host the sites on hostgator and it all creates still more traffic and links for my SBI site...and I can set up unlimited sites for $10 a month. Am totally having a blast with it and now I need more time that ever to do it all - the options are endless. Hey there. I just registered a domain on hostgator and got hosting with them too. However, I am really confused as to where to start with working on my site. I downloaded a premium template to use, but I have yet to figure out where to go to make my edits. Is it all html based, or is there an easy way of going about adding the content, ads, etc. that you want on your site. How do you view an actual shot of your site, etc. If you have any suggestions, I would love to hear them. I am somewhat confused on how to use this particular service. Up until now, I had only been using blogger and wordpress.com. I wanted more options though with personalizing my sites. Thanks.
j11_cook: I downloaded a premium template to use, but I have yet to figure out where to go to make my edits. Is it all html based, or is there an easy way of going about adding the content, ads, etc. that you want on your site. If you are using a website template it requires some knowledge of html to customize it. The edits are made at the level of the source code. Important! Before getting started, make a backup copy of the template folder so that you can retrieve it later, just in case you screw up something and need to start fresh. Okay! Navigate to the original folder where the template files are located. Right-Click on "index.html" go to "Open With" and select "Notepad". This will open the template's "index.html" source code page in the Notepad editor. This is where you'll make your edits. The html source code may look like gobbledegook to the untrained eye, but it's nothing more than the tags the browser uses to get its instructions on how to display your page's design and content. You can go here - http://www.w3schools.com/default.asp - for free web building tutorials to help you through this stage. j11_cook: How do you view an actual shot of your site, etc. To view an actual shot of the page you are editing (e.g. index.html), save your changes, and then double-click the index.html file to see how things are taking shape. It'll be an interesting experience of discovery for you and should be lots of fun... mostly! Hermas
A8ch: If you are using a website template it requires some knowledge of html to customize it. The edits are made at the level of the source code. Important! Before getting started, make a backup copy of the template folder so that you can retrieve it later, just in case you screw up something and need to start fresh. Okay! Navigate to the original folder where the template files are located. Right-Click on "index.html" go to "Open With" and select "Notepad". This will open the template's "index.html" source code page in the Notepad editor. This is where you'll make your edits. The html source code may look like gobbledegook to the untrained eye, but it's nothing more than the tags the browser uses to get its instructions on how to display your page's design and content. You can go here - http://www.w3schools.com/default.asp - for free web building tutorials to help you through this stage. j11_cook: How do you view an actual shot of your site, etc. To view an actual shot of the page you are editing (e.g. index.html), save your changes, and then double-click the index.html file to see how things are taking shape. It'll be an interesting experience of discovery for you and should be lots of fun... mostly! Hermas I actually had gotten to the point of getting a template downloaded and opening the index.html. However, viewing what it looks like is a totally different story. Every time I try to open it, it gives me some kind of error saying that site is unavailable. How do I fix that? I have learned some html tricks along the way prior to now, so I feel like I can handle this, if I can ever get a grip on how to see the actual site and what it is looking like so I can change what I need to as I am going. Thanks for your reply.
I've noticed that many people use Adobe Elements or Photoshop to add images and pictures to their web portals. I personally don't like host gator but I prefer namecheap.com
j11_cook: However, viewing what it looks like is a totally different story. Every time I try to open it, it gives me some kind of error saying that site is unavailable. How do I fix that? How are you trying to open it? There are two ways to view your site: 1. locally - from the files on your computer's hard drive 2. online - from the files uploaded to the web server Let's say you are editing the index.html page on your computer and you insert a new heading between the h1 tags. To see that change, you need to first save the change, and then double-click "index.html" to view the change. For subsequent edits you can simply refresh the index.html page to follow your progress. This is all happening on your local computer. When you are satisfied with the overall customization of your website, you'll upload the files to the host server so that your site can be seen online by the public. If you paste your new website address into your browser window BEFORE uploading the customized files to the host server, you wouldn't see what you are expecting to see because you haven't put anything there to be seen. The other possibility for the error is that your new domain has not yet promulgated to the web. The process can take some time. Hermas
A8ch: How are you trying to open it? There are two ways to view your site: 1. locally - from the files on your computer's hard drive 2. online - from the files uploaded to the web server Let's say you are editing the index.html page on your computer and you insert a new heading between the h1 tags. To see that change, you need to first save the change, and then double-click "index.html" to view the change. For subsequent edits you can simply refresh the index.html page to follow your progress. This is all happening on your local computer. When you are satisfied with the overall customization of your website, you'll upload the files to the host server so that your site can be seen online by the public. If you paste your new website address into your browser window BEFORE uploading the customized files to the host server, you wouldn't see what you are expecting to see because you haven't put anything there to be seen. The other possibility for the error is that your new domain has not yet promulgated to the web. The process can take some time. Hermas So, you are not able to actually see the generic template that is downloaded before you start making changes to it. You have to make edits, and then view???? I'll try that and maybe it will work. Thanks for helping me with this. I have really gotten a little frustrated and was starting to think that maybe this was not the best route for me to go.
Mazzini Auto: I've noticed that many people use Adobe Elements or Photoshop to add images and pictures to their web portals. I personally don't like host gator but I prefer namecheap.com I'll check this site out. I would like to have just one hosting place and stick with them. Right now, I have a site at godaddy, and now one at hostgator. I didn't have a choice about the godaddy one, because it is one that I bought from someone else, and that is where they wanted to transfer it to.
j11_cook: I'll check this site out. I would like to have just one hosting place and stick with them. Right now, I have a site at godaddy, and now one at hostgator. I didn't have a choice about the godaddy one, because it is one that I bought from someone else, and that is where they wanted to transfer it to. You always have a choice. If the person you bought the site from (the one at GoDaddy) insisted on GoDaddy, then either they made a commission from you opening a hosting account at GoDaddy, or they are using a reseller account and hosting the site themselves. If you are actually in control of your GoDaddy hosting, simply provide Hostgator with your name and password information for GoDaddy hosting. Hostgator provides free transfers of websites. You simply have to ask. Even if the person you bought the GD site from controls the hosting you should still be able to transfer it, unless the seller is unscrupulous and refuses to allow the transfer. There is no reason to pay for multiple hosting accounts unless you have so many websites all linked together that you don't want to appear as a link farm to Google. Personally, I was with HG when they first started, but I found they oversold their servers. Too much downtime and slow loading starting a couple of years ago. For me, an hour every few days of downtime costs me money. Also, their customer service that used to bend over backwards for you, went down the tubes in my opinion. Seemed like I always got someone who knew less than I did (and that isn't much). I still recommend HG to beginners though because of the cheap price, but you will outgrow it. Eventually, after you grow, you may want to look at Servint. A bit more expensive, but it allows you to create unlimited cpanels and get into the backend of the server to change settings. Super fast loading of websites and support (though they use tickets) is fantastic.
j11_cook: So, you are not able to actually see the generic template that is downloaded before you start making changes to it. You have to make edits, and then view???? You may have misunderstood. You have to be able to see the generic template on your computer in order to make the necessary changes to it. But those changes wouldn't be viewable online until you upload the web pages with the changes to the host server. Hermas P.S. You are welcome to PM me if you need further assistance. I'll be glad to help. Edited to add the P.S.
Thanks for everyone's help again. I can see this is going to be somewhat of a challenge, but I will get it figured out.
Yeah Hostgator are one of the better hosts out there at the moment, but if you have a lot of sites then a VPS is the way forward. I use a Servint VPS and have never looked back!
