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Throughout this month of January 2017, you can get up to 50 percent discount on all renewals. We are offering you a 25 percent off all web hosting renewal when you write a Google Review about Todhost web hosting. If you do two additional review on any other forum, you get an additional 25 percent discount making it 50 percent discount for just writing three reviews on our web hosting.

Offer ends January 31, 2017.

This is what you need to do:

Go to Google search and type Todhost or simply click on the following url: https://www.google.com/search?q=todhost&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b&gfe_rd=cr&ei=Yfp1WP-sI-PW8geI16bgDA
Write your review and reply to this email with a list of the url containing your review.

Once we verify your review, we will send you your discount code with unlimited use for your web hosting renewal.

You can use this code on as many renewals as you wish.

Welcome to 2017.

Best wishes

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Source: https://www.todhost.com/knowledgebase/782/Web-Hosting-Options-to-start-your-online-business.html

Getting a website in Nigeria has become very easy today. Some two decades ago, it was not so easy to register a domain name and begin an online business in Nigeria. All that has changed and in simple steps and very few clicks, you can begin an online business with your own website in Nigeria today.

The internet represents a huge potential for business growth and entrepreneurship. But one key advantage of the internet over real world business is that you do not require a physical location for your business to commence. You can build trust and excel in sales and profit making operating a business on the web. The Linda Ikeji's blog and Nairaland forum are two classic examples of business successes that and solely dependent on the web with no need for a physical office.

To begin a business on the web, you require a website. To get a website, you need to host it online. There are several options for hosting a website and we will take a look at them and suggest which the best is for every moment.

Please note that this article is introductory and so does not go into the technical details of each of the web hosting options.

What is Web Hosting

Think of web hosting as getting a space on the internet to enable you upload files and conduct your online business. So if you have been able o generate an idea, developed the idea into a sellable concept, you will need to get a web hosting space on the internet to be able to promote your idea to internet users within a locality or to the global user community.

Design Your Website

To run a website on the internet, you will need to come up with an attractive web page designed to build trust and make usability simple. To be successful on the increasingly competitive world of the internet today, you must ensure that your website loads fast, is easy to navigate and providing sufficient information to help or provide the needed answers and solutions to your visitors. You also need to be very skillful in developing a call to action button on your website especially if you have some products to sell or want your visitors to provide you with some extra information like subscribing to your newsletter.

If you are designing on localhost, you can defer activating your web hosting account until after you complete your web deigning. If you want to design online, then you will have to get a web hosting account in place before you can start. In designing your website, keep these salient points in mind:

Ensure that you enable your cache system especially if you are running a content management system like WordPress, Joomla or ecoomerce based solutions like Magento and OpenCart.
Take website security very seriously maintaining a safe password practice and updating your website software to keep up with their latest release. Outdated software has been the source of many website hack or exploitation. This can be avoided by maintaining your website to keep up with latest updates and releases.
Take extra security steps to protect your website by using the IP deny, allow rule to protect sensitive files and directories. Directories that need protection will include the admin folder, the module and plugin folder, the components folder and template folder. Recently, for a content management system, it has been useful to protect all folders from regular access because hackers have become very smart and keeping them at bay using the IP deny rule is a good way to stay safe.
Change default admin username. With most CMS, the default username is the same and usually it is called "admin". Changing this to a custom username is a good idea to prevent brute force attempts to guess your password having being sure that the username is correct. In changing the default admin username, the recommended approach is to create a new user with administrator permissions , login to the website backend or admin dashboard and delete the default user.

Hosting Your Website

There are options for hosting your website. The simplest is a shared hosting service. With a shared hosting service, you use the web server with other users. What they do can affect you just as what you do can affect them. You will also be sharing your sever IP address with others. It means that if any user engages in a spammy or unwholesome activity which leads to a blacklist, all of you will be affect that are using the shared server.

A shared web hosting service is however cheap and easy to get active in simple clicks and within minutes. Take these steps to order a shared web hosting service

Browse through the web hosting plans to chose the plan that fits your needs especially in terms of disk space required, bandwidth requirement, database and emails you will need to create and any other features you will need.
Choose your preferred plan and order your web hosting service
Make applicable payments to have your order activated.
Start using your web hosting service. Once your order is activated, you will receive a "New Account Information" email which will contain the details of your web hosting order including the login details.

The other option for web hosting will include:

Reseller Hostig: This is good for those who want to resell web hosting space to their own clients or are in the business of designing and managing websites for their clients and do not want to maintain separate shared hosting accounts. This web hosting plan is best for starters and small businesses who want to un a single or just some few web hosting accounts.
Virtual Private Servers (VPS): A VPS will give you the benefit of customizing your server settings for a price lower than that of a dedicated server. VPSs are good for those who want to run certain software, set features like unlimited disk space for their web hosting clients and some other benefits.
Dedicated Server: Dedicated servers allow full customization of your server. It is however a very expensive option for web hosting and no recommended for starters..


There are other options like cloud hosting but the options explained above will be the basic you can choose from.

Hope you found this post useful, do let us know with the feedback button below.

Get 25 percent off all hosting orders on https://www.todhost.com Use the promocode: JAN25 Offer epires Jan 31, 2017.

Get 25 percent off all hosting orders on https://www.todhost.com Use the promocode: JAN25 Offer epires Jan 31, 2017.

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Source: https://www.todhost.com/blog/google-penalty-a-guide-to-know-your-status-and-recover-from-a-penalty.html

One of the worst things that will hit any website is a Google penalty. The frustration of being hit can be so severe for a website that significantly rely of search engine to drive traffic and generate sales. Because Google controls over 6 percent of search engine traffic, a Google penalty ought to be taken seriously and if your website is still clean with Google, you need to do your best to avoid a penalty.

Google has been drastically updating its algorithms for the past few years. These updates were implemented to give users the best possible answers to their search queries and provide the best user experience (UX) possible. The resulting Google Penalties became necessary as Search Engine Optimizers grew more sophisticated at finding ways to leverage things like links and targeted content to boost rankings and organic traffic.

The major updates of Panda and Penguin drastically changed the landscape and actually penalized sites for bending the rules and not completely following Google’s Guidelines. These updates are now engrained in the ever-changing algorithm set, continuing to penalize more and more websites every day. Check Google Penalty Status

There are two ways in which a site can be affected by these updates: a Manual Action or an Algorithmic Penalty.

Google Manual Action Penalty

Manual Action penalties are very easy to distinguish. Google is nice enough to leave you a message in your Webmaster Tools letting you know that a page on your site, or possibly your entire site, has a penalty. These penalties are often accompanied by worse rankings or complete deindexation.

Determining the Update that Caused the Penalty

When you receive a manual action, the note in Webmaster Tools will tell you what is wrong. It may even give you examples of what is wrong. This type of penalty is very difficult to get out of. If you have received one of these messages, you need to work extra hard to upgrade the value of your content and submit a re-consideration request to Google

Algorithmic Penalty

When Google runs an algorithm update, these types of penalties are automatically distributed to websites that flag behaviors that are outside of Google's guidelines. If you are hit by an algorithmic penalty from Google, check to see what major updates occurred recently.

Recent Years Google Algorithm Updates and What They Targeted

Panda (2011)

Panda targeted low quality content. Content farms were hit the hardest, but anyone with low quality, irrelevant, plagiarized, or keyword-stuffed content received hefty penalties as well.

Penguin (2012)

Penguin targeted poor quality links. The goal was to eliminate the sites that were paying for links, using automated link-building software, or obtaining low-quality links.

Hummingbird (2013)

Sites with long-tail search queries were hit the hardest with this algorithmic update. The main goal of the update was to create a more stable searching system for users by understanding human speech, and getting away from random keyword searching. Since many people use their phones, mobile devices, or voice recognition devices for searching, the update made it easier for those users to ask a question, so the content receiving the best rankings became the ones who answered a question, not the ones who had the related keyword in the search.

It can be much harder to figure out what penalty caused an algorithmic penalty. There are over 500 updates a year and picking which one is hampering your traffic is very difficult. Of course, this is much easier if you have access to Google Analytics. If you do not, you can get a really good idea using SEMrush.

Using Google Analytics

If you have access to Google Analytics, there are tools that can help you. Many webmasters use a paid tool called Fruition Google Penalty Checker. You grant the tool access to your Google Analytics account, and it will make a graph of all the penalties, and give you a percentage of the chance that it affected your site.

Another tool that works well (and is free!) is called Barracuda. It works the same way as Fruition does. You grant the tool access to Google Analytics and it produces a pretty graph that highlights the updates. This tool does not give you the likelihood of the update affecting your site like Fruition does, which is the reason Fruition is preferable to the professionals, but cost you some money.

Determining Update without Google Analytics

If you do not have access to Google Analytics or Webmaster Tools, which is often the case, you can still get a good idea of what update caused the traffic drop using a traffic estimator tool like SEMrush. Using this tool, you can see drops in traffic and then correlate the month the traffic dropped to a penalty using MOZ’s Google Algorithm Change History.

Detecting a Google Penalty

Check Indexxing

If you are concerned about a site-wide penalty, there is a quick and easy way to check. Type in site:yourdomain.com into Google, and hit enter. This limits the search to only bring up your domain, and if nothing shows up, you are not in the searches. If your site was already indexed into the Google search pages, and now is missing in action, a site-wide penalty, or a blacklisting is the only possible cause. If your site is brand new, keep in mind that it takes anywhere from a day to a week to be indexed, so do not panic if your new site has not shown up yet.

Check Google Webmaster Console

Log into your Google webmaster tools and check for notifications. You can check for manual review penalties by clicking “Search Traffic>Manual Actions” on the side bar.

Check KeyWords

If you have noticed a drop in your website traffic, but it shows up when entering hyper-specific queries in Google, you may be suffering from a partial penalty.

Type in site:yourdomain.com mainKeyword into Google, and hot enter. Swap out the “mainKeyword” for whatever search terms you would use to find your site. If one or more of your pages does not show up, you may be suffering from a partial penalty. Try searching your brand name, if you are not on page for your brand, then there is a serious problem.

Check PageRank

Go to PRchecker.info, enter your domain name in the search bar, and hit enter. You will have a page rank displayed that you can use to compare to past rankings. If your ranking is lower than it has been, you may have a penalty to contend with. Keep in mind that Pagerank is rarely updated, so recent any recent penalties may not show a decrease in page rank right away.

Check Your Visitors

Google analytics is a great place to view your traffic, and get an idea of when traffic started to drop. Check back several months if you have to, but find out when the decrease occurred, or started occurring so you can begin working on the possible problems.

Escaping the Google Penalty

While getting out of an algorithmic penalty is much easier than a manual penalty. By determining what update affected your site, you can find the cause, then correct it. Most of these penalties are data based, so if you can get your site below the threshold set by the search engine, you should be able to rank well again.

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Source: https://www.todhost.com/blog/remarketing-a-website-that-is-having-low-visitor-traffic.html

Remarketing a website is essentially an attempt to rekindle interest and build up traffic, sales and revenue for the website. This happens when there is a slow down or decline in the traffic, sales or revenue and you will want to build it up through the use of digital marketing. Remarketing could be robust to the point of re-designing a website and creating a completely new look and attractiveness.

The term Remarketing was popularized by renowned marketing guru, Philip Kotler who suggested the term to describe a set of marketing strategies to address or rescue a product that is experiencing a decline in sales or life cycle. Remarketing is therefore an attempt to reverse an unfavorable trend in the life cycle of a product.

This post attempts to provide some tested approaches that had been used to reverse a decline in website traffic and rejuvenate visitor interest in a website.

What Causes a fall in Visitor Traffic?

Several factors result in a fall in visitor traffic, some will affect the sales and profit potential while some will not. It will be better to focus on how to build traffic than thinking what causes a fall in traffic. Nevertheless, I will think the most secure source of traffic is your website ranking in SERPs. Ranking factors plays the most significant role. If your website ranks very poorly in Search Engine Result Pages, SERPs, you are also to experience very poor traffic. Statistics show that traffic is significantly affected directly by search engine rankings. According to a study by chitika , the first search result clicks receives twice the second, and three times the third. According to data gathered in searches of Google, the first results received for 35% of clicks, the second on 17% and third 12%.

You could have developed a bright fantastically looking website and yet no one is visiting. Ordinarily, a beautifully looking website should attract traffic and should be the foundation for traffic building. But that is not all, no matter how beautiful, the website must be brought to knowledge of users.

Once you have a good looking website with great navigation elements in place, it is time to let people know about it.. Put yourself in your customers’ shoes and ask how you would find your website, or even know to look for it.

How to Generate Traffic for Your Website

Take these steps to start generating traffic and reap the benefits of your website.

1. Make sure your technical, on-site SEO is complete.

Onpage SEO optimization focuses on optimizing content for our target keywords. This includes use of proper heading, keyword placement, content quality and many other factors.

A checklist for On Site SEO should include:

Keyword in Title
Keyword in Permalink
Keyword in first paragraph
Keyword in Image Alt tag
Tweaked Keyword in H2 or H3
Bold Important Keywords and related keywords
Italics 1-2 important Keywords
Outbound Link to relevant high-quality sites
Internal links to related articles
Remove all stop words from Permalink
Add multi-media (Video, Slides, Inforgraphic)
Longer the content length, better it is. Minimum: 700 words
Optimize image before uploading (Compress and resize)
Page loading time
Use LSI Keywords (Use Google search to find related Keywords)

Use Meta title in less than 65 character
Use Meta description in less than 150 characters.
If using any Social SEO plugin, make sure to add image for Facebook, Twitter. (Take advantage of social graph)
Make sure to have social sharing buttons at the end of post or floating social sharing buttons.
Have related posts after blog posts to lower down bounce rate.

2. Develop a social media marketing program.

Social media has become a bedrock for traffic generation and had been key to our success for the Todhost blog. It is not enough to produce great content and hope that people will find it. You need to take extra steps to put the content across. One of the best ways to increase traffic to your website is to use social media channels to promote your content. Twitter is ideal for short, snappy (and tempting) links, whereas Google+ promotion can help your site show up in personalized search results.

Begin by identifying the social networks and online communities where your customers are and start participating in conversations there. Once you have gotten a feel for the community, begin posting links to relevant pages on your website

3. Start a regular email schedule.

Email is still one of the best ways to reach out to your audience and general regular traffic to your website. Start with a mailing list that includes current and past customers, and make sure there’s a way for site visitors to sign up to receive emails from you. Start by sharing your latest projects and news with your list.

4. Make regular updates to your website

Write brief blog posts; add case studies or portfolio pieces to your site; share your news and industry news; update your services and products; create a how-to video; or post a white paper. When you make changes, be sure to distribute those through social media and email. And, if you have a newsworthy item, be sure to send that to media outlets, as well.

5. Add advertising to your marketing mix.

This one is so obvious; advertising traffic can be very helpful in generating traffic to your website. Paid search, social media advertising and display advertising are all excellent ways of attracting visitors, building your brand and getting your site in front of people. Adjust your paid strategies to suit your goals . You do not just want more traffic but also looking to increase conversions, too. Each paid channel has its pros and cons, so think carefully about your objectives before you take a decision to pay for advertising.

If you’re hoping that more traffic to your site will also result in more sales, you’ll need to target high commercial intent keywords as part of your paid search strategies. Yes, competition for these search terms can be fierce (and expensive), but the payoffs can be worth it.

6. Write Irresistible Headlines

Headlines are one of the most important parts of your content and it strongly impacts on how search engines view and rate yor content. Headlines also can affect the clickability of your content. Without a compelling headline, even the most comprehensive blog post will go unread so you have to do your best with producing compelling headlines for your content.

7. Start Guest Blogging and Invite Others to Guest Blog on Your Site

Guest blogging is still a good way to promote your content and draw visitors to your website. This has to be done within the prescribed limits to avoid duplicate content issues Securing a guest post on a reputable site can increase blog traffic to your website and help build your brand into the bargain. Remember, standards for guest blogging have changed radically and spammy tactics could result in stiff penalties.

8. Give it time.

After adopting these strategies, you need to be patient to see how all these efforts work for your website. Try to keep things as simple as possible, get help with the difficult pieces, and have patience. Marketing is a process and the beginning is the hardest part, but once you get going it can start to take off on its own. It’s the combination of a great website and a comprehensive marketing outreach plan that really complement each other to give you the results you need.

Let us have your comments on this and do share with your friends.

Designing is creating, bringing into existence, what was not. In practice the terms are synonymous. Design and development are contextually synonymous.

Vera BI
https://todhost.com

directonpc:
make sure u get back up hosts for your business so that u don't look like whogohost to your clients.

Well, we are not whogohost. Our clients are happy with our web hosting. But we like to be fair in our assessment, not drawing conclusions from the experience of just one person because his/her problem could require mush time to fix. Sometimes, the customer support staff will be unable to address the problem and will require higher level support- all of that take more time.

Vera
https:todhost.com - web hosting services in Nigeria

directonpc:
actually they should always reply even if ur question is about a third party application they should point that out. I hope whogohost will put their house in order.

I will agree with you that any response time greater than 3 hours is high. However, there are times web hosting companies have issues and a whole lot of tickets are generated by customers, in such unusual circumstance, response time to tickets are actually prolonged. I have had over 24hrs wait with one of the top 10 big web hosts in the U.S market.

Not trying to defend Whogohost anyway but the fact that I understand the industry and its workings better.

Vera BI
Customer support staff
https://todhost.com

I quite understand the delay in responding to the ticket sent to whogohost in this instance.
This issue is clearly not a hosting issue and so the priority is low. You ran an upgrade, if you have properly setup your phone well, you should not have issues. Besides, they are not there with you to see what you have described. Talk to them about the specific error you have received and they can find a way to help. Web hosting companies will usually not take responsibility for third party applications.

Ifylicious:
Pls i need an SEO expert. How can you be of help?

We won't be able to recommend an SEO expert for you. This post can be of help to get an SEO specialist: https://www.todhost.com/blog/tips-to-identify-a-good-seo-service.html

But SEO is a complex task and could be dependent on the industry and web design script.

TRADELYN:
@TODHOST,
Please what type of penalty you got as I need to learn from it since I'm also promoting a blog in a fast way?

It is better to focus on user friendliness and not on impressing search engines. This post addresses it: https://www.todhost.com/blog/seo-what-search-engines-love-and-hate-about-websites.html

You may also find this interesting: https://www.todhost.com/blog/10-tips-that-will-keep-you-safe-from-a-google-blacklist.html

coolesmile:
You claim to be an expert, yet your website is ranking
2,130,291 on alexa. Mtsheww. Physician heal thyself.

Yes, that is the interesting thing about SEO. Patience is key. We were once very hasty at Todhost and it landed us a penalty so we have gone through it all. 6 months ago, we ranked around 7,000,000 and around 120 on Google SERPs. Today is has improved from the 2,30,291 you quoted to 1,974,731 and arounr 32 on Google SERPs. Let's see where we will be in another months time.

Source: https://www.todhost.com/blog/

The Joomla! Administrator Exam is the first available Joomla! Certification exam. It covers topics related to the everyday use of building, managing and maintaining Joomla! websites.

The Administrator Exam is part of the Joomla! Certification Program. Its goals are to establish a certain standard and provide a documented measurement of knowledge. This ensures the competence of Joomla! Professionals and contributes to the development of a qualified workforce. It will also provide clients an easier way to find a Joomla! Professional and assess the capacities of those they hire to build their websites using Joomla.

The Joomla! Administrator Exam is based on a clean Joomla! installation (downloaded from joomla.org) using the default language (en-GB), the default editor (TinyMCE), default template (Protostar) and settings, without any 3rd party extension or customization.
Topics covered by the Joomla! Administrator Exam

Joomla! Architecture
Preparing and installing Joomla!
Website Structure
Managing and Editing Articles
Managing Users and Access (ACL)
Managing Menus
Security and Maintenance
Upgrading the System
Managing Extensions
Multilingual Sites

No PHP, CSS or FTP knowledge necessary.

Taking the exam
Locations

Exams will be taken at Joomla! Learning Partners (JLP's), JoomlaDays or Joomla! User Groups (JUG's).

Find a JLP near you Find a JoomlaDay near you Find a JUG near you

What does it look like

Exams are taken on site, they are computer based, in a multiple choice format. A total of 60 questions need to be answered in 90 minutes. The exam is currently only available in English. As soon as enough translators have passed the exam, it will be offered in different languages. This approach is necessary in order not to exclude anyone from taking the exam.

Results

You will know whether you have passed or not right away!

Validity

Every Joomla! major version will have its own exam. The first exam will test the skills for Joomla! version 3.x The badge received is valid for the lifetime of the covered major version. Different Joomla! versions vary in the ways users carry out administrator tasks. This is why, when a new version is released, you have to verify your skills again.

People are already becoming Joomla! Certified.

Below are excerpts from an interview with Luca Marzo from the Joomla! Certification Team who provided answers to some critical questions:

Question #1. Hi Luca. Can you introduce yourself?

Hello, I’m Luca Marzo, and I’m the newly elected team leader of the Certification Team. I’m 26 years old and am a student and web consultant. I live near Lecce, Italy and am involved in several ways in the Joomla! Project. Beyond the Certification Team, I serve as a member of the Production Leadership Team and am a JED listing manager and a Trademark Team member.

Question #2. What exams are available?

Currently the Joomla! Certification Program (JCP) provides only the Joomla! Administrator Exam. It covers all the knowledge that a skilled Joomla! website administrator should have.

During the next year, JCP will also provide the Joomla! Template Designer Exam and the Joomla! Extension Developer Exam.

Question #3. Who is taking the exams?

Different kinds of people take the exam. We have met website integrators, developers, web agencies, community members and so on. In the first sessions, we saw people who wanted to increase their knowledge and improve their professional profile.

Question #4. How do people take the exams?

There are different ways to take the Joomla! Certification Exam: attending a session at a Joomla! Learning Partner (JLP), attending a session at a Joomla! User Group locally or attending a JoomlaDay. People could also attend events like the Joomla! World Conference.

To discover the upcoming sessions, just visit the Exam Calendar at certification.joomla.org.

Question #5. How are people preparing?

People should study and train before attending an exam session: the exam is not just a poll or a game. It’s an exam for professional use. The JCP has provided a Learning List that contains all the necessary knowledge that a candidate should have in order to pass the exam: click here to see the Learning List.

Furthermore, we recommend that people train using a clean Joomla! installation, taken from downloads.joomla.org, without any customisation or extension and with the default settings and templates.

Question #6. What plans does the JCP have?

As mentioned previously, JCP will start working soon on the next exams for Developers and Template Designers. These will hopefully be released during the upcoming year.

The JCP team is working on a tool that will involve the Community in the exam building process, allowing people from the Community to suggest questions and answers that will be evaluated, reviewed and eventually “merged” by the Certification Exam Team.

The official certification website is a great place to find out more.

Learn More About Why Joomla and Its Capabilities

Joomla is the second most popular Content Management System used on the web today and powers millions of website including some of the most popular like the GTBand website. It is next to WordPress with around 75 million downloads since 2005 when it was first released.

Joomla is powerful enough to run most websites without any problems, and it doesn’t require much technical experience to run. Joomla allows you to develop a modern website without any knowledge of coding.

As the second most used CMS (behind WordPress), Joomla also has a lot of plug-ins and themes available to choose from, around 10000 or so. So customizing the look and feel of any website is much easier with the use of these supporting extensions..

Here are a few more reasons Joomla might be ideal for you:

Social Networking – Joomla makes creating social networks easy with ready to use plugins and extensions. Social networks can be a powerful asset for many sites, and with Joomla, you can have one up and running extremely quickly and easily.
E-commerce Sites – Joomla also makes setting up an online store quick and painless. You can setup e-Commerce shops with both Drupal and WordPress also, but it tends to require more effort and special customizations. With Joomla, things are easy when it comes to setting up e-commerce shops.
Not too Technical – Joomla has found the middle ground between the ease of managing a WordPress website and the power of a Drupal site. The good news is that most non-tech savvy people should be able to run a great Joomla site without needing any technical support.
Help Portal – Joomla offers a great help portal for asking questions and getting technical support. It’s not fast or extensive as WordPress’ community-based support pages, but definitely quicker (and cheaper) than Drupal’s technical support options.
Free – Like both WordPress and Drupal, Joomla is also a free option to use on your own web servers. However similar to Drupal, there is no option to have it hosted for free like WordPress offers.

Joomla users love that their websites can do almost anything, without sacrificing ease-of-use. Joomla has brilliantly combined the power and flexibility Drupal has to offer, while also retaining the intuitive, user-friendliness that WordPress excels at, making it a perfect middle ground in a crowded marketplace.

How to address "failed Drupal Clean url Test" https://www.todhost.com/blog/how-to-address-quot-failed-drupal-clean-url-test-quot.html

Source: https://www.todhost.com/blog/seo-tips-for-optimizing-your-local-google-my-business-page.html

The success of every online business depends on the marketing methods adopted to win businesses to it. Business owners know that marketing online is important and invest a lot of resources to embark on marketing campaigns. The common strategy adopted by many is to set up a few social media accounts and a create website for their business. Website does a lot for every business but the website is useless if people cannot find it. To get people to find your business, you have to get your business available where people are and then they can easily find it. That is in Google.

Google accounts for about 70% of online searches are conducted via Google, and one out of every five of those searches is regarding a business or place. That’s where Google My Business comes in. It’s a service that allows the physical location of your business to be found on Google Maps, letting customers track you down more easily. If you don’t have your business listed on Google My Business, you need to put this on the top of your “to do” list immediately. It’s one of the best things you can do to expand your customer base and get easily found by those who are searching for business to serve their needs.

Also read: SEO - What Search Engines Love and Hate About Websites

What Are the Benefits of Google My Business?

It Serves as an Easy-to-Reach Directory
Gone are the days when people reached for a phone book if they needed a specific service. Google My Business serves today’s directory, especially for local businesses. Even if you don’t have a website, customers can search for your category (e.g. plumber, bakery, or photographer) and see a list of local businesses in that field.

You’re Easier to Find
When your business is listed with Google Maps, your exact address and location is given to customers. They don’t have to wade through the “contact us” section of a website or click through your Facebook profile to find out where you are. If customers are searching using their mobile device, Google Maps includes GPS navigation, providing turn-by-turn directions to your door.

Also read: 16 Mistakes That Turn People Away From Your Website

It’s Free Advertising
Being listed in Google maps provides free advertising for your business. Today’s search resuls also provide info on some businesses as found in Google maps. Free advertising is what you get with Google My Business. Even if your small business does have a budget for advertising, you can still take advantages everything you can and advertise to customers in your area for no charge. Google My Business offers this great benefit.

How to Use Google My Business Optimally

Nowadays, an optimized Google My Business profile & listing becomes more and more important for businesses as it allows you to increase your business exposure and search traffic. In this way, businesses can appear on queries that match their products/services in local search results.

Also read: How Google is ranking websites in 2016

Below you will find some tips to help you add value to your business listing.

1. Make sure your contact details are correct

Follow the Location Verification process It is very important to provide your physical address, your phone number, your website URL and your accurate business hours.

2. Add your Complete Business Info

In the “About” menu of your Google+ Page, you can add a tagline and an introduction with links and chosen keywords to your business which will become your meta-description. Try to make your “story” as compelling as possible to encourage CTR with features as sub headers, bullet points and short paragraphs. Don’t forget to keep it updated.

Also read: Why SEO keeps changing the way it works

3. Emphasize on the category

Categorize your business listing so as to make it easier for your customers to find you on the network, but also make your business stand out from the other pages of similar interests.

4. Perform regular updates on your content

Once a week you need to update your Google+ page with posts so as to help Google index your content faster. An easy way to do that is to also share the content that you publish on your other social media pages to your Google+ page but if you have time it would be even better to create unique content in Google+ and more oriented to Google+ communities.

Also read: Useful URL Structuring Tips That Will Help Higher Ranking

5. Add photos and videos to empower your message

Add photos to your Google+ page so as to show people your products/services and how your business looks like. These are the photos you can upload: A Profile Photo, A Logo Photo and a Cover Photo. Google+ also gives you the chance to add animated GIFs.

6. Optimize Your Posts

The first 45-50 characters of your Google+ posts should contain keywords as they become that post’ page titles in Google’s search results. Post regularly, include famous hashtags and try to accompany your posts with photos, industry news, events in town, employee or sales announcements or posts that answer questions that customers have set. Also don’t hesitate to add videos with keywords.

Also read: Enhance your search engine performance in simple steps

7. Claim Your Page’s Custom URL

If you have set up your Google+ page for over than 30 days and you’ve got a profile photo and more than 10 followers, you can claim a custom URL that matches your brand. This custom URL will be much easier discovered and shared.

8. Build Your Page’s ‘Link’ Section

Every Google+ page gives you the opportunity to add links essential to your business in the ‘Links’ section. You could add a link to your website, your blog, your social media pages or any page you want to drive traffic to and from.

Also read: Digital Marketing: Top Strategies That Yield Big Results

9. Link Your Website to Your Google+ Page

You will have to verify your website in the Search Console. Then, link your Google+ page to your website via Google+ Settings and allow your Google+ page to appear in the right side of search results and provide an inbound link to your website. Add also a Google+ badge on your Website to show people that you also have a social presence there. Finally, don’t forget to also implement rel publisher to link google+ page with the website (a webmaster is required) and select the feature in the page “link my website”. Format of the request for rel publisher:

Add in every page inside the head of the website

<link href=” g+ page URL” rel=”publisher”/>

10. Engage with others

Start adding people relevant to your business to your circles and then the majority of them will add you as well. Adding people to your circles, following and interacting with others in your industry will give your business page more exposure and trigger the sharing of your posts. Also do not neglect to join Google Plus communities (they are like Facebook Groups, Online Forums etc.) related to your location and interests. Make comments; participate in relevant discussions and hangouts.

11. Measure your actions

Now that you have had your Google+ listing and business page set up and optimized, you need to track your Google+ success. Check your Google My Business Insights and Google Analytics for traffic from your Google+ Page, behavior data and control if any of your posts resulted in conversions.

Also read: 20 ways you can reduce your website bounce rate

Final Words

To be able to optimally use your Google My Business page to the full benefit of your business, remember to implement the following as you optimize your page:.

Use Keywords
Filling out the keywords and category section of your profile may be the most important step. Write a product description or a description of your business that’s appealing and describes what you do. However, don’t overdo it on the keywords, as that could actually cause your ranking to decrease.

Also read: Google Gives Insights into Search Engine Manipulation

Utilize Images and Videos
A business that is listed on Google My Business is allowed to add up to 10 images and five videos at no charge. Again, this is free advertising, so make the most of it! Include pictures of the outside of your establishment so visitors know exactly what they’re looking for when trying to find you.

Create a Google My Business Page for Every Location
If your business has multiple locations, creating one overall Google My Business listing isn’t going to do the job. Have a different listing for each location with its specific address and phone number. If your business serves multiple cities, create a single page and list those multiple cities in your description.

Encourage Customer Reviews
If you have satisfied customers, ask them to share their experiences and rate your services on Google My Business. It seems simple, but a better rating truly will attract more customers in a big way. Make sure you have genuine reviews, though. If you have reviews that Google thinks aren’t authentic, or it appears that you’re simply soliciting reviews for a higher rating, your listing could actually be pushed down.

Did we miss out any useful tip, you can let us know about it. also feel free to make your contributions in the comment box

Todhost - Knowledgebase - Web Hosting in Enugu
https://www.todhost.com/knowledgebase/348/Web-Hosting-in-Enugu.html
Web hosting in Enugu is easy and convenient with Todhost Web Hosting. Once you complete your web hosting order, it is activated.

A website is a single domain that consists of different web pages. Wikipedia defines it as a collection of related web pages, including multimedia content, typically identified with a common domain name, and published on at least one web server Many people operate very successful websites while a lot more do not see the real reasons to even own one. In this article, we examine some of the reasons people should own websites and show why it becomes misplaced not to own a website in today's business world. Statistics show over 3.5 billion internet users in the world today with Nigeria ranking number 8 with over 90million users based on the ownership of internet connections. With this staggering number, if you have a business and don't have a website, you are losing out on great opportunities for your business.

To many, being on the top ranking list is the only way to run successfully, but that is actually far from the truth. With long-tail keywords and focus on smaller niches, it has become possible to operate successful websites that serve smaller localities.

A website can be used to accomplish many different growth strategies to help your business expansion programme. As a business owner, you need to know where your consumers are. But what if consumers know your business and what you can offer, but they can't reach you? That is one of the risks you take by not having a website for your business. Owning a website helps your availability all the time and limits the problem of distance.

Source: https://www.todhost.com/blog/reasons-your-business-should-own-a-website-in-today's-world.html

Source: https://www.todhost.com/knowledgebase/776/How-to-Solve-Email-Bounce-Back-Issues.html

Have you sent an email and it returns to you as an undelivered mail? That is a bounce back. It indicates a problem. The problem could come from you and could also be the fault of the sending and receiving server. Whichever, you will have to try to resolve the issue so you can work without issues.

It does not matter who your web host is or the strength and credibility of your email platform, bounces will always occur. When they do, it is important to try and have them resolved. In this tutorial we will examine the circumstances that lead to bounce back and how to get them resolved when they do occur.

Why Email Bounce Back

A couple of reasons account for most of the email bounces:

1. Wrongly Typed Email Address
Sometimes, an email address is mistyped causing a bounce back. This is easy to correct as the bounced back email header will tell you that the email you have attempted to send your mail to does not exist. When you receive such notification, you will simply need to check the email address and make the necessary corrections.

2. Non-Existent Emails
We receive bounce back emails sometimes because we have sent a mail to an email account that does not exist. This occurs under certain conditions::

a. The domain name to which the email was directed has expired and has not been renewed. As a result the domain DNS could have been redirected to another server address or deleted. In such cases, all emails created with that domain name ceases to function.
b. The mail belonged to an employee who has left the organization and so his email has been deleted.
c. The email has been inactive or unused for a long time and deleted by the email server for inactivity.

3. Sending Server Blacklist
You will not be able to send emails from a server that had been blacklisted for spamming. You will also not be able to receive emails into accounts hosted on a server that has been blacklisted for spamming. The good news is that most servers ill hold emails and attempt to resend them for up to 772 hours. Within that period, any issues is expected to have been resolved.

4. Receiving Server Blacklisted
Similar to the above problem and as explained with the sending server blacklist, you will also be unable to send emails to a server that has been blacklisted for spamming. The server will not be able to receive your mails and you will get a bounce back notification.
How to Resolve Email Bounce Back Issues

• Wrongly Typed Email Address: To resolve this problem, the solution is to double check the email address and be sure it is rightly typed. Just be sure you have entered the right email and resend the message. If the problem re-occurs, then you will need to check other problems.
• Non-existent email: To address this problem, check the header to be properly guided and confirm that the email address no longer exists. If you confirm that the email address no longer exists, then you will need to delete the email from your mailing list.
• Black listed sending server: If the server you are sending your email to cannot receive emails because it is on a blacklist, then you need to wait for up to three days before trying to resend the email. Within that period, the issues affecting the server could have been resolved. You could go further by contacting the server administrator if you can get their telephone contact and to notify them of the problem. They could act fast to resolve the problem.
• Black listed sending server: If your server is blacklisted and you are unable to send emails, it is recommended that you immediately contact your web host to report the problem. Every web host can quickly resolve blacklist issues within 24 hours.

How Do Servers Get Blacklisted Causing Email Bounce Back Issues?

Server protection against spam is essential not just for the users but also for the integrity of the server and entire network. Spam is a huge problem on the Internet and as a mail server operator it is important to take reasonable steps to ensure that the server is secured from being hijacked by those wishing to distribute bulk unsolicited e-mails.

The first thing is to ensure that the server is properly configured to secure it against spam attacks. If the server is not configured correctly, spammers can use the mail server to dispatch messages through the server uninhibited. Mail servers accept messages for recipients that have their mailboxes hosted on the mail server itself, but it is critical to regulate who can send messages to others (non-local recipients). Secure the server by configuring strict rules as to who can use the server to send messages (relay messages) to non-local recipients.

Carefully review any domain redirections mail users may have set up on the server. If mail users have been permitted to redirect their mail to other mail systems then they will also be redirecting any spam to those mail systems. These mail systems will detect the server as spamming and this may cause the server to be blacklisted as a result. As such, in a hosted environment, either moderate the use of redirections, or prevent users from redirecting their mailboxes by disabling the feature in web mail entirely.

It is possible to get blacklisted or have your server IP(s) blacklisted via notifications being incorrectly sent to a forged senders address. Here are the common ways that notifications or bounced messages where replies to a forged address from a message envelope can have you added to a blacklist;

If a message is sent an address on the server that is associated with a list and the sender is not validated as an authenticated sender, a notification is sent to the original sender which may be forged, hence sending messages to an invalid account.

If an action on a filter is set up to "notify sender" that the message has met a particular criteria of a filter and the senders address is forged, then the message sent from the server could be again notifying the original forged senders address.

Having quotas set up on the mailboxes on a server will send out notifications to senders where a mailbox has exceeded its quota limit. This sent reply could be to a forged email sender which after a period of time can result in blacklisting.

The reply message from a disabled mailbox or domain could be sending its rejection messages to a forged sender address.
Another way that your server could be blacklisted is through blacklisting of a range by a DNSBL. Here is a returned warning from the web site of a DNSBL after a server range has been blacklisted. DNSBL means Domain Name System Blacklists, also known or DNS Blacklists. These are spam blocking lists that allow a website administrator to block messages from specific systems that have a history of sending spam. As their name implies, the lists are based on the Internet's Domain Name System, which converts complicated, numerical IP address such as 140.239.191.10 into domain names like example.net, making the lists much easier to read, use, and search. If the maintainer of a DNS Blacklist has in the past received spam of any kind from a specific domain name, that server would be "blacklisted" and all messages sent from it would be either flagged or rejected from all sites that use that specific list.

If the server is not secured from unauthorized relay, it will end up on an Open Relay Blacklist. Once the server is on a black list, the removal process is very time consuming.

How to remove server from a blacklist

First, check the status of your website to understand its true reputation.

The removal process is as follows:
1. First ensure that your server is no longer open relay. Make sure that the server is configured properly and protected from any exploitation.
2. Next, determine which open relay black lists the server is listed on..
3. Finally, go to the web sites of each Blacklist provider and use their web site to submit your site for testing. The process would vary. You will have to follow the processes if you want to be removed from any blacklists because databases often share IP addresses that have been listed.

Once you've fixed things on your end, go back to the blacklist's site and follow their instructions for the IP address removal process. Here's what you're likely to come across:

Self-Service Removal. There are a few blacklists with a self-service removal feature that lets you take your IP address off the list without much trouble. However, you'll want to make sure you've resolved any issues before doing this. If you don't and your IP address gets listed again, it won't be easy to get it removed that next time.

Time-Based Removal. Most blacklists have a built-in, automatic process that removes lower-level listings (IP addresses that are light offenders) within a week or two. But if the IP address had sent spam more than once or did a high volume, the time period will be longer.
4. Blacklist providers usually process removal requests within 24 hours. They will send a mail message to indicate the status of the removal.

In addition, you can do the following:
Scan all computers on your network for viruses
See if there are any known and needed "patches" (updates and fixes) for your operating system
Configure routers more securely
Establish and enforce stronger passwords

Check your server logs for any possible exploitation which could be related to outdated software.

Thanks for the comments

Source: https://www.todhost.com/blog/20-ways-you-can-reduce-your-website-bounce-rate.html

Your website bounce rate is one of the quality metrics which needs constant monitoring. It reflects the rate at which your website visitors leave your page after visiting the landing page. Usually, it gives an indication of how useful your page has been in providing the answers sought by users. We try to understand users’ behavior through it and find out solutions in order to decrease it. But a high bounce rate always a bad thing? What should we check in order to give the best user experience to our visitors and decrease website bouncerate?

TECHNICAL ASPECTS

1. Website speed
Web users and particularly very concerned about website speed. They do not want to spend much time loading a web page and will easy turn to an alternative if your page takes much time to load. So, if you really care about your visitors then you have to provide them with a fast loading website. And when we say that it needs to load fast, we mean in no more than 2-3 seconds. After that time, you begin to lose your visitors which is translated into lost leads & transactions.

2. Apply Lazy load technique
If your website loads a lot of content and especially with images, you can simply halt a full web page load until the user scrools down to the page. So, you will use the lazy load technique to delay loading an entire page when the user hasn’t scrolled down to the rest of your content yet? Lazy Load designing technique acts as a smart listener where every time you ask (scroll-down) to read more then and only then content is being loaded. This way both your website loads fast and you can manage to provide a fast pacing page with a lot of content.

3. Poor design
As in real life, here the rule is the same: First impression matters. So believe it or not, your visitors will judge you, your professionalism, your authority and the security of your website according to your design. A modern and clear design with easy navigation through its menu and strong/solid user experience certainly impacts the above judgements positively and could convert your visitors from guests to leads and/or customers.

4. Helpful 404 page
Nobody likes broken links but having 404 pages are a normal part of websites. Links could change, categories could be renamed, links could be deleted and just an unforseen circumstancecould create a 404 page. In many cases, technical problems are also appearing that you may simply not be aware of.

So for all the above reasons, you should consider having an informative and helpful 404 not found page. Try having:
● A search box where the user can easily retry to find what he was looking for
● Links to major sections in your website, like the homepage, your blog & your contact page.
● Internal links to your best performing content like your offers page, your top selling categories and your best performing blog posts.

5. Be concerned about your website mobile-friendliness
The days when users were only surfing the web from their desktop have passed. Mobile share is currently counting more than 30% of all global web pages served.

MARKETING ASPECTS

6. Match search query intent with landing page message
You need to keep the marketing chain strong! Which are its links?
• Advertise for the right keywords
• Use those keywords in your advertising texts
• Send users to a relevant landing page. Show them what they initially wanted to find by typing their search query.

7. Build visually appealing landing pages
Even if your marketing chain is strong, your landing page has to be visually appealing meaning that all the information the user needs must be served in a nice and clear way.
You don’t need to hide your content behind ads or popups. Content is king and your website’s visitors came to see the content!

8. Target the right keywords by avoiding low value traffic
Adwords can be a very useful tool in order to bring more traffic in your website. But always keep in mind that the broader the keywords you are targeting the less interested your visitors will be for your service/product.

9. Compelling Call To Action
Your Call to Action (CTA) is where you call your visitor to take an action. Is the message of your button strong enough? If you got tired of seeing the “Read More” button again and again as you explore the web, try make the difference and test something more compelling, like: “Order Now”, “Explore More”, “Get your Subscription”, “Make your Order”.

10. Keep pop-ups low in your priority list
Wher you can, avoid pop-ups. Pop-up functionality is annoying from nature. It’s something that you didn’t choose to open, you didn’t know that existed and that it will appear in front of you by hiding everything else. What is more, in an effort to minimize the appearance of intrusive popups Google will add in its ranking factors rules for penalizing content which is not easily accessible.

11. Avoid adverts everywhere
Aften putting up an amazing content, you could gain enormous trafic and are tempted to placeads in your website to earn revenue. So, you built a website, you increased your traffic through awesome content and now it’s time to profit from your huge daily traffic! You start by adding some ads at some key positions in your website, then in an effort to increase your profit you added more ads and out of the blue your website started losing traffic day by day by becoming

12. Understand the full meaning of bounce rate
What is the best scenario?
A. A Landing page with 100 visits, 100% bounce rate and 100 leads? Or
B. A Landing page with 100 visits, 85% bounce rate and 10 leads?
I would choose A because it fulfilled its purpose: users came to my landing page, submitted their contact details and I got 100 leads out of 100 visitors!
The point made here is that a very high bounce rate is not necessary bad. If your landing page is reaching its goal then mission is accomplished.

13. Run a/b tests in your website
You should always a/b test your website. Even the smaller change in a button’s color or position could result in an increase of conversion rate. And of course, unless you test a marketing message, you never know if it’s stronger or weaker than other messages or messages of your competitors.
A/B Testing
Be always on the move by implementing small and distinct changes. Keep changes one at a time in order to be sure what change helped (or not) and how much.

14. Polish your best perfoming content, improve your worst performing content
You should always consider revising your most visited content, by adding new tips, tricks and techniques based on the latest trends. Let your visitors know that the awesome piece of content you created is so great as its freshness is.

15. Learn from Google
Google is the king of search engines, so in order to have a well-established website, you should consider keeping in touch with latest Google algorithmic changes and updates.

WRITING TECHNIQUES

16. Avoid wall of text
There is no need for writing a wall of text without any formation. Use bullets, numbering, paragraphs, segment your writing into smaller sentences and having along with your main heading other subheadings for better segmentation are some great features which will greatly improve your page’s readability.

17. Easy consuming content
Make your content relevantand easy to consume. If you do all the hard work by building a strong marketing chain where your landing page meets visitor’s search intent, but your content is way too hard to consume in a short span of time, this could be a reason to expect a high bounce rate. Users need to consume your content fast or at least to find a well segmented content in order to pick what they want to read.

18. Use graphic and video content
If a picture is worth 1000 words, then what is one video worth If you have a great piece of content, what is best to keep users’ attention than a visual which will explain your content? Give your visitors easy ways to visualize your information. Will it be a dynamic graph, an astonishing image or an explanatory video? The more ways you give your readers to visualize your data, the more satisfied they will be and the less likely they will bounce off your page.

19. Improve your writing style
Your writing style must have a start, a body and an end/summary. In every section of your content, your visitors need to know where they are, what they will learn and how will they benefit from what they are currently reading.

20. Build Τrust
Ensure that your website conves the trust needed to make users confident in the content they consume and to beleive in your website. Building authority around your website and/or your persona is not an easy process. You need to slowly build your audience with relevant users, follow a methodical strategy and always have the users’ needs and their experience in your website as your first priority.