Reliable web hosting is just as important as keyword research

In the MMO industry webmasters are always demanding reliable and affordable hosting, the better the quality with the lowest price is like the Holy Grail, hardly any of the webhosting companies are perfect. When you make money online it's important to have a host you can rely on, downtime of several days just isn't acceptable.

Like most Internet Marketers I create websites that link to each other, this usually gives each site a natural boost in traffic, and can help with search engine rankings as well. Of course when you own as many sites as most Internet Marketers you need multiple hosting providers as well. A single reseller account with GoDaddy or Hostmonster isn't going to cut it.

Of course this usually means that every couple of months I and probably you, will be looking around for a new host. If you're like me you probably hate doing this; too many web hosting companies are just resellers themselves. Frankly I want to deal with a top level host who own their servers, not some high school kid who borrows their mom's credit card.

When you take the time to get your niche sorted out, you've found some great keywords that pay, you've checked the competition, and you really believe you've found a niche worth targeting, I think you're going to want to spend as much time as possible creating content and getting it indexed. An unreliable webhosting company is going to prevent this from happening.

As far as my websites go, I very rarely use plain HTML sites, most of my websites are build using Wordpress, Joomla, Serendipity, so I need PHP and MySQL databases, and I need a reliable ftp connection for making backups, and I usually like to have a live chat facility so if something goes wrong I can talk to a support representative straight away. This is something I've learned from hard experience.

Most successful Internet Marketers agree that using a CMS is the way to go, they're easier to update, often give more scope for customization, and huge communities develop around the most popular CMSs meaning you can always find a developer or ask for help. Trouble is they consume more resources, so reliable hosting, and most importantly, an optimized server are mandatory.

Sites like Web Hosting Geeks are a useful resource for keeping in touch with what's happening in the hosting industry. I subscribe to their
web hosting news RSS feed to keep in touch with new hosting companies that might be a better option for me. You should too.

I usually don't bother too much with knowing everything about hosting, I don't own any sites in that niche and I'm really not that interested, so my RSS feed reader will usually only include one or two hosting review sites, and Web Hosting Geeks is one of those.

In my next article I'll come back to checking out the competition for niche sites and give more examples of keyword research, in the meantime have you found a reliable host that allows you to start building your niche website business?