by Bianca Gubalke

How to Register a Domain Name

As we are building our WP Best eShop to feature my Personalized Web Design & Publishing Services, we start at the beginning following the Plan we drew up yesterday: Registering a Domain Name. If you wish to go straight through to the shop (under construction and development), please click on the picture below.

How to Register a Domain Name

Registering your Name and/or Business as a Domain Name is a simple ‘must’ when operating on the Internet. If YOU are not in control of your name, someone else will… and sooner or later you definitely lose out. Don’t risk this.

Best Domain Name Registration

We can offer the very best Domain Name registration as follows: U$12.95 per domain name for one year U$25.00 per domain name for two years.

Choosing the right Domain Name

Choosing the right domain name is all about YOU and YOUR BUSINESS; it’s the first and most important investment you should make on the Internet. As you will see, you simply first register for FREE to get started. After registration, you can buy any available domain name at U$12.95 for 1 year OR U$25,00 for 2 years.

Never lose a Domain Name

You will be reminded when renewals are due – and while you can cancel and transfer at liberty, you have peace of mind that you will never lose your domain name. Believe me, I know what that means!

Domain Name Support

It’s easy and safe… but if you need some personal assistance to help you with your choice please contact me HERE for dedicated Domain Name Support.

Author: Bianca Gubalke, Art, Media, Publishing. Co-Founder of YORGOO, YCADEMY and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

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BRap Hosting for WordPress Blogs

Recently I have been asked “if I offer” / “why don’t I offer” a hosting package on BRap Hosting for WordPress Blogs only.

Cheap Website Hosting

At BRap Hosting we specialize in excellent but cheap website hosting. We have one main hosting package, and it is unlimited hosting. Meaning that there are no limits for disk usage nor for bandwidth, as long as the usage is appropriate for a shared hosting environment. I explain this better in my Knowledgebase article HERE. We also have a special package which allows Streaming. This is also at the low price of $35 per year.

A Simple WordPress Blog

The question goes like this: I don’t know computers so well, I don’t care for the access nor the hassle nor the responsibility of cpanel, nor ftp, nor fantastico. All I want is one thing – to host a simple WordPress blog in my own domain under my own control. I don’t need any access except to my dashboard. Can I get such a package for less than $35 per year?

The truth is that I thought it was a great idea, and I started thinking immediately to implement it. A brand new WordPress blog installed by yours truly on your domain name, for half price, say, something like that.

But then like a flash I realized the pitfall, which makes implemention of such a package impossible. This issue of upgrades. OK, the WordPress upgrades which also come too frequently, this I don’t mind, I’ve done it a million times, and I don’t mind taking it upon myself. However, many bloggers don’t suffice with just a plain blog – they add plugins for all kinds of reasons – features, convenience, esthetics, ecommerce. These also get updates every Monday and Thursday. And for many of these updates you have to have ftp access, which they don’t have. So imagine, I’m making, whatever, a dollar or a dollar and a half per month for such a package, and I am tying myself to it by spending the whole day installing updates. It’s not logical, and it risks not leaving me time to serve my full-service customers with their needs.

So I came up with a compromise: If you take the regular unlimited package for $35/year, with only access to the dashboard of the blog, but not cpanel and ftp access, then I’ll take care of updating the WordPress versions and all the plugins for you. Otherwise I would have to charge for each update, something I don’t want to do, both intrinsically, and also because of other complications from Paypal, which I talked about on a different post.

This is now an article in the Knowledgebase.

Boruch Rappaport

Website Criteria

While in my previous posts I went through the best website criteria for a successful website or blog, be it for setting up one’s own online presence or seen from a customer’s perspective, we deepened the understanding in last night’s Info-Call in the sexy new Microsoft Conference Room we are currently testing! WOW! Life and Learning online will never be the same again. . . especially since I no longer stared into and communicated with a “black hole” after doing yet another update of my Adobe Flash Player… all those who were present know what I am talking about and in case you get the ‘black hole syndrome’ you now know what to do :)

Website Criteria

The best ' Website Criteria’ and their practical application and implementation were the basic driving force behind what was taught over the past 2 – 3 years in the monthly Ycademy Business Building Seminars – strictly online. Not surprisingly, many loyal and ambitious seminar attendees have meanwhile applied what they learned and start harvesting the sweet financial fruits from their efforts, courage, consistency and investment in terms of time and money.

Customer Statisfaction

Money is one thing, however, what counts even more is the personal reward and recognition we obtain from sincere, enthusiastic customer satisfaction, meaning people who entrusted us with creating and setting up a website or blog for them, respectively for their company – and who suddenly see their webpages emerge from the amorphous mass of nobodies. . . climbing steadily to Google Top 10 and positioning themselves to stay. “Customer Satisfaction means all to me” said Hanno Coetzee from the famous Gardenroute along South Africa’s beautiful Southern coastline, at last night’s call.

Hanno Coetzee – aka Lalakoi and from good old Namibia as I am – knows his customers and the business they are in since many years – and they trust him. Armed with the knowledge and skill he has attained with Ycademy plus of course the high performing Semiomantics NewsCast Scripts he readily goes the extra mile. . . preferably on a fishing boat or flirting with Miss Gardenroute 2009 in the Mosselbay Casino. . . to find a smart and cost-efficient solution for each client – hand-tailored to his or her requirements. Success leaves clues and Hanno is happy and proud to provide his customers with the very best: meaning visibility on Google Top 10 where potential clients hang out and look for solutions for their urgent needs. If the website creates empathy and the product is what they want – why should they look further? With a few products sold the initial investment is covered and from there it’s all profits! Fortunately for his customers, Hanno also provides an ongoing and essential Maintenance Service at very fair prices to ensure the race horse keeps performing at top speed and his clients have their backs free to focus on what their business is: selling products and services without being bothered by sometimes highly frustrating upgrades, server hickups and other hassles that noone right in his mind would like to even start getting involved with. Good luck to Hanno and his family Team. . . we wish you many happy customers!

by Bianca Gubalke

Why do you want a Website?

Working from Monkey Valley is like working from the beach – you have direct access by just walking down a shady path under the old, protective milkwoods that have withstood many storms, fires and environmental assaults in the past and offer such a wonderful haven of peace and tranquil lifestyle. In September, when the Namaqua Daisies are in full bloom, you may be welcomed by a splendour of bursting colors decorating waves of dunes snaking along the shifting beach.

When working on my laptop at Monkey Valley Beach Nature Resort the other day, several people were intrigued by what I was doing. After seeing some of my Blogs, Graphic Design and activities on the Internet, most of them realized that having a website or blog of their own was something that had been on their mind for a while. Of course the question is always: why do you want a website?

Why do you want a Website?

The reasons vary.

A website just for Fun

There are individuals who want to have a website just for Fun. . . just to develop an online presence, have their name and pictures out there for family and friends to relate to and communicate with. For this there are free blog scripts available, for instance on WordPress… or they can do what most people do: build a profile in Social Networks, genre Facebook, Twitter and soon Google Wave. While all this is so-to-speak  ‘free’ – the fact is that it isn’t really. . . they are not in control of anything and they will be advertised to ad infinitum! Sooner or later they are in the loop and there’s no way out – except going off the Internet or… building an own website or blog.

Branding a Business Online

On the other hand, business-oriented people often have a website already – but they are not happy with its performance. They may be quite happy with the look and design that they believe is enough for Branding their Business Online, however, as their website or blog is meant to bring them visitors – meaning traffic, possible prospects, customers and eventually … sales – but it doesnt… something “doesn’t really work”. The fact is – even the most attractive website or blog – if not visible on Google Top 10 – is invisible! From here follows that what counts most when deciding to build a professional, business-oriented Website or Blog online is:

Visibility on Google

Visibility on Google depends on a good, search engine optimized script that performs well on Google Top 10 – a script like Semiomantics XO. It’s all about Code and what happens in the invisible background, all a normal person doesn’t want to know of as it’s a science in itself, it’s complex, it’s really not easy and it’s changing and shifting each single day – and it definitely has a price. Look at your competitors and you see what they invest to reach page one on Google and… stay there.  There you have a quick and revelatory answer if you don’t make it to that hot spot with your website or blog yourself! And ask yourself: what are you investing in being where you need to be? What are you ready to invest? What can you budget for? Daily, monthly and over the years? This is an ongoing battle! Don’t even think it’s done with one shot – that’s only the beginning! But it’s also where you reach a maximum of people – and that’s what you need if you have something to offer or sell. It’s all about visibility… so that if someone looking up for instance ‘Working from Monkey Valley’ immediately finds “Monkey Valley Beach Nature Resort” on Google Top 10. And this is the case right now and I am sure a price is being paid for this. . . But also see where we landed with my 2 articles as a Team and Publishing Network, basically occupying 5/10 prime Google Top 10 spots in absolutely no time… here’s the proof: The screenshots are more or less the same on Google.com and Google.co.za. . . and this is just another demonstration to make my point. So if someone was looking up this key phrase there would be 5 on 10 chances he’d hit on our Publishing Network. That’s what counts!

Semiomantics or Google Ads

Alternatively, you need to invest in Google Ads on the right side. But here’s the next hurdle: do you know which keywords to use? No? Then invest in specialists as to Keyword Research – and budget 500$ a month to start with. . . companies pay 1000’s of $$$ here alone – never mind the daily budget for AdSense that follows. Do I hear your hair fall out? See, that’s why I am explaining this: there is a choice… time and/or money – that’s the game on planet earth! So the choice here is to either invest in Semiomantics – or buy Google Ads… or combine both. Advertising has its price – but then if the clients stream in and sales result – that’s all it needs, isn’t it? Say you get the money for your investment back with the profit on 2 sales or that extra car you sell – wouldn’t you be happy? And then another car sold… and another? Oh yes! It pays – if done correctly – and it’s never ‘free’ – guaranteed! Not offline, not online – such is Life! There’s more that we need to consider when deciding to build a Website or Blog or have it built for us; I will tell you about it tomorrow!

Author: Bianca Gubalke, Art, Media, Publishing. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

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The Launch Of BRap Hosting

During these days I am relaunching my hosting company, BRap Hosting. I say “relaunch”, because indeed about a year ago I launched the business with a different structure, not far from a simple hosting reseller plan, but I quickly discovered a major problem in that too much power was in the hands of one person, (not me), and that if and when he would choose to be an @$$-&*##, he can essentially bring down my whole business. Not smart. So I disappeared sort of, and then restructured the business in a different format, and now, well, let’s go!!!

There are three main divisions in BRap Hosting. First and foremost are the hosting packages. BRap Hosting is resolved to maximize customer benefit by supplying him with the best of both worlds — cheap website hosting without compromising excellent customer service. I work with several data centers, all of whom feature 99.99% uptime, but more important to me is the “percieved uptime”, that is, how the end user feels server response. There are many reasons why the user may get time out errors even though the server is technically up. For example, when Henry hogs system resources (before he gets caught), Sam will feel that the server is not responding, even though it is “up”. Anyway, I work with data centers that besides promises and guarantees, in practice the customer has a good experience.

I lowered my prices in order to provide the customer with cheap website hosting, as I am targeting households and small businesses, who don’t have extra money just to throw away. On the other hand, through my background in computer programming, and in education, coupled with my refined character traits and aspiration to be good and to do good for others, my customers position themselves to have above average customer service from a staff which has ears that hear, and a heart with empathy. I still remember not long ago when I was a newbie to internet use, so I understand what it means to be new, yet my understanding and experience are deep, and my ability to explain is well above average.

Since I work with several data centers I have the flexibility to offer two different hosting packages, to fit the customer with a framework which most corresponds to his needs. Additionally, I have the option to easily resolve something which is uncommon, yet does happen, that in retrospect the chosen data center does not correspond with the customers true needs, to move him over to more appropriate framework with a minimum of disruption.

I am offering a reduced rate through Sunday evening GMT, as a way to get acquainted with the company. See the link here:

http://braphosting.net/launchsale.html

The two other divisions, so to speak, are two blockbuster products which are in production. One of them, pre-hosted niche sites, is sort of finished, just undergoing upgrading for added quality and customer value. The other product you can see on the site, that one is not almost finished.

Additionally, in the “Other Products” department, BRap Hosting offers discounted prices on high quality products which are appropriate for someone with a hosted domain.

I will talk about these products more in later posts.

Boruch Rappaport