The Canon 7D in it’s essence is a top of the line 18 Megapixel digital SLR still camera combined with a full HD video camera  capable of accepting the best prime lenses in the world.  The Canon EOS 7D shoots full 1080p in both NTSC and PAL formats, including the coveted 24p sought after by filmmakers world wide.  It will even shoot 720 60p and 50p making native slow motion footage a possibility.  All of this is packed within a single camera body, and at less than $2000 a fraction of the price of the competition.

However things have just got even better,  Amazon &  B&H Photography seemed to have just entered a price war and are offering up to $200 instant savings for Canon 7D Kits including, a $100 instant savings for the Canon EOS 7D Body or the Canon EOS 7D and 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM Standard Zoom Lens bringing the base price for this amazing camera to $1599 delivered to your door!

If you have been even remotely interested in purchasing a DSLR, or an HD video camera the versatility and quality the Canon EOS 7D provides is unbeatable at nearly any price.  And if there was ever a doubt in your mind about wether now was a good time to buy, rest assured that this is a great price.

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Shared hosting sucks. Shared hosting is like moving into an apartment building in some foriegn neighborhood. Your host may put you in a building with college party animals and drug dealers, who leave trash everywhere, hog the elevators, and clog the hallways.

Even if you find a great host you can still have an experience that sucks. Hosting companies often have hundreds of servers and your bad luck might land you on a slow or buggy one. You may have email problems after your host is blacklisted because of spammers. A hacker may take down your server with a DoS attack on one of your neighbors. The person who answers your support call may be a lifesaver or an I.T. know-it-all who can’t be bothered.

When it comes to web hosts, it seems to be a classic case of choosing the best of the worst.  Finding a good host is incredibly difficult, maybe even hopeless, but here are a few suggestions on how to increase your chances of finding a host that will work for you.

What Do You Really Need From a Host?

Before you begin looking, make a list of your web hosting requirements.

Every host will offer a full menu of features and services all touting to be the answer to your dreams.  However most of these features will be completely worthless, or at least of no importance to the majority of people. How many email or FTP accounts do you really need?  And any other services or software that is included usually has a free or open-source counterpart available for download online with much better features.  Webalizer and AWstats  are two examples of popular statistics  software often included in webhosting packages.  However Google’s free Analytics service is much more feature rich and is quickly becoming the industry standard.

Here are a few things that may actually be important to you:

Bandwidth This isn’t the most important criteria, but I list it first because many hosts use it as an enticement, tempting you with enormous amounts or even unlimited bandwidth. You’ll probably never be able to take advantage of it because of resource limitations (see TOS below), and the typical blog (a couple hundred page views a day) probably uses only a few gigabytes in a month, at most (if you’re really worried about pumping terabytes through the pipes, you should give some thought to VPS’s or dedicated hosting). But some hosting plans do have ridiculously low bandwidth allotments, so be sure to give yourself room to grow.

TOS (Terms of Service) Every host is going to place some kind of limitation on your resources (CPU and memory), and it’s a good thing they do; shared hosting only works when everyone plays nice with their neighbors. Some will be vague about resource limitations, others more explicit (e.g., limiting it to some percentage). You’ll have to dig for this info, which is usually buried in the TOS. Make sure you read this document, which will also have details about refunds, uptime guarantees, and other important details.

Number of Domain Pointers How many domains will you need? Many budget shared hosting plans limit you to one, or perhaps a few, domains. If you intend to have more than one site, or to publish more than one blog, make sure you can host all your domains under one plan.

Number of Databases Some hosts offer unlimited domains, but give you a paltry number of databases to work with. Sure, you can put more than one blog in a single database, but I wouldn’t recommend it.

Control Panel You’re going to spend a fair amount of time poking around in your control panel, so make sure it’s user-friendly. If you’re used to cPanel, which is almost comon among hosts, you’ll probably find a proprietary backend (like those used by GoDaddy and DreamHost) somewhat awkward to use. Most hosts offer a demo of their control panel. Check it out before you make your final choice.

Blog-friendly? If you’re going to publish a blog, look for a blog-friendly host. I’d avoid GoDaddy, for example, which has awkward backends and wasn’t, particularly WordPress-friendly. Most hosts offer Fantastico, or some other method of one-click installation of popular blogging packages. Make sure your host has the required versions of PHP, MySQL, or any extensions that are required (e.g., WordPress requires mod_rewrite for permalinks).

Customer Service Your host may offer online, email, chat and/or phone support. If you’re new to hosting (and even if you’re not) I’d recommend finding a host that offers phone support. Trying to explain what you don’t understand in an email or in a chat can be laborious and frustrating. You won’t always get an immediate answer by phone (sometimes a more tech savvy person will have to get back to you, usually by email), but it’s a relief when you do. And there are few things more infuriating than not being able to talk to someone when your website is down.

Affiliate Program This is the least important thing to consider, But I’d hesitate before choosing a host that didn’t offer a referral fee. Any blog with traffic should be able to get a few referrals over the course of a year and with most hosts you’ll make more than enough to pay for your own hosting.

Comparing Hosts

It’s impossible to predict your future satisfaction with a host for reasons outlined above. There are few reliable sources of comparative information about web hosts, and testimonials (including mine) are perhaps the least reliable source of all. Be especially skeptical of review sites; most of them are affiliate link farms. Nothing wrong with making a commission for a referral but a site that’s devoted to hosting will tend toward hyperbole. And keep in mind, as you do your research, that any popular host is likely to have a number of supporters and detractors due to the sheer number of customers, you can never please everyone.

First, limit the field by using the list you just created of what’s really important to you to find a handful of hosting candidates that meet your needs. Then, start your comparative research.

Google I’d start by searching Google for comments about your potential host. Also, try “[your potential host] sucks” (don’t forget the quotes).

Now, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, as Carl Sagan said. The lack of Google results for your potential host may not be an indication of anything. But a multitude of “[your host] sucks” results should be a red flag.

Hyperspin Don’t host with a company that doesn’t offer at least a 30-day money back guarantee. And while you’re in that honeymoon phase with your new host, sign up for Hyperspin’s free monitoring service. They’ll notify you immediately by email or SMS if your site goes down.

You’ll also find a ranking of hosts by uptime on Hyperspin, but it doesn’t tell you very much. The 100th ranked host (at least at the time of this writing) posted a respectable 99.740% uptime. And these rankings only include companies that pay to be monitored by Hyperspin; the fact that your host chooses not to pay for this service doesn’t mean it’s unreliable. The same is true of Netcraft, which publishes a similar performance ranking.

WebSitePulse If you want to get a quick sense of the relative performance of a host, you can run a website test at WebSitePulse.

Status Pages, Forums, and Blogs You may have to hunt for these, but most hosts have status pages (where you can monitor uptime), forums (where you can get the pulse of their customer community and see how responsive the host is), and company blogs (where they may write about customer concerns). These are often the best sources of information. DreamHost has aDreamHost Status site and one of the better blogs. AN Hosting lets you check the status of any of their servers online.

A Place to Start

I’ve given you some things to think about, but where to begin? Since I’ve had some direct experience with a handful of hosts, I’ll briefly share some of my experiences here.

AN Hosting Blogging Photographer is currently hosted by AN Hosting. AN Hosting offers a generous package that includes 625 GB of disk storage, 6 TB (that’s terrabytes!) of bandwidth, 20 domains on one account, a free domain for life, and unlimited MySQL databases for $6.95 a month (yearly payment).

1&1 I have actually never hosted with 1&1 however I do register all of my domain names with them, and they have had great customer service anytime I’ve had a problem.  They have a number of plans to choose from starting at 2.99 a month, and are currently running a special where you get the first 6 months free.

ThinkHost ThinkHost is one of the more popular hosts, at least among social conscious bloggers. It’s the host some people love and other people love to hate.  It markets itself as a “Green” web host committed to social change.  They claim to be 100% carbon neutral, but have not personally seen much information to back up these claims.  They do offer generous unlimited plans, for only $7.95 a month (yearly). It all sounds good, but remember when something is too good to be true, it probably is.  I have heard of a number of horror stories, from sites constantly crashing, to stone age loading times, and extremely poor customer service.  But don’t take my word for it, make sure to research, and use the Honeymoon period to your advantage.

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2. Submit Your Site to the Search Engines & Directories
This is where the Google Sitemap Generator plugin and  Google Webmaster’s Tools account really come in handy.  Build your sitemap using the Generator plugin within WordPress, and then make sure to validate your website within the Webmaster’s Tools site  by submitting the sitemap.  This will ensure that your blog is fully indexed quickly, and Google will be notified automatically when changes have been made to your site.

Most likely you’ll get the most traffic from Google, however don’t think Google is all that matters.  There are a number of other search engines, Bing, Yahoo, and Ask.com, as well as hundereds if not thousands of directories, and blogging rings that generally produce very targeted traffic.

With a little extra effort you can be picking up traffic from all over the place. The big directories to look out for are  Technorati, DMOZ, Blogcatalog, Blogged, and Photoblogs, For more information on submitting your site check out these resources:

• My site in the Google index
• How do I add my site to Google’s search results?
• Bing URL Submission
• Major Search Engines and Directories
• Search Engine Ranking Factors

3. Join Social Bookmarking Services and Promote Your Posts
Word of mouth advertising is arguably one of the best forms of marketing.   Social Networking aims to replicate this word of mouth advertising online.  If you don’t already have an account for Facebook, Twitter, or Flickr create one now, these will become invaluable down the line.

If you are going to embrace social networking, make it easy for your readers who enjoy your content to share it within their network.  This is where the Add This Social Bookmarking plugin comes in. Use it, or something like it, to make it easy for visitors to share your blog posts on their favorite social network, and spread your content organically.

4. Offer Feeds and Email Subscriptions
WordPress will automatically generate RSS feeds for your posts and comments, however FeedBurner allows people to subscribe via email as well.  On top of that there is even some additional analytics and tracking information to keep track of your growing subscriber list. Check out their own Quick Start Guide for WordPress users.

5. Post Comments on Other Sites
If submitting your site to search engines and directories is akin to placing advertisements in the newspaper, and social networking is like word of mouth advertising, then posting comments on other peoples blogs is like going door to door.

Find blogs that share your interests and contribute to the conversation by posting meaningful comments, make sure to include your URL  Each comment you make is a link back to your site which helps your search engine ranking, but more importantly, if you have something worthwhile to contribute, quite often people will want to visit your site and check it out.

6. Monitor your Site
The more you learn about Google Analytics the more it becomes an invaluable tool.  Use it to track your referrals, traffic that is sent your way from another website, make note of these sites, and check them out, look around post a comment or forum post and boost your traffic even more.

You should also use a 3rd party website grading tool to track how effectively you’re promoting your site every now and then.  UrlTrends and Blog Grader lets you monitor several different ranking and link popularity trends at a glance, giving you tips on how to squeeze out even more traffic to your site. You even check in to see how much your blog is worth!

7. Make Money While Blogging
Speaking of checking out how much your blog is worth, it won’t be worth much unless you can monetize that traffic, and that is the goal of the next post in the Quickstart series.  There are a number of ways to provide added value to your visitors, while making money at the same time, and we will cover a number of these methods in the next post.

Related posts:

1. Quick Start Guide to Launching Your Photography Blog The "Quick Start" series to starting your photography blog provides...
2. Quick Start Guide to Writing Content for the Web Learn to attract more visitors & subscribers, optimize your site...

2. Formatting
Over time your largest group of visitors will find your blog via searching.  Generally someone finding you through a search is looking for specific information. You can assist them by doing the following:

• Use appropriate and descriptive titles
• Use headlines, lists, and blockquotes where appropriate
• Break up loosely related content into multiple sections or multiple posts
• Provide links to related and useful information
• Use bold, italics and other formatting as needed

The internet provides literally 1000′s of choices for your user on any given search topic, so do them a favor help them find what they are looking for immediately, or else they will be gone in a matter of seconds.

Here are a few other resources to guide your writing for the web:

• Writing for the Web
• A List Apart: 10 Tips on Writing the Living Web
• A List Apart: How to Write a Better Weblog
• Do You Make These Mistakes With Your Blog?
• 9 + 1 Things Every Reader Wants from a Writer

3. Create an About Page
Creating an About page should be one of the first things you do.  Your readers want to know about you and about your blog. So, in addition to writing about the blog be sure to add a little about yourself.  Make sure you include a photograph – it will make a real connection with your readers and dramatically increase the chances of you making a lasting relationship with them.

Post at least 15-20 entries before you begin to promote your site.  If you’re new to blogging, use the visual editor which lets you edit and style your posts like you would in a word document, without knowing any HTML.  Wordpress.org has a good set of step by step instructions to follow while posting.

4. Focus on a Niche
Focusing on a niche increases your chances of ranking well in the search engines for your chosen topic, and makes it easier to target an audience. There are lots of bloggers that post anything that catches their interest,but having a clearly defined style, or theme increases the chances of holding your readers attention.

5. Post Consistently and Regularly
This is one of the more difficult tasks, but is very important.  Whether you plan on posting every day or a couple of times a week, determine what you can feasibly accomplish, and stick with it.   It is much better to start out slow, and build momentum, once blogging becomes second nature, than to bite off more than you can chew.

It is more important to post consistently, than it is to post more often.  Followers will know when to expect a new post, and you will notice a slow but steady increase in your traffic and subscriptions.

6. Write Captivating Titles
The more interesting your title, the more likely you are to catch the interest of your reader, and the more traffic you will come flooding your way. Here are a few good posts on writing effective titles:

• How to Write Headlines
• How to Get 53% More Readers for Every Blog Post You Write
• Using Titles Effectively on Blogs

Stay tuned for the next post in the Quick Start Series Quick Start Guide to Building Huge Ammounts of Traffic where we will cover marketing and promoting your photoblog.  We will discuss using Inbound marketing strategies such as SEO, social media, and link building to rocket your viewership, and keep them coming back for more.

Related posts:

1. Quick Start Guide to Launching Your Photography Blog The "Quick Start" series to starting your photography blog provides...
2. Quick Start Guide to Building Huge Amounts of Traffic Follow the guidelines from this chapter of the "Quick Start"...

2. Choose Your Blogging Software
There are a number of free tools out there to get you up and blogging in no time at all.  However the biggest blogging mistake of all is to use a service such as Blogger, TypePad, or WordPress.com.

bloggingphotographer.blogger.com = BAD
www.bloggingphotographer.com = GOOD

These services are great for posting a blog about your cat, but they do not allow you to use your own domain name, and they generally do not have enough flexibility to support your the style and features you want. If you’re serious about your photography blog, you’ll want to have your own domain name.

I recommend using free open source software such as WordPress.  I use WordPress to power every website I build, it is an extremely flexible platform that is both easy to use and widely supported.  SinceWordPress, is my platform of choice, this is the blogging software I will refer to while discussing how to start a blog throughout the rest of the site.

3. Choose A Domain Name
Registering a Domain Name is one of the most important parts of creating a successful blog.  Don’t put this off;  If you think you have a good domain name, register it, don’t think about it, just do it.  Domains are being snatched up at an alarming rate, chances are many of the ingenious names you come up with are already taken.

I register the majority of my domains with 1&1 Webhosting, they have a $6.99 Domain Name Special. Do a Domain Name Search to find available domains, jot a few available options down, but don’t register your name just yet; many web hosting providers offer one free domain registration with the purchase of a hosting plan.

4. Find a Web Hosting Provider
Be sure to set up an account with a web host that provides a a good affiliate program, this will be put to use later.  I use AN Hosting for all of my websites and blogs.  They have a great affiliate program, outstanding customer service, they are inexpensive, and their web hosting plan is a mere $6.95 per month.  That gets you 500 GB of storage,  5 TB of bandwidth, 24/7 phone support, and a free domain registration for life!  On top of that they have all the tools you will need to get setup your blog setup quickly.

Getting Started With WordPress

5. Install WordPress
By now you should have set up your hosting account, and registered a domain name.  It’s time to install WordPress, it’s easy, It’s famous, and best of all it only takes 5 minutes.

6. Choose a Theme
WordPress makes it easy to change the look of your template; just upload and select a WordPress theme. There are literally thousands of free themes are available, look for something simple and clean.  I will update a list of recommended themes shortly, in the mean time you can start with the Theme Viewer.

7. Optimizing your Theme
Most themes work out-of-the-box for the most part, but you’ll probably want to make a few minor modifications. WordPress is fairly easy to pickup for anyone reasonably savvy and has the willingness to learn.  The available documentation and support through www.wordpress.org are very good.  If you have simple questions feel free to ask.  However for more complex tasks, I am willing work with you as a consultant.  More on this later.

8. Setup Analytics and Webmaster’s Tools
Your web host will offer statistics packages, but you’re better off installing Google Analytics and creating aWebmaster’s Tools account to analyze and optimize your website for search engines.  You can check out my post on setting this up here.

9. Install Plugins
Plugins extend the functionality of your basic WordPress installation. You’ll find more information about plugins at the Codex Plugin List. Here’s a list of plugins that I would consider essential for almost any WordPress blog:

• Akismet – Spam blocker. Included in the WordPress install, but don’t forget to turn it on.
• All in One SEO Pack – Optimize your blog’s content for SEO
• Twitter-Tools – Link your Blog with Twitter
• Redirection – Automatically takes care of any 301 and 302 redirects you need
• Google Sitemap Generator – Automatically updates a Google Sitemap
• Related Posts – Displays a list of related posts, pages, etc.
• Add This - Share your content on virtually any social networking site
• Amazon Showcase – Easily add items to your blog (more on this later)

10. Read the next post in the Quick Start Series,
Stay Tuned for the next post in this series, Quick Start Guide to Writing Content for the Web, to pick up some tips on writing an about page, formulating effective post that capture peoples attention, and other odds and ends to keep in mind when writing for the web.

Share your experiences starting a blog in the comment section below.

Related posts:

1. Quick Start Guide to Writing Content for the Web Learn to attract more visitors & subscribers, optimize your site...
2. Quick Start Guide to Building Huge Amounts of Traffic Follow the guidelines from this chapter of the "Quick Start"...

I will be focusing on blogging, setting up an online portfolio, social media marketing strategies utilizing web technologies such as Facebook and Twitter, and then how to monetize your website to create additional sources of cashflow beyond selling your photography online, such as through stock photography referrals, affiliate programs and reviews.

I hope that you will enjoy what we have to offer, and will voice any and all opinions, comments, or suggestions along the way. All that is left to do is to step out of the way and let the real business’s shine through.

To have your blog featured on Blogging Photographer simply email me at kirk@bloggingphotographer.com. Please include a link to your website, a very brief explanation of the type of work you do and a few high resolution photos of your work.

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