Forum Moderators: DixonJones
I am quite new to webmastering - having just had my first site online for just around 8 weeks now. As far as I can tell the site is not doing too badly. My Google referals are running at around 20-40 per day and my daily visitor numbers ranges from around 80 at the weekend to over 200 during the week.
However, here lies the problem. As things stand I am using a very cheap shared hosting plan that does not allow me to store cookies in the log file. The result is that my site traffic analyses are almost certainly not very reliable - firstly because of the missing cookie data and secondly because the freebie sitelog analyser I am using is probably not too reliable.
In due course I am planning to move up to a more able (also expensive) hosting solution but I hesitate to do it just yet - my expenses in getting this far have been quite significant and I want to feel good about visitor numbers before I spend even more.
In due course I have plans to do a great deal more with the site with a view to monetizing it. I have pretty much rejected the idea of Google Ads - I am simply not impressed by what I see. Besides my site is targeted at a highly technically literate audience that is unlikely to be taken in by any pure c..p. And then apart from all that I would rather be in control of my site revenues myself.
All that is yet to come and I am in no hurry. I appear to have a few external links and I am working on growing the number in as unobtrusive way as possible.
What I would like to learn from the more experienced webmasters on this forum is this
a. Is it worthwhile biting the bullet and moving on to a more expensive hosting solution right away? i.e will the improved reliability of site log analyses merit the cost?
b. What measures do I need to start taking right now so I have all my ducks in a row when I set about the process of getting advertising and other revenues?
c. Just how does one go about getting advertisers? Is it enough to provide links from where they can pay and submit ads or is there the Internet equivalent of an "ad agency" that I need to go to.
Perhaps I sound naive but like I said - I am a webmastering novice. So please bear with me. Any advice would be hugely appreciated.
Is it worthwhile biting the bullet and moving on to a more expensive hosting solution right away? i.e will the improved reliability of site log analyses merit the cost?
b. What measures do I need to start taking right now so I have all my ducks in a row when I set about the process of getting advertising and other revenues?
If I can think of one thing? Look for a hosting solution that can add packages like advertsing management systems as standard or - failing that - one with php and multiple mysql databases included in the package. Then you can add advertising packages yourself.
c. Just how does one go about getting advertisers? Is it enough to provide links from where they can pay and submit ads or is there the Internet equivalent of an "ad agency" that I need to go to.
