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In most job interview situations, your resume will provide your potential employer with his or her first impression of you.  If your resume makes a good first impression, you will move on to the next step in the hiring process.  If not, your resume will likely be filed and you will never have the opportunity to progress to an actual interview.  For this reason, it is essential that you take the time to create a resume that will make the first impression you need it to make.

Stay Clear and Concise

Before you even start writing your resume, you need to be clear on what your objectives are.  This means having a solid idea of the type of job that you want and the types of skills needed to obtain that job.  By having a clear idea of the job you are hoping to get, you can structure the rest of your resume around this objective.

When actually creating your resume, be clear about your objectives as well as the talents you can offer to the company.  Don’t go into a great amount of detail about these talents – you can do that at your interview.  Rather, provide the potential employer with a brief overview.  Creating bulleted lists with short sentences is generally the best way to go.  Remember, your potential employer will be scanning over dozens of resumes.  Make it easy for him or her to read the highlights of what you offer to the company.

Use Action Words

Your resume should also contain action words such as monitored, managed, prepared, and developed.  Not only will this help your resume stand out, it will also make it more likely to be picked out by the computerized resume scanners many companies are now using.  With these scanners, the hiring manager inputs certain words that relate to the position and the computer searches for these words on the resume.  If there are no matches, you resume will be overlooked.

Do Your Homework

You may very well have a number of skills and talents, but not all of them are necessarily valuable to the company.  Do your homework so you are aware of what the company does and what it is looking for in the person it is hiring.  Be sure to highlight these strengths in your resume in order to match the needs of the company.

By following these simple tips, you will be more likely to get an interview.  From here, it is up to you to “sell” yourself to a potential employer.

So, you think you’d like to start a day care but where to start? Let’s assume you know nothing about the industry except that it involves children!!! That’s pretty much the position I was in when I started my day care 10 years ago and I spent a year and a half researching and learning before I got going. Before you go running for the hills in dismay allow me to cut short the research time a little with some pointers on how best to prepare for the exciting adventure that is ‘Starting a daycare business’.

Your first port of call should be your business plan. Every successful business starts with a well thought out version thus enabling the entrepreneur (you) to get a clear, overall picture of what your business will entail. Many people get to the business plan stage and no further due to a realisation that the project is unfeasible for whatever reason.  Better find out now than after you have ploughed a lot of time and money into starting a business going nowhere.

The business plan covers all vital elements of starting and operating a business – introduction / description, benefits, market research, key financials and conclusion. I found it to be a great ‘checklist’ of things to do as I worked my way methodically through each of the required steps. It forced me to consider, research and document every aspect of my potential business, propelled me to analyse in detail areas I might otherwise have glossed over (or ignored completely). Like a good teacher it provided the questions and ensured I filled in the blanks. There are many great business plan templates out there and I have listed some that I particularly like below:

www.sba.gov USA
www.bytestart.co.ukUK
www.teagasc.ie/startingyourownbusiness/template.htm Ireland

Next, talk to the experts. Arrange a meeting with your local licensing representative, have them visit your premises and find out what they will be requiring in terms of premises layout, contents, play area and general health and safety issues. Get them to give you guidelines and tips on policies and paperwork. Don’t be afraid to ask questions – remember this is the expert, the person who will be granting you a license so best to have a heads up on what they will expect from you. Prepare in advance of this meeting and come armed with a list of comprehensive questions so you don’t waste a great opportunity to absorb as much knowledge as possible.

An invaluable source of information on setting up your day care is existing daycare owners. When I was researching my business I received some of the best tips, hints and advice from other providers, in fact, I still make ‘information gathering visits’ once a year and learn something new everytime. Call up a couple of established providers (preferably not too close to your proposed venture – they might not be too enamoured of the impending competition!), explain your situation and set up a day to go visit. Most people are delighted to mentor a budding entrepreneur and proud to showcase their business. Become a sponge for that day and absorb every tidbit of information available.

Take a pen and paper for notes, ask questions, listen and observe. Notice daily routines, room layout and equipment, methods for dealing with behaviours, staff and child interaction, health and safety procedures, hygiene practices, peruse paperwork (ask for copies of the paperwork to help guide you when formulating your own). Get tips on advertising, pricing and suppliers. Try to speak with the owner or manager, the staff and the cook and get a feel for each unique role. Ask questions like ‘What do you feel could be improved?’ or ‘If you were starting out what things would you do differently?’. These open questions will provide you with an immense wealth of knowledge, all of the practical, hands on variety.

These are just three steps you can take in pursuit of your dream to start a day care business and they will provide you with a tremendous amount of information and guidance. Your confidence in yourself and your ability to achieve your vision will peak and you will be propelled into further positive action. It costs nothing but time and if you can get yourself to this point there’s no looking back. What are you waiting for?

Viral marketing is the way to go in this day and age of social networking and online communities. You must induce other people to tell their friends and social contacts about your business, products and services. Here are the steps for using viral marketing to generate traffic to your site.

People dread computer viruses. They are prolific, attach to anything and spread everywhere. Bad virus aside, this same characteristic (prolific) makes viral marketing effective.

The medium you would be using for this type of marketing would be prolific as well in generating leads and sales. There are many kinds of viral marketing that you could use to generate more traffic to your website. Generally, if used well, viral marketing is an extremely effective way to get more interest and produce more leads and sales. Here are some viral marketing methods using reports or ebooks that people can use to generate more traffic to their websites.

Step 1: Write a free report

This does not end there. You must also convert your report into a PDF file. Your report should be concise, inviting, interesting and informative. It must give information about your website or your products. It should be written in such a way that it would encourage people to buy your products or visit your website.

A free report once downloaded would be left behind for people to read later. Chances are, if these reports are written well, they would guarantee you that people downloading and reading them would once more check your website. People love a well written report with good content.

Avoid writing an ad and avoid marketing. Make sure that your report is informative. If you are selling supplements, write an article on how effective these supplements are. Your articles would be passed on from one person to another for years to come. Perhaps, you don’t have to immediately write another report on the same subject matter.

Step 2: Write a teaser

This is most effective if you are marketing an ebook that people can buy from your website. Give people a free chapter that they can read. Generate interest by arousing their curiosity. Remember to give only a teaser of the whole book. Do not give out the whole thing. Make sure that people can only obtain your ebook by visiting your website and paying for it or by subscribing.

Usually, this type of marketing is effective because people would quickly exchange information with others or forward the same to others whom they know would be interested in the content of the ebook. Thus, this is called viral marketing. Your traffic will noticeably increase with little or no effort from you at all. You would also have a huge and increased level of generated leads and sales.

Step 3. Write an ebook which you can give away

Whenever people visit your website or join your newsletter, give them a free ebook. This is usually a very short informative report relating to your products or services. Make sure that the content is interesting and useful so that people would want to share it with others. This is a very good strategy if employed correctly.

It is also wise to not give the whole information. Make sure that people would want to visit your website to get the more complete report on the subject matter. This would be a great viral marketing campaign to generate more traffic to your website.

Are you a victim of time-impoverishment just as one is cash-strapped? Then an online business opportunity is an easy solution to help you balance your personal life and make some fast money!! An online business opportunity not only offers great growth prospects but also has no time restraints. So how does one get started?

Few guiding steps follow:

- Make sure that you are geared with the right tools to run the business on your mind. First requirement is a good computer. Computers today come in numerous configurations: laptops, desktops, media centers, business machines; but what is to be kept in mind are speed of the computers, storage capacity, portability etc. consult a technician to get the machine that best suits your needs.

- Next you need a work-space, depending on what you are most comfortable in. Furniture, telephones, printers, general office supplies are few of the basic requirements.

- Next on list is high-speed Internet connection. Online business demands good deal of time spent online doing basic research. For that if you have to wait for eons, it can be quite putting off.

Once through with the settings, you need to go about doing some research to find a great online business opportunity. Countless websites offer scores of online business opportunities.

Some things that are to be kept in mind include, availability of ample marketing support in terms of site promotion. A complete back office system with a strong customer support where one can view his stats. Do not collaborate with a company that does not have a strong customer support. The choice of the right ‘sponsor’ is of utmost importance. He should be available to help you expand your online business. Ask him certain basic questions like:

“how long have you been with the said company?”, “what is it unique about you that others won’t offer?”, “how much do I need to spend for marketing?”, “what has been your success rate” etc.
Be careful & attentive while these questions are answered and go ahead only if you think the person is making genuine claims.
It is true that one does want to get off to a good start, but one should never be hasty. Weigh your options, be thorough and meticulous with your pursuits and your online business would be a success indeed!

It is far easier, cheaper and rewarding to start an online business than an offline one. The models we’ll look at in this article do not take a genius to start. Let’s get going:

**1. The Membership Site Internet Model – The internet has made accepting payment an automatic and hassle-free experience. When you set-up your own membership site you’re either offering premium information (ebooks, general content in a protected server, tutorials) or software on a particular theme or topic.

There is no shortage of potential topics for your membership site. It’s possible to charge anything from $10 to $500 per month depending on the quality and perceived value of your protected contents.

The benefits of setting up a membership site are huge. For instance your overheads are practically zero, you can deal with pure content that is delivered digitally and (the holy grail of earning online) you are assured regular residual income, month after month.

However, you do need to be very well organised – plan your publishing schedule for the entire month (and note down your long term objectives for the site too). You will also have to ensure you can provide quality content month after month and will need some degree of technical know-how in setting up a protected site (although these days you can purchase point and click software that will do all the work for you).

The possibilities for the membership site business model are endless – with several niches offering customer bases that run into the millions there is always space for a quality niche membership site.

**2. The SUPER AFFILIATE Model – You may have heard the term “super affiliate” or “super associate” before. What exactly do these terms mean? A super affiliate is someone who is extremely good at selling other people’s products or services.

The advantage of the super affiliate model is that you spend no time on creating the product or customer service issues. You simply have a method of getting traffic to quality sites and enjoying the sales commissions generated. The biggest challenge faced by affiliates is that for a good product they are competing against tens, hundreds and sometimes even thousands of other competitors.

So how do you get past the competition? You do two things – first create your own unique sales promotion tools (for example a viral special report), and you also offer customers special bonuses that they can only get when purchasing through your affiliate link. These two pointers will go a long way towards making you a super-affiliate.

Affiliate commissions vary in size – paying anywhere from just 5% to even 90%. As an affiliate you should determine which products to promote and create a plan for them. Here’s a very strong tip – promote as many products as you can that pay a monthly recurring commission. This way you get paid for months (or years) after the initial sale.

**3. The eBay Power-seller Model – eBay boasts monthly page views that numbers in the billions. Think about that for a second – it’s a HUGE base of targeted prospects and you can use this to set-up a thriving online business.

As always you need a plan of attack. What will you sell? Will you stock physical products or opt for a drop-ship solution. How will you accept payment?

One important consideration on eBay is developing a “unique selling point” – this is something that makes you different from your competition and can be the difference between luke-warm income and turbo-charged profits. It’s worth spending a considerable amount of time planning your USP.

If you’re selling a physical product can you combine that with a unique info-product about that niche? It’s really quite simple to produce an eBook or purchase the rights to one and offer it as a high value bonus to those who bid on your product. Do you notice that I said “bid” and not “buy”? Why? Because if you promise a copy of the info-product to all bidders you will generate more bids and (the best part) assuming your product is branded with your site/ebay store you will drive targeted traffic to it. Simple yet very effective.

So we’ve looked at three internet business models that you can implement quickly for surefire profits. Believe me, this is only scratching the surface – as you establish yourself online and learn more you will discover that there are many more simple methods of creating several powerful income streams online. Stay focused, have a quality blueprint to guide you and you will do far better than you ever imagined possible.

Best of luck!

Like many other E-Biz owners, you may not feel inclined to structure your online business as a legal entity. Maybe you argue that your business is too small or that you only sell on eBay. Or perhaps you feel the process is too expensive. But the real question isn’t the size of your business, or how much it’s worth. The real question is, how much can you afford to lose?

Personal Asset Protection

When you’re operating as a sole proprietor, the law views you and your business as inextricably linked. Explains attorney Patrick O’Neill, CEO of http://IncorporateABusiness.com, “One of the biggest benefits of incorporating or forming an LLC is that your business becomes, in a legal sense, a completely separate entity from you and any other shareholders.” So in the unfortunate event that your business is sued, a judgment against your business doesn’t extend to your assets, other than those invested in the business. Similarly, your business’ creditors can only come after company assets – your house, life savings, and stamp collection remain safely out of reach.

Image Enhancement

Besides putting a virtual firewall around your personal property, you’re also strengthening your business’ image. This is especially important, because as a small E-Biz owner, you’re already at a disadvantage:

• First, as a small, unknown business, you have to work hard to create credibility with your customers. Unlike a well-known chain store, you must convince shoppers that you can consistently provide top-quality products and first-rate customer service.

• Second, when you sell online, you lack a physical storefront where shoppers can walk around and get a sense of the kind of operation you run, and whether they feel comfortable purchasing from you.

Seeing XYZ Business, Inc. goes a lot further towards reassuring potential buyers that you’ve been verified, than a generic XYZ Business. The same is true for other organizations with which you do business. Wholesale suppliers and loan officers, for example, are more likely to take you seriously. Even the IRS is less apt to audit a home business that’s an established formal entity – they believe the odds are much higher that the owner isn’t just looking for illegitimate tax deductions.

Tax Flexibility

LLCs and S-corporations were both developed with small businesses in mind, and both eliminate the double taxation of a traditional corporation. A C-corp is taxed on its earning as if it were an actual person. Post-tax profits pass through to shareholders, who must include them in their reported taxable income. For Coca-cola, this might be bearable; but for a small eBay business, double taxation can be a crushing burden. An LLC or an S-corp, on the other hand, allow you to be taxed as a partnership, so you’re not paying taxes at entity-level. You’re only required to fill out an information return for your business, and the profits and deductions pass through proportionally to the shareholders.

• An LLC is much easier to form than a corporation, and the compliance formalities are less stringent. The operating agreement can be as flexible as you choose to make it.

• An S-corp is basically a small business corporation, or a corporation that’s taxed as a partnership. It is generally less adaptable than an LLC in income distribution and imposes greater ownership restrictions.

For the entrepreneur, forming a legal entity presents a tremendous value proposition. “You’re taking preventative measures in protecting yourself and proactive measures in creating greater credibility,” advises O’Neill. “So you’re helping yourself on the front and back ends.”

There are basically 3 services which are of utmost importance to run a profitable internet home business. let us see which are these.

The first service you will need and cannot have a website without, is a domain name. A domain name is the name given that is used to find your website, for eg: http://www.yourdomainname.com. YOu need a domain name because your business needs recognition and traffic. Instead of promoting other people’s sites its best to promote your own. So you realise the value of a domain name? Now there are several free service providers but it is not recomended. If the free service provider runs out of business and closes down for some reason then all your hard work and your business is going to crashlandand and it can definitely happen. when you are choosing your domain name let it be related to your business and easy to remember. The next step is to choose an extension. There are several extension available but .com is the best one to choose.There are several domain registration service providers. choose a good one, do some background check and then decide.185

The next is a webhosting service. I would like to repeat the same thing here, never go for a free service. You will need to do your profitable internet home business in a professional and credible way. With free service providers, there will be advertisements in your site and some may not be of your business interest. Secondly when you want to expand your business, which will come soon enough, and need extra space, you will need to go for paid service since your free service provider will not provide extra space and at that time you loose your old customers and traffic. Hence a good webhosting service is very important. Let us see what webhosting really means. Your website files and all related information and data are stored in your web host server/computers. This is required because your website should be available 24/7 and should be able to accomodate any amount of traffic.150

When choosing your webhosting sevice you will need to look for a few important features you need to run the website like:

1. CGI – BIN, this is required for interactivity of your website.

2. PHP4,

3. uptime, this is the amout of time your site is available for visitors, this should be 24/7 or close

4. excellent cutomer support,

5. setup fees, none

6. space, more the better

7. traffic capacity/ bandwidth, more the better

8. pop email accounts, never less than 10 but unimited is the best

9. site stats, needed to keep track of yor site

10. FTP, atleast one account.

The third most important service is autoresponders. what is an autoresponder? an autoresponder follows up with your website visitors to provide useful information, build trust and ultimetely make some sales. Why does one need an autoresponder? here’s why. Majority of the people who visit your website will not buy from you on their first visit. infact, most people do not buy a product on the internet until they have seen it or heard about it atleast 7 time. If you are promoting a product on the internet and you don’t have an effective way to capture and follow-up with your website visitors to remind them about the products and services you are promoting, you will lose a lot of sales.

let us summerise, the 3 most important services to run a profitable internet home business are:

a) domain name service

b) webhosting service and

c) autoresponder service.

Most business owners do not explore new marketing strategies until they experience a sharp decline in their revenue. Avertising campaigns are not evergreen. They evolve and grow, improve and degenerate. Most work at home, or small business owners shell out a substantial amount of money for a good ad campaign and then let it run dry.

The first strategy for success is found in the way you view the advertising campaign’s purpose. A good advertising campaign needs to do three things. First, it needs to collect data on the market. Who is buying. What is hot, and what is not.

Second, it needs to collect vital information about the people who make a purchase from your website. This can be compiled into a profile that helps you determine how to best reach your target market. It is a market research tool that helps determine what types of advertising works, at what times of the year.

Third, it should ‘brand’ your name and logo. A successful advertising campaign will imprint the company name and logo onto people’s subconscious. This increase their ‘decision to buy’ response when they visit the website

For example, online shopping increases dramatically just before Christmas, but only if the payment gateway is fast and easy to use. However, if the user must leave the website to use the payment gateway, like paypal.com uses, then the statistics do not change. However, the payment gateway does not effect sales in the summer.

You’ll notice that no aspect of an advertising campaign is to sell the product – that is your website’s job. A successful marketing campaign manager never measure’s an advertising campaign’s success based on sales.

Large corporations will tell you that a successful advertising campaign may run for months before the results appear on the income statement.

The advertising campaign should be reviewed often, and compared to new methods, in the hunt for new ‘hot markets.’ However, hot markets burn out very quickly. The whirlwind of change that continuously sweeps through the marketplace is a powerful balancer. It gives small businesses an edge over the elephants that move slow and react to change in months, not weeks.

This is true, but there needs to be balance. Always keep 80% of the marketing budget in the tried and true marketing methods – even if they do not offer the big rewards. The other 20% of the marketing budget is free for exploration of new advertising mediums. Don’t discount anything. Look at the fortunes made when youtube.com and myspace.com skyrocketed to fame. For a few months, advertisers were raking in millions.

It is also important to keep a finger on the pulse of the population. There is a time to brand your company, and a time to break away from the pack and create a new image for yourself like Calvin Cline did with their underwear commercials.

The important thing to remember is to focus. Calvin Cline didn’t try to sell underwear to all age groups, they focused on a narrow niche. Work at home and small business owners need to learn this lesson – niche marketing is the secret to making millions.

The potential is expansive. Clever competition and new technology should be seen as marketing tools, not threats. Staying on the cutting edge is all about innovation and creativity. Money is no longer the #1 element to success. Many small businesses are becoming international on small budgets.

Many people believe that success in any enterprise is a specific result or outcome, a destination at which they arrive one day. Let me assure you that success is more than the realization of one goal, or even several goals. Success is not a specific destination… it’s a direction you choose.

Running an online business, like any other business out there, is subject to certain principles, even laws by which all of us can make an enterprise prosper – or wither and die. Obstacles are everywhere and it sometimes seems that the only possible outcome is failure. There is no need to worry, however. I am going to name the three and a half principles for online success and try to show you the benefits of consistent, persistent and determined action that delivers success, not as a destination, but as a direction you choose.

1. The principle of intention

This principle states that, be it in online marketing or anywhere else, nothing will manifest without intention. You must first choose to manifest a certain result or outcome before it can transpire. Ask yourself what it is that you want, how much money do you want to earn, what kind of a relationship would you like to experience, etc. Once you’ve decided what it is that you want (this is important, never think of things you do not want), proceed to the second principle.

2. The principle of attention

This is the harder step as you can imagine. Placing attention on the things that can empower you and your business is very important because, as I have witnessed in my own life and career, the difference between those who have succeeded in any enterprise, made a fortune online or built a phenomenal relationship and those who have failed miserably in any venture is that they have placed attention on different things. The first focused their attention on improving, perfecting and learning from mistakes. The ones who failed miserably failed at improving, perfecting and learning from mistakes. The successful ones placed their attention on those things that brought them a reason to continue. Those that failed focused and gave attention to things that showed them only failure. Guess what they got. It’s natural to be scared, to lose hope, but it is not natural to remain scared and hopeless. As I have said, obstacles are everywhere, your job is to make mistakes, to learn from them and to grow. Focus all of your attention on the things that you can use to succeed and I guarantee, you will! Nurture the spirit of correctly focused attention and life, not just your business, will start to blossom.

3.  The principle of giving

“It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.”    Ralph Waldo Emerson

This is powerful, trust me. You must first give to receive and you can easily prove this simple, but effective principle. I give away free stuff all the time and I find joy in the fact that many of the people that receive it get something of value and it doesn’t matter if they join me in any of my programs or not. Somehow, I still make a lot of money. Somehow, I still receive value. Giving can be its own reward, but I can assure you, it won’t stop there.

3 & 1/2. The part where you receive

This is tricky. Our minds tend to sabotage all our efforts by telling us we are not worthy of receiving the gifts or fruits of our labor. Tell yourself daily that you are the one that deserved this and you are the one who created this. All you’ll have to do next is enjoy your life and your work. You deserve it.

First, I have to admit. I’m a terrible customer.  I’m a demanding perfectionist who rarely feels that he is getting his money’s worth.  This is especially true of hosting providers.  In the past four years, I’ve had to change providers at least six times because I felt that I was not getting what I paid for. This brief commentary is somewhat of a treat for me as I finally get to say something good about a hosting provider!

A little over two years ago I was reading up on the latest technologies in one of my favorite publications, eWeek, when I ran across a nice, full-page ad from 1and1 offering an introductory offer of free hosting for three years.  Wait! What! No way!  This has got to be too good to be true! Off to the trusty computer I go…

Sure enough, it was the real deal. 1and1 was indeed offering free web hosting for three years to introduce its new public sector hosting service.  Well, like any good cash-strapped college student, I stepped right up and got me a piece of the pie. I’ve got to say, the pie was good too!

After roughly two years of hosting with 1and1, with minimal problems I should say, I started to notice that I was getting dangerously close to the bandwidth allowance my free package had to offer. No big surprise there; these things happen when you’re trying to establish an online presence and you offer free downloads.  It was time to upgrade my hosting.

At the time, there were no great specials going on at 1and1 so I decided to shop around. That was a tremendous mistake! What I got was a course in how *not* to run a hosting service.  I will be polite, this time, and not name and companies, but let’s just say stay away from cheap reseller hosting accounts!  The uptime is nowhere near what they promise and every time you turn around some idiot is running a script that bogs the server down to a crawl.

After a couple months, a chunk of wasted cash, and several moves back and forth between providers, I finally conceded that 1and1 was indeed the best host I had come across thus far. As luck would have it, I had received an email from 1and1 announcing a great promotion for their free preview package holders (obvious marketing trick, but good timing in my situation).  They were offering their top shared Linux package for half the price.  Ok, that sounds like a good deal, and it was, but what about next year? Well, this is where it gets even better.  Not only did I get the package at half price, but they guaranteed that price for three years with free upgrades!

I might not be the brightest light bulb in the box, but I know a good deal when I see one.  So, as I’m sure you’ve already figured out, I signed up.  What I got was a whole lot more than what I bargained for, and honestly, could have hoped for.  Almost instantly after upgrading, I noticed that my sites were running faster.  I’m assuming that paid customers are placed on less crowded servers.

Then, the first upgrade came.  My space and bandwidth were doubled at no extra charge.  I thought to myself, cool, I’ll take it!  A couple weeks later, I was browsing the 1and1 site comparing features for a potential client when I noticed that the package I have had been bumped to ridiculously high levels.  Even though I was getting my money’s worth at the time, I felt a little bitter that I wasn’t getting the full package spec.  After all, I was promised that I would get every package upgrade.

Just like any other nightmare client, I promptly dialed billing to give them a piece of my mind.  Apparently, the billing agent was no stranger to difficult clients like me.  Within a few minutes of talking to me, he got me defused and assured me that my package would be brought up to spec within four weeks. That was two weeks ago.  He explained that it was taking more time than expected to upgrade all their current accounts to the new account specs.  He really surprised me when he said that I’d actually be getting more than what was currently listed on the site. What?!  Ok then! Thank you for your time!  Needless to say, I was left feeling very positive about that support call.

Here’s where we get into the numbers… When I logged into my account today, I was greeted by some very generous numbers for the package I have.  I discovered that I now have 30,000MB of storage and 1,500 GB of transfer on a shared hosting account that normally runs $19.99/mo! Wait!  That can’t be right! Those are VPS specs!  Yup, you read right. 30GB of storage and 1.5TB of transfer for under $20/mo. PLUS, with 1and1, I only pay $5.99 per domain, per year.

Now, let’s be real here.  Those numbers are great and all, but other providers offer similar specs.  What sets 1and1 apart?  For starters, uptime!  With every other host I’ve used, uptime was a major issue.  This is not so with 1and1.  I can count on one hand how many times in the past two years my site was not available and nearly every time it was related to an ISP router, not 1and1! Also, one of the things I’ve really grown to appreciate is their one-of-a-kind control panel.  It’s a little slow, but it more than makes up for it in streamlined administration.  This is especially true of the domain administration.  Even complete n00bs have no problem navigating the 1and1 control panel and managing their package like a pro.

Again, I’m not the easiest person in the world to impress, especially when it comes to hosting providers.  Nevertheless, 1and1 has really raised the bar of what a good hosting provider is in my mind.  They are now the benchmark by which I will measure all hosting providers.  If you are in the market for a good, reliable, affordable hosting provider, I cannot say enough positive about 1and1.

There is only one negative I’ve found with 1and1 and it’s not even really a negative. They’re a bit restrictive on script execution.  If you think about it, in a shared hosting environment, this is a good thing, and this also explains why the only time I’ve noticed the server actually being down was during a scheduled hardware upgrade. Now, who’s going to complain about a free upgrade in performance?

If you would like more information on 1and1 and the packages they offer, I encourage you to visit their site.  Just as a point of reference, I’m running on the Developer Package.  I think you’ll find that it’s a more than adequate package for moderate to heavy traffic sites.