I must admit I’m totally confused about which web hosting company I should use?  Who offers a reliable service at the cheapest price?

Web Hosting companies I have used include UK2.net, D9 and 1and1, however I’m not sure which is the cheapest?

I moved companies for reasons of convenience. I’m with 1and1 now because my techie friend was also with them, and he was happier working with 1and1.

The Masterclass recommends D9 hosting and for the first year of my course I was paying for two hosting accounts D9 and 1and1.

If you want information on traffic to your blog or website you need two free tools installed, Google Analytics and the Alexa Toolbar.

Once you get the Alexa toolbar installed, watching your traffic rankings can become addictive, especially if the ranking improves every day.

Google and Alexa both measure traffic but in slightly different ways, Google gives a more accurate picture of absolute traffic. Alexa only gives a ranking for sites with their toolbar installed, and compares them to other sites with the toolbar. This can lead to strange effects.

1) Terry Conti  discloses how we all could be losing free blog traffic. He puts his techie hat on and worries about ‘pings’. There is a problem with editing blog posts after publication.But Terry has found the solution. Click here for a free plugin link…

2) Bill Murney gets a second showing in the Fabulous Five because he has written a post about my favourite comedy double act; Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. Half the humour is produced by watching Pete and Dud trying, and failing, to keep a straight face while telling their tall stories.

I’m a great fan of Get Rich Quick schemes, especially when the sales letter arrives the old fashioned way, through my letter box.

I must have bought around 25 different schemes over a period of 40 years, so I feel I have restrained my urge to buy. But nevertheless some people are a little bit better off due to my gullibility. I don’t mind, the sales letter must have been good, and the get rich quick scheme kept me out of mischief for a while.

Always have a Plan B in your endeavours. This is a fall back position should your Plan A get into trouble. I have already written about New Year’s Resolutions and the reason you should embrace failure. If you have a Plan B already prepared, then there is no failure involved in your planning, you have merely switched goals and targets.

Running marathons is a mental, as well as a physical challenge, particularly after the 20 mile mark. In the last 6 miles of a marathon every fibre in your body is saying stop, stop, but you have to overcome those messages and stay focused on continuing your run.

This ordinary, boring galaxy is just one of 200 billion galaxies in the observable universe. This galaxy is called NGC 2841, (there are just too many to give each a name,  like our own Milky way).

NGC 2841 is 45 million light years away (Just one light year equals 10 trillion kilometres) and contains 100 billion stars and probably 5 hundred billion planets (some just like Earth).

We all know that shortcuts take longer, but I wonder why that’s the case? Is it because shortcuts are cheating? If that is the case, who is the head master administering the rule?

I’m only talking about new shortcuts here. Obviously long established shortcuts are different, they’re shorter for a start. A shortcut is only reused and taken again if it has proven to save time.

Why do so many new shortcuts, take longer? I often take shortcuts home under the influence of alcohol. Although they take longer, I don’t seem to mind. So maybe long shortcuts are only a problem to sober people.

Every Friday I will pick five of the best  posts I have found, on my weekly journey around the blogosphere. Here’s my first selection;

1) Bill Murney  The best way to achieve visitors to your website is obtain a page one listing in Google. Unfortunately only 10 listings are featured on the first page for each keyword phrase and of course there are many websites competing for this front page position.

The number one reason why people fail in an online business is that they fail to assess the strength of the competition. They blindly jump into a niche and start creating content on their site and just hope that Google will magically list the site on the front page. Click Here for More…

2) Steve Scott

Here we are in mid February and many people have already given up on their New Year Resolutions. Some people didn’t even make it to the end of January.

I’m struggling with my New Year resolutions as well, but I haven’t given up. My New Year starts again today. I’ve had unexpected problems sticking to my plan.

I have just come out of a 3 week hospital stay where I didn’t have access to a computer. Bang goes the majority of my resolutions.

In November 2010 I started a traffic drive on this blog using just two methods:

1) Regular posting (at least 4 times a week), and
2) Regular commenting (50  to 75 comments per week)

In November my Alexa ranking was 307,525, one month later it had reduced to 200,267 and now in February my ranking is 118,878. My goal is to get the Alexa ranking below 80,000 which will put this blog in the top 1% for worldwide traffic.