Twitter – the word, rather the website needs no introduction, but just to make a start, let’s do a formality. Twitter - a highly popular social networking and microblogging service which runs through a website that allows people to post 14-character messages, operated by Twitter Inc. Ever since its creation in 2006, millions of dollars have been spent funding it, but speculations have always been on as to what makes it generate revenue if not ads or other visible means of revenue generation.

TechCrunch’s explosive “Twitter records out” publishing in mid-2009 had figures of Twitter’s projected earnings for 2009 and its internal strategy, dealing with Google and Facebook, information giving indications of its monetization. Somewhere around that time, Biz Stone, a Twitter co-founder, also spoke about developing add-ons and services for businesses and professional users of Twitter with a possibility to create a revenue stream for the company, expecting to have some of them start contributing for the fourth quarter of the year 2009. However, outfocusing from the cost of paid services or revenue building from it, put forward were the “red herrings” of further expansion of the company and its user base. Ok, let’s fly over from here and land on the “income” ground!

As a part of monetization effort, Twitter made deals with Google and Microsoft. It was for Google and Bing search results to show the “tweet streams.” It’s believed Twitter made huge money from those deals.

Further, as declared in December 2009, what we get from the Twitter Blog, a feature they were beta testing was ‘Contributors’- a business-specific feature (that was a cash flow channel to Twitter!). The blog further stated this feature “to be enabling users to engage into more authentic conversations with businesses by allowing those organizations to manage multiple contributors to their account.” Allowing a contributor’s username to display in the tweet byline, it facilitated a more personalized form of communication between the business and the consumer. With corporations ready to pay money for such premium services designed by Twitter specially for them allowing them to stay in touch with their customers and raise their sales, Twitter found a way to sell its services too.

It’s in April of 2010 that we find Biz Stone coming up with a revenue generation idea introducing “Promoted Tweets.” What we get from his blog is:

“We are launching the first phase of our Promoted Tweets platform with a handful of innovative advertising partners that include Best Buy, Bravo, Red Bull, Sony Pictures, Starbucks, and Virgin America — with more to come. Promoted Tweets are ordinary Tweets that businesses and organizations want to highlight to a wider group of users.”

That’s pretty much like Twitter’s first steps into advertising, however planned in such a way that it is non-intrusive or non-frustrating to its users. Coming up as an extension to the Promoted Tweets platform was a new advertising concept named “Promoted Trends” to be put to test in June of this year allowing users to see time-, context-, and event-sensitive trends promoted by Twitter’s advertising partners. The newly released Disney/Pixar Hollywood movie Toy Story 3 seems to be the very first promotion using this new “Promoted Trends” model. So, monetization for Twitter comes up with this unusually different advertising and promotional model.

At the end point of the matter, it’s not much mystery left there how Twitter earns or plans to earn. However, commendable is the way they have devised their revenue generation models – effective and without letting the user experience go down. And, if we patiently wait, as Twitter itself has remained much patient with its monetary growth, we can expect some more excellent services and ways on the Twitter path where money would come along with keeping the user base intact, loyal, and growing.

• Domain - A best-rated web hosting service maybe having one of the most important features as enabling hosting of unlimited domain names. How this helps your account is that it’s cheaper and more feasible when it comes to paying hosting fees for every single domain name. The offer of some companies of getting “a free domain name for life” can also be worth considering.

• Bandwidth and disk space - There are a host of web hosting packages, from which you will need to pick up the best for you. You need to select a hosting package with a bandwidth and disk space to match with your business needs. For example, if you plan to insert high-resolution images and graphics as well as have music and videos posted on your website, you need to go for the offer having larger bandwidth and disk space. In case your website traffic grows quickly and exceeds the bandwidth limits, your website could be suspended. An estimate of the future growth and expansion of your business can also be kept in mind while opting elements such as bandwidth, disk storage, and email accounts in a hosting plan. The number of visitors estimated for the first year can determine the selection of abovementioned elements and the good thing is that you can upgrade your package at any time.

• Add-ons – For companies to carry on their online businesses where either just transactions are involved or a whole Ecommerce system, solutions are offered for business hosting and Ecommerce hosting by the best web hosting companies that include different add-ons such as online payment gateways and payment modes, shopping cart software, online customer accounts and, in some cases, an online merchant account. These options can be optimized according to the business needs related to the customers and the clients.

I finally end it here with a strict recommendation to consider all the factors explained in Part I and Part II before signing up a web hosting company for your business. This matters a lot for the success of your web presence.

It can be a real challenging task to select the best web host for your website with so many important areas to consider for the same. But in the very beginning I feel an urge to tell you that don’t fall into the trap thinking that the cheapest cost is the most important consideration. This is one thing you don’t want to do as something that’s going to so much impact how your online business will go can’t be compromised with money.

Now, let me proceed with what I believe to be very important for the proper selection of a web host:

• Security - Web hosting security is of greatest importance for keeping a website protected from external factors such as virus threats or technical failures. Make sure to check out the security terms of your web host and get the best possible settings for your website security. A smart service provider, however, would always run scheduled backups and try to keep customer data as secure as possible in view of any contingencies.

• Uptime - The percentage of time your website is on the World Wide Web is crucial as that determines your availability to the visitors/customers. Apparently, it could not be 100%, but the closest the best web hosting company can guarantee you is 99.99%. Anything that ascends between 99% and 99.99% would be better, but don’t go for a web host that offers an uptime below 99%. Frequent downtimes turn off your potential customers and are simply not an indication of a good company. Another essential thing is that any maintenance done by the host on the servers/network requiring reboots or downtime should be scheduled during off peak hours and with a prior notice, except if there happens to be a sudden crisis or emergency. An ideal web host would handle a downtime without letting the customers feel dissatisfied by showing information such as “we’ll be back soon” or “under maintenance” or showing its email or phone number to contact if urgent.

• Control panel - The best web hosting companies would always have a user-friendly control panel for its clients to be able to configure their settings and go about their usual tasks without any trouble. A good control panel will allow you a good administration without any advanced technical and internet skills. cPanel and DirectAdmin are good options for a control panel. Make sure you get one of these from your web host.

• Technical support/customer service - You would surely be looking for a web host that provides efficient support in terms of availability and response. Go for a web host that provides 24x7 technical support and gives immediate response to your queries. You should really be concerned when you come across web hosts that don’t provide contact information at all, as there are many available who provide both phone and live support.

And this is not the end of it. There’s more to come in Part II…

Regardless of the purpose of your website, you always want it to be user-friendly. There are all types of specializations available in this smarter world. For any professional reasons of acquiring a web identity through a website that’s intended to achieve a great user experience, I guide you straight over to the relevant specialization dealing with web design and development as it makes more sense than pouring your own sweat and losing your own sleep behind something that’s out of your knowledge domain.

Creating a good, user-friendly website can be done only through a professional skill, systematic planning and finally its implementation. Here is the best way to accomplish this purpose: FIND A RIGHT WEB DESIGN COMPANY FOR YOU!

Here are the three important reasons why you should do it:

• Here, I am excluding those who will wait till the end of the world and have their website built up through some internal divine inspiration! Barring these, all the dynamic, thrusting minds would like to settle for no reason for their website to not get completed in a timely and efficient manner. A professional web design firm would give you no worries in the matter of work delivery and its quality. An experienced company will finish the website as quickly as you need them to and that too with all your preferences and expectations gone through.

• I genuinely find it better to have an affordable, user-friendly web design getting you quick ROI than to linger on with an unprofessional, below-the-standards, or simply good-for-nothing web design that has not had a single penny spent on it. Your professional web host will not only provide you with the options raising the usability and functionality of your website but will also make sure that everything runs smooth for its visitors. A link not working or a picture not showing up, they will be there to fix everything. Your website will always look attractive and be professional and accessible.

• What more on the brighter side of it is that you will end up having more time for you to focus on your chosen business. You will not be so occupied working with design issues that you get no time to develop policies, answer emails, manage PR, or tackle other tasks. Therefore, considering a professional web development company, your extra time will be spent making yourself more available to other serious business tasks.

My last and final word would be “resort to a professional website designer and your road will be smooth.” You will definitely get something attractive, user-friendly, and functional for your needs.

PLAVEB is a great option if you really want to set your mind free from all troublesome web design concerns.

If you want to achieve a rapid massive success in your web start-up, you need to discover someone who will show you the light till the end of the tunnel. This is how you can get started:

Step no. 1: Create an effective internet business plan

It’s extremely important that you hire an expert internet business consulting agency because it will help you step by step in setting up your internet business plan. They will strategize a proper plan for you to help achieve success at a tremendous pace in the long run. These are the experts with experience of dealing all the complex problems and difficulties that you might be going through, as they must have done it for a number of businesses earlier.

As the road is not new for your expert consultancy, they know the exact problems that you will be facing and they have the right answers to all your questions concerning your achievement of your objectives. But, knowing the success rate of your web business consultancy in your niche is extremely important as that’s a proof of their business intelligence of your domain.

Step no. 2: Follow your consultancy’s advice

Once you have decided a right internet business consultancy for your business, all you need to do is follow what they say. Your internet marketing consultants have the key to the success of your online venture. You need to realize this by looking at how well are some other businesses performing that have taken or have been taking their services to formulate marketing strategies. If they are enjoying the same success that you want for your business, it’s better to let your consulting firm doing the same trick on you.

Step no. 3: Track every move of your strategic action plan aiming for success

Once you start following the plan your internet business strategy developer provides to you, you need to involve yourself into tracking whether it’s getting successful or not. If not, maybe that’s your time to come into the picture. You need to instantly communicate with the consultancy and ask them to check out what’s going wrong.

Hope you have discovered the way to get started with your internet business. A right business plan and marketing strategy hiring an expert internet business consulting company will lead your way to surpass your own net profits.