Chris Burgess

Tech geek from Melbourne, Australia

Australian Web Hosting Providers

The topic of “who is a good Australian web host” is something that often comes up at various tech events. At a recent Meetup, I was lucky enough to be talking to a few folks involved in the local web hosting and web development industries. I asked them as a group, who they’d recommend and thought it would make a useful topic for a blog post.

Originally published in 2013: I’ve updated the list to include a few more hosts I’ve been working with that warrant being added. I’ve also added some information about VPS and shared hosting.

As with most things, if you ask enough people, you will come across someone that hasn’t had the best experience with any given provider so your mileage may (probably will) vary. Do your own research, but hopefully the list below provides a handy starting point. They also cover a wide range of budgets, with hosting – you really do get what you pay for.

Hosting services range from the simple provision of “web space” where you’re mostly on your own, through to managed services where you have an experienced team managing and actively supporting your websites. These recommendations come from knowing or knowing of the people managing the systems, and the client facing support they offer. The more reputable companies can generally attract the best local talent.

In no particular order:

I use a few of these providers myself and I know there are others that are also good, but the companies above were the ones that were mentioned in the group discussion. One of the deciding factors I use when choosing or recommending a web host is support. Local Australian forums such as Whirlpool, DNTrade and Web Hosting Talk will usually give you an accurate picture of how good support is. The scope of support also varies.

Be sure to also check out the prices for extra storage space, bandwidth, backups, IP addresses and SSL certificates. These can add up quite quickly.

VPS or Shared Hosting?

A common question I get asked is “What is better, a VPS or shared hosting service?”, or “Do I need a VPS?”. There’s no standard answer, but if you’re running a business site, you should make sure that you avoid poor hosting performance, since it will seriously impact on your business and bottom line.

The Difference Between VPS and Shared Hosting

Shared hosting means you’re sharing the server with other websites. Well managed shared hosts can be reliable, but not typically recommended for serious business-grade websites that receive high volumes of traffic, or require custom configuration.

Shared hosting from a reputable company can be adequate for simple sites, however most of the mass market web hosting companies (the “host your website for only $10 a year! kind of deal) are lacking when it comes to performance and support.

A VPS is an isolated server just for your website. VPS’s typically come in 2 forms; 1) managed, where the hosting company takes care of updates, backups, monitoring and support – and 2) unmanaged or bare bones VPS, which means you’ll need to manage the server yourself.

There are also a lot of other terms you’ll hear, such as “cloud hosting”. This does have a meaning, but it’s usually used incorrectly as just a buzz word in most contexts. It might mean that it’s built on a “cloud” platform such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), but not always. Always ask questions to get past the marketing-speak.

We haven’t mentioned dedicated servers, but this means you get a physical server all to yourself. These usually cost more, and something you won’t find everyone offering.

Managed WordPress Hosting and Specialist WordPress Services

In recent years we’ve seen the rise of specialised WordPress hosting services, and pretty much every mainstream provider now offers some form of “WordPress” hosting product. In my experience, when it comes to the mass market hosting companies it’s mostly marketing hype and usually no different to their standard hosting when you scratch the surface.

There are quite a few WordPress specialist hosts (WordPress VIP, Pagely, WP Engine to name a few), however you do pay a premium for the more reputable providers. These services range from shared hosting, albeit more WordPress-friendly, to services with a 24/7 support team dedicated to Enterprise level customers. If managed WordPress hosting is what you’re after, go along to your local WordPress Meetup and ask some of the regulars who they use and recommend.

Support outside the scope of providing the hosting space and website maintenance is something only a few of the higher-end providers offer, and the most common complaint I hear when it comes to hosts. As mentioned above, the old saying “you get what pay for” definitely holds true for business-grade hosting. Make sure you do your research and shop around!

The Best WordPress Membership Plugins

One of the most common questions I get asked when working on WordPress web development projects is “how can I add a membership system to my website?”. Luckily, there are many mature membership plugins that are capable of handing even the most extensive requirements.

Here’s my list of membership plugins worth looking at:

There isn’t a “best” plugin in this category, it really depends on the features you need. There are dozens more, but these are the most common choices I see in the field.

Chris Lema also regularly reviews membership plugins, and his recommendations are very similar to my own:

http://chrislema.com/top-wordpress-membership-plugins-2016/

If you’re on a tight budget with simple requirements, the following article is a good starting point:

https://www.sitepoint.com/a-killer-wordpress-membership-site-in-under-1-hour/

Good luck with your membership project!

SMX Sydney 2015 Live Blog

SMX Sydney 2015 (#smxsydney or #smxsyd15) took place this year at the SMC Conference and Function Centre on Goulburn Street in the heart of Sydney, Australia. SMX is one of the premier search marketing conferences and one of the few quality search events that take place in Australia. Barry Smyth from No Drama Media has been running these events (and others) for years, the speaker line-up is always solid.

UPDATE: You can also check out my live blog of the Search Marketing Summit 2016 held in Sydney.

Inspired by Woj Kwasi’s live blogging last year, using a lot of his (and others) tweets, I thought I’d try and summarise the main points and take-aways, along with links to slides, tools and some of my own comments.

This post is a work-in-progress and will be updated over the next few weeks, apologies for any errors or missing pieces. I want to make sure I soak up the details of all the talks, while taking notes.

SEO Sessions/Track

SMX usually has several streams, the Sydney event featured an SEO track and a PPC track. You can find the full SMX Sydney agenda here.

If there was ever a time I could be in 2 places at once, it would have been at SMX. In this post, I’m only covering the SEO sessions. Going off the feedback from those that attended the PPC stream, that would have been equally awesome. I know I missed some brilliant speakers, but I’ll update this post to refer to as much related content as possible, it just won’t have any commentary.

SEO Sessions

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay Per Click (PPC) have a lot in common, so for me it’s always a hard choice – but that’s the deal with conferences 😉

SMX – Day 1

A Guide to Google: Down Under Edition – Dr. Pete Meyers

The keynote was kicked off by Dr. Pete Meyers, the Marketing Scientist at Moz and “Mad Hatter” at MozCast (a tool we’ve covered previously in our post on monitoring search ranking fluctuations). The audience was given a birds eye view of the many recent changes taking place in search.

Link Building and Content Marketing: How They Work Together – Benj Arriola

SMX Sydney - Benj Arriola

The Fine Art of Link Earning – Dan Petrovic

DejanSEO SMX Sydney 2015

You can get the slides here.

Dan’s talks are always a hit, he got some good social lovin’:

Penguin Penalty Prevention – Link Auditing Techniques You Need to Know – Sha Menz

Sha’s talks are always full of actionable information, something I always look forward to sitting in on. Her presentation focused on penalty prevention, it’s a topic that’s very technical and often misunderstood.

SMX Sydney - Sha Menz

Wearables, Mobile and the Internet – Gary Illyes

I personally loved the theme of thinking about the future. It’s probably not as far away as we all think, we’re just all so used to things moving so fast.

Woj Kwasi summarised Gary’s scoop on Google’s recent mobile update.

Managing Search, Managing Change – Jeff Preston

I was lucky to chat to Jeff at a previous SMX about how marketing fits into operations. I remember how impressed I was listening to the importance he put on development and marketing operations. It’s something you don’t hear spoken about much, whether it be at marketing or development focused events – but I firmly believe it is where the magic happens, so needless to say I knew Jeff would nail whatever he spoke about. I wasn’t disappointed.

I enjoyed listening to Jeff’s first hand experiences on gradual migration vs ripping the bandaid off. He also noted that a technically sound site our-performed the stronger domain (more detail to follow). Site migration or change on high value sites can get tricky, so I agree with the stressing the importance of always learning.

Not Every Ranking Problem is a Panda or Penguin! – Jonas Weber

Jonas delivered excellent coverage of some of the main problems that can cause site issues and ranking problems.

SMX Sydney 2015 - Jonas Weber

Beyond the Google Web SERP: Optimising for New Places in an Evolving World – William Sears

Microsoft and the Future of Search as We See It – Kevin Grobler

Kevin explored the evolution of intelligence platforms, those that go way beyond search. These systems will continue to know and learn much more personal information about us, the difference between work and home – which will enable truly smart systems. He demonstrated Cortana, and talked about the various Bing-powered platforms and devices (for the very keen, check out Echo – I hope to road test one soon!).

SMX – Day 2

Did Captain Kirk use Google? The Future of Search! – Behshad Behzadi (and Gary Illyes)

Behshad Behzadi kicked off day 2 with an overview of where search is now and how we’ve got there. He then jumped straight into the topic of his presentation: what’s next?

SMX Behshad Behzadi - Voice Search

The world is changing. Mobile is the future, while mostly smartphones are used as examples when we discuss mobile, it’s more about a devices that move with you – including IoT connected devices.

A few key points:

  • People are already using speech
  • The ratio is of speech is growing faster than type
  • There are cases where speech is the only way to input
  • It’s rapidly improving
  • Current error rate of voice is 8%

Voice is also generational, kids and teenagers are much more likely to embrace voice.

“In a mobile world people need the web and apps.”

The goal is to build the ultimate assistant, one that understands:

  • The world
  • You and your world
  • Your current context

Behshad ran an impressive range of queries, building in complexity. Then gave us a demonstration of app indexing.

The next demo was sending an email to a colleague, which worked flawlessly. A few more searches were performed and then we were shown the various ways to deal with corrections.

Context search then continued as the focus – the concept of context and location-based search is unbelievably powerful. Some more examples were then given on context can be better used to make conversations more natural.

Is the ultimate assistant still science-fiction?

The future of search is the pursuit of this assistant, one that:

  • Helps daily life
  • Saves you time

This topic definitely got the crowd talking:

Some great further reading for the super-keen:

And a few LOLs:

Creative Content Marketing: From Strategy to Execution – Benj Arriola

Benji dove into the guts of content marketing, with some examples of his own processes and research.

One thing I like about Benj’s talks is that he gives the audience plenty of actionable tips.

International SEO – Jeff Preston

As Senior SEO Manager at The Walt Disney Company, Jeff works on lots of sites with global presence. The first topic covered was choosing a domain: local ccTLD domain, subdomain, or subdirectory. There are many pros and cons for each choice. His opinion was that if you have an existing international set up, it’s probably best to keep it that way.

Jeff then jumped into the good stuff, hreflang. He spoke about a case study using ESPN, the Disney.com/Disney.com.au as shown below.

There was a good question about the whether or not to go with a ccTLD or subdomain, in the Disney example – disney.com.au was a decision made 15 years ago, so sticking with that was the best option. For a new project, it’s a different story. It was also mentioned that tracking and analytics can be easier when using a subdomain/folder structure.

A handy tool for help understanding and using hreflang is the hreflang Tags Generator Tool.

Actionable SEO Insights – Tori Cushing

Tori started off by stressing the importance data and making it actionable. Setting specific goals (with numbers), e.g. Increase free trial signups by 15% by the end of 2015. She then walked us through a brilliant example of landing page analysis using data from Google Analytics and SEMrush.

SMX Sydney 2015 - Tori Cushing

Tori patiently explained each step of the process, very clearly – with a few GIFs for good measure 🙂

You can download a sample monthly reporting Google doc here, so we all have some homework!

I really enjoyed this session and I’d recommend checking out Tori’s slides if you want to step up your reporting:

Competitive Research For SEO – Jonas Weber

Jonas gave us a case study of various shopping comparison sites. With lots of data and screenshots, he performed a deep dive into why some quite large sites were positioned where they are, with the methods he used to come to get that data.

The Growth Of Direct Answers: How Should SEOs React? – Ian McAnerin

Answers are now increasingly creeping into the SERPs. The two main sources of ‘answer’ data:

  • Knowledge Graph
  • Knowledge Vault

The types of formats used for answer data are Schema.org (websites) and Open Graph (social). A ‘Feedback’ link usually denotes Knowledge Vault.

Knowledge Vault Example

If you’re looking for tools, take a look at Google’s Structured Testing Tool, Schema.org and Google’s Structured Data Customizer.

How to adapt? Think structured data and data optimisation.

How does Google decide an authority on a topic for answers? They use frequently, consistently selected search results. Google also uses ‘confidence’ as a factor of what it chooses to display.

A lot of this is clearly where things are heading. Some of the sites we used to see a few years ago won’t have a place in the modern web. The quote from Ian below sums it up:

It’s an interesting topic and personally something I still see a lot of opportunities in.

Thanks and Shout Outs

Thanks to everyone that contributed to this post. I’ll add everyone here – just ping me – I’m sure I’ve missed some 🙂

  • Woj Kwasi
  • Reeva Cutting
  • Sha Menz
  • Brad Forster
  • Dan Petrovic
  • James Norquay
  • Peter Mead
  • Michelle Phibbs
  • Amber Gladstone
  • Barry Smyth

Further Coverage

If you’re looking for more SEO goodness, check out the blogs below that also covered the conference:

I’ll continue to update and pull things together and add some polish, so feel free to send anything you think should have been included. Looking forward to seeing everyone again, hopefully before SMX Sydney 2016 😉

BSD Hacks

BSD Hacks

As an O’Reilly “Hacks” fan, I got myself a copy of BSD Hacks hoping to learn only a few tips and tricks. If that was the case it would have been worth it, however I greatly underestimated this title. Not only did I learn the tips and tricks one would expect from a “Hacks” book, but it also taught me a lot more about BSD than I expected. If you use BSD, get this book! It’s well worth it. 5 Stars.

Search Engine Positioning

Search Engine Positioning
by Fredrick W. Marckini

When this book was written (2001!), this title was the only book you could get on the topic. It covered lots of technical details on how each of the major engines work and lots of tips and tricks for SEO professionals or web developers alike. The world of search engines moves so quickly, it was never going to remain current for very long, however it was an excellent read for a long period of time. An updated version would be excellent.

Google Hacks – 100 Industrial-Strength Tips and Tricks

Update – This title is now in it’s second edition.

Google Hacks
Author: Tara Calishain , Rael Dornfest
Publisher: O’Reilly
Online Catalog: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/

ISBN: 0-596-00447-8

Price: $AUS39.00 approx.

Ok. I admit, I’m somewhat of a Google groupie. Having a keen interest in Search Engine trends and technologies, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on a copy of O’Reilly’s Google Hacks. Written by serious Google nuts, this book is another must have in my opinion.

The book covers everything from using Google, power searching to programming for Google’s many services and using their API. There’s also some information for webmasters wanting to know about “how” Google works and general behind the scenes info. There’s also a little bit about Google PageRank, the secret formula that dictates how Google ranks their search results. The examples are backed up with lots of code examples in different languages (Perl, PHP, C#, ASP) and some nifty applications that use Google’s services. There’s some downright wacky stuff too, like “Google Whacking” and Google pranks.

5 stars

Security Warrior

Security Warrior
Author: By Cyrus Peikari, Anton Chuvakin
Publisher: O’Reilly
Online Catalog: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/

ISBN: 0-596-00545-8

Price: $AUS90.00 approx.

Having read most of the security books in the O’Reilly series, I was anxious to see what “Security Warrior” was all about. First things first, if you’re new to the topic of information security, perhaps try a title like “Practical Unix & Internet Security, 3rd Edition” by Simson Garfinkel, Gene Spafford, Alan Schwartz, which I highly recommend. Security Warriors covers some areas that not many other security books cover, in particular the book starts off talking about software reversing techniques. There is plenty of platform specific information to keep both the Windows and Unix crowds happy, for instance, part 3 “Platform Attacks” discusses common vulnerabilities and counter measures. Most of your regular garden variety infosec topics get a mention in this title, and the topics do indeed cover a very wide area, but at times it delves a little deeper than the average security reference. All in all, a great read. Even if you’re not interested in all of the content, the writing style is such that you can start at pretty much anywhere and follow what’s going on.

4 stars

Book Review How-To

This guide was originally written for the Melbourne PHP User Group and the O’Reilly web site. It has been reproduced here in case someone finds it useful.

This document serves as a guide for book reviewers, however some of the same principals apply for reviewing software, hardware, services, events and web sites. Good reviews are not easy to write. Saying that a book was good or bad is easy, but explaining why takes a bit more thought.

For the sake of usefulness, consistency and professionalism there are a few rules we’d like everyone to abide by when contributing reviews.

As a guide, reviews must be at least 50 – 100 words for short reviews, and 300 – 500 words for long reviews. The main aim is to describe why you liked/disliked the book. You should also give a brief indication of your experience on the topic. For example, a highly experienced Linux user might not get much out of reading a title such as “Linux for Newbies”. The point is to make it clear why you liked or dislike the book. It’s a good idea to stay focused on the title and topic, and making references to related titles that might be of interest is quite appropriate. This should go without saying, nevertheless, please do not use any offensive language or mean spirited styles of writing. The goal is to produce useful reviews.
We all make mistakes, and two eyes are always better than one. Once you’ve completed a review, please submit it to the committee for proofing. We will then make it available on our site, and possibly send a copy to the publishers for their use. We also encourage you to add your review to places like Amazon or the publishers web site directly. Please note that these sites will have their own requirements that will differ from ours.
We’ve designed a basic style guide below that will assist you in formatting your review for publishing. It helps us, and should help you when making sure all the required information in supplied.

Book Pic Here
Title: Linux for Newbies
Author: Joe Smith
Publisher: ACME – 1st Edition (March 1, 2002)
ISBN: 060402838476263

REVIEW BODY

Epsum factorial non deposit quid pro quo hic escorol. Olypian quarrels et gorilla congolium sic ad nauseum. Souvlaki ignitus carborundum e pluribus unum. Defacto lingo est igpay atinlay. Marquee selectus non provisio incongruous feline nolo contendre. Gratuitous octopus niacin, sodium glutimate. Quote meon an estimate et non interruptus stadium.

Epsum factorial non deposit quid pro quo hic escorol. Olypian quarrels et gorilla congolium sic ad nauseum. Souvlaki ignitus carborundum e pluribus unum. Defacto lingo est igpay atinlay. Marquee selectus non provisio incongruous feline nolo contendre. Gratuitous octopus niacin, sodium glutimate. Quote meon an estimate et non interruptus stadium.

Epsum factorial non deposit quid pro quo hic escorol. Olypian quarrels et gorilla congolium sic ad nauseum. Souvlaki ignitus carborundum e pluribus unum. Defacto lingo est igpay atinlay. Marquee selectus non provisio incongruous feline nolo contendre. Gratuitous octopus niacin, sodium glutimate. Quote meon an estimate et non interruptus stadium.

STARS (a graphic)
Reviewers Name

Plone Content Management Essentials

Plone Content Management Essentials
by Julie C. Meloni

This is one of the shorter books on Plone, however it was the first of it’s kind and the first I read on the topic. If you’re in the market for a crash course on what Plone is, how to configure and use Plone, this title will deliver. Some of the other titles go into much greater depth, but it helped me get fully up and running in a matter of days (note, I had already used Plone a few times before that). No previous Zope, Python or Plone knowledge is required.

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