When deciding on cloud infrastructure, there are many aspects that IT managers should consider, such as cost, security, performance, availability, and reliability. While the magnitude of these aspects is extremely important when it comes to cloud infrastructure, there are a few other areas that have become increasingly important: cloud elasticity and cloud scalability. Oftentimes, people interchange these words as if they mean the same thing, but they possess very distinct differences. 

Elasticity was meant to match the sources allocated with the actual amount of resources needed at any given point in time. Scalability controls the changing needs of an application within the confines of the infrastructure by adding and removing resources to meet application demands if needed. In many cases, this is handled by scaling up or scaling out. Elasticity works well in environments with ever-changing demands, such as e-commerce, retail, SaaS, mobile, and Dev Ops. Businesses with a predictable workload may be better off using scalability. 

What is Elasticity? 

Elasticity is the ability to grow or shrink infrastructure resources dynamically as needed. This is to adapt to automatic workload changes and maximizing the use of these resources. This can result in tons of savings in infrastructure costs. Cloud elasticity is most associated with scale-out solutions (horizontal scaling). This allows for resources to be added or removed when necessary. Although this may sound great, this type of cloud asset isn’t great for every business. Businesses that do not experience sudden changes in demand may not benefit from elastic services. Basically, elastic services mean that all resources, such as hardware, Qos, software, and other resources in the infrastructure are elastic. 

Elasticity is generally associated with public cloud resources. It’s more commonly featured in pay-per-use services. This means that IT managers are not paying for more resources than they are using at a given time. 

A great example of a business that would need cloud elasticity would be retail with fluctuating seasonal activity. Think about Black Friday, Christmas, and other holidays that shoppers spend in their favorite stores. During those specific times of the year, there are sudden spikes in demand in retail stores all across the world. Instead of these retail stores spending money on permanent infrastructure capacity to hold a couple months of high load out of the year, they would benefit more by using an elasticity solution. Those stores would need that elastic infrastructure to be able to shrink and expand during those points of high demand. Investing in elasticity also allows the IT managers limitless headroom if needed. While any cloud can be made elastic, the practice is most common in a public cloud space. 

What is Scalability?

Scalability refers to the ability to increase workload size within an existing infrastructure, such as hardware or software, without impacting performance. In cloud terms, scalability can refer to the creation of additional machines. The resources allocated to support this are typically pre-determined capacity with a limited amount of headroom built in to handle maximum demand. Scalability also has the ability with additional infrastructure resources, and sometimes without a limit. 

Scalability can either be vertical (scale-up within a system) or horizontal (scale-out multiple systems). Because of this, applications have room to scale up or scale-out to prevent anything from hindering performance. Of course, there are cases where the IT manager knows that they will no longer need resources, and scale down the infrastructure statically to maintain a smaller environment. For example, a small business has a small database application supported on a server. As the business grows, so will the database and the resource demands. If a business or IT manager is able to predict the business’s growth rate, they can purchase provisioned infrastructure (network, compute, and storage) so that the database application has room to grow to its maximum capacity. Scalability is truly a steady pay-as-you-grow solution. It’s also generally delivered more readily in private cloud. 

Cloud Elasticity Vs. Cloud Scalability 

Most cloud providers solve the problem of having to choose between the two, as any cloud is capable of having elasticity and scalability. They are highly desired, after all! There are distinct differences between elasticity and scalability. When deciding which cloud service to use, it ultimately depends on your business needs. A good rule of thumb is to remember that cloud elasticity is generally delivered more readily in public cloud environments, while scalability is delivered more in private cloud environments. Hostirian allows you to effectively manage and optimize both scalability and elasticity. Not only do we optimize our infrastructures for performance and efficiency, but we also operate with our data centers on-premises so that any technical problem can be tackled immediately. If you have a cloud question or you’re interested in getting started with a private cloud environment, let us know! We are here to help!

There are several different ways to grow your business online. If you are new to the game, some of those ways may leave you intimidated, wondering where you should invest your time and money. In your research, you have most likely seen words like Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC). But, what do they mean? What are they and how can they help grow your business? Both have their positives and negatives, but is one better than the other? 

Let’s look at both. 

Is SEO Better? 

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is the process whereby you optimize a website to appear as high in the search engine results as possible. A massive part of this process is figuring out what the search engines want and then optimizing your web pages accordingly. 

Pros of SEO: 

1. Organic traffic has staying power. Once you are able to get your website to rank highly in the search engines, chances are good that you will be able to generate consistent traffic.

2. SEO is often a less expensive option than PPC. When you compare the two traffic sources, SEO comes out the winner of the two when looking at traffic generated, as long as you’re looking at the traffic that comes once you have attained high rankings in the search engines.

Negatives of SEO: 

1. SEO takes time. It can take months for your hard work to show any reward. If you don’t have the time to wait for your website and content to rank, then SEO may not be the best option for you.

2. You need unique and quality content. When it comes to content, people want to read the best content available. This can be a lot of work and will require research and a creative mind. If you don’t have these skills yourself, then it will benefit you to hire an expert.

Is PPC Better? 

PPC, or Pay-Per-Click Advertising, is a technique that allows you to advertise in search engines, bringing immediate, targeted traffic to your website.

Pros of PPC: 

1. Quick results. Unlike SEO, where you may have to wait months to see results, it is possible to start getting substantial traffic to your website within a few hours of using an effective PPC campaign. 

2. You can accurately target different demographics. When you use PPC, you will be able to target different types of people. For example, if you want to target a woman in her 30s who lives in the UK and is interested in cooking, you can target her with your ads. SEO does not give you this option. 

3.You can experiment quickly and easily. With PPC, you can set up a campaign and run A/B tests so that you can monitor what works and what doesn’t very quickly. SEO is a slower process, so it will take time to come to any conclusion regarding the success of an SEO technique.

Negatives of PPC: 

1. It can be expensive. If you are in a competitive niche, PPC can be expensive and your return on investment (ROI) may be low while you are figuring out which ads work and which don’t. If you have a low ad spend, you may want to steer clear.

2. Ads can become less effective. Using the same ads with every campaign will result in them becoming stale and less effective. To combat this, mix up the copy and images and refresh the ads to keep them working long-term.

Which is Better for You? 

When it comes to determining whether SEO or PPC is better for your business, the answer would be that it depends. Both marketing strategies are legitimate sources for bringing in traffic.

If you want quicker results, then PPC will be the better option, because SEO will take time to work. For those with a smaller budget, SEO will be the better option, as paid ads can be expensive, especially if you don’t have experience with them. 

You may want to use both SEO and PPC in tandem. When using them together, you can seriously ramp up the amount of traffic that you can get to your website! 

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for your website can be complicated, but can also be very effective in ranking businesses highly in search engines. As long as you stick to the basics and use what you know, you will see your business ranked on the front page of search results in no time. If you are looking for a way to earn money with minimal effort, use your time effectively, and grow your business, then you are in the right place! Listed below are 15 SEO tips to help improve your passive income website.

1. Avoid Optimizing Only Your Website 

It is important to optimize your off-site SEO. Do your best to ensure that your articles, blog posts, ads and everything else you do to drive traffic to your website are optimized, too. 

2. SEO Results Take Time 

Results can take weeks or months. Stay busy, work hard, and be patient. 

3. Google Will Help You

If you are in need of some help or advice, turn to Google! 

4. Avoid Copying Content From Other Websites 

Duplicate content might make your visitors happy, but search engines won’t be impressed. When creating content, read some blogs or articles to draw inspiration, but don’t copy them! 

5. Add Some Videos 

This can be as simple as embedding a YouTube video into your website. It doesn’t even need to be your video. Google owns YouTube so they like to see videos on your website. This will help your boost your SEO more than you think it will!

6. Update Your Website From Time To Time 

Keep your website current. Websites that are dormant tend to be downgraded over time. Google will also notice your lack of updates and rank your website lower on search results. You don’t need to spend a ton of time on your website everyday. Spending even 10 minutes a week on your website would be sufficient!  

7. Research your Keywords 

What are people actually searching for? How much competition exists for these words? Use keywords that potential customers would use in searching for products like yours. There are tons of different websites that exist that show the most expensive keywords. Check those out!

8. Use Photos 

Search engines like to see that you have visually appealing pictures on your site. Make sure to “dress up” your website and make it appealing for your visitors!

9. Vary Anchor Text

Avoid using the same keywords all the time. 

10. Avoid Keyword Stuffing 

Keep the keyword density down to 2%. Search engines count!

11. Get Quality Backlinks 

While quantity is important, the quality of your backlinks is even more important. Seek out some backlinks from popular and authoritative sites in your industry. 

12. Link Other Quality Web Content 

Consider linking other blogs, articles, and videos to your content! Even if it is not content that you created, it will help your website rank better on search results and boost your SEO.

13. Do Something Every Day 

It would look suspicious if you created 100 backlinks in a day. Google is looking for natural growth. A way to show natural growth is by creating things over time instead of creating a bunch of things in one day. For example, create backlinks slowly over time. A few backlinks per day will help your site much more. 

14. Look At The Competition 

Look at websites that are outranking you in keywords. Compare your site to theirs and develop a strategy to improve. There are tons of different tools available that will analyze the SEO components of a website. Use your resources to create a plan!

15. Realize the Truth 

Search engines are simply ranking websites that would be most valuable to those seeking information. Think about what makes a website great and do it. 

Did you know that organic search is most often the primary source for web traffic? That places a big weight on the shoulders of search engines. Because organic search is most often used, SEO has become a main tactic for putting websites in the position to be seen by web visitors.

What is SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. SEO is all about brand exposure, website ranking, credibility, increasing the quantity and quality of web traffic, and creating a better experience for web visitors. 

Search Engine Optimization is a method of increasing a website’s ranking on search engine results such as Google, Yahoo, AOL, Bing, and many more. There are hundreds of factors that go into search engine rankings. These factors help websites get closer to ranking at the top of search results.

Why is it important?

A website that ranks at the top of the search results page will have more web traffic. That is just a fact! This is just one of the many reasons why businesses optimize their website. It is one more way that those businesses can gain traffic. Not only does great SEO increase website traffic, but it also increases yearly sales and revenue. Optimizing your website for SEO is an important step in getting your brand noticed. In its essence, SEO makes your website more visible, trustworthy, and credible.

How does SEO work?

SEO can only be truly understood when you understand the purpose of search engines. 

A search engine is meant to provide impartial search results that detail and present information as quickly and as accurately as possible. In order for a search engine to provide you those quick results, they need to be able to identify and analyze websites all over the Internet that match what you are looking for.

There are over 1 billion websites in existence today. Search engines are working overtime to pick through active, inactive, quality, and subpar websites to display high-quality and relevant results. Just think about that for a second! We do not give search engines enough credit. Nowadays, we just expect search engines to display results in two seconds. We don’t even think about the work that goes on behind the scenes to make those results pull up quickly and accurately. 

For example, let’s say that you typed “Restaurants near me” into Google. You wait a few seconds and local restaurants begin to pull up. You may not have realized this before, but Google is analyzing tons of data from different websites before displaying them to you. Want to know something crazy? Search engines are analyzing data ALL the time! They actually never stop analyzing data. That’s how you know that the websites perched at the top of the page are relevant and high-quality!

How do search engines analyze so much data?

But wait! How are search engines able to analyze so much data on millions of websites everyday?

Their secret? Web crawlers. 

A web crawler, sometimes known as a spiderbot, is an Internet bot that systematically and regularly browses the web for the purpose of indexing. Web crawlers look for specific things when browsing websites. Search engines use web crawler’s information to separate the high-quality sites from the subpar sites. The high-quality sites that use SEO-friendly techniques are ranked higher. Those will be the websites that you see at the top of the page when you search for anything specific. 

The websites at the top of the page are deemed “trustworthy” because they contain most of the necessary information needed to have the best SEO. The websites on the second, third and fourth pages aren’t necessarily “untrustworthy”, but they are missing a few things that would boost their ranking even higher! The ways that you optimize your website have a direct effect on your SEO ranking. There are hundreds of different ways that you can improve your SEO. One way that you can get started is by improving your keywords.