General Resources
Web Hosting
Hostgator – founded in 2002 – is one of top shared hosting companies, ranking consistently among the best by most of the review sites. What makes Hostgator stand out from the crowd is their excellent support and customer friendliness. If you are not satisfied with the support, you could even get Hostgator president Brent Oxley to personally take a look at your problem.
I have been using Hostgator for several years now and I am personally very satisfied with their service. They have almost a 100% up time and there is not a single occasion I failed to speak to a customer service officer. They are always patient and friendly to answer my problems. Their prices are very competitive and offer a comprehensive package with unlimited domains and blogs for $7.95 per month. Perfect for bloggers in my opinion.
The only problem I have had with Hostgator is that they are blacklisted in China – meaning that if you are hosting a Chinese site, people in China would not be able to gain assess to your site. Exactly what is the reason I am not sure, but you might like to know that China blacklists many sites and webhosts, so it would do you good to look into this beforehand if you are creating a site to target the China market.
Domain Registration
If you are looking for domain registration, Name Cheap is the place to go. I only use Name Cheap for my domain registration as their service and instructions are straight forward and efficient. Prices are fair and competitive.
Auto Responders
Auto responders are very necessary tools for helping you build a list. It is probably the most important tool in your arsenal if you really interested in internet marketing for the long haul. For serious internet marketers, cultivating a list of customers who would purchase again and again from you is very crucial to your bottom line. An auto responder service gives you the tools necessary to collect subscribers, organize them, and send emails out to them. In the auto responder market, Get Response and Aweber are the two dominating services.
I personally use Get Response as my auto responder. So far they have been very reliable and all my email blasts reach my subscribers without any problem. The video tutorials within are comprehensive and the auto responder system is easy to use. Their fees are highly competitive and generally cheaper than that of the closest competitior – AWeber. This is by no means an indication that Aweber’s service is inferior. I would recommend Get Response simply because I have been using their services for years and I can’t find anything I am unhappy about.
I can’t really comment on AWeber’s service because I haven’t personally used them. But it is a fact that AWeber and Get Response are the top two dominating auto responders in the business. I have several friends who are using AWeber and they swear by it. At the end of the day I think both companies have their own strengths and it is up to individual preference which service to use. I stand by Get Response due to my positive experience with them so far but if you see something in AWeber you like, go for it!
"Aldric Chang is the Founding Managing Director of the 
