From bloggers to retailers, it seems that everyone has their heads (and businesses) in the cloud.

Left and right, decision makers are entering the cloud-hosting sphere and leveraging its power to obtain a structurally sound digital presence (from blogging software to e-commerce platforms) that can help them attain online dominance. In case you still need convincing, here is a general overview of what cloud hosting and, more specifically, virtual private servers (VPS), can do for you.

Blog On

In today’s Internet-centric world, people in the know understand that blogging is much more than simply sharing their thoughts with the digital world. Bloggers understand that their craft is a way to attract and keep ad revenue coming to a website. Through various means and tactics (search, social and email), professional bloggers can attract ad revenue and keep it there.

Cloud-hosting providers offer multiple blogging platforms, such as WordPress, Joomla and Drupal. Yet, competent suppliers also offer lesserknown blogging platforms to their clients; these include b2evolutions, Chyrp, Dotclear, eggBlog, Open Blog, PivotX, Pixie, Serendipity and Textpattern. It should also be noted that the best hosts offer these platforms using a one-click installation process that makes your busy life much easier. So, blogging should definitely be the first thing you use your cloud virtual private server (VPS) for.

Sell, Sell, Sell

Alright, so maybe writing isn't for you; maybe your role is in sales. There’s cloud hosting for that, too, in the form of e-commerce websites. But first, you need to figure out which e-commerce platform is right for you. Will it be Magento or Avactis? How about CubeCart or BoxBilling? Or maybe even Axis, AbanteCart or AlegroCart? Whatever your choice, all of these solutions will allow you to utilize your cloudhosting platform to make a ton of money and capitalize on all the incoming traffic you’ll gain by using scalable cloud technologies to meet the growing needs of your e-commerce business. So, don’t rule out e-commerce as a great method for making money using your cloud-hosting platform.

Do Your Homework

We have covered blogging and selling, but we forgot one (big) thing. See, both options require analysis. Whether you are analyzing incoming traffic and bounce rates or how long it takes for your customer to order their product, analysis is essential for you, the person who makes his or her living off of tracking numbers, optimizing click-through rates and figuring out ways to bring in more traffic. Now we can’t tell you which application to use, personally we can’t get enough of Piwik, but we can let you in on some of the most popular website analytics, polling and survey applications, including Aardvark Topsites, Advanced Poll, CJ Dynamic Poll, LimeSurvey, Logaholic, Open Web Analytics, Simple PHP Poll and, of course, Piwik.

These offerings will provide your enterprise with real-time reports on website visitors, the search engines and keywords your visitors used to access your site, the language they speak, where they are from, the most popular pages, etc. Essentially, with these apps you can know everything about your visitor without having to consult Google Webmaster Tools (but let’s be honest, you are probably going to use Google Webmaster Tools, and certainly Google Analytics, to get a second opinion on your website performance numbers). As with blogging and e-commerce platforms, the best providers offer a one-click install.

Is That All?

Nope! You should know cloud hosting can also be used for online ad management, calendars, customer support, database tools, ERP, forums, gaming, etc. Cloud hosting has many uses and this is, admittedly, a broad overview, but with so many positive uses, only one question remains. What are you waiting for?

About the Author: FortressITX CEO Jason Silverglate entered the Web hosting universe in 1997. Silverglate spends his time pushing the bounds of cloud hosting technologies, educating small businesses on the benefits of cloud infrastructures and throwing himself into anything tech.

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