Web hosting often comes as a part of the design and upkeep feature of your web designer. In fact, many webmasters have difficulty if you want to select a web host outside of the Webmaster?s preferred, or in-house server. Some webmasters find compatibility and access issues to be a problem if they have to work with a secondary host outside their network.
If you were to develop a website using a free or low cost site development system you will still likely find your web hosting to be with the company that allowed you to develop the site using their tools.
This leads to a secondary point of information. If a web hosting service is linked to your web designer it may be in your best interest to check the site functionality, overall look as well as the reliability of the hosting service. You could have a web designer develop an incredible site only to drive customers away because of frequent outages and other reliability issues.
In a best-case scenario you will find the marriage between web design function and accompanying web hosting service in a marinade of blissful harmony. However, you should always check the credentials of the web designer as well as the web hosting capabilities.
It is regrettable, but many web hosts overload their servers to save money and often run into recurring periods of down time. Does your web host provide ample bandwidth to allow for site growth or do they make bandwidth easy to acquire?
Some sites have experience rapid growth, but have a web host that is not capable of keeping up with the demand. This can pose a tremendous problem when a buzz is created and site visitation increases only to be hampered by an inability to access the site.
If you are unfamiliar with the term bandwidth think of the difference in water supply between a drinking straw and a 6-inch PVC pipe. In one case one person can gain adequate liquid for a drink ? in the other an entire neighborhood has access to as much water as they need. Bandwidth simply makes it possible for information to be carried. The larger the bandwidth, the greater flow of information can take place simultaneously.
Most web hosting firms have contingencies in place to manage the growth of your ecommerce website. However, don?t take it for granted. Make sure to ask questions so you can make an informed decision about the quality, reliability and effectiveness of the web hosting service you chose.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Friday, January 30, 2009
It is an indisputable fact that Canada is one of the world leaders in Internet technology and telecommunications. Since 1999, with highly reliable web server's set up in Toronto and Vancouver, Canada has become a formidable, low cost web-hosting provider.
Canadians like to do businesses with companies located within their own country. Hence when they search for companies on search engines, they include the option "search Canadian sites only." This locates only those sites whose servers have a Canadian IP address. Needless to say, these companies have a better chance of drawing Canadian customers. For this reason, some American companies are taking up web hosting services on Canadian servers in order to have their sites show up in search results.
Major cities like Toronto and Vancouver are very close to the American border. Americans can easily locate their web hosting in these cities. This is also added value in terms of money, as the Canadian dollar is cheaper than the American dollar. One more practical point is that Canada has very few energy cuts, unlike some of America's major cities. This means Canadian servers are up and running almost all the time, generating more business. Canada does not believe in outsourcing services. Most of its technology is indigenous, with a physical hands-on presence all the time. If a server breaks down, maintenance and repair is reliable and prompt.
Several small businesses in America are opting for Canadian low cost web hosting. Web hosting in Canada can be free, since it generates revenues from the advertisements it gets. Canadian websites ensure better traffic, since both Americans and Canadians access the websites via the search engines.
To the lay user, it actually does not matter much where the web server is located; but it makes a great difference to the company trying to generate business through its website.
A web host is much like a giant convention center. You know, those places that host trade shows where people come and rent stalls in order to sell their wares? The people who rent those stalls are the individual website owners. They can't afford to build their own convention center so they pay a rental fee for the time that they use the stall. They are the ones who must decorate the stall and open it up for business but the convention center is responsible for keeping everything running smoothly and making sure that people can get in and out of the place without problems. Learn more about how you can get started as a web host.
Essential Equipment
A web host must be able to accommodate a lot of surfers and store tons of information. To do this, a server is required. A server is basically like 10, 20, or even 50 personal computers combined together into one machine. It can process a lot of information very quickly. And, they can be expensive. To realistically think about opening a web hosting business, you will a serious server. You can purchase these servers on a monthly plan with reliable servers starting around $150 per month. You will also need a great personal computer as well for bookkeeping and data processing functions.
Skills and Experience
In all honesty, web site hosting is not for computer novices. There will naturally be a number of issues that website owners may have with maintaining their sites so at the very least you will need website creation experience before considering web hosting as a viable business option. People with technical backgrounds and degrees in computer programming or IT should have no problems starting their own web hosting business. Many owners of multiple websites decide to start their own web hosting company in order to avoid continuing to pay the fees charged by other hosting companies and to add some additional income to their business.
Charges
Depending upon the amount of bandwidth you give your website owners, you can charge anywhere from $20-50 per month to the website owners for hosting their sites. Obviously, the bigger your server, the more potential income there is to be made from web hosting.
Marketing
As with any business that operates via the Internet, having a website of your own is definitely the best way to market your new web hosting venture. Again, it is very common for owners of multiple websites to begin web hosting as a means of increasing revenues and avoiding the fees they formerly paid to web hosting sites. Therefore, many people entering into the web hosting game have no problem marketing their new services to potential customers.
About the Author
I am a true freelance internet advertiser who dabbles in website design. You can check out resources for having a profitable mail business at my website
Thursday, January 29, 2009
You can pay less than five dollars a month for web hosting service with many hosts, which is impressive. You may be somewhat limited in what you can do or what you can expect from the host, but generally you?ll receive good service. One should expect to receive 5-75 GB of disk space, which is more than adequate for most people, and you might find that you can get as much as 100-600 GB of bandwidth per month, which also is not bad for such a great price. These cheap websites are often on Windows or UNIX servers, which is also ideal for most web hosting needs.
While all of these things are great, you might feel limited because you might not be offered the ability to host sub domains with these cheap web hosting services. Cheap web hosting services usually have limited parking and reselling features, if you have any at all. You may not be given any or very limited POP3 email accounts, which can be a deterrent for many. While these things are not necessary for some, they can be the difference between the cheap web hosting opportunities and the ones that are more moderately priced.
Cheap web hosting is more than enough for a great deal of people, but some people simply need more. Most of the companies that offer cheap plans will offer you the ability to add on certain functions to your account so that you can customize your hosting plan to meet your needs. This can be good and bad because you get what you need, but then you really need to consider how cheap the program is. Often when you add on features you will pay more than you need to, and this is what these supposed cheap hosting services bank on. Ask yourself how cheap is the cheap web hosting service? Are you paying more than you need to for add ons? Or, are you simply paying the price in the features that you are giving up? Sometimes, you really do get what you pay for, and sometimes you need to pay a little bit extra for that.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Website Builder Tools for a Hosting Company
In today's very competitive world of web hosting it is hard for a hosting company to set itself apart from the competition. Prices, storage and bandwidth have become such a commodity that adding additional features is about the only way. One feature that is becoming popular is offering your customers a Website Builder tool. These tools allow a user to build a professional looking website in minutes without writing any code or having to be a technical person. They are great packages to attract the novice or beginner to your hosting company. Many find their web hosting company through the website designers they use. Now a hosting company can offer a website builder tool that bypasses the website designer and allows the web host to provide it all.
These packages vary in functionality and costs but they all provide the same basics. A user selects from a set of pre-built templates. The template is the graphic design or "look" of the website. The user then enters company information like name, logo, address, and email. Next you select which subpages you want and enter text and images for them. And finally, for the advanced packages, you select additional pre-built functionality to include such as a photo album, blog, forum, of shopping cart. That's it and you have a professional looking website. The user then has a control panel to log into to make changes, add pages, etc.
Some people love these packages and some people hate them. It really depends on your programming ability and goals. If you want a website that's easy to build and you doesn't need a lot of customization then these packages are great. If you are a programmer and want specific functionality or design then you will find these products very confining.
For this article we researched 4 products, SwSoft's SiteBuilder, SiteGalore, SiteReptile, and RV StieBuilder. In general, by size, costs, and features, SiteGalore is the largest, then SiteBuilder, followed by SiteReptile and RV SiteBuilder. We were disappointed with the response and website from SiteGalore. They did not offer prices or a demo on their website. They require a form to be filled out to request each of these, which we did, and have still not heard back after 3 days. All of the other sites have prices and demos right on their website. So, even though, SiteGalore is the largest we do not recommend them. We have found that value propostion means a lot in a business relationship. If you are one small customer to a large company then what kind of attention will they give you? If a site cannot be responsive when they are trying to sell you their product don't expect it when you need support.
Below is a table we have built comparing the costs and functionality of the 4 products. We recommend Swsoft's SiteBuilder first for it's overall features and low cost. If you need cPanel integration then SiteReptile is your best choice. RV sitebuilder is a new product and is still lacking some key functionality.
SwSoft's SiteBuilder
Price - $19.90/month($199 onetime fee) 100 websites
Control Panel - Plesk
Templates - 300+ templates
Pre-Built Functionality - photo gallery, e-shop, PayPal, blogs, voting
SiteGalore
Prices - Not online. No reply after 2 days
Control Panel - None
Templates - 900+ designs, 15,000+ templates, flash intros
Pre-Built Functionailty - photo album, blog, online shop, customized forms
SiteReptile
Price - $9.95/month($159 onetime fee) 100 websites, your brand
Control Panel - cPanel, Plesk, Ensim, DirectAdmin
Templates - 100+ templates
Pre-Built Functionality - news, polling, photo album
RV SiteBuilder
Price - $6/month unlimited, your brand
Control Panel - cPanel
Templates - 50+ templates
Pre-Built Functionality - page effects, guestbook
There are many more products on the market and this just 4 of them. We tried to pick 2 large ones, a medium one, and a small startup. All of these products will add functionality to attract the beginner website builder to your hosting plans. This will be well worth the monthly or one time license fee that they charge. The fees are relatively low compared to the functionality added to your company. We recommend all personal web hosting and budget web hosting companies add a website builder tool to their business.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
You surely heard about the term ?domain name? if you are an average internet user. This might not mean too much for you but without web hosting and domain name registration you will surely have a hard time browsing through the internet.
The web hosting and domain name registration can be compared to how the telephone system is used be the people. One main element why we have Internet connection is the telephone. Phone lines is quite based on some electronically procedures.
You are making use of the web hosting and domain name registration when you are fond of surfing the web. The specific carrier that you are using assigns a particular number which is exclusively for you only when you order a telephone line or service.
It?s the same for the computers, which has a sequence of numbers, which is longer than the telephone numbers. The numbers assigned to you when you apply for a web hosting and domain name registration is known as the IP address and these are made unique to your computer.
IP address is known as the Internet Protocol Address. The DNS have allowed it to be replaced with names that are distinctive since memorization of these numbers may be quite a tough job. For a successful web hosting and domain name registration requires no duplicates and should be unique. You should think of it properly and wisely.
Almost all domain names are taken especially the frequently used ones that are why it is hard to come up with a domain name that is unique. A lot of people have already made it registered which made it hard to be available.
You can look up into some of the sites that offer free domain names that are unique and fit for the theme of your site if you want to successfully come up with a web hosting and domain name registration.
Make sure that your domain name is well acquainted so that people will easily remember the name of your site with the help of brand names and company names if you want to be an owner of a site. It will be a good advantage to your site. Some of the companies that accept web hosting and domain name registration will often refer you to registrars who check it into a list of directories that can be found online.
The process will include the technical information and all the other needed information. Make sure that you choose a good web company that can handle all your needs if you want to have a web hosting and domain name registration.
Monday, January 26, 2009
By purchasing a reseller web space hosting account, not only can website developers create websites for their clients, they can also provide their clients with web space hosting. This is another great studio service that can be offered easily by website developers.
What Exactly Do You Need To Profit From Reseller Web Space Hosting?
Speedy & Reliable Web Space Hosting Support - Providing speedy and reliable web space hosting support is critical for success in reselling web space hosting. If something happens to your client's website, it is of top priority to make sure that the situation is handled effectively in the quickest manner possible. An unhappy client will also affect the reputation of your other services as well, make sure that you're clients are fully satisfied with the web space hosting services that you make available. Remember, word of mouth is one of the most effective forms of advertising for a business, it can either make you or break you. The choice is yours to make and the actions that you take will help determine the effect that word of mouth advertising plays on your business.
Control Panel - It is preferable that you have full administrative control over your clients' web space hosting accounts. Make sure that your web space hosting provider not only provides you with a control panel that includes complete administrative facilities to easily manage multiple accounts, but, they also provide your clients with their own control panel as well. The most important issue would be that your web space hosting provider gives you the ability to hide their identity as a web space hosting provider that you use. This makes clients unaware that you are offering a service through a third party provider. Also, make sure that you have the ability to customize the control panels your clients use to suit your requirements.
Terms & Conditions - Terms and conditions become vital when offering any type of service. Make sure that every single client has a copy of your terms and conditions. Many people that are reselling web space hosting simply neglect to write their own terms and conditions. Don't get me wrong, they take quite a bit of time to create and they don't seem to be the most pleasing thing to write. Usually, if you contact a web space hosting provider, they will let you copy theirs or you will be supplied with a set of terms and conditions that was created specifically for this purpose.
Multiple Domain Hosting - In order to become a web space hosting reseller, you need to obtain an account that offers multiple domain hosting. For example, if you obtain a web space hosting reseller account that allows 8 add-on domains, you can use one to develop your web space hosting company's website and 7 can be used for your clients. All that you need to do is pay your web space hosting provider their normal rate and charge your customers however much you wish. I would like to add in that there are quite a few web space hosting providers, including The Next Generation Host, that offers their reseller web space hosting clients unlimited add-on domains, this doesn't limit how many domains you are able to host. I find this option very useful in running a web space hosting company.
Reseller web space hosting can be a rather profitable type of business. You have to have a good host in order to succeed. Also, don't overlook the fact that it does require you to put some time into it in order to prosper. The time that you put into will lead to making your clients happier and will also help to improve your company's reputation.
About the Author
Hypnotique is the owner of The Next Generation Host which provides inexpensive web space hosting.
If you're looking to establish more than one domain on the internet, you should looking into multiple domain hosting plans. Multiple domain web hosting allows you to run more than one domain from a single account. Before this service became available, you had to have a different account for each domain you wanted to run. Such a set-up was rather inconvenient and downright ineffective. It made it hard to keep track of multiple web sites and increased the likelihood of one of your web sites going down. Now there are countless companies offering plans geared specifically towards clients who want to manage more than one domain from just one account.
Why would you want to have multiple domains? Let's say you want a main page to provide information about your business. Then you might want a separate domain for, say, forums for users to discuss your products and so you can share information with them. You may also want to set up chat rooms, which could be on another domain. Multiple domain hosting gives you room to grow. Also, if you want to have domains which are completely unrelated, but you still want to manage them all together, then you'll want a multiple domain plan.
When looking for a web hosting service that offers multiple domain accounts, there are a few things to consider. First you need to check out their disk storage plans. Obviously you pay more for more storage space. You don't want to buy too big of a plan but you also don't want to shortchange yourself. You'll need a lot of storage space if you intend to build a large site and provide large files to your visitors such as audio, high resolution images, and video. Remember to get what you need, while also giving yourself room to grow.
You also need to take a look at the plan's data transfer rate and bandwidth. Again, if you plan on offering music and video, you want to make sure that the files are transferred smoothly and at an acceptable speed. Music and video require steady and reliable data transfer and plenty of bandwidth. You do not what your visitors viewing or listening to choppy files. It is important that you come up with an estimate of how much traffic you anticipate on your site and how much data will be transferred. If your bandwidth is low then high speed won't mean much because you'll quickly exceed your limits and your site will be shut down.
Another thing to consider is how many email accounts you will need. You'll probably want to have separate email accounts for customer service, employees, order inquiries, web master, etc. As always, you should have more accounts available then you need so there is room to grow. Email accounts are an absolute necessity for a web-based business. Even if you're not on the web you should have an email address. In many sectors, emails has surpassed the phone as the most important means of contact.
As with a single domain hosting plan, you should look at the company's control panel. This is all the more important when you're operating more than one domain. You should be able to easily access information for all your sites.
The fees for multiple server web hosting plans vary by plan, company, and features offered. There may be monthly fees, a yearly contract, etc. Shop around and choose the service which best suits your needs. Don't forget to ask other people, too. Word of mouth is often the best way to find who's reliable and who's not.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Facts of Webdesigner
Everyone?s online.
But not everyone has a cool site, and certainly not everyone has an award winning site.
Are millions of people wasting money?
People are getting cheap websites built by either ?themselves, sisters, brothers, girlfriends, kids, etc.? or a typical ?Run of the mill? web designer. Why?
Choosing the lowest bidder has given birth to the term Website ?Re-Design.?
You who choose the cheapest price usually spend much more in the end to get a good site.
First, you pay the ?cheap-skate fee.? This fee will be fairly inexpensive and rightfully so since your new ?cheapest web designer? is exactly that.
Next, you?ll pay the ?Re-Design fee.? This fee is typically what you should have paid in the first place; however, any marketing you may have done up to the point is basically useless. Why?
Why would anyone go back to a site that is not visually appealing & easy to use?:crazy:
Finally: Paying for marketing that shows your new professionally designed site. A product that generates sales, retains customers, and delivers that eye popping experience or the ?Cool? effect.
-> GetWebDesigner.com - ?Educating village idiots everywhere.?
partner sites
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Web Hosting - A Guide for Beginners
So you're looking to learn about web hosting and what it has to offer or you may not know much about web hosting? There is no shame in not knowing this information. Everyone has to start at the beginning at some point. On that note, lets begin learning about web hosting.
First off, what is web hosting and how does it work?
Web hosting is the business practice of providing space and bandwidth on a high-powered computer server that is connected to the Internet at very high speeds. Hosting companies maintain large networks of high-powered web server computers in a physical location known as a data center. These computer servers are connected to a very fast, and generally redundant, Internet connection. The data centers have primary and backup power, a fast connection to the Internet, and a security monitoring staff.
The web hosting companies provide a share of disk space and available bandwidth to a customer for a monthly fee. Once the customer is signed up, they can upload files to their personal space on the web server and the information is then viewable to anyone interested on the Internet. The monthly fee the web hosting company charges is much less than what it would cost to run a server out of your own home or data center. This is the reason these companies exist. They take care of all the hardware, software, and other technical needs for you.
Types of web hosting
There are many different types of web hosting offers, but the main three are shared, reseller, and dedicated. Each type of hosting is for a different purpose.
Shared Web Hosting
Shared web hosting is the most popular form of hosting. Shared hosting is a portion of disk space and bandwidth provided to you by the web hosting company on a high-powered server. There are many other web sites hosted on this server, and the hosting company is likely to have quite a few of these servers in a large data center. The resources of the server are shared by as many other websites as are allocated to that computer.
Shared web hosting is the best form of web hosting if you are looking for a great price and don't have more than a couple thousand daily visitors to your site.
Reseller Web Hosting
Reseller web hosting is a popular, low-cost solution to starting your own web hosting business. There are two types of reseller hosting, private-label and a reseller of services.
The private-label is the best type of reseller plan because it allows you to retain full control over your customer's websites. A private-label plan allows the reseller to keep the full monthly payment of the web-hosting customer, but the reseller must pay a monthly fee to the larger hosting company for the reseller space. The more hosting accounts a private-label reseller can sell, the higher the profit for them. Private-label hosting allows you to host many more websites than if you were using shared hosting for each. This is a great solution for someone who has many sites they need to host in one location to save money.
The reseller of services plans resell the regular web hosting plans of a larger web hosting company, but you get a discounted price for providing the customer and earn a monthly fee for as long as they remain a customer. This plan does not allow control over customer web sites and you only keep a portion of the potentially monthly revenue.
Dedicated Web Hosting
Dedicated web hosting is the most powerful and cost effective solution of hosting a busy web site without resorting to buying your own equipment and paying hundreds of dollars per month for a fast Internet connection. Dedicated hosting consists of single server with no one else hosting on that computer. This allows for the greatest of configuration options. Anyone who has a busy website will find dedicated hosting is the necessary choice.
Web Hosting Considerations
Wondering about all the other information listed in web hosting plans? In this section, I will explain the most important considerations in choosing a good web host.
Price
The price of web hosting services is one of the most important. There are many hosting companies out there with cheap hosting packages, but they may be lacking in other areas. Don't let the price of a hosting package fool you. There are some hosting companies out there who have great prices and the other features are just as good. Price may be one of the most important decisions of a web hosting plan, but there is much more to consider in choosing a quality web host.
Disk Space / Storage Space
Disk space is the amount of physical storage space a web host gives to you to store your web files. Hosting companies these days have plans with disk space being measured mostly in terms of gigabytes, but some are still offering plans in the megabytes for storage space. Depending on your needs for file storage space, you may need more or less. Generally the more disk space offered, the better.
Bandwidth / Data Transfer
The amount of bandwidth available can make a big difference in choosing a quality hosting plan. In general, the more bandwidth a hosting company makes available to you, the better. This means you can support more traffic to your web site as your business grows. Be wary of web hosting companies that offer unlimited or unmetered bandwidth. While many of these are legitimate offers, there are some out there who are overselling their bandwidth in hopes the average user won't use much.
Customer Support
In any business, it is very important to provide exception customer service. Web hosting is no exception to this. Many of the hosting companies are available all day and night in case you have a problem with your web site, but there are some who are just available specific hours of the day. If your web site goes down in the middle of the night when they're not available, this means lost revenue for a business. You should make sure the web host you select is always available for support.
Money Back Guarantee
Most web hosting companies will provide a thirty-day money back guarantee. Some will provide one even long, but be wary of the ones who offer no money back guarantee. I would not purchase web hosting services from a company who does not offer at least a 30 day money back guarantee, unless they have proven themselves to be a leader in the industry and have an excellent reputation.
Operating System
An operating system is a piece of software that controls the interaction between the computer user and the physical hardware of the machine. A vast majority of all web sites on the Internet run on the Linux operation system. Linux is generally much more stable than Windows. Stability is critical in running a web site. For this reason, I prefer to host my web sites on the Linux operating system. Some sites have specific requirements that only the Windows operating system can satisfy, but there are always alternatives to those requirements.
Backup
A good web hosting company will have a regular schedule to backup the data on all the web servers. The more often the data is backed up, the better. At the very least, a web hosting company should backup web site files daily.
Control Panel
The control panel is the point of contact the web site administrator will have between the host server and their own machine connected via the Internet. It is essential to have a well organized and easy to use control panel interface. My favorite control panel is cPanel, which is one of the leading web hosting control panels out there today. Plesk is another good one, and many companies will create their own control panel for you to use. Most web hosting companies will provide a link to a demo of the control panel they use with their hosting plans. The control panel used is a matter of preference, but it should be user friendly.
Email is essential part of communication on the Internet. Most web hosting companies out there will give you more email addresses and more space to hold email messages than you will ever need. What you need to watch out for is the companies that have decided to be a little strict on their email accounts and only offer a small number or a small amount of message space.
Uptime
Uptime is a term used to describe how often the average web site hosted by a company is available online. No company should be expected to provide an exact 100% uptime. This is impossible due to things such as hardware, software, and power failures. A vast majority of the companies are very good with uptime, and they guarantee it. It is still a good idea to be conscious of the uptimes posted by the company. If it is not at least 99.5%, it is probably not worth hosting with that company.
Statistics
As a webmaster, it is nice to know how many visitors you've had, where they came from, how long they stay on your site, and how much bandwidth they've used. This information is collected by the web server and is placed in a log file. A statistics software package can read this data and provide meaningful information to the webmaster. The information gathered from these logs can be very valuable in improved services to the viewers of the web site.
FTP
FTP stands for file transfer protocol. It is a way of quickly uploading or downloading many files to and from a web server. Most web hosting companies will allow their customers access to their web hosting accounts via FTP. FTP is very useful and is a great feature to have when paying for a web hosting account.
Scripting
Since the World Wide Web began, many scripting languages have been created and have evolved into the dynamic and interactive environment we enjoy today. A scripting language is a way of adding functionality to a web site, whether it be to calculate numbers or to load information from an external database. Scripting languages have made electronic commerce possible. Some of these languages include PHP, ASP, JSP, Coldfusion, VBscript, Javascript, and Perl. I won't go into the details of these in this article for the sake of complexity. If you know how to use these languages, you should know what to look for in a web server for them.
Databases
A database is a place to store data that can be used in a large variety of ways. Databases are used on the Internet for applications such as shopping carts, message boards, and product catalogues. The more databases the web hosting provider allows you to create, the most applications you can deploy on your web server. Databases are used by the more advanced web master, but information is freely available online should you be interested.
Conclusions
Web hosting can be a very difficult decision with the many thousands of hosting companies out there. It is critical to find a plan that fits your needs and to have a good hosting company. I hope this article was useful in making your decision about which company to host with. Happy Hosting!
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Increase your Website Visibility - Simple, Effective SEO and Search Engine Marketing
Why You Need a Website
Even if you're not planning on selling online, a well-crafted site is essential for any business. Why?
Potential employees, Business partners and investors can find your business.
Now everyone search for information online prior to making a purchase
Your website is the first chance to give a good impression.
10 Reasons Why Your Business Needs a Website
1. Your Business is Open to the World 24/7, 365 Days a Year
2. It's Your Online Brochure / Catalog That Can Be Changed at Anytime
3. Reach New Markets with a Global Audience
4. Improved Customer Service
5. Present a Professional Image
6. Sell Your Products
7. Promote Your Services
8. Gather Information and Generate Valuable Leads
9. Great way of communication
10. Great Recruiting Tool
OK, I know why I need a website. Where do I go from here?
I don?t know how do build a website. My Uncle daughter knows Computers. She is so good at it. Always in front of the computer. Can I have her build the Website for my Business? No? why?
Your website speaks volumes about your business. It should says, "Hey, look, we take our business so seriously that we have created this wonderful site for our customers!"
Your website shouldn?t say "Hey, look, I let my 15-year-old uncle?s daughter design my site. Good luck finding anything!"
Find a Professional web design company you can understand your goals How do I find a designer?
Search online, Yellow Pages, Directories online, Magazines, Newspapers
Remember a good website. Call them and find out who did their website.
Should I hire a local company?
What should I ask a potential designer?
What is the process? Initial meeting to understand your goals?
See examples, portfolio.
What is the cost and why?
Can they register Domain name and host the website
A good design company should give you suggestions based on your goals
Is the company specialized is anything specific or full service company.
Will they provide images?
Ownership. Find out if you can transfer the website if you are not happy
Visibility of the website in search engines
How long has the company been in business
Deadline for completing the site
How will a potential client find my site?
Search engine optimization
Pay per Click
Site submission
Building search engine and user friendly website
Online and offline marketing
Build a website you will be rich - myth?
A website is just like your printed material or business card
Promote your website online and offline
Talk about your website, include web address in all printed materials
Use website in your email signature
Advertise your website
Suresh Babu Search Engine Analyst, Sarasota - Florida For all your Search Marketing needs. With years of proven Results in SEO, Search Marketing. Visit: sarasotapodcast.wordpress for more articles, Tips and How to's on SEO, Search Engine Marketing |
Before rushing for a web hosting account, you need to check the following features which are important for any web hosting account. Many people overlook this features and pay the price later. So here are the important features you need to check with your hosting company before paying for it.
Technical Support
Technical support is one of the most important factor you need to consider when a choosing a web host. Test different companies before you sign up by sending them an email with a question or two. If they respond quickly, this is a good sign.
Uptime
The more uptime they guarantee, the better. 99% uptime is the minimum acceptable standard. Look for 99% plus guaranteed uptime. 1% of uptime is about 87 hours in a year.
Disk Space
Decide how much disk space you will require. A basic web site with few images and about 10 to 20 pages will not take up much web space . If you require a lot of graphics or multimedia or you need to store a lot of information, you will need a bit higher disk space. Again you can increase your web space as required with almost all the hosts by paying the extra charges.
Data Transfer
This factor is usually overlooked until the data transfer limit is reached. If you go over your alloted data transfer, you will get a hefty bill. If you are running a site with lots of downloads, or a site with lots of images such at a photo post site, your data transfer will be higher than a site with mainly text. The average website uses less than 200MB of bandwidth per month.
Scripting Languages support
If you using a scripting language to output your html, you need to check whether the plan has support for that script. You will need a windows hosting plan only if you are using microsoft scripting languages like asp and asp.net.
CGI Bin
This is now standard feature with almost all hosting companies. If you do not have access to your own CGI Bin, you cannot install your own cgi scripts and programs.
Perl
If you do not have Perl, you cannot run Perl Programs. Many good scripts that you buy or get for free are written in Perl. In my opinion, it would be a limitation not to have the latest version of Perl installed
SSI
Server Side Includes are great if you want to spend minimal time updating your site. Again this feature is provided by many hosts.
FTP Access
Unlimited and unrestricted FTP access to your site is essential. You will need an FTP program to transfer files from your computer to the server.
Statistics Program
A good stats program is handy if you want to keep an eye on how many visitors you are getting, where they are coming from, referrers, top entry and exit pages and so on. Some companies offer excellent stats programs as standard while others offer basic stats but you have to pay extra for advanced statistics.
Denver Colorado?s web design
Web design, Web site design, web development are different terms that end up meaning the construction of a web site. The process of web design involves a lot of technologies that include programming, server configuration, hosting, graphic design, database technologies and a lot of marketing techniques like PPC (Pay per click), SEO (Search Engine Optimization) etc. Web design has evolved in the past few years and there are a host of companies ? large and small offering many packages and services.
These companies have come up all across the globe and service global clients facilitated by the advent and spread of the internet. Denver, Colorado is no exception. The web design companies in Denver are varied and offer a lot of services from hosting to SEO. Denver web design companies offer hosting at very cheap prices and boast of very reliable and secure server infrastructure at their disposal.
Many Denver web site design companies also offer vertical integration solutions beginning from hsting, programming, design, development, maintenance and marketing solutions to customers who are looking at turnkey online business solutions. In keeping company with these web design companies, Denver internet marketing companies also offer great deals by offering Pay Per Click, Adsense and Search engine optimization services at very affordable rates and customizable solutions as per the requirement of the client.
Denver web site design companies also offer update facilities for your website. Most Denver we design programmers are updated and capable of utilizing the most modern technologies to make a web site more presentable and marketable by offering advanced graphic design and latest programming languages like PHP, MySQL and Ajax, greatly improving the performance, look and speed of your outdated web site probably made in HTML.
The strategy involved in making a web site is very simple. Take a look at the competition, isolate what works for them, analyze their SWOT and use the techniques that work along with a brand new design and structure. Denver web design companies are experts at this process and employ the cream of development professionals in the country.
If you already own a web site, you would know that the secret to a good web site is not the design and color but the amount of sales it rings in. Again the factor depends upon the marketability i.e the presence of your website and the search engine ranking it has. This is a part of SEO that involves many strategies of structure, design, keywords, links and content. All these aspects are easily taken care of by a Denver web site design company, since most of these companies have good SEO professionals on their payroll.
Branding, usability, navigation, functionality and a good GUI are just a few aspects of a good web site design. Check out any of the Denver web site design companies today to get the best out of your web site.
Friday, January 16, 2009
It's easy to find Reseller Web Hosting Service these days. The problem comes when trying to find a reliable service that will save you from everyday hassles and problems. Wouldn't you hate to see that your Hosting was down for two days straight and there was nothing you could do because support "just wasn't available"?
It's not so easy to actually find a company that cares about you. Web hosting has become another term for "bad service" in many cases.
Still, most people haven't found a solution because they don't have time to try every Reseller service. They have to take guesses and see if they've made the right one. Another reason people choose these Web Site companies first is because they spend most of their money in advertising, which gives them good exposure, but not much money left for the service.
It's much like watching your favorite movie, even though you payed the same to rent it, it has much better quality than the rest. It's very similar when looking for the right Web Page Hosting.
Here are some things that make you realize you found the perfect service for you:
MySQL, PHP, Python, Perl, CGI, Cron: All the technical stuff you may require should be included. If you don't know what that means don't worry, but it's always good to have it around just in case.
Disk Space: This is the amount of info you'll be able to save in your hosting account. It's recommended to get something around 5GB to have enough space.
Proper Web Statistics: How much traffic you're getting? What keywords are people using to find you? What sites link to you? All this stuff you'll want to know.
Right Price: Remember you will be paying a monthly fee. You're going to find that getting the right price will save you money, and will give you a great service. Not too cheap that you regret it, but not to expensive either.
Doing the research for the right Reseller web hosting is no picnic, but it can be done.
We suggest taking your time to see that your service meets all of the above needs. This way you'll have a pleasant experience and you won't have to deal with this particular subject for years to come. So do your reasearch, save money, and be satisfied with your Web Hosting.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Web Hosting Jargon Buster In this article, I am going to introduce a few web hosting jargons in a concise way.
Disc Space - The term refers to the amount of physical space devoted to holding the client's content (which is basically his website files or stored
databases/emails).
Monthly Traffic - If people visit one's site, data is sent from his server to their computer. That data may also include emails received and
downloaded to one's PC. At the end of each month, this request data is summed up to show the total data transfer or monthly traffic.
POP3 Email - POP means 'Post Office Protocol' which is a client/server protocol for collecting email on a server from individual mail accounts. A
straightforward online control panel lets client to configure the users and passwords.
IMAP - Instant Message Access Protocol (IMAP in short) differs from POP3 as it allows remote clients to access email stored on a remote server
instead of downloading it. A user can always access his mail from his home PC or mobile devices since the mail is centrally stored. Microsoft
Outlook/Outlook Express and Mozilla Mail/Thunderbird are known to have IMAP support.
Email Redirects - Email redirect is better known as email forwarding. Instead of collecting email from the server, one can arrange for mail
addressed to his domain to go to mailboxes hosted elsewhere.
Domain Name - Domain name is a unique name which identifies a website. It workds as a permanent web address and provides a professional
web presence. While moving a site can be really messy in case of a domain owned by others, registering one's own domain name lets him keep
same address even if his site is moved.
BBS - BBS stands for 'Bulleting Board System', a computerized meeting system where users can have discourses, make announcements and
download/upload files. There are copious BBSs around the world, most of which rely on a direct modem to modem connection over a phone line
using a single computer.
MySQL - MySQL is the most popular open source relational database management system (RDBMS) in the world with more than four million
installations powering websites, business applications etc. It is a very effective language for adding, accessing and processing data in a database.
MySQL is specially recognized for its flexibility, reliability and most importantly, speed.
CGI - CGI means Common Gateway Interface, a protocol that allows a webpage to execute a program on a web server. Common CGI programs
include counters, guest books and forums. CGI scripts are programs written in PERL that is stored on the remote web server and run on the web
server in response to a request from a particular user.
PHP - Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP) is a widely used general-purposed server side scripting language. It is very suitable for web development as
user can embed it into HTML pages. Many popular CMS systems are based on MySQL.
Virtual Server - A virtual server is a UNIX based server environment which allows multiple independent servers to work on the same hardware. It is
the significant trait which discerns virtual server from dedicated/shared servers.
Selecting an inexpensive web hosting service provider can be confusing. Providers are full of claims that they may or may not adhere too. Finding a quality service provider that is affordable is a tedious task. However, there are features that you should consider when selecting your web-hosting provider.
Price Consideration Naturally, price will be your first consideration. If this is your first website, and money is an issue, you will want the best service for your dollar and within your budget. The first course of action is to compare the services of several web-hosting providers. An internet search for a web hosting review site can make this task a lot easier.
Traffic Generation You will also need to consider the types of traffic the service provider allows. Generally, the more you pay for a web hosting service, the larger the traffic offered. The amount of traffic will depend upon your own needs. It is usually not necessary to upgrade your web hosting service the minute you see an increase in traffic. Generally, most inexpensive web hosting companies will allow extra traffic up to a specified limit as a part of the package. However, if you find the traffic to your site has increased over the specified limit, you should then select a higher plan.
Many affordable web-hosting companies have a traffic-reporting feature. This feature can give you an idea of the amount of traffic that your site is generating. In addition, the traffic-reporting feature is an indication of whether or not your advertising is working. Most of the inexpensive providers offer efficient statistic reporting features that allow you to manage your site well.
Disk Space Consideration The amount of disk space you require will depend on the amount of data on your web site. Therefore, you need to know how much disk space your site takes in order to compare service provider's plans.
Other Services to Consider Web hosting services were once associated with only the high bracket hosting companies. However, the competition in this field has brought down the price of web hosting. Now, even an affordable web-hosting provider can offer domain registration and renewal as part of their package.
Services such as domain registration, traffic reporting, and disk space are just a few of the considerations when selecting your provider. So get on the internet and do your homework and you will find an inexpensive web-hosting provider that meets your needs.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
A web hosting company is like the gateway to having your website published on the Internet. Without a hosting company, it would be very costly and nearly impossible to have a website. There are many reasons people want to have a website of their own. Some of these reasons include wanting a business, showcasing and teaching hobbies or wanting to share information with those in the worldwide community.
More and more traditional businesses are realizing that it is important to have a website to complement their business. Many customers turn to the web for information before they will visit a traditional shop. Websites and traditional businesses are a lot alike in the way they are set up. Once you understand the basics of business, then you will understand how web-hosting works.
When you think of a web-hosting company, it is a lot like a real-estate agent. When you want to open a shop in the traditional sense, you see a real-estate agent, find a suitable shop, sign some forms that say you agree to the rental terms and conditions, then you are given the key to your shop. Once you have the key to your shop, you can begin setting up your business just the way you like it.
Web-hosting companies are a lot like that. They require you to sign up and agree to terms and conditions. Once you have signed up, you are provided with your "keys" or login information to access your own piece of cyber space. With the login information, you can then begin to upload or transfer the things you need to make your website viable, whether it is data or pictures.
Another thing that you will need from a web hosting company is an address. Just like a conventional business, you will need a way for your customers to find you. These addresses are known as domain names and always begin with www. The important thing to remember about a domain name is that, if you don't pay a yearly fee on it, it could get sold to someone else.
Web-hosting companies also provide their customers with email access from their website, a lot like having your own fax machine or message bank in a traditional business setting. Email servers will allow you to communicate and receive information or requests from customers or people interested in getting more information about your website.
For businesses, web-hosting companies can also provide Eftpos facilities or a place for your customers to order goods or services from your website. Customers can pay on the spot and the website owner can have the goods or service delivered to them.
If you were planning to rent a building for your business, you would want to shop around and not take the first place that you saw or go with the first real estate agent you spoke with. Web-hosting companies are the same. There are thousands of different companies out there and each one varies in price and in the services that they provide. The cheapest hosting company is not always best for your business.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
A Search Engine Optimization Primer: Part 1 of 2
This article is part 1 of a two-article discussion about Search Engine Optimization. These two articles provide an introduction to Search Engine Optimization, and are written for those who are considering optimizing (or having optimized) their own Web sites. I cover concepts like rich content, keywords, meta-tags, SEO techniques, and Fact and Fiction. Use this document to have an intelligent SEO discussion with your Web site designer and creator.
Article 2 continues the discussion with the following topics:
* How to Make Sure Keywords DON'T Work for You
* Other Considerations to Improve Search Engine Listings
* The Aesthetics of Search Engine Optimization
* Claims of Which to Be Wary
* So What Can an SEO Company Really Claim to Do for You?
* Summary Advice
A Definition
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a complex topic with a fairly simple definition: SEO is the science and art of designing a Web site and its content in such a way as to give each Web site page the best chance of being listed and highly ranked by search engines. I describe it as both a science and an art.
The Science of SEO
Like a science, specific, known design techniques can be used (or not) by Web designers to improve a search engine's ability to "read" the content of a Web site and its pages. Wonderful and complex Web sites can easily be created without using any SEO techniques, or by using techniques that directly interfere with a search engine's ability to "read" the content of a site. If you want to determine whether your Web site has a fighting chance of being highly listed by a search engine, you need to be aware of these known and non-mysterious techniques.
The Art of SEO
Like an art, scientific techniques have to be employed in reference to a Web site's purpose, audience, message, aesthetics, and contents. The "look and feel" of a Web site can be critical, and a balance must sometimes be struck between the artistic qualities of the Web site and its adherence to search engine requirements. Many "artistic" design elements actually interfere with or prohibit a search engine from reading a site. For example, a popular design element used today, Flash movies, is invisible to search engines. If your Web site is created with Flash, you can forget about getting noticed by search engines for the simple reason that Flash is not textual content, and search engines feed off of content, not graphics, photographs, or Flash movies. It is important to know that any words contained within a Flash move, photograph, or graphic is invisible to search engines. Just because you can see words displayed on your Web site doesn't mean that a search engine can.
The Flash movie that serves as my Web site's banner provides a good example of "invisible words." Although the site visitor sees the following in the banner,
Media Services
******
Web Site Development
Technical Writing
Sales and Marketing Collateral
the search engine sees none of these words. Why? Because the words are actually part of a Flash movie. If you are to look at the underlying Web page code, you will not find this particular collection of words; you will only find a reference to the Flash movie that projects the words on the Flash movie screen. It's the projection of the words that is visible to you and me. Since search engines cannot see what movies, graphics or photographs contain, any words they contain are invisible. This is an important lesson to learn and understand.
The Importance of Textual Content
Rich, pertinent, textual content is red meat to a search engine. Period. If your Web site does not contain good, solid text describing your products, services or offerings, then your hope of receiving a natural high listing - for important search terms - within the most important search engines is nil. Textual content is the foundation upon which all other Web design techniques must build if you want a good chance to naturally be listed high by search engines like Google, Yahoo! or MSN. That is, unless you want to pay for page 1 or page 2 listings through potentially expensive pay-per-click ads or sponsorships.
Textual Content Defined
Let me be clear by what I mean by textual content. Textual content means letters, words, phrases, sentences and paragraphs that can be "read" by a search engine's robot program called a "spider." It is the search engine's spider that "reads" your Web pages. If the spider cannot see something, it doesn't exist as far as the search engine is concerned. Search engine readable text may not be visible to you, but it is visible to search engines if the text is included as part of the Web page's underlying code. More about that later.
Search engine spiders do not "see" what you see when viewing a Web site. You may see pretty pictures, graphics, text, movies, and animations. The spider may see - nothing! - at least nothing that it can search and index.
Search engines see the special code behind the Web site, not what is displayed in your browser window. To see what a search engine sees, display your favorite Web site. Then, with your mouse, perform a "right click" on the Web site page to pop up a menu. If you are using Internet Explorer, look for "View Source" on the menu and click on it (for Netscape, look for "View Page Source"). (If you don't see "View Source" as one of the options in the menu, then click again on another part of the Web site. Stay away from menus, flash movies, graphics, photos and the like.) The resulting window displays what the search engine sees, which, of course, looks like a bunch of code to you and me. (Or, you can simply click on this link for an example of the underlying code for the GRDavis Media Services Web page: Example of Source Code)
How to Make Sure Textual Content Works for You
The best way to make sure textual content is usable by search engines is to focus on the effective use of keywords or keyphrases within well-written text. A keyword or phrase is any search engine readable text that indicates the focus or topics covered by a Web page. Keywords and phrases work best when they are repeated several times in different ways on a page. For example, the key-word "doo-hickie" can be repeated in several different places within the underlying page code:
* Domain name. Ideally, your Web site's domain name should contain your most important keyword. For example, if you are in the business of selling doo-hickies, a great domain name would be "www.doo-hickies.com." Unfortunately, most keywords are already employed in someone else's domain name. If possible, use your most critical keyword or phrase in your domain name. If that is not possible, see URL names, below.
* <Title> meta-tag. Ex.: "Doo-Hickies Are Our Specialty at We-Sell-Stuff.com"
* <Description> meta-tag. Ex.: "If Doo-Hickies are your passion as they are ours, you will find a complete selection of Doo-Hickies here. Contact us for more Doo-Hickie information."
* <Keywords> meta-tag. Although Google pays little notice to keywords in this meta-tag, Yahoo! and MSN use it to identify keywords to index. Use variations of the keyword to represent different ways someone may search for information about it. For example: "Doo-Hickies, Doo-Hickie, Doo-Hicky, accessories, testimonials". However, keywords or phrases within this meta-tag should also be present within the page's searchable text. Keywords within the meta-tag that are not actually present on the page can serve to penalize the Web site's listing.
* URL names. Page URLs that contain a keyword or phrase are rated higher than URLs that do not. If you cannot use a keyword in your domain name, you can include it within the URL: "www.we-sell-stuff.com/html/doo-hickies.html" is rated higher for the key phrase "doo-hickies" than is the URL "www.we-sell-stuff.com/html/doohick.html."
* <ALT> tags (for graphics and photos). Ex.: "We sell a variety of Doo-Hickies and accessories." <ALT> text is always visible to the search engine, but is only displayed to the Web visitor when the mouse is moved over the graphic or photo for which the <ALT> text has been created.
* <H1>, <H2>, etc. Search engines pay more attention to text that is emphasized with heading, bold, underline, or italic tags. An <H1> heading may look like this on a Web page:
The search engine will see something like this: <H1>Doo-Hickies Accessories</H1>
* Links. Search engines rate text contained in links as more important than regular text. For search engines, Example A below is more important than Example B, even though both contain the same keywords and point to the same Web page (the bolding serves to illustrate links:
Example A: Read about my Doo-Hickies testimonials.
Example B: Read about my Doo-Hickies testimonials here.
* Real text, not graphical text. Real text is any text that can be read by a search engine because the text is contained within the underlying Web page code. Graphical text is any text that is contained within an image, graphic or Flash movie, and is not actually present within the underlying Web page code. Keywords that are contained within well-written, contextually appropriate sentences, paragraphs or lists are rewarded with higher ratings by search engines.
* Page placement. Keywords place higher on the page rate higher than keywords buried within the text further down on the page.
NOTE: This discussion is concluded in a second article entitled "A Search Engine Optimization Primer: Part 2 of 2"
A single .PDF version of Parts 1 and 2 can be found at:
Copyright (C) 2006 by Randy Davis. All rights reserved.
About the Author
Randy Davis is the creator of GRDavis Media Services, which delivers professional Web site development, search engine optimization, technical writing, and sales and marketing services. Randy has over 23 years in the software and services business.
The web hosting reselling business is a simple business to enter and offers a great product to its customers. Years ago, it would cost tens of thousands to start a web hosting business, because of the need to purchase servers, manage the servers, perform customer Support etc.. Now anyone with $50 bucks or less can start his or her own web hosting service complete with great reliable servers, 24 hour, seven day a week customer support, advertising materials and technical materials. The truth is that you don't have to have your own servers at all. All you need is a web hosting account with reselling option. You can create new hosting accounts with easy in control panel. Today, some web hosting plans offer unlimited bandwidth and unlimited storage with reseller option for less then $20 a month.
While Web hosting cost is almost neglectable, marketing makes or breaks a web hosting reselling business. Many have tried to make money from Web hosting reselling without success. Believe me not, they've been targeting totally wrong audience. Many of those who have failed have exclusively promoted the reselling business online - running pay-per-click (PPC), posting in the forums etc. However, many of those who frequent the Internet may know as much about reselling as you do and they won't bother to go through a middle-man for Web hosting. If you want to be successful in Web hosting reselling business, it's more effective and more profitable to target those who are less net-savy.
Distributing business cards, old-fashioned yes, is still one of the most popular and inexpensive ways to market or advertise your web hosting service. You're likely to get more clients in your local market than from the Net. Though you can do business card printing yourself using special printing software and many different business card templates available online, it's wise to spend a little money to order professional designed business cards. And the printing software can easily cost you a hundred bucks. For as little as $10, on the other hand, you can order 200 business cards. Color business cards will cost a little bit more. Needless to say, your business should be listed on local phone directory too. Ads on local or community newspaper may will bring you business from your local community.
You'll need a professional Web site for your hosting service so that the prospects can obtain information about your business 365 days a year and 24 hours a day even though you want to target the local market.
Web hosting reselling offers a great opportunity to make money if you market your service in the right market in right direction with right punch.
Copyright @2005, 4th Media Corporation
You have permission to publish this article electronically free of charge, as long as the bylines and links in the body of the article and the bylines are included.
About the Author
Natalie Aranda writes about business and technology.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Selecting an inexpensive web hosting service provider can be confusing. Providers are full of claims that they may or may not adhere too. Finding a quality service provider that is affordable is a tedious task. However, there are features that you should consider when selecting your web-hosting provider.
Price Consideration Naturally, price will be your first consideration. If this is your first website, and money is an issue, you will want the best service for your dollar and within your budget. The first course of action is to compare the services of several web-hosting providers. An internet search for a web hosting review site can make this task a lot easier.
Traffic Generation You will also need to consider the types of traffic the service provider allows. Generally, the more you pay for a web hosting service, the larger the traffic offered. The amount of traffic will depend upon your own needs. It is usually not necessary to upgrade your web hosting service the minute you see an increase in traffic. Generally, most inexpensive web hosting companies will allow extra traffic up to a specified limit as a part of the package. However, if you find the traffic to your site has increased over the specified limit, you should then select a higher plan.
Many affordable web-hosting companies have a traffic-reporting feature. This feature can give you an idea of the amount of traffic that your site is generating. In addition, the traffic-reporting feature is an indication of whether or not your advertising is working. Most of the inexpensive providers offer efficient statistic reporting features that allow you to manage your site well.
Disk Space Consideration The amount of disk space you require will depend on the amount of data on your web site. Therefore, you need to know how much disk space your site takes in order to compare service provider's plans.
Other Services to Consider Web hosting services were once associated with only the high bracket hosting companies. However, the competition in this field has brought down the price of web hosting. Now, even an affordable web-hosting provider can offer domain registration and renewal as part of their package.
Services such as domain registration, traffic reporting, and disk space are just a few of the considerations when selecting your provider. So get on the internet and do your homework and you will find an inexpensive web-hosting provider that meets your needs.
For more information about web hosting, visit these sites http://www.webhostinginfoguide.com and http://www.inexpensivewebhostingguide.com
About the Author
None
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Linux web hosting refers to web hosting services that are based on a server that is running the Linux operating system. It is probably the most widely used type of web hosting, especially for individuals and small to medium sized businesses, simply because Linux web hosting is cheaper than other options like Windows based hosting. The reason for this is that Linux is an open source software product and as such does not incur the high licensing fees that other operating systems do; you can freely download and use it at no cost. On the other hand, a web hosting service that offers Windows based hosting has to pay for the software and maintenance fees.
Some of the advantages of Linux web hosting are: cheaper than Windows, support for PHP scripts and MySQL databases and some hosts may offer telnet accounts at no or little additional cost. In many circles Linux is believed to be more secure than Windows, and for that reason it is also the more popular choice for web designers and programmers. Linux web hosting also offers users many configuration and customization options.
The Linux operating system is also very stable, so you can expect high uptime from a Linux web hosting service. Linux supports most scripting languages and types of web files, and you can use files with all the following extensions: .html, .htm, .pl, .php, .shtml, .asp, .xml and others. The biggest disadvantage of a Linux based web hosting solution is that it is not compatible with Microsoft technologies, like ASP scripts.
On the other side of the coin is Windows based hosting, which is generally more expensive, but it does support ASP and, usually for an extra fee, can support Cold Fusion, Access databases and SQL Server databases.
In conclusion, if you are new to building websites and web design, Linux web hosting is the better, and cheaper, option. However, if you need specialized services that are Windows specific, then you will have to use a Windows web hosting service.
Evert DuToit is a writer and website publisher from Pittsburgh, PA. To learn more about web hosting, and finding the best web hosting provider, please visit us at http://www.webhostingpages.info |
Top 5 Mistakes to Avoid When Hiring a Freelance Web Designer
1. Getting started on a new Web site without setting a budget or setting a budget without measurable outcomes.
To avoid getting lost in cyberspace ask yourself:
- What will it take to make this project a success?
- What is this project worth to me?
To avoid a Web site with glamour and no substance ask yourself:
- What do I hope the new look of my Web site will help me achieve?
- How will my aesthetic choices help me achieve my goals?
To avoid an invisible Web site ask yourself:
- In what way will my new Web site be more visible to search engines than my old one?
- Have I researched keywords on Google and WordTracker.
- Have I written page titles, descriptions, and headings based on my findings?
To avoid overspending ask yourself:
- Will I get what I want if I don't regularly monitor my new Web design and establish a reporting schedule for my freelance Web designer?
To avoid hiring an unqualified designer ask yourself:
- Which is more affordable, a Web site that costs $500 but gets no results or a $5000 Web site that helps sell my products and services?
Harvey A. Ramer is a well-known New York State Internet specialist, Web designer, graphic designer and owner of Web design consultancy, Design Delineations. He has a degree in Visual Communications and has worked for several years as a Web designer for corporate, non-profit and private clients. He listens actively to client requests and meets or exceeds client expectations. If this article left you wanting more, Harvey Ramer has also written a short e-Book called A No-Nonsense Guide to Creating Your Web Site Design Plan that you may find helpful and maintains a blog. |
Saturday, January 10, 2009
The web hosting reselling business is a simple business to enter and offers a great product to its customers. Years ago, it would cost tens of thousands to start a web hosting business, because of the need to purchase servers, manage the servers, perform customer Support etc.. Now anyone with $50 bucks or less can start his or her own web hosting service complete with great reliable servers, 24 hour, seven day a week customer support, advertising materials and technical materials. The truth is that you don't have to have your own servers at all. All you need is a web hosting account with reselling option. You can create new hosting accounts with easy in control panel. Today, some web hosting plans offer unlimited bandwidth and unlimited storage with reseller option for less then $20 a month.
While Web hosting cost is almost neglectable, marketing makes or breaks a web hosting reselling business. Many have tried to make money from Web hosting reselling without success. Believe me not, they've been targeting totally wrong audience. Many of those who have failed have exclusively promoted the reselling business online - running pay-per-click (PPC), posting in the forums etc. However, many of those who frequent the Internet may know as much about reselling as you do and they won't bother to go through a middle-man for Web hosting. If you want to be successful in Web hosting reselling business, it's more effective and more profitable to target those who are less net-savy.
Distributing business cards, old-fashioned yes, is still one of the most popular and inexpensive ways to market or advertise your web hosting service. You're likely to get more clients in your local market than from the Net. Though you can do business card printing yourself using special printing software and many different business card templates available online, it's wise to spend a little money to order professional designed business cards. And the printing software can easily cost you a hundred bucks. For as little as $10, on the other hand, you can order 200 business cards. Color business cards will cost a little bit more. Needless to say, your business should be listed on local phone directory too. Ads on local or community newspaper may will bring you business from your local community.
You'll need a professional Web site for your hosting service so that the prospects can obtain information about your business 365 days a year and 24 hours a day even though you want to target the local market.
Web hosting reselling offers a great opportunity to make money if you market your service in the right market in right direction with right punch.
Copyright @2005, 4th Media Corporation
You have permission to publish this article electronically free of charge, as long as the bylines and links in the body of the article and the bylines are included.
About the Author
Natalie Aranda writes about business and technology.
Speeding Up Web Design Process
You thought it all over a hundred times before and you have finally decided to put your business on the Web (or to replace that embarrassment of a website that was actually turning heads when it was first made during the nineties). Now you probably think it will be enough to find the right web design company and they will take care of everything. It should be easy for you... Well, think twice!
There are thousands of web design companies in the world and choosing the right one isn't easy especially when you don't know where to look and how to determine what is the right choice for your needs. In this article I will help you do your homework before you end up being disappointed either with a lousy website you'll get or with spending way more than you initially expected.
First of all, you have to do some research (Google, Yahoo, MSN...) typing keywords that you would use if you wanted to find services or information related to your own business. This way you will be one step closer to getting to know your competition.
Since many of the results will be useless and not necessarily related to your business, the next step is filtering the results in order to make a selection of websites that are similar to your own website needs. When you've made your final selection sort the remaining websites by: a) great visual appearance and b) good functionality (these two characteristics are the two most important defining factors of any web site).
Go through these two categories and make notes about what you liked at every site regarding design: logo design, nice images, flash animation, useful navigation, attractive color scheme, etc. and also find out and note what your competition put on their website: what kind of information they have included, how do they make their visitors stay and research further, what is the structure of the sites and how the content is organized. Finally, make an exhaustive list of things you want to put on your future web site.
Now that you have collected all the information you needed you will see that you are much more certain about what you want and how do you want it to be done. Now you should collect all the material that you need for your website: articles, images, legal stuff, related texts, reviews, technical information... It is important that you collect as much material as you can because that process will get you a much clearer picture of requirements of your business than you had in the very start and in the end you will know exactly what you need and what you don't need on your website.
Next step is narrowing down your list of web sites with good design (three to four examples) and finding out which web design firms created those websites. If you can find out who did it, take a tour through their site: look at their portfolio, learn about their pricing and collect their contact information. Almost every decent web design firm will have an RFQ form where they will ask you questions about your web site needs, your budget, colors you would like to use, links of a few web sites that are similar to what you need and details for each site (e.g. "has the features I need but design is lousy") and if you remember what I said earlier in this article you see that these are all questions you already know the answers for. :-)
This way, not only that you will speed up your designing process by telling your web designer exactly what you want and having all the material ready, but you will also know exactly what is good and what you want to be changed when you see first design mockup from a designer. Finally, what is most important, you will avoid hiring a firm that's not fit to do it right or within your budget.
About the Author
Website Acquired: www.pear-logo-design.com
Date Written: 8. December 2005.
This article is allowed for reproduction as long as the links and information about the author are kept intact.
? 2006 Pear Logo Design
Friday, January 9, 2009
The web hosting reselling business is a simple business to enter and offers a great product to its customers. Years ago, it would cost tens of thousands to start a web hosting business, because of the need to purchase servers, manage the servers, perform customer Support etc.. Now anyone with $50 bucks or less can start his or her own web hosting service complete with great reliable servers, 24 hour, seven day a week customer support, advertising materials and technical materials. The truth is that you don't have to have your own servers at all. All you need is a web hosting account with reselling option. You can create new hosting accounts with easy in control panel. Today, some web hosting plans offer unlimited bandwidth and unlimited storage with reseller option for less then $20 a month.
While Web hosting cost is almost neglectable, marketing makes or breaks a web hosting reselling business. Many have tried to make money from Web hosting reselling without success. Believe me not, they've been targeting totally wrong audience. Many of those who have failed have exclusively promoted the reselling business online - running pay-per-click (PPC), posting in the forums etc. However, many of those who frequent the Internet may know as much about reselling as you do and they won't bother to go through a middle-man for Web hosting. If you want to be successful in Web hosting reselling business, it's more effective and more profitable to target those who are less net-savy.
Distributing business cards, old-fashioned yes, is still one of the most popular and inexpensive ways to market or advertise your web hosting service. You're likely to get more clients in your local market than from the Net. Though you can do business card printing yourself using special printing software and many different business card templates available online, it's wise to spend a little money to order professional designed business cards. And the printing software can easily cost you a hundred bucks. For as little as $10, on the other hand, you can order 200 business cards. Color business cards will cost a little bit more. Needless to say, your business should be listed on local phone directory too. Ads on local or community newspaper may will bring you business from your local community.
You'll need a professional Web site for your hosting service so that the prospects can obtain information about your business 365 days a year and 24 hours a day even though you want to target the local market.
Web hosting reselling offers a great opportunity to make money if you market your service in the right market in right direction with right punch.
Copyright @2005, 4th Media Corporation
You have permission to publish this article electronically free of charge, as long as the bylines and links in the body of the article and the bylines are included.
About the Author
Natalie Aranda writes about business and technology.
Website Promotion: 10 Sizzling Hot Secret Phrases
For many months after I put up my new website, mscsrrr.com, my traffic was low and sales almost zero.
Then I began researching the internet for secret strategies that will help fire up my website traffics and sales.
I have the pleasure to offer you these 10 sizzling secret phrases that will ignite your website traffics and sales:
(1) "Bookmark This Web Site Now"
Tell your visitors to bookmark your web site. They may see your web site listed in their bookmarks and visit again. You should also give then a good reason to bookmark your site.
For example tell them you add new content everyday.
2 "Subscribe To Our Free E-zine"
Tell your visitors to subscribe to your e-zine. When they subscribe you'll capture their e-mail address.
Every time they read your e-zine, it will remind them to return to your site.
3." Participate On Our Discussion Board"
Ask your visitors to participate on your online discussion board.
By participating they will meet other people. By meeting other people, they will revisit your web site on a regular basis to stay in contact with them.
4. "Sign Our Guestbook"
Ask your visitors to sign your guest book. When people sign your guestbook you may get valuable feedback or constructive criticism on how to improve your web site. This may help you increase traffic to your web site.
5. "Use Our Free Content On Your Site Or In Your E-zine"
Allow your visitors to use your articles on their own web site or in their e-zine. Just ask them to include your resource box. This will spread your advertising all over the internet.
6. "Refer This Our Web Site To A Friend"
Ask your visitors to refer your web site to a friend(s).
They may know someone that would benefit from visiting your web site.
7. "Fill Out Our Online Survey"
Ask visitors to fill out your online survey or questionnaire. You could use it to get valuable feedback on ways to improve your web site to increase traffic.
8. "Enter Our Contests"
Ask your visitors to enter your online contest or sweepstakes.
People love to win stuff, and they will visit your web site to try.
9. "Give Away Our Freebie To Your Visitors"
Allow your visitors to give away your online freebies to People that visit your web site. Include your ad on the freebie and those freebies will multiply your traffic.
10 "Join Our Affiliate Program"
Allow your visitors to make money selling your products or services. This will increase your traffic because they will link to your web site.
May these website traffics secrets help you to make a lot of money.
Warmly,
I-key Benney, CEO
About the Author
To discover little known home business opportunities, shortcut to internet riches programs, information and resources brought to you by Maychic Corp, which enables an average person to generate thousands of dollars weekly for life, please click on the link : online music shopping (http://www.maychic.com)
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
In the virtual world, the success of a website often depends on the design, reliability and the ease of use. These things in turn, depend on the type of web hosting services you choose as the owner of the website. In most cases, the web hosting service you select may well decide the future of your business online. So, it?s important to study various options available, before you decide on a website hosting service.
First, pin down your needs. For example, you may need different emails for different purposes. Some may require an auto response, or they a redirecting facility. Also, if you expect a lot of visitors to your site, you?ll need a service provider that can handle the traffic without any hassles. Sometimes, you may require multiple domain names that point to the same address, depending upon the needs of your business.
Disk space allotted is another important criteria in choosing a service provider. If your site is a simple brochure-like website, you do not need much disk space. On the other hand, if you want your site to have e-commerce facilities such as online trading, or if your site has a complex database, you may need large disk space. Do some comparison shopping to get the best price.
After you have determined the needs for your website, it?s time to decide whether you want to go for shared hosting or dedicated hosting. Again, this decision will depend on the needs of your website. If you want more security and high bandwidth for your site, dedicated hosting may be the right choice for you. If your site has just some HTML pages intended to give users an introduction to your business, than shared hosting will be an economically viable choice for you.
Whatever the service or the firm you choose, never compromise on quality and service. Before you make a decision, test your prospective host. Call or email to ask about your options, and note their response. It says a lot about that company?s customer service?that?s very important, too!
Monday, January 5, 2009
It's easy to find Shared Domain Web Hosting these days. The problem comes when trying to find a reliable service that will save you from everyday hassles and problems. How much money would you loose with the so called " Shared Domain Hosting " when your website was down and there was nothing you could do about it?
Today in many cases Shared is just another term for "I want a quick buck". Some of the companies don't really care for the people and are just out to make money.
Still, most people haven't found a solution because they don't have time to try every Hosting Service on their way. They have to take guesses and see if they've made the right one. One of the main reasons people fall into these traps is because the best companies are usually not so well know, so people don't tend to go with these companies right away.
You know you've found one of these companies because everything just flows perfectly. It's even possible to pay the same as the cheapest companies, but you just have to know what to look for.
So you're not sure whether you've actually found the right web hosting. Here are some of the features the "right one" will have:
Unlimited Domains Allowed: This is a feature most people don't know about but we love it. It's being able to host unlimited domains in the same hosting at the same price.
Proper Web Statistics: How much traffic you're getting? What keywords are people using to find you? What sites link to you? All this stuff you'll want to know.
Monthly Price: Cheap doesn't always mean bad, but sometimes it can hurt depending on the web hosting. We recommend getting "healthy cheap" which is around 10 bucks a month. This gives a good price and gets you good service.
Cpanel: Makes the whole interface to manage your web hosting very easy to use.
With the information you can find online you should be able to locate the right hosting that meets your needs.
Go ahead and look for a company that meets all of the above needs, this way you'll find the entire web hosting experience very pleasant and rewarding for you. So go and find yourself the right Shared Web Hosting Service for you. It'll be worth every second of your time.
About the Author
Want to see which hosting companies are we talking about? Visit our site (http://www.web-hosting-review-central.info) to learn which is the best shared web site hosting company on the internet. HINT: Their Web Hosting is Cheap.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Shared hosting is the contemplation guess for the application websites which is over in godsend by the majority of dwarf online businesses. It is purely versed with fool's paradise and time-to-time evolvement nicety in the calling of E-Commerce. It is a safety view to bread for hosting your website to magnify your business. Generally superlatively of the lacework hosting companies associated with mutual hosting ,in conjuncture where you occasion cush the zap ball-buster advance and bandwidth residency with crowded contrasting online vigor websites funk yours. So your website is not the special one on the server you have preferred. Obviously surpassingly few minute online businesses requires the stale language of rabid server though it is exceptionally expensive.
If you are searching around for a top netting hosting service, doubtlessly you have to congregate common mesh hosting which provides assist including channels administration apropos its returned wrinkle directive as it is used by alive with offbeat trifling online businessmen. This besides comprises worth points for users. Shared netting hosting normally uses a web-based govern panel system, parallel as C-Panel, Plesk, Helm, H-Sphere, Ensim, Sphera are some of the manage panel products. But incomparably of the companies provides a few divergent types of common interlacing hosting services. So bring about cold how conspicuously disk go at you devotion to have? What's the rate you can practical to greenback for that? According to that you dominance the mutual lattice hosting assistance which entrust help you a sophisticated structure in your business.
In shared interlacing hosting, the backing provider is normally in rape of managing the servers, installing server's software, pipe dream updating and unrelated uniform aspects of the net hosting service. While the servers are based on the Linux operating systems as the operate panel merchandise are made out of it. But still, some net hand providers offers Microsoft Windows based controls. More seeing you have to notice the three types of interlacing hosting services that a interlacing hosting server provides, they are returned netting hosting, creaming to server hosting and virtual emblematic server hosting.
A common net hosting is a shareable server in which motley customers utilizes the interlacing owner but a solitary field propose is provided to each and every customer. This mutual interlacing hosting helping hand is divine for the teeny response clients who are increased to this net hosting and launches website for the finest time.
Shared net hosting can and be privatized by sharing the market price of operating a server in a colocation kernel as a interlacing hosting obvious as favorable hosting. It can be done in two methods, may be name-based or IP-based. If you move a returned netting hosting service, and if you ardor to loiter the consistent web lessor permanently for your website's lifetime. Then choicest for a net owner server which offers either a virtual original server or a dedicated server hosting service. The lacework boost provider manages website traffics successfully and path to the mediocre functions of the hotelier efficiently. By this way, you can enter on the district to set out to be tops and cinch sky-high traffics for your interlacing site.
About the Author:
The author writes about a number of different topics visit Cheap Web Hosting
