Hosting Options for an Ecommerce Web Site
April 29, 2008
Hosting Options for an Ecommerce Web Site
by: Bobette Kyle
Deciding how to host your ecommerce Web site and what approach to take can be daunting. There are several approaches available, each with different advantages and disadvantages.
Storefronts
If you have a small business, you may want to consider a storefront or an online mall. For a fee, these services help you build a small Web site to sell your products. These “site in a box” Web site services include everything you need to sell online.
Features and support vary by program and can include options such as search engine placement, credit card processing, and advertising. These tend to be template services, however, with less flexibility than a custom site. Familiarize yourself with the current offerings in this area before making a final decision.
Custom Sites
If you have a business that is too large for or has outgrown the smaller storefront services, you may want to consider the more costly – but also more flexible – custom site. For the added cost you can have a unique site, receive greater support, and handle more traffic. You have the options of hiring the same company to design and host your site or using separate design and hosting services.
Hiring the same company to design and host your site.
This option involves the fewest logistics, but may come with trade-offs in design quality or host reliability. Be aware that designing and hosting require different sets of skills and expertise. When choosing a service, evaluate their experience and ask for references in both areas. Go to sites the company has designed and navigate them. Note how the sites look, how easy they are to understand, and how quickly they load into your browser.
To evaluate the companys hosting service, contact current customers and ask how pleased they are with the service. Find out how often the server is down and ask about help desk responsiveness. Also, consider how your site will be updated. Can you upload changes directly or do you have to wait for someone at the hosting company to get to it? If it is the latter, ask current customers about their experience with this process.
If you are still considering the design/hosting service after studying their design capabilities and talking to their current customers, you may also want to find out if there has been recent turnover in key personnel. An individual designer, coordinator, or account manager can make a large difference in support or design quality.
Using a separate design and hosting service.
By separating the design and hosting, you have more choices. Thus, you can have more control over both your budget and your site. Technical incompatibilities are a risk when taking this approach, however. Be sure your designer is familiar with your hosting service and it’s technical capabilities. To help facilitate information flow and minimize technical problems:
Choose a short list of hosts with both the ecommerce capabilities you require and that pass “reliability” tests. Read “Don’t Make These Hosting Mistakes”, http://www.take-payments-online.com/ECommerceWebHosting.html , for questions to ask and other mistakes to avoid.
Find a Web designer experienced in ecommerce applications. Together, decide on the hosting service and ecommerce systems you will use.
Making the Decision
Deciding upon the right combination will take some research. One way to gather a list of hosting options is to first find ecommerce sites that you like and/or have ecommerce abilities similar to your needs, then ask about the sites’ hosting and ecommerce providers.
Asking for referrals from business acquaintances is another. Many times, people are more than happy to share their positive experiences. For example, I use five different hosts and am generally pleased with all of them. When asked about hosting, however, I always recommend Lexiconn.com (my WebSiteMarketingPlan.com site host) because of the exceptional help desk service and support documentation.
Another way to develop hosting options is to look for online advertisements. The sponsored search engine ads and advertisements directly on Web sites are two places you can find these. While there’s no guarantee all of the companies you find will be high quality, the willingness to pay for ads can be an indication of commitment.
Diligently decide upon ecommerce features and choose a host with those features in mind. By doing so, you are creating a smoother path to ecommerce success.
Copyright 2004 Bobette Kyle. All rights reserved.
About The Author
Bobette Kyle is publisher of http://www.Take-Payments-Online.com , an ecommerce information site. She is also proprietor of The WebSiteMarketingPlan.com Network, subject-specific Web sites designed to help you find the right information for marketing plans and marketing programs. Visit at http://www.WebSiteMarketingPlan.com .
What Is Web Hosting?
April 29, 2008
One easy and effective way to explain ?Web Hosting? is to use apartments as an analogy. Why do people rent apartments instead of buying a house? The quick and easy answer is that many people either can’t afford to own their own house or they don’t think their specific needs require them to have a separate house. And don’t forget the maintenance. It’s really nice not to have to worry about fixing the roof or mowing the lawn. So, a quick answer to the previous question is ?People rent apartments because renting is the main option to buying when it comes to finding a home that meets their needs.?
People use Web hosting for the same reasons. Their Web site needs a place to live. Why? Well, let’s quickly define what Web hosting service normally includes. First, it provides a place for you to put all of your Web site files (HTML, and images for example). They, just like you, have to live somewhere. Next, Web hosting gives your site an address so people can find it among the hundreds of millions of other Web pages that exist on the Internet. Web hosting also normally (but not always) provides people with a way to get in touch with you. This could be a Web form or an email address. And finally, Web hosting provides a service known as ?bandwidth.? Bandwidth is the service that transmits all of your site’s data to each viewer. Transmitting that kind of data requires a very high-speed Internet connection and very stable (i.e. expensive) computer hardware. All of these services are supplied to a Web site by a computer known as a ?Web server.? All Web sites, from the largest to the smallest, use a Web server.
So, getting back to our apartment analogy, your Web site needs a place to live and you need to decide whether to rent or buy. Why do people rent (i.e. use a Web hosting service) instead of buying a Web Server? The answers are the exact same as they were when we were discussing apartments. First, Web servers can be expensive. The expenses involved include the price of the hardware itself and the high-speed internet connection required to process all of the Web site’s data.
Another reason people use a Web hosting service is that their Web site doesn’t need its own Web server. How do you decide that? Many Web sites are not large enough (in file size) and do not get enough visitors to justify having their own Web server. Other key factors in determining whether (and where) to host a Web site include the programming language (example: HTML, ASP, PHP, JSP, Cold Fusion, etc.) used by the Web site and the type and size of any databases that the Web site may be using. Determining a Web site’s specific hosting needs is usually best left to a professional Web designer/developer.
Web hosting is an integral factor in Web site ownership and maintenance. Choosing the wrong Web hosting solution can be an expensive mistake. And don’t think I was being facetious when I mentioned the roof and the lawn. Web hosting companies maintain the peek performance a Web server needs to quickly get a Web site to its viewers. And they make back-up files of all Web site data so, if something does go wrong, their trained professionals can have the Web site up and going again as fast a possible. Unless your company has the money and the in-house expertise involved in maintaining your own Web server, finding a good, reputable Web hosting company should be one of the first steps you take when you decide your company needs a Web site.
About the Author:
Ed Ruth is a managing partner of Webulant Inc., a Web development and Web hosting company with offices in Atlanta, Georgia and Miami, Florida. Webulant specializes in the development, hosting and maintenance of database-driven Web sites. Webulant Web Design: http://www.webulant.com
Know Before Choose Web Hosting
April 29, 2008
Space for keeping your website is main factor bacause if you have an effective Web Hosting that fast, firm and your customers can reach all time, your business will run smoothly. What are things that you should look for choosing a web hosting? I have written the way how to choose web hosting that is suitable for your website
What is web hosting?
The space that collect your file for the web page like HTML,Images, or any program at Web Server that is connected to Internet world all time,24 hrs and 7 days. Web hosting’s job is present our web page to internet’s users. What’s more, it serve E-mail service or any script etc.
Before you choose web hosting.
Before you choose web hosting, you should consider about your web site, so that you can choose Hosting matches your web site.
1. Hosting located in your country or abord. You should know what your target is. For example, if your customer is people in U.K. It is better if your Hosting should be in U.K. because they can reach the information quicker.
2. Space for collecting information has to be enough for your website. Normally, the space at 5 MB is enough for gernaral business that contain information and images. Except you have very much information such as images, files that your visitors can load and each file is very big, you may need more space. What is more, the space for collecting E-mail may be included in the space for file (in some web hosting companys). So, if you would like to use the E-mail box, you may need the space of web hosting at least 20 MB.
3. What is the web programing in your website? If your web site use web programing for making Forum, Mailing list, Form in contact us page or program for databse, you should check with the web hosting company what operation system thay use in sever. If they run windows, you can use ASP, PHP, Perl programing. But,if they run unix, you are able to use PHP or Perl only. In addition, if you web site is E-Commerce that need the security service, you may have to use SSL (Secure Socket Layer).
After you know what your web site need, let see How to Choose The Best Web Hosting.
About the Author
Eka man has been worked in Internet Marketing Business for 3 years and want to share his knowledge to starter or people who want an own website You can See His Website at http://www.2buildweb.com
Tips to Avoid A Hosting Company with Half-Hearted Supports
April 29, 2008
Are you looking for a hosting provider that not only provides complete features but will also assist you if you have any problem with their service? Accessing how responsive is the hosting company’s customer service before signing contract with them is a wise step, because sooner or later you will need to resort to them to solve problems, looking forward to receiving helpful response from them.
There are many things that you might desire to do. For example, you may want to upgrade your account before the next payment date. Or you want to use additional modules in order to make your program run. Or maybe you want to move your domain from/to another registrant to/from the hosting company. Such activities require you to contact your hosting service.
Now, before hosting your sites with a hosting company, you can test how fast and good are their responses. First, a good hosting company should provide a live chat facility. Make sure that facility is active. That means that most of the time there will be somebody to reach. Then it is up to you whether you want to ask some questions to them.
A good company should also provide a ticket system. Just ask any important questions and notice how good is their reply. As a suggestion, it is not necessary to demand the “highest priority” when asking questions. Why? Because there may be other customers who need immediate attention from them.
Next, you may also check the forum. Notice how fast and helpful their replies are to the forum members. Companies with bad support may leave many questions unanswered. Just browse some sections which are intended for old customers as well as potential clientelle. Find out the way they solve their own customers’ problems.
How about contacting them over the telephone? Although it may not be that important, you may also try to contact them by phone. I have never done so, because the hosting service that I have been using for years are located abroad. In addition, reaching them through the ticket system or forum has always produced satisfactory responses to me.
Keep in mind that although you have chosen a company with good hosting support, you should not contact them immediately every time you meet a problem. Perhaps the problem lies on the script you are trying to install or is caused by an outside factor such as your ISP or computer cache. Just check first any possibilities before contacting them.
As you might have noticed before, there are too many cases to mention where the customers of a hosting company did not get any help from the web host when they really need it; from problems related to technical know-how to billing systems. By selecting a reliable provider you will keep off unreliable hosting companies who incline to ignore their clients.
Heris Yunora is the owner of UnlimitedHostingPlan.com .
His website contains the comparison between two reputable hosting companies which provide enthusiastic supports and also allow you to host unlimited domains .
Targeted Web Hosting – Harnessing the Full Potential of the Web for You and Your Business
April 29, 2008
Online presence is on the rise for UK businesses. In fact, research shows that there was a 50 percent increase in registered UK websites in 2006, compared to figures from the previous year. With the number of businesses increasing their online presence, it’s essential for companies to establish their online objectives and know their technical requirements, as well as to acquaint themselves with the tools and resources available to help them achieve their goals.
There are currently three major types of small and medium sized (SME) online businesses in the UK, based on attributes such as frequency of site use, number of hosting services utilized and the number of servers or IP addresses required. These SMEs are: small or personal-sized businesses, medium start-ups or entrepreneurial businesses, and larger, more established businesses. And while all of these SMEs may have a similar objective – to drive business via the web – each requires a different approach to harness the potential of the internet in their favour.
“Compact” or personal-sized businesses, for example, tend to have websites which are updated only occasionally, with the exception of blogs. These businesses predominantly seek good value for money and reliability from their hosted IT services. And, as they only need to update their sites sporadically, many use low-cost traffic driver tools to boost their search engine rankings. Basic shared web hosting services and easy setup tools, such as site builders and standard POP3 email accounts, are ideal for such businesses.
Medium start-ups or entrepreneurial businesses, on the other hand, are usually updated on a regular basis. However, their websites may not be the top driving factor of their business, so they tend to employ intermediate hosting solutions or dedicated servers. Such servers allow companies to control their own security and anti-virus protocols, and thus protect valuable information. Targeted, intermediate hosting solutions ultimately help entrepreneurial businesses improve site performance, increase flexibility and maintain a functionality which encourages growth.
Last but not least are larger, more established businesses. The online element of such businesses is integral to their day-to-day operations; they therefore tend to invest heavily in advanced hosting solutions. This is partly because they require multiple IP addresses for more secure remote internet services, and because they have higher website traffic, and thus, a requirement for higher data transfer limits. Unlimited data transfer and multiple dedicated servers are the best options for such online businesses, as they ensure high capacity, availability, access speeds and security.
If your online business fits the mould of these SMEs, the appropriately targeted web hosting service will more than likely benefit you. Moreover, you can find various specialised web hosting companies within the UK that can further advise you on services suited to your business situation. With the right approach, you can harness the full potential of the web for you and your business.
Andrew Regan is a freelance online journalist who travels extensively.
Web Hosting for Small Business or Home Business Websites
April 28, 2008
You have a small business company, or a shop, or a home business. You want to have a website but you do not want to pay for resources you don’t need and you won’t use. You need to search for a hosting company that has plans that match your needs.
The first step is to define which your needs are. I will provide a set of questions that may help you make the decision:
1 – Will your site be programmed in a language other than HTML and JavaScript? If so, you need to find a hosting plan that supports this language. Examples of programming languages are Php, ASP.NET and ColdFusion.
2 – Will your site need much disk space? Most sites don’t. It depends on the number of pages your site will have, the number of images, and if it will have downloadable documents or not. PDF documents take up some space, especially if you will have several of those. Just try to come up with a figure of the total of space you will need.
3 – Will you use a database? More than one database? None? If you will use a particular database, like Access or MySQL, you need to find a hosting package that includes that database engine. If you do not need a database, you may consider looking for a hosting package that does not include a database, they are generally cheaper alternatives.
4 – Do you expect lots of traffic? Most sites do not need a huge bandwidth, so paying for a hosting package with extra bandwidth is not worth in that case.
5 – Will you install a script you bought or downloaded ? Then you need to read the script requirements to be sure that the hosting package you choose will meet these requirements.
6 – How many email addresses will you need? We’re talking about mailbox@yourdomain.com email addresses here.
The questions above will help you get an idea of what you need in a hosting package. Then, there are other aspects to consider, like good customer support, reliability and whether the hosting package includes a control panel or not. You also need to pay attention to those before making up your mind and choosing a hosting company.
There are different kind of hosting services. If you are a small business or home business, then you don’t need a dedicated server. You need a virtual server hosting package, where you share the server with other companies. It does not affect you at all. You just have all control over your domain, but share the expenses with other accounts. Dedicated servers are much more expensive.
You will also find that there is Linux based hosting, and Windows hosting. Which one you pick depends on your personal preference. Some people prefer Linux, some people prefer Windows. If your site is programmed in ASP.NET or uses an Access database, you will need to get Windows hosting. If it is programmed in Php, you can get either Linux or Windows hosting, provided they support Php. These are just examples.
You see there are several aspects to take into consideration. Just think about all these and you will most likely find the right web hosting package for your website.
About the Author
Sergio Roth offers web hosting services at Ayreshost.com . You can contact him for advice on getting the right web hosting package for your website, and also about domain registration and custom programming.
Best Hosting Services Web
April 28, 2008
Getting the best hosting services on the web is vital to the success of any Web site. You need to make sure you are getting all of the essential services and features and that the hosting service you choose is reliable, has impeccable customer service and that they can guarantee your site will be up 99.99% of the time.
The following is a checklist to guide you as you search for the best hosting services on the web:
1) No setup fees ? there are hosting companies out there that charge step fees just to get your hosting started. Avoid these companies. You need a company that only requires you first purchase of hosting to get started.
2) You need at least 2 gigs of bandwidth. Even if your site is brand new and you’re not getting traffic, you have to plan for good traffic in the future. Basically, the amount of bandwidth is how many visitors you’re allowed to show your site to. Two gigabytes will take care of most Web site needs, easily. But, don’t accept anything less. The best web hosting companies offer this much even on their cheapest packages.
3) You need at least 50 MB of disk space quota. This is how much space your site takes up on the hosts servers (souped up hard drives). 50 MB is the minimum you should require as a start up Web site. Unless you plan to host a ton of pics or videos, then this definitely is enough disk space. Don’t settle for less though.
4) For a basic plan, you shouldn’t have to pay more than $10/month and for premium plans, no more than $70/month. Any more than this and you’re paying too much. Actual web disk space and bandwidth is like a commodity now. You should be able to get all you need without breaking the bank. Which brings me to the next point…
5) Technical support. Your host should be available 24/7 to take toll-free calls and/or emails regarding issues that pop up with your hosting account. The Internet doesn’t sleep, so you need to be able address any problems that come up with your hosting account immediately when they arise. Your Web hosting tech support needs to be there for you day and night.
6) Your Web hosting services needs to have a documented history of 99.99% uptime. If they haven’t been around for five years or more, or their record is spotty at best, look elsewhere.
7) Your Web hosting service needs to offer a control panel on the backend of the site. This is an area you can log in to and manage email addresses, files, software upload, ftp and any other Web site-related function. Control panels are a necessity. They make your life as a Webmaster much easier.
You should get at least 5 email accounts, access to a good stats counter and at least one MySQL database, so you can run a feature like a blog or membership area on your site.
9) It should be easy to upgrade to a better plan with more disk space and/or bandwidth, so that you can grow and expand your site as it gets more and more popular…and that’s the whole point. Right?
If the Web hosting service you’re looking at passes the above checklist test, then you should feel very good about purchasing a plan from them. Let them take care of hosting your site, so you can worry about more important things, like getting more visitors to your site.
You can’t go wrong with Curtis Reynaud’s ” best hosting services on web ” recommendations and more essential web hosting information.
How About These For Unique Web Hosting Options?
April 28, 2008
Three low or no cost alternatives for web hosting. Build your site and optomize it for high search engine placement automatically. Earn income for hosting with these providers.
How About These For Unique Web Hosting Options? Copyright 2002 by D. A. Bolick (Dear Old Dave) Selecting a web host can be a daunting task, if you have searched this out, you know from whence I speak. There are companies aplenty who will host your site for free, but you are required to carry advertising banners or the like. A site set up in this manner, however, screams to the world wide web that “your business is so lucrative, you can’t even afford to pay for web site hosting.” These are not the opportunities I am speaking of in the title of this article. You can literally pay from 0 to over a $100 plus per month for web hosting. Mind boggling. A friend of a friend is a web designer. She told me she always goes through a particular company for the sites she designs. This Company charges from $25-$90 per month for its different hosting packages. What in the world do they do for you that a $9.00 per month host doesn’t do? Well, I’m not going to get into the details, because they are as confusing as all get out. But, in general to consider, you have band width, email capability, average up time of their servers (your coveted web site server), extensions for Microsoft FrontPage, Unix, Microsoft 2000, SQL, SSL, JHP, PHP, FTP, HTML editing, etc. Trust me, there are all kinds of considerations neither you nor I are going to understand, nor do we need to in all but the most extreme circumstances.
Okay, as promised in the title, here are three web hosting alternatives. I am personally using all of these and can highly recommend them because they all give way more than adequate hosting space (MBS of bandwidth), and to my personal experience and others whose recommendations I value, they are all 99% or better reliable when it comes to up time. Also, their customer service departments are reliable and prompt in answering even newbie questions. ————————————————–
My first choice for web hosting at this point in time is Site Build It!. I am building a new site with it as we speak. Ken Evoy, the creator, is one of the top marketing, web site building and product creation experts on the Web. If you’ve done much surfing along these lines, you have no doubt come across his name.
I actually got started in this business by reading an extensive, free course on creating, naming, building and marketing a theme web site that was authored by Ken. If you’re interested in this area yourself, you can get this FREE course sent to you through email. Go to my main site at http://www.marketbetter.com/newsletter.htm to pick up direct links to all of the products or free courses detailed in this article.
Site Build It! is a comprehensive program that includes domain name registration and web site hosting, but it is so very much more than that. This program of Evoy’s leads you through
1. Brainstorming a theme for your web site that fills a niche, market optimized to bring highly targeted traffic to your site – ones who are specifically looking for your products or services.
2. It leads you through brainstorming the most keyword-effective domain name for your business. Then, it has a program that constantly analyzes the keyword density on all of your pages and suggests ways to optimize them for the highest possible search engine rankings. (Did you know that the best companies who specialize in optimizing search engine rankings for web site owners charge from $1000 to $5000 per year?)
3. All you do to build your sophisticated web pages, is fill in the blanks as Sit Build It’s training tutorial leads you through it.
Do you believe all that this one program does? It’s pretty incredible! It is capable of building web sites so well that many Professional Web Site Designers use it to build sites for their clients. You’ll find, that for a reliable web host and a decent amount of space, you’ll pay on average about $25/month in hosting fees, or $300 a year.
You will pay for domain registration (as high as $35/year) in addition to hosting fees.
An HTML editor such as FrontPage or DreamWeaver costs in excess of $200.
Search optimization? Well, that is just out of the price range for most of us.
Site Build It!’s cost is about the same price per year as just web hosting alone would be. And, it’s easy, and Ken is updating it all the time. And, if you have any questions, there is a really nice lady there who you can email or phone and she will answer them promptly. I highly recommend it. There are many more benefits I have not even detailed here, but you can see them for yourself at Ken’s site. Also, Ken has a great affiliate program which can reduce the cost to you and allow you to make a considerable income for just recommending a product you are going to love to recommend anyway.
You can even get a FREE introduction to Site Build It!, If you want to preview how it works. ————————————————-
Here is another very interesting way to get your site hosted for free. Plus, with this option, there are numerous other benefits. Host 4 Profit offers a 300 MB Business Hosting Package (300 mbs is a ton!) for only $24.95 Per Month. But, that’s not near all there is to this program. You get your Own Plug In Cash Machine Sites Ready To Take Orders. You get an incredible archive of marketing secrets, reports and ebooks to sell with reprint rights. You get a membership in the #1 Direct Marketing Support Forum on the internet! You get $10 per month for each new account you refer! They offer free Bahamas vacations as referral incentives. Need I say more? ————————————————–
Web Carriers hosts my main site, which I built in Microsoft’s FrontPage some time ago, a good HTML editor, but Site Build It! is much more user friendly, and includes so much much more in benefits (web hosting, domain registration, search engine optimization, etc). But, let’s say you have a web site already, and you are either not happy with your present host, or think you might be overpaying. This program may be for you.
You can go to Web Carriers directly for hosting, of course, but if you go to them through a membership in Go4Millions (they say they are the number 1 network marketing program on the internet, I don’t doubt it) you have an option of receiving major benefits for a nominal investment that also includes possibilities for residual profit.
Here is a positive benefit they offer that is worth considering.
Recently, Go4Millions launched its own premiere search engine submission service on the Internet. PlusRank.com is a submission service that G4M’s founder, John Gates, initiated with the webmaster’s economy in mind. With search submission services charging anywhere from $500 to $1,000, currently, getting your site listed on the top search engines is nothing short of a dream for most. Their revolutionary software, however, allows G4M to submit your site by hand to over 200 search engines within 48 hours and re-submit it every 30 days for a fraction of the price any other submission service would charge you.
With this service, they have also worked out a hosting plan for their members that is a major web bargain. Through this partnership agreement, Web Carriers offers 200MB fully featured web hosting to all Go4Millions members at half of their normal price!
Web Carriers has worked extremely well for me, so I can highly recommend it. It has all of the bells and whistles, including FrontPage extensions, a feature not available on most low price hosting services. You need these if you use FrontPage as your HTML editor.
Here is a breakdown that illustrates how much of a bargain G4M’s program is.
Monthly charge for Plus Rank Submission Services: $45/month Monthly Hosting fee for 200 MB from Web Carriers: $35/month Total: $80/month And, through a G4M membership, you get it for only $25 per month. You save $55 each month from here on out. Also, you get a domain name registered for one full year for FREE. (That’s about a $25 value on average.)
As I said earlier, you have to be a Go4Millions member to be eligible. This is a very legitimate MLM, affiliate based program that costs about $50 to join. For your money, you get John Gate’s Marketing Bible, Internet Marketing, Step By Step. This is a beefy manual, and John Gates is an experienced internet marketer, with an ezine, Hidden Secrets, that boasts around 300,000 subscribers. In other words, he knows what he’s talking about. This manual is well worth the Fifty bucks.
Find out exact details, if you are interested, at the URL listed above. As I said, I am personally a member of both. They have my wholehearted endorsement. ————————————————–
Now you have some potential money-making options for the trickier than tricky chore of choosing a web host. Go 4 It And Profit Too! And, don’t EVER be afraid of endorsing a product or program you have laid down your money for, and are satisfied with. That is a ringing endorsement! I trust you feel the same way!
Dear Old Dave is President of A-D Trading Publishers And Marketers and has owned or operated over ten retail, wholesale and golf-related businesses. He is a Webmaster, Author, PGA Golf Professional, Gourmet Cook and a very serious student of Internet and Conventional Marketing. DOD publishes “Small Business Owners Unite!”, a free, opt-in Newsletter on helping you to sell more of your products or services. Sign up or view more articles at http://www.marketbetter.com
About the Author
Dear Old Dave, President, A-D Trading Publishers and Marketers, adtrading@marketbetter.com Dave has owned or operated more than ten Retail, Wholesale and Golf-Related businesses, and has studied every aspect of successful marketing for more than thirty years now. He is a PGA Golf Professional, Author, Web Master, Wine Connoisseur, Gourmet Cook, former Snow Skiing Instructor and Editor of the free newsletter “Small Business Owners Unite!”. Sign up at http://www.marketbetter.com D-O-D’s other informational web sites include: http://www.reprint-gold.com http://www.dearolddave.com http://www.dodsgoldengoose.com
Understanding the Shared Webhosting
April 28, 2008
Copyright ? Dr. Nophea Kim Phat http://www.ActNowForProfits.com
This article is intended for online newbies.
If you are thinking of starting online home based business, shared webhsoting is the best option. Shared webhosting is an ideal for new online starters, individuals or small-to-medium scale businesses that cannot afford to have fast connection to the internet for their web site on their own. This is where the shared webhosting businesses come in. They provide the customers a way to outsource their Internet requirements in a more affordable way. Shared webhosting is housing and serving files for a web site.
Individuals and companies are allowed to share the cost of a fast Internet connection for serving files in the shared webhosting service allows. This is the basic, entry-level fee-based hosting service available to the customer. With shared webhosting clients are allowed to host their website on a powerful server at a minimal affordable monthly cost. Shared webhosting provides individual sites with connectivity and guaranteed uptime. Shared webhosting is designed to host small-scale e-commerce sites web pages. Shared webhosting is commonly used by first-time webmasters because they can have a reliable Web presence without having advanced technical know-how. Shared webhosting is good for small-scale consumer because they are assured of transparent services, domain name for its website and set of email addresses.
Due to its low cost, it makes shared webhosting very attractive to the consumers. A minimal monthly fee for a shared webhosting service is preferable than a dial-up service. Most small-scale business and individuals prefer shared webhosting because of its low price and it provides basic services. Furthermore, shared webhosting popularity is its convenience of use. Site activation and set-up time in shared webhosting is fast, usually takes a few minutes after ordering the services.
Usually, Shared webhosting services are bundled. With a minimal monthly fee, it offers multi-platform website solutions. Bundled services that are more than even for your businesses include: limited amount of disk storage space for web pages, limited amount of monthly data transfer, email forwarding services with physical email boxes that allows you email aliases at your domain name, unlimited file transfer protocol (FTP) services. Shared webhosting alos provide access to Web statistics for you to gage the number of internet visitors visiting your web site. This service usually includes raw statistical logs and site statistics (how many visitors visited your site). Also, shared webhosting will include free 24X7 technical supports. Tips: more visitors will consume more space of your data transfer, and that would cause your server to crush. If you expect rapid growing number of your visitors (for example if you invest more in advertising), you should choose a service that offer more space. The best option is to upgrade your hosting plan.
Additional services in a shared webhosting are daily tape backup of web site, anonymous FTP server for you to provide public access via file transfer protocol format and CGI-BIN access to upload scripts that will add features to your website. Tips: daily backup is also important for your business success!
Again if you are a new online starter (commonly called newbie), shared webhosting is truly a great way to avail of fast internet connection for your website at a very minimal monthly cost. You can start your home based business with a small investment of less than 100 bucks. Visit my site to read more home based business tips and opportunities.
About the Author
To find the best home based business ideas and opportunities so you can work at home visit: http://www.ActNowForProfits.com
What Features To Look For When Applying For Good Hosting Plan
April 28, 2008
When looking for a host, it will be useful to obtain as much information as possible about the web hosting company itself and the services they offer. These pre-sales questions are a way to check several things about the web hosting company. You can obtain detailed information about the services they offer – the web hosting plans they have, the features included there, etc.
These days hosting plans on the web are getting very competitive and features of each plan are comparatively the same among web hosting providers. Whether novice or expert, you can find some useful information in this article to learn about some of the considerations to look at when you choose a web hosting service.
In this article I will not talk about things like space ,traffic and prices since there are plenty of related articles nowadays rolling around the net. My goal will be to clarify some of the most important features you have to look for when choosing your web hosting provider.
The following are 10 basic features that can be found in a Unix/Linux hosting plans that every serious hosting provider should offer you.
? Control Panel – This is where you manage your hosting account. In the context of web hosting it is an on-line application that give us the user ability to control many aspects of his web hosting account including, but not limited to: creating mailboxes, setup email forwarding, uploading and editing files, creating sub domains, park additional domains, automated installing of ready to use scripts and programs, managing databases, setup shopping carts. You need to check what exactly is included in a given control panel with the web hosting company you have chosen to go with.Some hosts use a third party control panel like cPanel or Plesk. Others use an inhouse developed control panel.The moment you signup for a hosting package, you must be provided with a CP to manage your webspace.
? POP3 email accounts & aliases – yourname@yourdomain.com is an example POP3 email. POP3 is an electronic mail protocol used to retrieve messages stored on an Internet/intranet e-mail server. Whenever a client wants to check for messages it connects to its Internet Service Provider’s e-mail server and uses POP3 to login to its mailbox and download its messages.
? FTP Accounts & Virtual FTP – This is where you upload your files, delete them, update them. This again comes along with the CP. Make sure you have handful of FTP sub-accounts also to provide your clients/users password protected directories. This is very much useful wherein your clients / users can use the FTP to upload /download files from particular password protected folder of your website.
? Backup – Most of the Hosts take Automated Backups. But users do not take much care on this while choosing the hosting plan. This feature is as essential as any other in this list.
? Web Statistics – Analysis is of your website visitors plays a important role in the success of your website. Say, your website has been launched and you get 50 unique visitors or more than 500 visitors per day. Whatever the case may be, you can view the report using Statistics Application that run in the server backend. A popular web statistic software is Webalizer.
? PHP & Mysql Support – PHP is a scripting language that is especially suited for Web development and can be embedded into HTML. PHP is mainly focused on server-side scripting, so you can do anything any other CGI program can do, such as collect form data, generate dynamic page content, or send and receive cookies. MySQL is a true multi-user, multi-threaded SQL database server. MySQL is fast and flexible enough to allow you to store logs and pictures in it. Its main goals are speed, robustness, and ease of use.All the Linux Plans support PHP & Mysql. Make sure you get this free of charge when you buy the hosting plan. Few hosting providers offer good of MySQL Database Support & PhpMyAdmin.
? Webmail & SMTP – A web based email program. Most web hosting companies do provide webmail access to their customers. Often it comes with addressbook, rich text editor, spelling checker, and all the features of any other email program offers. Email becomes key part in your life once you launch the website. Check if the hosts provide with Webmail to check your mails thru a web based interface such as Squirrelmail or Horde. Checking email will be faster if you download the mails thru email clients such as Eudora or Outlook Express. Only if SMTP or IMAP support is enabled you can use this option. All our recommended hosts has this feature.
? SPAM Filter – No email user is free from a spam attack. It is the Email equivalent of junk mail. It is becoming one of the biggest problems in the Internet today.Hence you need to have spam filters installed on the server where your website resides.
? HTTPS (SSL) access to your hosting account. SSL is used for secure communication between the user browser and the server. The information is encrypted and secure. SSL is usually used for eCommerce sites and sites that require submission of other sensible information like usernames and passwords. To have an SSL on your site you can use the shared SSL certificate provided by your hosting company or you can purchase an SSL certificate for your site and ask the host to install it.
? Shell (telnet or SSH) access to your account. SSH is used for secure access to your account. SSH is usually offered on Unix hosting plans. You can zip, unzip files, change permissions of files, run certain programs on the server.
? Sub-domains for creating sub-sections to your site without having to use directories in URLs
? Shopping Cart – A shopping cart is a piece of software that acts as an online store’s catalog and ordering process.
These are the most common features of a good web hosting plan. A reputable web hosting provider should offer you at least these ones in his hosting plans.There are some more additions you can get from a good provider.
About the Author: Richard Clement is an online publisher dedicated in helping online users in various categories. He is an online marketing specialist and owner of “ItStandard.Net Ltd” hosting company.For more info visit his site http://www.itstandard.net
