Monday, October 30, 2006

Web Hosting and Design Services Companies

Huge businesses and organizations spend a lot of time and money creating magnificent websites that are of top quality in terms of their looks and programming capabilities. Very often, they get disappointed when they approach their web hosting service provider to launch their brilliant sites because of server incompatibilities. Some of them realize that parts of their website's functionality do not work correctly when hosted on to their server; some of them realize that a particular service, which would be the core to their business model, could not be implemented on their server. In such situations, these companies have to spend additional time and money to make their website functionalities compatible with their server specifications.

All of this happens because of the gulf that exists between the web design company and the web hosting service provider. This could be avoided to a certain extent by having your web design company communicate with your web hosting company before your website is built. However, this may not be an apt solution because your web hosting company has to be cooperative in responding to your web design company.

The ideal solution in such situations is to look for companies that will offer both services. There are many companies today that offer multiple services. Therefore, you need to find a reliable company that offers both web design and web hosting services. You will win a great advantage by hiring such a company to take care of your web design and web hosting needs. You do not have to worry about wasting your time and money in restructuring your website to make it compatible to your hosting server. While analyzing your requirements itself, the web design team will be able to advise you on any issues that may rise later or at least take care of the issues during the development phase.

If you are new to online business and just setting up your new website then the above points are very pertinent to you. As a fresher to the field, you will not be able to make wise decisions on the features and functions of your website that will lead to functional efficiency of your website. Very often, it happens that the new comer finds it difficult to translate what their web hosting company says in terms of server compatibility, Operating System, scripts etc to their web design company. This inadequacy of the website owner leads to the delay in the completion of their website. If they have not anticipated this delay but planned to have their website launched before a certain season to promote their business, there is a great danger of missing their deadline, defeating the whole purpose of having a website.

Hiring a company that offers both web design and web hosting service will also help you in the long run. This will help your website maintenance become much easier. Every website needs periodic maintenance at hosting levels and at design levels to ensure continued efficiency of operation of the website. Therefore, when it comes to website maintenance, you need not have to run to two different vendors. You can have them all done from the same vendor. It is all the better to get your website maintenance service from those who developed your website.

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Thursday, October 26, 2006

What to Ask For at Your Web Hosting Service

Web hosting is the backbone of your online business and it is one of the most crucial services that ensures your online presence. There are thousands of web-hosting service providers and all of them claim to be the best. Therefore, it is a difficult process to identify the right web hosting service provider.

There are a few important questions that you must ask your web-hosting service provider before you sign up. Normally, the first question people ask is about the cost involved. Though it is an important factor that will help you make your decision, cost should not be treated as the primary factor. There are other crucial factors that need to be addressed.

You must first ask your web host about their average server uptime. Most of the hosting service providers advertise 99.9% uptime, but, in reality, it may not be so. There are a number of server related problems that can keep the visitors off from your website.

Second, you must ask your web host about the connection speed. You must have fast connections to give your website users an enhanced visitor experience. If the connections are slow, your website will take a long time to load and server connection will get disconnected before people can see your website, leading to annoying "The page cannot be displayed error."

Third, you must know how much web space you get for the package you are signing up for. Most web hosts offer flexible packages. You should be able to advise your web host on the web space depending on the nature of your requirements. There are web hosting packages that range from 10mb or less to several GBs. The greater the space the greater the price.

Along with the allotted web space, you must also be clear about the data transfer bandwidth that is allowed for your package. If you anticipate high traffic, it is better to go with packages that have higher bandwidth capabilities.

The next question will be on the number of email addresses you can configure. There are many web hosting companies that offer unlimited email addresses. If you choose a lower end package, the number of email addresses may be limited to 5 or 10 or 25, depending on the web hosting package you choose.

You must also be clear about the nature of the database tools that are available and the database types supported by your web hosting service provider.

If your website is intended to sell your products online, it is important that you have a reliable shopping cart. Make sure you check with your web host whether you have any built-in shopping carts installed and the procedure to customize them to your specific need.

With the advent of the open source technology, web hosting service providers offer a number of free yet useful scripts for their customers bundled with the web hosting package. Check with your web host on the available free scripts, such as forums, blogs, chat support, web statistic tools, etc.

The control panel should be highly user friendly. Your list of questions to your web host must have a question about the control panel features.

Above all, the customer support capabilities of your web host and the turn-around time to resolve server related issues and other complaints is very crucial. To stand the competition, most web hosting service providers offer 24x7 customer support service to their clients. Make sure that your complaints will be addressed during weekends as well.

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Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Benefits of Web Content Today

The basic concept of marketing your Web site and your business on the Internet is to give something away. It is in offering something for free on the Web that you make money.
If you keep in mind two basic rules for the Internet you'll succeed in marketing your firm on the Web. These two rules are that consumers expect something for nothing when they go to the Web, and they expect it NOW.

If you deliver on both these things, your chances of growing your business through e-commerce are excellent, assuming that your product or services are of excellent quality and marketable and that your customer service is top notch.

In most cases, the easiest and least costly thing to give away, and the one that best markets your business, is Web content. It doesn't cost you anything but time to put free content on your Web site unless you don't feel up to the writing task. Then you simply find someone else to write it for you. Your site and web hosting is not enough.

Your Web content should be related to your firm's industry, and your products and services, without being blatantly self serving. Not only will you have people flocking to your site through search engine keyword searches, but you'll also be promoting yourself as an expert in your field. This expertise can bring you more recognition than a ton of paid advertising.

Nor does the Web content you write need to be limited to your own site. There are plenty of Web sites who would welcome your information. Never place your articles on the site of competitors. Businesses who have related products or services would welcome your Web content, however. This affiliation could enhance both sites' Internet marketing efforts.

As an example, we'll assume you're Jane Jones and you own Plane Jane's Hobby Shop. You specialize in model planes and cars, and doll house construction kits. You write a series of articles for your site about the best model vehicle kits for a beginner, about what kits to buy for which age group, and about the history of classic cars and planes. These articles would be free on your Web site and keyword searches would draw people to your site for the information. Hopefully these same folks would stay and buy a model kit or two.

You could expand your audience further by offering your articles free to other Webmasters and entrepreneurs, as articles for their Web sites. While you wouldn't want to make that offer to other hobby shops you would be wise to place your articles on the site of hobby organizations, classic car clubs, stores that sell dolls, associations of doll collectors and parenting sites.
Before you upload your articles, however, you must make sure your site is attractive and professional looking, with easy navigation, links that work, and no grammar or spelling errors. Get several folks you trust to peruse your site, try every link and browse every page before you take it and your Web content marketing live.

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