Anybody researching the internet for web hosting services will find an abundance of hosting providers to choose from along with a multitude of plans available. You’ll also discover that the majority of providers will offer many of the same plan features. However, there are some hosting companies that offer additional tools directed towards internet marketers and the home business industry.
Even for experienced internet marketers, with the variety of companies and plans available, it’s not always easy to determine which web hosting service will best meet his or her specific business needs. With so many options, how do you know which hosting provider is best suited for you and your business?
One thing for certain is that whatever you decide, do not make the mistake of basing your decision on the price of hosting alone. One thing that has been substantiated time and time again is the old adage “you get what you pay for.” Well, this also applies to web hosting!
If you’re an internet marketer or own an internet home business, listed below are some common features you should be looking for in a web hosting package. Of course, it will be easy to find providers that offer more that what’s listed here (e.g. 1,000 MB of disk space, unlimited sub-domains, unlimited emails, etc), not to mention a number of additional features, so keep in mind that these benchmarks only represent a few of the minimum requirements:
- 300+ MB of Disk Space
- 10 GB or more of Monthly Bandwidth
- 50+ Email Accounts
- 20+ Sub-domains
- CGI-Bin
- 3+ MySQL Databases
In addition to these common features, there are some web hosting companies that cater to internet marketers and home business entrepreneurs by offering useful marketing tools as part of their hosting package. As you probably know, having access to in-demand marketing tools is a key ingredient in becoming successful on the internet. Some of the tools I’m referring to include:
- Unlimited Follow-up Autoresponders
- Resalable E-Book Collections
- FFA Leads
- Lead Capture Systems
- Ad Tracking
- Shopping Carts
- Scripts
- Affiliate Programs and Commissions
These tools are a great benefit to both new and experienced internet marketers. But, in addition to the tools, another very important difference I’ve found with these types of providers is their exceptional level of customer support. Whether it’s assisting with the installation of a script, a problem copying files to the server, or responding to a general question, the support staff tend to be very knowledgeable and can be contacted around the clock either via telephone, live chat or email.
Compared to some web hosting services, you may notice the cost of these plans to be slightly higher because of the extra marketing tools and the quality of customer support provided. However, with the growing popularity of internet marketing and the ever increasing number of new home businesses popping up on the internet, these providers can definitely give you an advantage over your competition. And, if you choose a provider that offers an affiliate program, you could even end up with free web hosting and a profit to boot!
Showing posts with label webmaster. Show all posts
Showing posts with label webmaster. Show all posts
Friday, June 18, 2010
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
7 Simple Steps For Choosing A Great Web Host
There are thousands of web hosts around today with thousands of plans to choose from making what was once a simple procedure seem like a daunting task for both newbie and pro alike.
Whether you're looking for your first host or looking to move on to a better one there are 7 simple steps you must follow to succeed in choosing a great host.
1. Platform
The first and most crucial step in choosing a web host is determining the platform the web server should run, usually a choice between Unix/Linux and Windows.
Your choice is largely determined by your website and the technologies used to create it, generally a website created with Microsoft technologies (ASP, VB) will run on Windows servers while most other sites using open source technologies (PHP, Perl, Python etc) will run on Linux based systems.
2. Features
Once you've chosen your platform the next step is determining the features you'll need from your web host. Take your time with this step as the feature lists of web hosts are getting longer and longer every day and while some plans may look similar on the surface, a good look at the feature lists may tell another story.
Only you can determine the specific features you'll need, but some key things to keep an eye on are:
Disk Space
Bandwidth
Backups
Uptime
Money Back Guarantee
Domains Allowed
Databases (Number & type)
CGI, PHP, Perl, Python, SSI
Cron
Email accounts
The list goes on and on, just remember to take your time and make sure your new web host is going to provide you with everything you need.
3. Cost
Often this is the only thing people consider when choosing their first web host, funds are usually tight and on the surface most hosts look very similar. Sometimes you get lucky and choose a good host, but more often than not it turns out to be a horror story.
I can't stress enough that choosing a web host based on price alone is asking for trouble, remember that the cost of your web hosting is more than just the monthly fee, think about the total cost of ownership. TCO includes lost sales due to downtime & slow speeds, downtime rebates, extra bandwidth charges, setup costs, extra feature costs, and your monthly fee.
Many hosts will require you to pay yearly to get the best price available though there are some that allow you to pay by the month and still get the best price, it's really a matter of personal choice as to what payment method works best for you.
4. Customer Service
Customer service is another aspect that is often forgotten about until it is too late, something breaks and you need it fixed and those wonderfully handy sales people who were more than helpful in taking your money are now nowhere to be seen, all the while you're losing out on sales every minute.
You shouldn't settle for anything less than 24/7/365 service, your website needs to be running all the time so it's no good if your hosting company doesn't work during the holidays. Don't take the web hosting companies word for it, they all claim 24/7 support but few back it up with consistent performance. Be sure to test them out at various times of the day and night via phone, email and live chat if they offer it.
5. Support
An extensive knowledge base or faq can be a real time saver as well as being an indication of the level of customer service support and expertise you can expect to receive. Spend some time browsing the support sections of the website and see for yourself the level of support provided.
Are questions in the knowledge base answered thoroughly? Are real solutions provided or are they just “cut and paste” replies?
6. Longevity
Do a whois on the web host's domain name and find out the creation date, anything less than a year ago and the risk that they won't be around next year increases. They could be a great host, but considering more then 95% of new hosts go out of business within a year that really isn't something you should be taking a chance on.
7. Uptime
It's a fact of life that a web host cannot be online 100% of the time, servers need to be rebooted for security and software updates and any web host that doesn't get updated faces the increased risk of being successfully hacked.
99.9% uptime guarantees are pretty standard in the industry however a guarantee is only as good as how it is defined and the company behind it. Look for no less than a full months free hosting should they not meet their guarantee, a prorated refund based on the amount of downtime is virtually worthless. Say you pay $10 for a month of hosting and your site is down for 24 hours. They will refund you for one day of downtime which ends up being about 33 cents.
There you go, 7 simple steps for choosing a great web host. It's not rocket science, just a little research and investigating that can save a lot of heartache in the future.
Whether you're looking for your first host or looking to move on to a better one there are 7 simple steps you must follow to succeed in choosing a great host.
1. Platform
The first and most crucial step in choosing a web host is determining the platform the web server should run, usually a choice between Unix/Linux and Windows.
Your choice is largely determined by your website and the technologies used to create it, generally a website created with Microsoft technologies (ASP, VB) will run on Windows servers while most other sites using open source technologies (PHP, Perl, Python etc) will run on Linux based systems.
2. Features
Once you've chosen your platform the next step is determining the features you'll need from your web host. Take your time with this step as the feature lists of web hosts are getting longer and longer every day and while some plans may look similar on the surface, a good look at the feature lists may tell another story.
Only you can determine the specific features you'll need, but some key things to keep an eye on are:
Disk Space
Bandwidth
Backups
Uptime
Money Back Guarantee
Domains Allowed
Databases (Number & type)
CGI, PHP, Perl, Python, SSI
Cron
Email accounts
The list goes on and on, just remember to take your time and make sure your new web host is going to provide you with everything you need.
3. Cost
Often this is the only thing people consider when choosing their first web host, funds are usually tight and on the surface most hosts look very similar. Sometimes you get lucky and choose a good host, but more often than not it turns out to be a horror story.
I can't stress enough that choosing a web host based on price alone is asking for trouble, remember that the cost of your web hosting is more than just the monthly fee, think about the total cost of ownership. TCO includes lost sales due to downtime & slow speeds, downtime rebates, extra bandwidth charges, setup costs, extra feature costs, and your monthly fee.
Many hosts will require you to pay yearly to get the best price available though there are some that allow you to pay by the month and still get the best price, it's really a matter of personal choice as to what payment method works best for you.
4. Customer Service
Customer service is another aspect that is often forgotten about until it is too late, something breaks and you need it fixed and those wonderfully handy sales people who were more than helpful in taking your money are now nowhere to be seen, all the while you're losing out on sales every minute.
You shouldn't settle for anything less than 24/7/365 service, your website needs to be running all the time so it's no good if your hosting company doesn't work during the holidays. Don't take the web hosting companies word for it, they all claim 24/7 support but few back it up with consistent performance. Be sure to test them out at various times of the day and night via phone, email and live chat if they offer it.
5. Support
An extensive knowledge base or faq can be a real time saver as well as being an indication of the level of customer service support and expertise you can expect to receive. Spend some time browsing the support sections of the website and see for yourself the level of support provided.
Are questions in the knowledge base answered thoroughly? Are real solutions provided or are they just “cut and paste” replies?
6. Longevity
Do a whois on the web host's domain name and find out the creation date, anything less than a year ago and the risk that they won't be around next year increases. They could be a great host, but considering more then 95% of new hosts go out of business within a year that really isn't something you should be taking a chance on.
7. Uptime
It's a fact of life that a web host cannot be online 100% of the time, servers need to be rebooted for security and software updates and any web host that doesn't get updated faces the increased risk of being successfully hacked.
99.9% uptime guarantees are pretty standard in the industry however a guarantee is only as good as how it is defined and the company behind it. Look for no less than a full months free hosting should they not meet their guarantee, a prorated refund based on the amount of downtime is virtually worthless. Say you pay $10 for a month of hosting and your site is down for 24 hours. They will refund you for one day of downtime which ends up being about 33 cents.
There you go, 7 simple steps for choosing a great web host. It's not rocket science, just a little research and investigating that can save a lot of heartache in the future.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Choosing Between Free or Paid Web Hosting
There are a number of things to consider when choosing between a free or paid web hosting service. Setting aside cost for a moment, lets look at some factors that will help you make an informative decision.
The very first thing you must consider is the intent or purpose of your website. Are you looking for a convenient way to share photos of family and friends? Or, are you considering something a little more complex such as adding multiple pages with different content on each? How about a website to promote a product or business?
The purpose of your website will act as a key component in determining which type of web hosting service is best suited for you. For example, if your website will be used primarily for personal postings, your file sizes aren’t very large and you don’t expect a lot of traffic, you won’t require a lot of disk space or bandwidth for your hosting.
If this is the case, a free web hosting service may meet your needs. Free web hosting services are also useful if you’re inexperienced in creating web pages. This type of service can provide an excellent opportunity for you to learn and practice your html skills. You could even use a free service as a test site before uploading your web pages to your live website.
Keep in mind that most free web hosting services provide limited features compared to paid web hosting services, but normally offer enough disk space and bandwidth to host a small website. To help offset costs, though, most free providers will place advertisements on your web pages.
With paid hosting, you’ll find a variety of available plans to choose from. These plans allow more disk space and bandwidth, and usually include a number of other features such as free domain names, free sub-domains and unlimited email accounts. Some of the more advanced common features are a CGI-Bin, MySQL databases and Microsoft FrontPage extensions.
Compared to free web hosting, you’ll also find that the services provided by paid web hosting companies are much more reliable, not to mention offering a higher level of customer support.
Cost wise, there is no charge to register for a free web hosting service, although you may be required to purchase your own domain name. For a basic paid service, you can expect to pay anywhere from $5 to $10 per month – a very small price for the improved service, support and features you receive.
The very first thing you must consider is the intent or purpose of your website. Are you looking for a convenient way to share photos of family and friends? Or, are you considering something a little more complex such as adding multiple pages with different content on each? How about a website to promote a product or business?
The purpose of your website will act as a key component in determining which type of web hosting service is best suited for you. For example, if your website will be used primarily for personal postings, your file sizes aren’t very large and you don’t expect a lot of traffic, you won’t require a lot of disk space or bandwidth for your hosting.
If this is the case, a free web hosting service may meet your needs. Free web hosting services are also useful if you’re inexperienced in creating web pages. This type of service can provide an excellent opportunity for you to learn and practice your html skills. You could even use a free service as a test site before uploading your web pages to your live website.
Keep in mind that most free web hosting services provide limited features compared to paid web hosting services, but normally offer enough disk space and bandwidth to host a small website. To help offset costs, though, most free providers will place advertisements on your web pages.
With paid hosting, you’ll find a variety of available plans to choose from. These plans allow more disk space and bandwidth, and usually include a number of other features such as free domain names, free sub-domains and unlimited email accounts. Some of the more advanced common features are a CGI-Bin, MySQL databases and Microsoft FrontPage extensions.
Compared to free web hosting, you’ll also find that the services provided by paid web hosting companies are much more reliable, not to mention offering a higher level of customer support.
Cost wise, there is no charge to register for a free web hosting service, although you may be required to purchase your own domain name. For a basic paid service, you can expect to pay anywhere from $5 to $10 per month – a very small price for the improved service, support and features you receive.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
ResellersPanel Goes Dedicated and Expands Its Presence in Europe
ResellersPanel, the emblem of free reseller hosting, announces the launch of its new line of dedicated, semi-dedicated and virtual private servers. A dedicated hosting service means that the client rents an entire server not shared with anyone else, which is typically located in a data center. Besides choosing one of ResellersPanel's five predefined dedicated server packages offering top-notch hardware and the latest cutting-edge processors from Intel and AMD, the more advanced users can also build their own server configuration up from scratch. They are provided with complete root access and thus will be able to install and configure any additional software, and also to reboot the server at any time. Those who do not possess the skills necessary to maintain a dedicated server can consider one of ResellersPanel's Managed Services packages and free themselves of any administration responsibilities.
ResellersPanel has launched three virtual private server packages offering 200, 400 and 800 GB monthly traffic, respectively, as well. A virtual private server implies the division of a physical server into smaller virtual ones, which work as if they were dedicated servers and run their own full-fledged operating systems. The users can choose between Cent OS, Fedora Core 4 and Debian OSs, and between Plesk and cPanel web hosting control panel types. They can reboot their machines independently with the help of the Virtuozzo Power Console, a software-based virtualization environment, and install almost any software that runs on the chosen OS. The semi-dedicated servers, on the other hand, will be accommodating no more than 5-6 accounts each, so that every user will be able to use up to 20% of the CPU resources, perform up to 90 000 MySQL queries per hour and host unlimited domains and e-mail addresses.
In addition, ResellersPanel has started offering hosting services that use servers located in the BlueSquare data center in Maidenhead, England - a move the company has made to the benefit of its European clients. The rest of the servers are housed in Peer1's data center in Fremont, California.
ResellersPanel's CEO Kalin Blaskoff said that ResellersPanel dedicates the dedicated servers to its dedicated clients, that the company has deployed servers located in the United Kingdom because of the growing demand from its resellers, 25% of whom prefer to be hosted on European-based servers because of their geographical location, and that compared to the American hosting market, the European one is twice as big in terms of population.
Nick Blaskov, CFO of ResellersPanel, said that the semi-dedicated hosting solution is for those who find the resources offered by a shared hosting account inconsistent with their growing online requirements, that the virtual private servers combine the affordability of a shared account with the power and independence offered by a dedicated server, and that the dedicated server solution lets the users host their websites on their own independent server and thus say good-bye to any speed, stability and bandwidth-related troubles encountered with the other types of hosting.
About ResellersPanel
ResellersPanel is the only company in the web hosting business, which offers a completely free, fully-automated reseller hosting program.
ResellersPanel has launched three virtual private server packages offering 200, 400 and 800 GB monthly traffic, respectively, as well. A virtual private server implies the division of a physical server into smaller virtual ones, which work as if they were dedicated servers and run their own full-fledged operating systems. The users can choose between Cent OS, Fedora Core 4 and Debian OSs, and between Plesk and cPanel web hosting control panel types. They can reboot their machines independently with the help of the Virtuozzo Power Console, a software-based virtualization environment, and install almost any software that runs on the chosen OS. The semi-dedicated servers, on the other hand, will be accommodating no more than 5-6 accounts each, so that every user will be able to use up to 20% of the CPU resources, perform up to 90 000 MySQL queries per hour and host unlimited domains and e-mail addresses.
In addition, ResellersPanel has started offering hosting services that use servers located in the BlueSquare data center in Maidenhead, England - a move the company has made to the benefit of its European clients. The rest of the servers are housed in Peer1's data center in Fremont, California.
ResellersPanel's CEO Kalin Blaskoff said that ResellersPanel dedicates the dedicated servers to its dedicated clients, that the company has deployed servers located in the United Kingdom because of the growing demand from its resellers, 25% of whom prefer to be hosted on European-based servers because of their geographical location, and that compared to the American hosting market, the European one is twice as big in terms of population.
Nick Blaskov, CFO of ResellersPanel, said that the semi-dedicated hosting solution is for those who find the resources offered by a shared hosting account inconsistent with their growing online requirements, that the virtual private servers combine the affordability of a shared account with the power and independence offered by a dedicated server, and that the dedicated server solution lets the users host their websites on their own independent server and thus say good-bye to any speed, stability and bandwidth-related troubles encountered with the other types of hosting.
About ResellersPanel
ResellersPanel is the only company in the web hosting business, which offers a completely free, fully-automated reseller hosting program.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
