Wednesday, August 26, 2009

WEB HOSTING WITH DOMAIN REGISTRATION

Top rank, on the list below, could be given to the web hosting company that is most popular with it's customers. Because this is really a difficult stat to track, top rankings go to hosting that pays the most commission to it's sales affiliates (promoters of the hosting). Payouts are easily tracked at cj.com under 5 bar Network Earnings, and by comparing commission of companies outside of cj.com. When payouts are good, the company shows good business relations.
Register your own domain name, Today!
Top 10 Web Hosting:
#1 iPowerWeb - 1500 GBs of space, 15,000 GBs of bandwidth and Free set up. Get a $50 free credit towards Google AdWords, and $25 free towards Yahoo Search Marketing. One good goal of iPowerWeb is to provide quality products and solutions at affordable prices. Now hosting over 700,000 websites, from over 100 countries! Hacker safe - tested daily!

#2 Reliable, Affordable, Unbeatable. Lunarpages takes care of your website, so you don't have to. Claim $25 off, with coupon code 25OffHosting . Plus, Free Domain for Life and Unlimited website hosting. Offers top web design templates and 24/7 award-winning support. All servers are tested daily and are hacker safe!

#3 Host Gator - Best dedicated web server hosting. 45 day Money-Back-Guarantee. 99.9% uptime guarantee! No contracts or hidden fees. Now hosting over 2 million domains! Meets all BBBOnLine membership standards!

#4 Reliable Business Hosting - Bluehost.com - Users can host unlimited domains! Claim a Free life-long domain, Today! Free site builder! Free set up, with no hidden fees. Maximum guaranteed uptime, for your site! See a Demo of the Blue Host Control Panel!

#5 Go Daddy - Offers Bulk Domain Registration, to save money! Web hosting, from $4.25 a month. No setup fee, no ad banners or pop-ups, and no annual commitment required! Offers free 24x7 monitoring. Voted "Best Registrar" in the 2009 Domain Name Wire annual survey, for the 4th consecutive year.

#6 Globat - The GX01 hosting package offers unlimited disk space, at only $4.44 a month. Zero set-up fees. 30 day money back and 100% customer satisfaction guarantee. Valid BBBOnLine Trustmark!

#7 Host Monster - Buy unlimited Domains on 1 account - for professionals. Free set up, no hidden fees. Now hosting over 450,000 domains! No long term contracts - cancel anytime, with No cancellation fee!

#8 StartLogic - Real people, real service, real savings. Transfer your existing web site for lower monthly rate. Offers Search Engine Optimization, to get your site seen by a larger audience. 99.9% uptime guarantee, for your site!

#9 IX Web Hosting - Basic Hosting "Expert" Plan is only $3.95/mo per month. Includes 1 Free domain registration and $25 free in Google ad credits.

#10 3Essentials - Free set up for all shared hosting - no hidden fees. 30 day money back guarantee. 99.99% server and network uptime. Free WordPress install. Valid BBBOnLineTrustmark.
Choosing a paid Web hosting services provider can be a challenge. There are literally thousands of companies that offer countless products and services. It can be a difficult task for a novice as well as for a seasoned professional, but it doesn’t have to be. We’ve broken the process down into three steps.
Step One: Free or Paid Hosting?
Step Two: Determine Expectations
Step Three: Compare Hosts in the Right Category
Step One: Free or Paid Hosting?To pay or not to pay?A large percentage of Web sites are ‘free’ and posted by individuals for personal reasons. Typically, these sites are associated with one of the larger portals such as Yahoo or AOL and consist of a page or two with limited content. If you’re looking to put up a personal site like this, look no further than the solutions offered by these two companies. The tools and applications such as email, community interest portals and photo management software provided are straightforward and make setting your site up very easy.
The downside to free hosting? Generally you'll have to put up with banner ads on your homepage or other ads you don’t get to pick. To be fair, it’s how these companies can afford to set up your infrastructure for free. All the same, you have no control over whose ad shows up on your site. If that’s unacceptable, a paid hosting solution (some start lower than $5/mo) might be your best bet.
Most Web hosting companies bundle services into a series of packages. The standard hosting service component is normally a bundle of disk storage space (where your site is stored) and bandwidth (the capacity for data transfer of a wired or wireless communication system.) In addition, hosting companies usually bundle email services with standard plans. The email service contains POP and IMAP solutions which direct email received through your site to desktop applications (Outlook® or Exchange®.) “Web-mail” is also provided to view and manage email through a Web browser.
Frequently, small businesses want a Web site that functions only as an online brochure that provides information about the business but not sell products. Standard packages are ideal if you’re building a simple brochure site. Additional service packages offer eCommerce, media intensive applications for video and audio sharing and dedicated servers, designed to back-up more complex business requirements. Paid solutions pretty much come down to whether you’re going to sell products and services online or just display information in a brochure format and what kind of customer and technical support you’ll require.
Step Two: Determine ExpectationsYou Get What you Pay ForThere are basically two price levels prevalent in Web hosting. There’s a large group of Low Price or Discount hosts that offer nice solutions from below $5 to $15 per month and there are hosts that offer solutions that start above $15 and the pricing goes up from there. Companies such as Affinity have developed a number of different hosting brands to help simplify the customer experience. As an example, Affinity uses the Host Save and Win Save brands for their low-cost hosting solutions and the Value Web brand for their premium services.
Customer service is usually the primary difference between inexpensive hosting solutions and the higher priced options. Here’s where the “you get what you pay for” maxim comes into play. Prior to choosing a provider it’s important to determine how serious you are. In other words, if the site is your small business lifeline, where you’ll find customers, display, sell and even ship products you probably don’t want a hosting company that won’t answer calls when there’s a problem. On the contrary, many experienced professionals would rather not talk to someone and prefer technical support and customer service through email or online chat.
Clarifying expectations ahead of time can mean the difference between a great online experience or completely frustrated and without support. The extra $10 per month may be worth the piece of mind it buys.
Step Three: Compare Hosts in the Right CategoryOnce you know whether you need a standard hosting plan or an eCommerce solution and whether low price or premium (a.k.a. better customer support) hosting is right for you, it’s time to shop. Any of the major search engines will provide a multitude of responses with a query such as Web Hosting or eCommerce hosting. You can even narrow your search with more definition. A search for “Cheap eCommerce hosting” will yield mostly companies whose solutions fall in the low price category.
Take some time and visit several hosting company’s Web sites. Go over plan options and see which offer the services and support that match your expectations. Because of the similarities, hosting plans can become confusing. Most major providers have a “Compare Plans” page you can print. Its good to print out the various packages and have them in hand while you shop.
Using Affinity’s Value Web brand as an example, some hosts offer a portal where you’re free to ask existing customers if they’re satisfied and recommend the provider. Look for this function as you shop, it’s an excellent tool in how to determine whether a company is right for you. Unless you’re an experienced professional you shouldn’t buy a solution without at least first talking to a sales rep at the company. This gives a sense of the company’s commitment to its customers. Many also call the technical support numbers to see how long it takes to answer and how friendly and knowledgeable the staff is. Companies such as Affinity combined sales and support departments so when you order an account you’re talking to a technical support representative as well. This creates a forum in which all questions can be answered without having to be transferred to other departments.
It’s important to find a hosting relationship that fits your needs and whose level of involvement you feel comfortable with. Following these steps will make choosing a Web hosting solution easier and, hopefully, even fun.
1What do you look for in a web host? A low price? Reliability and good support I hope. If you’re anything like today’s ambitious webmaster, you’re on the hunt for the best features. There’s a lot of programs and management tools available to make your site standout but I bet there are some features you pay no mind at all. Often overlooked but one should never forget about critical security features as they will help to keep your web hosting environment protected from an array of threats. Security features are abundant but here some you simply can’t do without:
SFTPShort for Secure File Transfer Protocol, SFTP is more efficient and secure variation of FTP. In its purest form, FTP only has the ability to transfer files, leaving them vulnerable to a range of security breaches such as eavesdropping, tampering and even interception of the entire file. A web hosting company offering SFTP provides you with the ability to secure your files in transit with SSH (Secure Shell Host), a protocol that protects data with government recommended 128-bit encryption.
SSLSecure Sockets Layer or SSL, should be incorporated on any website that sells products or services. SSL is a standard encryption protocol designed to keep Internet communications secure. If a web hosting company doesn’t support a shared or private SSL certificate, you need to turn in the opposite direction and find yourself another provider.
Data BackupsData backup and restoration is not only something that should be practiced with the files on your hard drive, but those on the web host’s server as well. All it takes is one technical difficulty or natural disaster for the web hosting company to lose a server and all of your website data. The good thing is that most providers perform redundant backups to ensure that your data can be restored in the event of a failure. To be on the safe side, I recommend looking into a web host that offers a utility that allows you to backup your own data.
Network SecurityAside from protecting your files and website transactions, you also need to keep an eye out for security features that protect the web hosting company’s network. Do a little research to learn how the web host is protecting their infrastructure, keeping in mind that intrusion detection systems, firewalls, DDoS protection, virus and spam filtering are common features. Servers are prime targets of hackers and malicious code writers so if the hardware is breached or goes down, your website will suffer right along with it.These are just a few of numerous security features a web hosting company should offer to ensure the safety of your website data. Hackers are constantly trying to crack into web servers while malware writers are releasing new infectious strains everyday. A web host that doesn’t take this into mind is essentially leaving you wide open for exploitation.
What do you look for in a web host? A low price? Reliability and good support I hope. If you’re anything like today’s ambitious webmaster, you’re on the hunt for the best features. There’s a lot of programs and management tools available to make your site standout but I bet there are some features you pay no mind at all. Often overlooked but one should never forget about critical security features as they will help to keep your web hosting environment protected from an array of threats. Security features are abundant but here some you simply can’t do without:

SFTP
Short for Secure File Transfer Protocol, SFTP is more efficient and secure variation of FTP. In its purest form, FTP only has the ability to transfer files, leaving them vulnerable to a range of security breaches such as eavesdropping, tampering and even interception of the entire file. A web hosting company offering SFTP provides you with the ability to secure your files in transit with SSH (Secure Shell Host), a protocol that protects data with government recommended 128-bit encryption.
SSL
Secure Sockets Layer or SSL, should be incorporated on any website that sells products or services. SSL is a standard encryption protocol designed to keep Internet communications secure. If a web hosting company doesn’t support a shared or private SSL certificate, you need to turn in the opposite direction and find yourself another provider.
Data Backups
Data backup and restoration is not only something that should be practiced with the files on your hard drive, but those on the web host’s server as well. All it takes is one technical difficulty or natural disaster for the web hosting company to lose a server and all of your website data. The good thing is that most providers perform redundant backups to ensure that your data can be restored in the event of a failure. To be on the safe side, I recommend looking into a web host that offers a utility that allows you to backup your own data.
Network Security
Aside from protecting your files and website transactions, you also need to keep an eye out for security features that protect the web hosting company’s network. Do a little research to learn how the web host is protecting their infrastructure, keeping in mind that intrusion detection systems, firewalls, DDoS protection, virus and spam filtering are common features. Servers are prime targets of hackers and malicious code writers so if the hardware is breached or goes down, your website will suffer right along with it.These are just a few of numerous security features a web hosting company should offer to ensure the safety of your website data. Hackers are constantly trying to crack into web servers while malware writers are releasing new infectious strains everyday. A web host that doesn’t take this into mind is essentially leaving you wide open for exploitation.
There is no one service which will please everyone. You can find free web hosts services by searches on Google and other search engines for "free web hosting".
How to choose a choose web hosting provider Choosing a free web host can be tough, especially since they are many who claim to be the best free hosts around. There are some that are great, some that are average, and some that are really bad. They might offer nice features, but with ads on your site. They wont put advertisements on your site, but have really bad features and/or support. Choosing a good free host is usually a hit or a miss, and can be frustrating at times. Remember that you don't get any guarantees with free hosting, so if your site isn't there when you wake up next morning, you can't complain about it because its free!
Make sure you have these features when choosing a free host:
More than 100Mb disk space
More than 1Gb bandwidth
At least 1 FTP account
Free subdomain (i.e yourname.freewebhostprovider.com)
Allowed to host your own domain
No ads on your sites
Some good free hosts may offer:
cPanel Control Panel or DirectAdmin Control Panel
MySQL Databases, PHP, CGI
Email Accounts
Allowed to put up your own ads
Reliability (this is hard to determine)
Automatic software installer (Install a blog in minutes!)
Community Forum, to discuss your website(s)
You can’t really expect too much from a free host, since they are providing the service for free.
There is no one service which will please everyone. You can find free web hosts services by searches on Google and other search engines for "free web hosting".
How to choose a choose web hosting provider Choosing a free web host can be tough, especially since they are many who claim to be the best free hosts around. There are some that are great, some that are average, and some that are really bad. They might offer nice features, but with ads on your site. They wont put advertisements on your site, but have really bad features and/or support. Choosing a good free host is usually a hit or a miss, and can be frustrating at times. Remember that you don't get any guarantees with free hosting, so if your site isn't there when you wake up next morning, you can't complain about it because its free!
Make sure you have these features when choosing a free host:
More than 100Mb disk space
More than 1Gb bandwidth
At least 1 FTP account
Free subdomain (i.e yourname.freewebhostprovider.com)
Allowed to host your own domain
No ads on your sites
Some good free hosts may offer:
cPanel Control Panel or DirectAdmin Control Panel
MySQL Databases, PHP, CGI
Email Accounts
Allowed to put up your own ads
Reliability (this is hard to determine)
Automatic software installer (Install a blog in minutes!)
Community Forum, to discuss your website(s)
You can’t really expect too much from a free host, since they are providing the service for free.
One of the big problems is that when you are looking for a professional web hosting company, you are often at a loss to what you have to look out for to be able to identify a good professional company. Because there are so many companies out there, you might be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information out there. So this article is really a checklist on some of the things that you might want to look out for when you are choosing one of these companies, and keep this list close to your mind as you go through the list.
One of the more important things to look out for is the range of services that they have, and they should give you an option of having a shared server option, a virtual server and a dedicated server option. Those tiers should also be split into two main categories of consumer and professional level web hosting solutions. There should be as much options as possible when considering what to choose and how you can level them out to fit your own needs online. This is something that is quite important as well.
Another thing you need to think about is the level of hardware that you are getting. One of the things that most good and professional web hosting companies often offer is a range of hardware options that you can choose from. Some might be lower level servers to high level servers, depending on your needs of course. One thing that gets most people is that they are often stuck with limited choice, and no matter how intensive their online operations might be, they are often limited by the hardware of the companies that they have chosen and this is something that needs to be addressed from the start.
Another thing is the security features that are on the web hosting company's plan. One thing that you need to know is that the most important feature on your web site is the sort of security that you need to be able to promise to your customers. For one thing, you need to be able to know that you need to protect against and that list can include Trojans, worms, malware, spyware and hackers. Also, since the financial transaction is also one of the more important things when thinking about the Ecommerce side of web hosting is that you also need to be able to give your customers the peace of mind that their financial information is safe and sound.
These are some of the things that you need to know when you are looking for a professional web hosting company. You need to be able to get a checklist of this whenever you are appraising one company from another, and see the features and services that they are trying to offer to you. It is important that you need to get a good web hosting company that is professional and can give you the level of reliability that you need.
A website is an album comprising many web pages, including audio and visual files, which is made accessible through a web server. Website is generally a collection of HTML files, graphic files or PHP files. Every website encloses a homepage, which the users mostly visit to take a general idea of what the site contains. The web site is managed either by a personage or an organization.
With ever growing network of commerce in today's world, there arises an inevitable need for the services of hosting. The facility of using World Wide Web that enables the folks and individuals to make their website reachable is termed as web hosting.
To sight a site it is a prerequisite that the website is linked up with the browser of World Wide Web. Web hosting is an array which facilitates the organization to host their website on their web server at a nominal fee. To host a website, is not a pricey affair as discounted web hosting facility is easily available to people.
Web hosting companies offer room to their clients on their own server, in combination with the connectivity of the internet. Web hosting services are provided by copious companies as it is a genuine world of hosting commerce, the basic aim is to spotlight on all the facet of the honored client. Web hosting services endeavor at providing discounted hosting but at the same time assures steadfast services.
With the growth of commerce world and globalization the need for making your place in this global market is the major fret with the upcoming business houses. Discounted web hosting has given many diminutive business houses a standing in the market as through the host server the websites of these companies are easily accessible to respective individuals according to their needs.
Marketing has been made trouble-free and widespread with the use of discounted hosting. But one ought to be watchful before selecting the web host provider as the triumph of the business house depends on selection of the web host.
Certain features to be taken in consideration before selecting the discounted hosting are technical support services, their rank among the google page and the use of Cpanel. If the server is Cpanel website hosting friendly it will attract the clients as they can get the feedback as to how their website is doing. It also lets you assess is the discounted web hosting actually aiding the business to grow or not.
The discounted website hosting is possible owing to the great competition in the market. This compels the providers to provide the best services at reasonable prices as they know the competitors to make significant space in the market will not mind charging less than them.
Here are several very advantageous reasons to host your web site with Bluehost. Bluehost supports website hosting solutions to literally millions of small business and personal web sites next to a portion of the cost of other internet web hosting providers. Your satisfaction is their major focus and you are provided with the greatest customer service available anywhere after you select Blue host.
Bluehost will help one in getting your beginning on the internet if you haven'tyour own website address otherwise identified as a domain nameand will give you with a free of charge domainname, a website promotion hosting plan, a free forum and blogand you should receive excellent 24/7 customer service.
Bluehost website Hosting Promo - $3.95 per month
If you already have a domainnameand web site, Blue host can help you setup your website to operate on Blue host servers and will give you with a complimentarye-Commerce/shopping cart, a free blog and forum and their highly dependable support that is at your service around the clock, all week long.
There are severalwebsite hosting providersin the marketplaceand many are excited to be selected in the top ten or twenty within their web hosting categories, but Bluehost won't cease progressing and has won several popular awards making it the number one website hosting provider on the planet! Bluehost was chosen the "MostDependableWeb Hosting Provider in 2009" by many website hosting companies and was chosen as 2009's Top Linux Hosting in addition, just to name a few. Bluehost continues to set the industry's standards in dependability, value and top-notch customer service.
Being one of the first and most knowledgeable providers in the website hosting trade, Bluehost has created a reputation on behalf of delivering excellent website hosting packages that customers desire. In addition to the24/7 customer service structure in place, you will have access to a self-help center with several tutorials accessible at your disposal that talks about different website hosting subjects.
Customer service is everything, and Bluehost boasts of having a great track recordfrom manycustomers. Bluehost reviews are accessible on the web site for you to divulge and grasp what the consumers have to say. After all, there is no better avenue to find out the real deal about a company or service than from usersthemselves, so Bluehost has that information available to you so you can be the judge.
Bluehost supports its consumers with unlimited disk space and bandwidthlevels in the marketplace, allowing you ample roomto host a standard website and to allow itto grow. Unlimited Web Hosting is truly one of the impressive features from Blue host. The suite of web authoring toolsare at your findertipsso you can quickly design and get your web site thriving, such as a free website builder and blog tutorials. To make your web site interesting to your visitors, you can quickly and easily add supplementary functions such as a forum or guestbook.
Each and every BlueHost web hosting account comes with a cPanel-the largely much-admired and widely used web hosting control panel. This allows one to certainly administer your website by inspecting your stats, tallying email accounts and the site's functionality. With Bluehost, you easily cannot go wrong. It is simply the finest of the best once it comes to website hosting providers. With every signup, customers receive a 30 day money back guarantee.
The world today is a global village and people today have a very powerful tool in hand called the internet. Goods and services are sold and bought on the web and innumerable transactions take place daily. A concept which was not dreamed of by our ancestors is a virtual reality today.
Businesses and individuals establish their presence on the internet through Web Hosting and Video Hosting and even Shared Web Hosting. Entities can set-up short term and long term hubs in the virtual world by buying the space from a web hosting company. Once a name has been decided upon the website is ready to begin operation. But it is imperative to choose a good and reliable website hosting provider. There are many players in the market, but who can cater to your needs is the vital question.
It is important to know what is you ultimate goal. What goals do you expect to achieve though the website? Once you have the answer to this question, then it is easier to determine the key features the website should have. The website hosting company can be briefed accordingly.
Once that is decided, then it is easy to know which option to pick. Individuals can use both a dedicated or shared platform. For businesses, it is recommended to go with the dedicated website which could have content, videos or both.
An in-depth market research is must. Choose a service provider who has good references and is decently priced. However, quality should not be compromised on any grounds. A service provider who gives you a really low quote may also cut on quality and services.
Ensure that the web service provide good consumer services, email account, possibility to upgrade services when the need arises, has no hidden costs, has an effective web security system in place and a bandwidth capacity that suits your current and future needs.
If designing is not your forte, then select a provider who gives you design templates or WYSIWYG design software.
Do your homework before availing the services of a web hosting provider. But in case you are not very tech-savvy then find a company that provides you with a shopping cart and has software that enables you to offer value added service to your target audience.
If you are hosting a video website, then make sure that you get the bandwidth and appropriate storage software that allows you to create back ups and provides smooth, good quality video streaming.
Also ensure that your service provider gives you a FTP access and cpanel hosting. This will allow you to transfer your content on the website. The protocol basically allows file transfer from one computer to another and is extensively used by webmasters to publish their pages.
Before you sign with the web hosting provider ensure that you get value for your money. Choosing the apt service provider saves costs. A conscious and wise decision helps to accomplish your ultimate goal. A wrong decision costs you both money and valuable time. Shifting from one service provider to another in between setting up a virtual shop is a mammoth task.
Web hosting is a kind of a company which gives you a space in a server for your website, and you're connected to the entire world. You can find lots of hosting companies out there so to make sure that you are getting the best deals and services, you should look and opt for some of the top web hosting providers.
Before you choose a company, some points should be kept in mind. First of all you should check company's reputation and collect some information about that company. Do some research about a few company's and their services and evaluate them according to your necessities, collect information about support and backup of that company, check companies creditability and customer services. Check how many features company gives you, how many space it provides, what is the bandwidth size, you should collect all the above information before joining any companiy's services.
Basically Hosting is a business of storing and manage Web Pages of your website. A web server holds thousands of websites, runs 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week. So web hosting is a method to earn money online.
You should take unlimited bandwidth facilities to your hosting company, so your visitors open many pages and you can load video in your site.
There are many kinds of Web hosting companies like Free web hosting companies, Reseller web hosting, VPS (Virtual Private Server) etc.
Domain Name
Domain Name is an address of a site on internet like www.example.com. It is an addressing scheme assigns names and numbers to identify the computers on the Internet.
A good Domain Name is that which clarify your business or your work, for example a website which gives you information about Tennis that Domain Name must relate to Tennis like www. Tennisedu.com, www. Tennissport.com Domain Name is difficult to remember so Domain Name should be short and easy.
Some Domains are
.gov = Government agencies
.edu = Educational institutes
.org = Organizations (Non Profit)
.mil = Military
.com = Commercials Business
.net = Network Organizations
.ca = Canada
.uk = United Kingdom
.in = India
Saturday, August 22, 2009

Inexpensive Website Design Ideas

They say you need a website these days to be taken seriously on the internet. There is no doubt a professional looking website establishes your credibility online for your home based business ideas website. But how can you get that done if you don't know anything about web design? There are plenty of alternatives and choices that will help you with a good looking website design.
It can cost you hundreds of dollars to have a custom built website designed by a professional designer these days. Depending on your needs, that may be the only choice you have. However, if you don't need all the bells and whistles, you have choices you can make that will give you a website design you can be proud of for your home based business ideas website. Here is a guide to making that choice:
First, look for local designers in your area by opening you phone book, doing a google search or reading your newspapaper. I found someone in my area that specialized in website design to design my blog. Make sure you shop around. Don't pay $500 for a website design from a large company. Try to find a local person that runs their business out of their home office. The won't have the overhead expenses that larger design companies would have, and would be more flexible to work with.
Choose freelancers for your home based business ideas website carefully by going to elance.com. You'll be able to post an outline of your project, and thousands of freelancers will have the opportunity to bid on it. That way, you should be able to get a great deal. You will also have the ability to chose that designer based on ratings, past projects, and experience which will give you your best bang for your buck when it's all said and done.
Be sure to check out GoDaddy.com. They offer a website design service you can do yourself called Website Tonight. You can chose from a simple template of 5 pages, all the way up to a template of 999 pages, hosted with GoDaddy.com. You would also be able to chose your domain name with them too. It's a 'one stop shopping' site for everything you would need.
You can also design your own home based business ideas website. It doesn't take much to learn the basics of website design. If all you need is 5 simple pages, go to the library or search online for the basics of designing a website. Look for programs like Microsoft Frontpage, or Macromedia Dreamweaver to help you out. Soon, you might have a side business to help others with a good website design.
There is good money to be made with a website, provided that you know how to get traffic to it. No website can make money without traffic, whether you are trying to sell products or services, or make money from ads and content. The more traffic your website receives the more money you will be able to make because you will have more potential customers visiting your website. Getting traffic is not always an easy task, especially if your website has a lot of competition. There are a few ways to generate traffic for your website and get the number of visitors you need to profit.
Backlinks to your website are one of the best web traffic generators. There are many ways to get backlinks to your website and the more links on the web that lead to your website the more people will click the link and visit your site. Blogs are one of the most popular forms of communication and posting comments regularly to blogs that are related to your industry that include a link to your website is a good way to build backlinks. Likewise, posting in forums and on other online communication venues is also popular and a good way to build backlinks. Make sure when you use this traffic generating technique that you only post useful relevant content and do not spam the boards.
Article marketing is another web traffic generator that will build backlinks as well as a positive reputation for your business. You can write articles yourself or you can hire a content writer to create articles related to your industry for you. There are many article directories where you can submit your articles as well as a resource box with a link back to your website.
You can also reach a large audience with pay per click ads such Adwords. Adwords can be a good web traffic generator if you use it correctly and you have ads placed in prominent positions one websites and search results that your target audience will see. With Adwords you choose how much you pay for each click received on one of your ads and the price you pay as well as the keywords you chose determines where your ad is featured and how many people see it. Be sure you choose your keywords and how much you are willing to pay for each click carefully and you will be able to get lots of traffic.
Very often you have experienced that your client is not happy in the very first attempt. You spend long working hours to make a design for him and in the end he just walk away without reasonable explanation. This is not happening only with you but a lot more like you. So what is that which everybody does not follow or do wrongly?
The answer is not following the drill. Yes, many of us rush through the designing process and do not follow it , resulting a failed design . A design fails when the designer directly jumps on to the final conclusion without preparing any blueprint and not following the process.
The process which every designer needs to follow before starting for a new design is as follows. Following it orderly will result in a successful design. The process includes:- Planning Content Building Designing Development
In brief:-Planning: - Planning is assimilating all the information about your client's needs and requirements. Put down your thoughts make a blueprint of the design which you have thought. A rough draft always helps. You must have all the required information about the design like the purpose and the objective. Content Building: - Where and how you are going to put the content. You mush have all the relevant information about the length of the content that needs to be put at a certain place. It is necessary because your images must supplement the content. The size of the content also affects the use of design. So you must know which content will fit where. Designing: - If you have followed your first two steps carefully and religiously then you must not have any problem. You have prepared the blueprint of the design; you know which content will be placed where, you just have to move your paintbrush keeping the client's requirement in mind. Development:- You are done with your design part, now comes its development. Now to make your design work you need to convert it into codes like HTML/XHTML/CSS/PHP. Now its your choice either you do it yourself or you can outsource it to any firm which worth your attention. You miss any step and you definitely put your whole website into danger. The most common mistake that a web designer generally make is they start thinking from step 3 and end with it only. This direct jump makes them to commit a blooper.
Have you ever wondered that you need to convert you design into HTML and its further extensions? Out there are many designers who very brutally slice your hard work lie in your design, resulting into completely different outcome. A bad sliced or converted design can distort the image quality of your design. Some slicers are so smart that they won't even let you know about the cheap quality of conversion. This is one of the reasons why many conversion service providers charge sky high because the quality conversion needs skill. The kind of quality one gets after paying those heavy bills assures you that you deserve the best. All web design necessarily needs HTML/XHTML slicing. For this you need to code your design into a certain language that is understood by computers. These languages are written by humans exclusively to make web pages readable by computers. Searching a good PSD slicer is not very difficult if you are aware of your requirements. Humans can read the documents written in alphabets and see designs made by colors but the same data in the same format cannot be read by computers. To enable the machines to read the same piece of document efficiently conversions of the document has been done. This conversion is done in computer friendly language which is HTML and its extensions. All the documents written on the Internet are based on HTML document. HTML is a format which is used to link the text with images, video, audio and other interactive formats. The use of semantic coding allows publishing data in such language that it can be understood by humans and computers both. This allows the crawlers to crawl your data. The process is not complex but simple. You send your files in PSD, PNG, AI etc., to the service provider to see your coding project. Your designs/image can vary from a small image file to a whole website design. Once the service provider receives your files, they will see to it and confirm it with your specifications. After the confirmation they may ask you to pay their tariffs (as per negotiations). After receiving the payments they shall start working on the project. You need to wait till the allotted time. Using service providers for these services will allow you to involve with other work.
When a business owner decides to bring their business to the web, generally the last thing that they think about is search engine optimization. They assume that whomever they hire to do their web design will put up a site and then submit it to the search engines and the traffic will magically pour in. Unfortunately it takes more than that to drive search engine traffic to your site, and even more unfortunately most developers don't program with SEO in mind, nor do they educate the client about the process involved in gaining traffic from search engines.
Whether it's carelessness or a lack of knowledge, or a combination of the two, this often leads to a client that several months down the road doesn't understand why their site doesn't get any traffic and isn't helping their business. A good designer will not only program with SEO in mind, but will also educate the client about the basic principles of SEO, whether they are the one who executes it or not.
Many times the clients I inherit have gone through this scenario and then face drastic on-site changes to get their site search engine friendly before we are even able to begin the arduous process of link building. Whether you are designing a site for yourself or for a client, following the simple steps below when programming will ultimately save the business time and monëy and result in a search engine friendly site that truly maximizes the online potential of the business.
Use Proper Tags for Headings, Bold Text, Italic Text, and Lists
HTML has heading tags, bold tags, italic tags, and ordered and unordered lists for a reason and you should use them. Using CSS you can practically style them however you like, but actually using a heading tag for your headings, and bold tags for important text, will help allow search engines understand what text on a page is a heading or what is more important than the surrounding text. Simply applying a CSS style that makes text largër or bold doesn't do that.
Optimize Your Images
Search engine spiders can't read text within an image. Adding ALT text to your image tag helps, but ideally you should remove all wording from the image and style it using CSS, adding the remaining portion of the image as a background image to the text. Here is a side-by-side comparison of two images that look the same in your browser, but much different to a search engine spider.
Avoid Canonical Problems
Believe it or not, search engines can see http://yoursite.com, http://www.yoursite.com, and http://www.yoursite.com/index.html as three different pages. A simple solution is to use a 301 redirect to point all of your pages to their "www" counterpart. You can also select the preferred domain that Google shows in the new Google Webmaster Tools console.
Get Rid of Session IDs if You have a PHP Site
Have you ever seen a PHPSESSID variable added to the end of a URL on a PHP page (it looks something like PHPSESSID=34908908)? This happens because PHP will add a unique PHPSESSID to URLs within your site if cookies aren't available. This can be extremely problematic for your site's search engine ranking. Google and Yahoo will see a unique PHPSESSID in the URL every time they visit a page on your site, and in turn think that said page is a different page each time. At worst, this could be viewed as duplicate content and get your site banned, and at best it will reduce the perceived value of each page. One solution that I've used successfully is to utilize url_rewriter.tags.
Put CSS and JavaScript in External Files
Nearly every site nowadays uses CSS and JavaScript for something. While both are great for enhancing user experience, neither will help your search engine ranking if left on your page. One of the factors that search engines consider when ranking your site is the percentage of code relevant to the search term. CSS and JavaScript can take up hundreds of lines of code, minimizing the importance of your text and in turn hurting your ranking. By putting them in separate files and simply including them in your page by reference, you can reduce hundreds of lines down to one and increase the amount of code in the file that is relevant content.
Minimize the Use of Tables in Layouts
The debate about whether or not tables should be used in site design has been going on for years and there's no end in site. I fall somewhere in the middle - there are certain circumstances (like organizing tabular data) where I think tables still make the most sense, but I also appreciate the SEO benefits of using CSS layouts. CSS layouts drastically reduce the amount of code in your site that isn't content that the user sees. Just like moving CSS and JavaScript to an external file, the less on-page code that isn't content, the better. Chëck out search engine friendly layouts for some frëe example layouts.
Validate Your Site
A site doesn't have to be perfectly coded to rank high in the search engines (there are many, many other factors), but valid HTML will help ensure that search engines and browsers alike will accurately see your page. Try using the official W3C Validator or install this handy Firefox extension. Validating generally identifies areas of code that are redundant, unnecessary, or not accepted across all browsers. All of which will help make your site more search engine friendly.
Saturday, August 1, 2009

How Not To Get Web Design Work

I get the occasional web design lead from my website. I wanted to find a company I could pass these onto. So I put an ad on a freelance site. It specified the programming qualifications needed, stated that the successful candidate should have good English, and was for companies only.

The replies I got were enlightening. So much so, I made a list of things applicants did wrong. Here it is.

I should point out I was initially prepared to give everyone a fair go. After the first twenty-odd emails, my attitude changed. I was looking for reasons to delete applicants. I only needed one successful one; with 100 replies it was getting to be a headache, so I decided a brutal approach was needed.

1. Failed to read the spec.

Many applicants couldn't write properly in the English language. Many were individuals only. Result: instant deletion.

2. Failed to address the spec's criteria.

Applicants bragged about how great they were. Many copy-and-pasted standard marketing guff about 'solutions' and 'partnerships' into their emails.

To engage anyone's interest about a proposal you need to talk less about yourself and more about the benefits to *them* of using you. One of the first things I learnt about applying for jobs is you need to show how you meet the criteria in the job description; see if you can find the employer's wavelength.

3. Lots of jargon.

You quickly tune this out. Anyone dealing with web companies probably gets a lot of this. Applicants should talk to the client about *the client's* site and *their* needs, and avoid techno-babble.

Write an application letter. Leave it for a while, then edit it. Brutally. Short punchy sentences, no guff. Talking convincingly about how you can make the client money would be an attention-getter.

4a. 'Coming soon' client-listing pages.

You say you've done work for lots of clients, then put up a 'coming soon' sign on the web page where your client list is supposed to be. Hmmmm.

4b. 'Under construction' pages on your company web site.

This looks bad; something you'd see on an amateur's site. Another reason to bin your application.

4c. Only put up pictures of sites you've done, rather than links to the actual sites.

I'd have liked to see some working example sites. Pictures can be faked, and they don't show background programming.

4e. No mention of your main web site URL.

Let us guess where your own site is (if you have one). It's more fun! I tried guessing from the email address. After a while I didn't bother.

4f. No hyperlinks at all.

Just a short email spiel saying "I am great designer, hire me". Next!

5. Using Yahoo.com or Hotmail.com for your email address.

A pro designer shouldn't use a freebie email address service. Basic web hosting costs $5 a month these days.

I can conceive that a web designer might use a freebie account for some special purpose, but your own domain name is a basic advert that goes out in each email you send.

6. Bad spelling and grammar.

Western civilisation is doomed, if using SMS jargon becomes the standard way to write to people. It doesn't impress old frts lik me, fr strtrs :( Especially if you're looking for work where good spelling and grammar are important.

7. Front-loading Flash designs.

I admit it, I don't like Flash. I especially don't like it when it loads slowly on my broadband connection. I suppose it might impress an ignorant client, who doesn't know the economic consequences of having a Flash-heavy site.

8. Don't phone the employer up.

Unless they say 'canvassing will disqualify', 'phoning the employer is a good idea. Why? Because geeks are famously introverted and tongue-tied, supposedly. So if a web site designer can communicate clearly over the telephone, that, coupled with a good application, puts you streets ahead of the email-only applicant.

No need to jabber. A polite enquiry to establish contact will do. "Just checking you've got my CV", that sort of thing.

9. Keep yourself mysterious.

Emails are impersonal. Anything that can establish you as a human being, a person, a potential ally and friend, is good. It'll make you more memorable. No need to jump out of a giant cake, 'though!

However, you have to fulfil all the other criteria as well. However great a guy you are, if you're a Unix man and they want Windows, forget it.

10. Leaving unclear phone messages.

One chap left a phone message, in which he mentioned his site, twice, but not his 'phone number. His pronunciation was bad, so I guess I'll never know how good he was.

11. Too far away.

Most replies were from India, Ukraine, Romania etc. Anyone who was closer to home (the UK) stood out. I mention it simply as a winnowing criterion.

Also, I needed someone who could land contracts from UK residents; good English, written and oral, was important.

12. Give your rates per hour.

Forget that. You're not a lawyer. Web design jobs can be clearly defined, in terms of time, work and software required. A definite price can be agreed on in advance. It's called a contract. Otherwise, you leave the client open to escalating bills, and yourself to mission-creep.

13. Delay applying.

The first few applications were more scrutinised. After that, fatigue set in. After one hundred, only an applicant who seems a real prospect would be given more than five seconds' scrutiny.

Indeed, choosing a right web hosting service for your website is not an easy task especially when there are thousands of web hosting providers all offering almost identical web hosting packages. Therefore, it is important to know few major considerations even before you start your web hosting search. Below are three major criteria for web host seeker:

Web hosting features requirement

This is probably the most important consideration to start finding a host for your site. You need to decide the technical requirements for your website, this including:

a) Server platform and hardware requirements
If you plan to set up a website that uses programming environments such as Active Server Pages (ASP), Visual Basic scripts, Cold Fusion or Microsoft Access or Microsoft SQL database, in this case, you will need to find a web hosting service that supports Windows platform such as Windows NT or Windows 2000 servers.

Likewise, if you plan to use programming languages such as Perl, CGI, SSI, PHP or mySQL database, then any web hosting plans that support Unix/Linux platform should be sufficient to meet your hosting requirements. Once you have these server platform and hardware requirements in mind, you can decide the best web hosting plans for your need. For more information, you can read "How to select a web server and server platform?"

b) Disk space & Bandwidth requirement
Here is another technical requirement that you need to consider before selecting a web hosting plan, i.e. disk space and bandwidth. If you intend to publish a website that does not have a lot of contents (meaning, web pages), then the disk space requirement may not be a big concern to you. In general, a disk space with 200MB to 500MB should be enough to meet your hosting requirement. In contrast, if you plan to host a website with enormous amount of graphic pictures, mp3 or video files, then you should consider a web hosting plan that provide huge disk space, for example, 500 MB to 1,000 MB.

Similarly, the bandwidth requirement will depend on your site traffic estimation. Obviously, a website that expect to attract high traffic will consume the monthly bandwidth allowance very fast. If so, you will need to find one web hosting service that offer huge bandwidth with 40 GB to 100 GB per month. Depending upon your website requirement, choosing a web hosting service that provide sufficient amount of disk space and bandwidth is crucial consideration to prevent paying extra costs in the future should you overuse the monthly disk space and bandwidth allowance.

C) Other hosting features
While the above requirements are utmost important, there are other hosting features that you have to consider too. Can web hosting provider support video clips on your website, if you have? Is the web hosting service compatible with Dreamweaver or FrontPage web authoring tool? Do you plan to set up a virtual store online? Can the host support the e-commerce features without adding extra cost to your monthly payments? On top of that, you may also want to find out the number of email accounts provided, number of FTP accounts, web statistic software (analyze your web traffic), type of control panel supported (manage your web hosting account), database and scripting languages supported and etc.

Reliability and scalability

A first-class web hosting provider offers reliable server uptime and fast Internet connection. You should only choose a web hosting service that guarantee at least 99% server uptime with high-speed Internet backbones using at least OC3 (Optical Carrier) lines (155 Megabits per second) or above instead of T1 or T3 lines. A reliable web hosting provider usually invests heavily on their data center infrastructure with high performance servers, high speed multiple backbones providers with fail-over redundancy, backup power generators and firewall software protection in place to ensure they meet the uptime guarantee specified in the terms of service.

Similarly, you should choose a web hosting service with hardware facilities that designed for scalability, so that they can grow with your business. For example, if you need to increase more disk space, bandwidth or number of mySQL databases, you should be able to upgrade as needed without any problems.

Customer service and support

The last major consideration in choosing a web hosting service is to find a web hosting providers that offers excellent customer service and support. You should always search for a web hosting provider that offers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week technical support that fielded with highly experience technicians, so that any web hosting problems will be resolved within a reasonable amount of time. You may also want to consider to test how responsive is their customer support by sending few inquiry emails to the web hosting provider. In general, any response in less than 24 hours is considered acceptable. It is a sign of poor customer support if they take more than one day to response.

In addition, a web hosting provider with excellent support should also provide multiple support channels, such as toll-free phone support, 24/7 email support, live chat, online knowledgebase, Interactive flash tutorials and FAQ.

Above are few major considerations before you choose your web hosting service. In addition, how long has the web hosting provider in business and the number of customers that they currently have are also a good indication of the quality of their hosting products as well as the stability of the company. Even though cost of the web hosting service is also important but it should not be your major consideration. Because the price of a web hosting service has been declining over the years due to competition, as a result, the price of most of the web hosting services offering quality hosting features has been converging to less than US$10 per month. If you can't afford less than $10 per month, you probably isn't in the online business for the long haul. Therefore, price should not be a major deciding factor.

On the other hand, it is more important to ensure the web hosting service that you choose is able to meet your website hosting requirements, guarantee your website is always accessible with satisfying speed, provide scalability to grow and expand your website as well as offer excellent customer supports. Depending on your web hosting requirement, you can take advantage of our site, Cheap Web Hosting Review to find the recommended web hosting services that can match the three major criteria above. Good luck to your search.

Andrew Loh is the owner of Web Hosting Services, a website that provides complete and detail reviews on web hosting services. You can visit his website at:http://www.lowest-price-web-hosting.com.

Most webmasters on the net today are familiar with what the industry calls "shared" web hosting accounts. A shared hosting account is where you rent a small amount of space on a server which is shared among many other users.

This is a cheap way to get started online but it has many disadvantages - you will encounter email delivery problems because of spam complaints against other sites on the same server. You will find your site's grinding to a halt when someone else does some heavy database work on your server. You might even find your site going down because of a denial of service attack against someone else hosting hacking or piracy related material on your server (these type of sites attract antisocial elements!)

How can you avoid all of this drama?

By upgrading to a virtual dedicated server. A virtual dedicated server lets you run your sites as if you had your own "dedicated" server, except it is cheaper because you are really just using part of a server that has been split into multiple virtual dedicated servers.

You can find out more about this by searching Google for "virtual dedicated hosting". Virtuozzo is the main commercial software that web hosts use to run virtual hosting services.

You will find virtual dedicated server accounts starting at just $30 a month. You'll get a much larger chunk of bandwidth compared to shared hosting, and none of the problems that go with a shared host. You can also get multiple IP addresses that are exclusive to your sites.

So what's the catch? Not much. You'll probably spend a bit more on hosting each month. The main disadvantage of upgrading to virtual dedicated hosting is that you will need to be more technically proficient so that you can administer the server.

This requires a bit of time learning the necessary Linux skills to make sure your server runs smoothly.

Many hosting providers will have a "premium" support offering that includes a bit more hand holding - this is definitely recommended if you don't have much experience with Linux, or are new to virtual dedicated hosting.

With the increased speed and bandwidth that a virtual dedicated host offers, and none of the shared hosting headaches, the move is one you will never regret. So, the question now becomes, are to ready and willing to take-on the challenge of virtual dedicated web hosting and save yourself some hard earned cash? The choice is yours..

There are some simple rules to follow when looking for a web host. The first rules is to avoid free hosts whenever possible, it is easy to think that a free service is preferable to paying a monthly fee however with web hosting this is defiantly not the case.

Paid hosting has several important advantages over free hosting. Firstly you will receive more useful features with paid hosting. Technical support will be much better with help available when you need it. Generally speaking Paid hosts will have much faster connections to the internet so your site will appear quicker. Most importantly with paid hosting you won't have to display a banner on each page advertising the Hosting Company and advertising to the world that you are on a free host. With excellent hosting packages starting from $6.99 per month there is no reason why you shouldn't go with a paid host.

The second simple rule concerns what operating system to choose. You will find hosts offering you Windows Hosting or Linux Hosting, it is tempting to choose windows as it's a name everyone knows and many people mistakenly believe that because their PC runs windows they need a Windows Host but in this case they'd be wrong. Whichever hosting package you choose you will receive a control panel through which you administer your site these are graphical environments through which you can control many aspects of your website from configuring your web mail and installing forum software to creating a database. Take a lead from the marble halls of business most major companies host their websites on Linux Servers. Linux Servers generally runs faster and are more secure than a windows server. This is partly due to how the operating systems are built. Windows try to include every possible function in the base package whilst Linux allows the host company to add the functions they need.

The final thing to consider when choosing a host is the list of features they offer. If you don't know much about html you can look for a host that supplies you with free website building software and some of the better ones will even supply free Domain names. You should look at a number of different companies and compare what they offer as standard with their hosting plans. Technical aspects to consider are; the amount of disk space available to you and how much monthly bandwidth you have to use. Look at how many email accounts you can have the more the better. Customer support features should not be overlooked check to see what their response time is and if it's anymore than an hour look elsewhere, also consider if they offer a money back guarantee.

Look to see what additional services they include in the package for example do they offer daily backups? Make sure that they offer support for PHP as this is quickly becoming the programming language of choice with web programmers.

To conclude when choosing a website Host look for a paid host with Linux hosting and then compare the packages on offer from a variety of companies.

Ever heard the saying “Penny-wise and Dollar-foolish”?

Well bargain priced website hosting may just represent the
perfect example of watching a jar full of pennies while
bucket loads of dollars fly out the window!

When I launched my first website way back in the “dark ages”
of 1997 I paid almost $150 a month in hosting and data
transfer charges.

My web host watched how many files I uploaded like a hawk
and always seemed to send their hefty invoices earlier with
each passing month.

I’m obviously not the only one who felt that way, because
suddenly a whole industry of “bargain” web hosts sprang up
all over the web.

On the surface they all sound great, especially when you
think you can go from $150 a month down to $4.95 a month!

Five bucks a month sounds great, until you realize the
amount of data transfer (number of page views) and bandwidth
(the amount of data transfer your host allows in a 24 hour
period) you get for that low price severely limits your
ability to do business.

This realization - along with a panic attack and a quick
lesson in how data transfer and bandwidth get calculated -
usually comes at the least convenient time.

When you exceed your limits, a bargain host usually just
shuts you down with no warning.

Most webmasters realize they’ve made a mistake by choosing a
bargain host when their site suddenly gets shut down in the
middle of a big promotion because of a traffic spike.
Believe me, everything just stops!

Here are a few bargain hosts that provide good service, but
you really need to really check the fine print for how much
bandwidth they allow.

www.FeaturePrice.com

For $24.95 a month you get to host up to six independent
websites with a single account. You get unlimited data
storage, unlimited email and a variety of other higher end
services, but their bandwidth policy seems hard to
understand.

www.HostSave.com

Host Save is another low price hosting company that delivers
a wide range of services for only $6.95 per month. They
recently raised their allowable data transfer, but their
policy on how much bandwidth you can use at a given time
seems non-existent.

www.DotEasy.com

For $25 DotEasy offers a domain name purchase along with one
year’s hosting. Sounds incredible until you read the fine
print to discover they limit you to 1 Gigabyte of data
transfer a month. Not much data once you start getting
reasonable site traffic.

The moral here? Either be prepared to have your business
shut down mid-stream if you get successful, or pay a few
extra bucks each month to ensure you have enough bandwidth
and data transfer.

At a minimum, specifically ask and read the fine print about
the host’s bandwidth and data transfer policies before it’s
too late

If you’ve ever browsed the World Wide Web and wondered how you could stake your claim on the Internet, like the millions of others that have done so already, then web hosting can provide you with the services to do just that. The Internet is a great way of sharing information and it is possible for you to take a portion of the web and make it your own. This article introduces the term “web hosting” and provides some useful tips for web development once you’ve obtained some web space.

What is the World Wide Web?
The “World Wide Web” is the network of computers from all over the world that communicate with each other using the HTTP protocol, a language that allows the transmission of web documents. Be careful as this term is not synonymous with the “Internet” because it is defined as a network of networks, where the computers communicate with protocols other than HTTP. The web is what you see on your Internet browser, the web pages complete with graphics, sound and other information. All this has got to come from somewhere, and this is where web hosting comes in.

Web Hosting
The information that you see from your web browser is contained in web pages. These web pages are kept on computers called web servers. Web hosting is about the storage of the web pages so that people can access them. It is possible to host your own websites yourself but the reasons stopping most people doing this is that there are issues to consider with having the right hardware and software to successfully host your web pages. Your web pages will take a certain amount of space, users will need to download each page to view them and your Internet connection needs to be fast to offer good performance to your viewers. Using specialised companies that offer web hosting capabilities on their web servers will take most of these worries away from you but you will need to choose wisely and weigh up the costs and your needs. In addition to having access to a web server, you will also need to register a domain name (for a cost) that uniquely identifies your website.

What Web Hosting Can Do For You
The most basic service that web hosting offers is that it exposes your web pages for others to see. The other services are: email capabilities that allow for email to be received and sent from your server; database capabilities that allow for large amounts of information to be updated and accessed on the web; and dynamic content which allows for users to interact with the web pages you’ve made.

Website Development
Poorly designed websites will most likely turn away users and harm the credibility of the information it contains. Thought should be put in on the way it looks and the way you intend your users to interact with the content. It is also recommended for more complex websites, a structured development process should be followed. Here is a guide to the logical steps of web development:
· Requirements Analysis: What is the purpose of the website? What content should it contain?
· Design: How should the pages be linked? What structure should they take? How should the pages interact with the user?
· Implementation: This step is the actual coding of the websites in accordance to the previous websites.
· Testing: Does the website do what it should?
· Maintenance: Is the information on the website up-to-date?

Some useful hints for web development below are taken from software quality aspects but they apply to the development of websites as well. They are described in terms of web development:

Reliability: Is the website reliable? Do faults allow for the system to continue running?
Robustness: How does the website respond to incorrect input?
Performance: How fast does the web page respond to user’s actions? Is it efficient in processing requests and inputs?
Usability: Is the website easy to navigate and understand?
Maintainability: Is the website easy to change? Can new functionality be added?
Portability: What software requirements does the website require? Will this limit the amount of potential users?
Understandability: How well do you understand the website you’ve developed?

When designing your website, keep these quality aspects in mind as they will help you develop pages worth visiting. How to choose the way to host your website is half of the problem, the other half is to create a website that people would want to visit and come back to. Knowledge of producing a good design can help you get the most out of your creations.

Choosing a web host is never easy. There are just so many unknowns when it comes to finding a host. It's hardly ever possible to walk into a web host's office, look around, meet the owners, and get a feel for whether or not you'd like to do business with these people.

It's important, though, that you bend over backwards to establish whether your prospective web host is a credible provider - or a fly by night artist.

The webmaster industry is awash with horror stories about signing up with a web hosting company, onlty to find out later that this 'business' is run by a 14 year old who lives at home.

For the most part, you'll make your decision using whatever information you can find online.

Start out with the website of the web host you are considering.

Is it professionally designed and written? Typo's and spelling errors may signal that this is a company ran by kids or amateurs.

Is the website easy to use? Is it designed with a view towards helping people? Are help materials available online? This should give you a flavor for whether the company is client oriented.

Where is the company located? Is there an address? Can you email them?

Look at the Terms of Service. Does your prospective web host clearly spell out what may be expected of them and what is expected of you? Every deal is different, but both parties should clearly know what the deal is.

Next, do a search for the company on Google. Are you finding any negative statements? Try different searching techniques, like typing the company name followed by the word "scam", or by the words "poor support".

Now, try emailing their customer support department. Do you get a fast reply? What about their sales department? Do they answer enquiries quickly? Let's face it...if they won't pay any attention to you when they're trying to get your business, how much more will you be neglected after you sign up?

If you follow these simple suggestions, your chances of signing up with an excellent web host increase substantially.

You’ve decided to get a reseller web hosting account to resell web space. What now? Here’s a step-by-step guide.

1. Choose the platform you want to use.
More open source software programs are available for Linux than for Windows, which makes Linux less expensive. While most programs (Perl, PHP, Flash, etc.) run on both platforms, a few run on only Windows or Linux. A site that requires ASP or MS Access, for example, requires a Windows platform.

2. Choose the control panel you want to use.
Control panels for websites range from very basic to loaded with features. As a reseller, you’ll also have a control panel for you to set up and control hosting accounts.

In Choosing Your Hosting Automation Software, we compare several control panels, all of which offer good features for web host resellers.

3. Choose your web host.
The web host company that you choose for your reseller account is a key decision — your business success depends on the quality of your host. Factors to consider when choosing a web host for a reseller account:

The platform and control panel

Account features

The company’s reputation — search for online reviews by clients

The record of server uptime

The level of support — how fast does tech support respond to support requests, especially time-sensitive ones?

Flexibility — does the web host have packages that allow you to upgrade when your needs increase? Will they customize plans if necessary?

How long the web host has been in business — while a new web host may be very good, many web hosting businesses fail within the first year

Price — consider what is included in the price

Get Started with reseller hosting. http://www.websitesource.com

4. Set up your hosting plans and prices
Divide your bandwidth by your disk space to find out the ratio of bandwidth to disk space that you can offer. Take into account any ratios that differ if you upgrade to a larger package, and then base your packages on that ratio.

For pricing, consider what competitors charge, but also factor in any additional services you’ll be offering.

5. Develop a business website
You have three main choices for website development:

Create a website using an existing website template http://www.websitesource.com/clientarea/reseller_website_templates.shtml

Hire a designer or a design company to design your site for you http://design.websitesource.com/design/elements_custom-work.php

If you have web design skills, design your site yourself

Include all the information that clients will want to know about your services and company.

6. Make your site e-commerce ready
To be able to accept payments for hosting accounts, you’ll to set up:

An SSL certificate

A merchant account

A payment gateway

7. Set up a helpdesk
A helpdesk allows clients to contact you with support requests and you to track and respond to those requests.

8. Set up billing
With an automated billing system, clients are billed and payments are registered with little effort on your part. Most billing software licenses are priced per month or per year, with some billing software companies offering prices for lifetime licenses.

Some popular billing and payment processing systems:

Modernbill http://www.modernbill.com/

ClientExec http://www.clientexec.com/

WHM.Autopilot http://www.whmautopilot.com/

Whois.Cart http://www.whoiscart.net/

When you choose a billing software program, check if it’s compatible with your server platform and if support is included.

9. Create a welcome email
After you set up hosting accounts for your clients, you’ll need to send them a welcome email. Include in this email:

A confirmation of the plan details

The nameserver names

A username and temporary password

A link to the control panel

Links to your knowledge base / FAQ and to your helpdesk


10. Market your website
Submit your site to search engines. Tell your family, friends, and business acquaintances about your website. Include a link to it in your signature line in outgoing emails. But don’t stop there — market your website http://www.marketingcontrolpanel.com via incoming links, advertising, newsletters, and special offers.

You offer web hosting services. Or web design services. Or both. When your clients need domain names for their websites, do you want to send them to another site, possibly to a competitor, to register one?

Of course not. That's part of why domain name registration is a popular service to offer. Reselling domain names provides an additional service to attract and keep clients as well as another source of recurring revenue. You can offer domain name registrations on their own or bundled with other services you provide.

Features of domain name reseller programs

When you are a domain name reseller, your clients register domain names using the service accessed through your domain name reseller account. The domain name company bills you, and you bill your clients. Or possibly the domain company handles the billing.

You decide on the retail pricing, and you market your services. The wholesale prices you pay before you add your markup depend on your sales volume and on the domain name reseller program you choose.

All of the domain name reseller companies compared in this article offer a reseller API (Application Programming Interface), which enables you to use the features provided with the domain reseller program. When your clients register domain names or update records at your site, the API communicates with the domain name reseller program system. With an API at your website, you keep the appearance and branding of your site when you resell domain names.

Two of the domain name companies compared here offer website creation tools for resellers, which means that you can be in the business of reselling domain names within minutes of having your account set up.

Many domain name reseller programs require the domain name reseller to pay and regularly top up a deposit for domain names. By doing this, the domain name reseller is paying for the domains in advance while making a profit from them when they're registered.

Domain name companies compared

The starting prices listed are the highest current wholesale prices for .com domains. Some other extensions may be higher, and the prices typically decrease with volume pricing.

See the company websites for more details about what each domain name reseller program offers.

BulkRegister

BulkRegister's Domain Pilot tool allows domain name resellers to provide their clients with a unique URL and access code to make changes to the Whois data for their domains. Resellers can control which of the fields to provide their clients with access to. Registration can be automated or manual.

Resellers become BulkRegister members and are invited to take part in discussions about product ideas, upgrades, and updates. A $50 Overture advertising credit comes with the first year of membership.

- Setup fee: No
- Annual fee: $99
- Deposit required: No
- Starting wholesale pricing for .com domains: $12
- Website creation tool for resellers: No
- SSL certificate: Yes

eNom

If you resell domain names through eNom, you choose between two eNom tools:

- Automated Registration Software (API), which allows your clients to register and manage their domains through your site
- PDQ, a site that you customize and eNom manages — they handle the billing, and you earn commissions

As an eNom domain name reseller, you can also offer your clients web hosting, web monitoring, SSL certificates, and other eNom products as a reseller.

- Setup fee: No
- Annual fee: $99 if you use the PDQ website tool
- Deposit required: Starts at $199 for 199 eNom points
- Starting wholesale pricing for .com domains: $9.95
- Website creation tool for resellers: Yes
- SSL certificate: No

Tucows

A website builder, blogware, SSL certificates, and email services are among the services you can resell as well as domain names.

- Setup fee: $95
- Annual fee: No
- Deposit required: No minimum payment, but they recommend prepaying one month of credit in advance
- Starting wholesale pricing for .com domains: $9.85
- Website creation tool for resellers: No
- SSL certificate: No

Wild West Domains

Owned by The Go Daddy Group, Inc., Wild West Domains offers several reseller packages. They also offer other products to resell in addition to domain names, including hosting, website builders, email plans, SSL certificates, and merchant accounts.

- Setup fee: No
- Annual fee: Starting at $99; $249 with the API
- Deposit required: No
- Starting wholesale pricing for .com domains: $7.75
- Website creation tool for resellers: Yes
- SSL certificate: Yes

When you first start out trying to get a site on the Internet everything seems so confusing. Obtuse acronyms flow freely through the 'Beginner Friendly' information sites and definitions can be hard to come across. The main reason for this is that the Internet and the process of getting a website online is really very simple, and once people get past the first stumbling steps they rarely remember the difficulty they once had, which leads to them being unable to understand the next wave of dot com newbies.

So let's begin with defining some of the basic terms that are commonly thrown around when looking for a web host. You'll quickly realize that computer geeks like using big words for simple concepts. What do you expect from a group of people that decided to call half a Byte a Nibble?

Web Host: These are the people that supply your website with somewhere to sit and be accessed from. They're often a wealth of information, so when you're trying to find your feet it will often be worthwhile to contact their tech support and get your questions answered. Because of this, it's important to contact them BEFORE you sign up for any packages to ensure that you'll receive a timely response. Just fire an email their way and see what happens.

Disk Space: This is the same as the space on your own PC's hard drive. Web Hosts will allocate a certain amount of space to your website, usually in Megabytes (MB) or gigabytes (GB). This determines how much you can store on your site.

Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the amount of data that can be retrieved from your site within the bandwidth period. The bandwidth period is the length of time before your bandwidth gets reset once again, usually about a month. Bandwidth is measured in MB and GB, like disk space. Always find out the consequences of exceeding your allocated bandwidth before you purchase a hosting package.

Domain Name: The domain name is your personal identifier on the Internet. This is what gets typed into a web browser's address bar to reach your site. Some hosting companies will offer a domain for free, while others will have the facilities to provide one for a minimal cost.

SQL (MySQL, SQL Server etc.): Structured Query Language. This is the language used to interact with databases. Chances are that if you don't know about it when you start looking for web hosting, you're not going to need to know about it for at least a little while longer.

HTTP: Hyper Text Transfer Protocol. Basically, how the Internet works. It is the protocol governing the transfer of web pages from one place to another.

HTML: Hyper Text Markup Language. This is (usually) what you'll be using to make your website, whether directly or indirectly. Don't be scared by the name, the 'language' is very easy to learn.

FTP: File Transfer Protocol. This is a method for sending pages and files from your home PC to a server. It is quite simple to use and your host will provide login information if this is the method that they use for file access. Typing "FTP://[server details]" into My Computer on a windows box allows you to use FTP as if your server were a regular windows folder.

POP3: This is a common email 'post box' system. It is use to store emails for retrieval.

SMTP: Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. A common protocol used to send emails.

The beginner will not really need to know too much about the above two email technologies. If they're listed, good. It means you have email accounts with your website (i.e. the email name@yourdomain.com will reach you, somehow)

There are many 'languages' used to enhance websites, such as Java, Perl, ASP, .NET, PHP, etc. If you're just starting out you should try to learn simple HTML first before you worry too much about these more advanced languages. In general they're not too difficult to learn, but you'll want a solid grounding before you tackle them.

The Internet is a wonderful source of knowledge, so whenever you want information just fire up your favourite search engine and type in your problem. The Internet is full of sites about the Internet, so the information you want shouldn't be too hard to find.

Building professional websites takes a lot of time and skill, so many companies hire people to do it for them. If this is the situation that you're in, talk to the designer you're hiring about hosting, as they may have struck a deal with a webhost to provide clients with cheaper hosting packages. Also, the professional designer will know what features you're going to need in a hosting plan.

The world of web hosting is not as complicated as people would like to make out. Just make sure you do a little bit of research before diving in and you'll be less likely to get burned by a shifty 'here today, gone tomorrow' company. Check out the host's rankings on a few Web Hosting Directories, do a search for reviews of the company, contact the support staff before signing up and enjoy the world opened by having your own online presence.

 
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