Posts Tagged ‘Website’
Search Engine Optimization For Dummies.
If you’ve got a web site of your own you ought to understand that you simply don’t get traffic by letting your web site simply sit where it is. You wish to point guests to your website somehow. There are a myriad of different methods internet marketers use to urge individuals to come to a website. These embody and aren’t restricted to, paying to induce a poster on another web site, pay-per-click advertising, and advertising on an ezine, or an online newsletter with several subscribers. These are all terribly effective ways in which to urge traffic to your site. The ways you wish to use to make these work well have been mentioned frequently again. They are also terribly expensive in most cases. What I want to debate may be a free approach to urge heaps of targeted traffic.
What I am concerning is search engine optimization (SEO). This is when you modify some things about your site to urge them as high as you’ll be able to on a research engine. Have you ever ever used a look engine? That’s a foolish question as a result of these are utilized by everyone. When you are doing use Google or yahoo to seek out info or products what do you click on? You almost certainly click on the primary one on the list. This can be as a result of most likely this is often the best website of the bound keyword you are looking out for. One approach to induce your website rated highly on a research engine page is to have a content wealthy web site together with your own top quality content.
If you search some key words and scroll down to a number of the underside sites on the page you’ll see once you click on some that there content isn’t really that good, but they are still ranked nine or ten out of thousands of websites for that topic. This is as a result of some folks exploit the “search engine system”. This can be the system followed that chooses where you website will rank on a pursuit engine. The goal of each search engine is to strive and catalog every single web site on the World Wide Web. Unfortunately this cant be done thus they’ll solely get some websites added to there “catalog”. They sometimes focus on the content rich sites.
There is a method to control search engines to assist raise your page rank. These ways don’t seem to be easy to administer and they’re amazingly time consuming. Some include changing the hltm or css coding of your web site and your Meta tags. Search engines categorize your web site during a key word. One way to assist your page rank is by repeating a key word repeatedly again during a certain content page. If you “overstuff” a page with a sure word you will be penalized so I might advise against that. If you’re not a coder or a professional page designer you’ll not be ready to use the Meta tag changing. If you are doing understand how to control code then you most likely already know concerning using the key word in them.
In net marketing there’s a manner to automating everything. Of course somebody had to come along and create software to automate search engine optimization. I use software for everything; it’s a means to be a lot of efficient and unencumber it slow for additional vital things, or different aspects of your website. If you automate search engine optimization then you’ll worry concerning your content, format, product quality, or many other aspects of internet marketing. Automation could be a manner to get your work done with less work. It can be looked as sort of a kind of an exchange. You trade the work you’ve got to do for a little dollar price. In fact it conjointly will the work better, in some cases, then you could. In these cases it truly creates income.
SEO may be a means of getting free targeted traffic to your site. If you want your web site ranked high ona search engine page, all you wish is a website with a lot of good content to stay people returning back and haing each page packed with key words, however not too much. The recommended amount is 7% or seven per100 words. This could seem like it is straightforward enough but it’s actually laborious to create a quality article with repeated words. To make it straightforward for yourself I recommend you invest in automation of the process. SEO will be done manually and is the best free alternative for obtaining targeted traffic to your site.
Do you want to stay ahead of the pack in the race for the top Google rankings? Visit: buy backlinks. With buy backlinks now you can quickly and easily get first spot on Google every day, without wasting another dollar ever again! Start buy backlinks, time for you to be first on Google!
Why Is It Extremely Important To Have Excellent Website Navigation?
Web surfers are basically an impatient bunch and if a website is hard to figure out because the links are not obvious, they will click away never to return. Website navigation is an extremely important elements when it comes to determining the effectiveness of a website. This article is about the key principles of designing website navigation.
To be effective website navigation must first and foremost make sense to the average person. There is nothing wrong in being creative, but you should notice that all well-designed site have very similar navigation layouts.
As a designer it is important that you keep in mind the core purpose of the site and the intended visitors when designing navigational elements. Most of the sites either inform of a product or try to sell it. Therefore there are some basic guidelines to follow:
Make sure all navigational elements are clearly links by using standard conventions for links such as buttons, menus, underlining the text or changing color on mouse. It is also not a good idea to use unclear names for links.
Using non-standard links is OK, as long as you tell visitors that it is a link. For instance, you are developing a website with a map showing some different cities and you would like the visitor to click on the city name and learn more about that city. Do not forget to inform the users that if they want to know more about the city they should click the city name.
It is very important that you remember the “Three Click Rule” used by the majority of web designers. Many studies have been conducted and they showed that most users will not click more than three links to get to the info they look for. Hence, make sure that to access any page on your site the user will need no more than three clicks.
Using flash movies on your site is not recommended. Remember to keep your site design simple but attractive. But if by any chance you decide to use one make sure you also use META REFRESH tag which will automatically take the visitors to your homepage and do not forget to provide an easy to see and clickable button or link so that the visitor can skip the entry page and go directly to the home page, as if you do not do it many people will simply click away. Do not forget that majority of visitors look for information not entertainment.
Navigation Element Locations
Top Menus – a top of the page menu bar is usually located directly below the page header graphic that contains the site logo. Items in top menu can be either single links or expanding menus. Items can be either graphics or just plain text. In each case, every element should be hyperlinked, so the visitor can click it and be taken to the information described.
Left Side Navigation – it is usually implemented as a text area or column on the left top area of the webpage. It is similar to the top menu when it comes to items, as they can also be either single links or expanding menus.
Right Side Navigation – it is not commonly used, but if used, it is usually implemented as either a column or text area on the top right portion of the webpage. This area is usually used for advertisement and rarely for site navigation.
Bottom Menus – bottom menus can be either a menu bar or footer. When it come to menu bars graphics and text links are used, but with footers only text links.
Important Navigation Elements
Internal Page Links – Every page on the website should be within two or three clicks from the home page. Al l the pages that are especially important should be accessible with just ONE click. The kind of website will influence which links should be displayed in a prominent way.
Login Boxes – they should be displayed in a special way. General locations are top left, top right or the page header.
Shopping Carts – it is important that if you use a shopping cart on your site, a view cart button is prominently displayed on each page. Usually it is placed in the top right side inside the header or just below it.
Order Buttons – these should be fairly large and easily visible. You will receive more orders if there are less clicks to get to your order page.
Breadcrumbs – by this we understand both links and a graphical representation of where you currently are on the site. Their most common location is the top left below the header. Every word and term is a link to the previous page. They are in the form
Home-> Articles-> Marketing
External Links – external links can be used anywhere but are most frequently used inside the text areas on a website. External Links can be references to more information located on other sites, to products you would like to recommend or to pretty much anything else.
Advertisements – usually these are banners, graphic or text with an associated hyperlink. There is no fixed place where you should place your ads, and you can put them below the top banner in the left and right margins below the navigation elements, in the footer or within the text. Studies show that ads “above the fold” are more effective.
(“Above the fold” is the area of a page which can be seen without scrolling).)
Downloadable Items – if you offer downloadable items such as audio, video or pdf files, make sure that you tell the user haw big the file is and whether they need an application to use the file. If a visitor needs a particular application to use files from your website, make sure you link to this applications. When offering pdf files, do not forget to place a link to the free Acrobat reader.
Site Map – it is a great method to layout your entire website for the visitors. (It is also great for search engine crawlers).It is simply a list that displays all the pages on your site with a clickable link to each page.
Summary
A good navigation system can increase the numbers of pages viewed by each visitor. More page visited will result in more sales, signups and will surely make your site more successful.
Variations of Web Hosting and its Benefits
When it comes to exponential growth as a commodity, web hosting has been a shining example in the past five years. As direct result of heavy competition among different providers, prices for hosting packages dropped rapidly, but unfortunately so did quality. So, how do you find a good web hosting company that is inexpensive as well? Bandwidth and disk space are just two examples of things you should analyse, while considering a given web host. As rule of thumb, it’s best to understand the requirements for the kind of website you’re trying to develop, before making your mind on a specific web host or hosting package website.
Do you need the Windows OS, Do you need MySQL, Do you need additional scripts, All of this is helpful information and fortunately, most web hosts support just about every requirement that today’s websites can dish out. Most web hosts certainly provide the essential basics, but there are a few cheap hosts that actually deliver extra value, such as domain name registration, SSL certificates, search engine submission and even marketing credits for advertisement in the major search engines!
Regardless, your priority should always be in finding a web host that provides for the specific needs of your websites, will you need a shopping cart, Perhaps some web design services. Before actually looking for a web host, you should clearly understand your website’s requirements. At this point, it’s a good idea to find an up-to-date web hosting guide, Such website will make your prospecting easier, by providing you with comparison between web hosts, as well as detailed reviews and ratings. See what other users say, Is 24/7 support important to you.
When it comes to reliable and cheap web hosts, there are still many valid options in the market, by making a good research, you’ll easily find what you look for. You should try to be mindful in your search, while checking specific details provided from each host, Will you get a control panel and free scripts, How about phone support? Choosing a web host that provides 24/7 support and a control panel is always a good idea, Furthermore, you should settle for no less than 10GB disk space and 1000GB bandwidth for your hosting package. We’ve mentioned the control panel on different occasions, as you might now, this is a web-based interface that you can use to configure and manage your account.
Even though your web host should provide you with comprehensive support, a control panel will let you easily perform many operations on your own, such as adding domains, scripts and e-mail addresses. There are different kinds of control panels available, regardless, cPanel is the best control panel. If you’ve been making your research, you’ll have figured out by now your specific website requirements and which hosts can meet such demands. Given today’s hosting prices, you should be able to find at least 3 companies that offer all the features you need for less than per month. Creating a spreadsheet to compare your hosts is definitely a good idea, or you can just take advantage of the host comparison tool.
In case of emergency, prompt customer support will be your priority, With this in mind, it might be a good idea calling customer support in your preferred hosts, to get a feel of which one would best handle emergencies. Just remember that getting an inexpensive service doesn’t imply getting cheaply served, just as long as you make the right choices, There are many reliable hosts out there that offer cheap rates, and now you know where to find them. Do your homework, know your requirements and you’ll come out ahead!
I Like To Build My Own Website
Create blog website was nothing new for me. You see, I have been involved in the Internet since my school days. Today, you can keep touch with friends via webpage and putting up post. Blogging, after all, is basically the new small talk. All in all,I was creating my own webpage before I could write a decent sentence. Nonetheless, none of my own websites were particularly technologically sophisticated – something that would get me in trouble eventually.
When I decided on creating my own business website to make money at home online, I thought there would be nothing to it. In theory, I knew it would be more complicated than creating my own website had been in the past. Most of my sites are simple and straight forward. Of course, people could post responses to some of my blogs and vote in online polls, but that was about it. It was all pretty straightforward, and it required no programming knowledge or experience at all. Based on this rationale, I figured out that I could create a business website without any problem. Well, how difficult can it be? It turns out that it could get pretty darn difficult! As a matter of fact, making my own website for my business was one of the stupidest things that I have ever tried to do.
It seem easy at the begining. I decided that I would start off with the things I knew and then learn the things I didn’t know how to do as I got to them. I knew the fundamental such as design layout, how to make some good content, and how to organize menus. Then I tried to do fancy things and it starts to collapse. The lesson lernt here is that you must be prepared and stick to the basic. Getting fancy about things may turn out to be not so good an idea.
Grab some Great Internet Business Ideas
Key Factors in Choosing the Right Hosting Plan
Hosting plan choice is a major step when you choose to start up a website. Prior posts from me were about domain name choice and website creation. Next we will discuss hosting: Choosing a hosting plan is a primary step in launching your fledgling web presence.
The next step after creating your website is to make it live on the internet, or publish it. Publishing to the internet involves getting a hosting plan. A hosting plan is different from a domain name. You own your domain name but you rent a hosting plan. With a hosting plan you will be paying a service provider to publish your website on the internet for all to see. The key considerations for choosing a good hosting plan will be discussed here.
SERVICE The most important consideration is the level of service provided. Bells and whistles and fancy features will do you no good if you can’t get customer service in a timely fashion. Once your website is live on the internet you will want it to be up all the time. For that reason you want to be sure and choose a hosting provider that will provide the best uptime as well the best availability and quality of customer service.
UPTIME Does the hosting provider you are considering offer an “uptime guarantee? The better hosting providers will offer up to 99% uptime. Even at 99% average uptime it can mean that your website will be off the internet for over 7 hours per month. The best hosting providers will have a track record of up to 99.9% uptime, which essentially guarantees you that downtime is negligible or even non-existent.
SIZE What size, or how many pages will the website have? Most hosting providers set the pricing on their hosting plans according to the space taken up on their servers by the website. Most websites do not require much space but if you’re planning on having a large site with a lot of multimedia content or an ecommerce site selling multiple items, you’ll probably need additional disk space on your hosting plan.
LINUX OR WINDOWS Which operating system should your hosting plan use? BTW it does not matter what operating system you are using on your personal computer. What programming language was used in the Web site design? For example, if you designed a website using ASP or ASP.NET, you’ll need to find a Windows hosting plan. If you have a Web site that uses CGI or PHP, you’ll need to get a Linux hosting plan. Note that if you are simply publishing a basic html website, the choice of hosting Operating system won’t really matter as much until you get into more advanced languages such as PHP or ASP.
TRAFFIC Will you be expecting lots of visitors to your website? Most hosting providers sell their hosting plans on a sliding scale according to bandwith usage. Obviously more bandwidth is better because it allows more visitors to visit your site, but at the beginning this will be hard for you to gauge. The best advice here is to start off with a low cost, low bandwidth plan and upgrade it later as the traffic to your website grows.
SHARED OR DEDICATED HOSTING Whether or not to choose shared hosting over dedicated hosting comes down to the following: A shared hosting plan is exactly as it sounds, and means that your website will be stored on a server along with lots of other websites. In this hosting format you generally have no ability to make changes to the resident software on the system, meaning you cannot change or upgrade the operating system, or the database management system, etc. You will have to work within the software structure provided by the hosting company. Dedicated or virtual dedicated hosting is different in the sense that you will have full control over the environment that your website resides in, and you will have the only access to that space. In other words, you would determine what operating system to use, what type database management software, what type of blog software, what type shopping cart, etc., etc. This type of hosting is definitely geared to the more advanced user, and usually you won’t be able to get as much customer support because it will be a custom setup. The bottom line: start off with shared hosting if you are a beginner, until you are advanced enough to progress to your own controlled dedicated hosting environment.
At StartYourWebsiteToday.com our uptime guarantee is 99.9% and we offer 24/7 customer service. We also have a selection of shared, dedicated, and virtual dedicated hosting plans to suit all budgets and sizes and types of websites. To review the options we offer, click HERE: Hosting plans.
Choosing the Right Hosting Plan for Your Website
So you think you want to start up a website. Prior posts from me were about domain name choice and website creation. Which brings the subject of hosting into play: Early on in your decision making process, you will want to shop for a hosting plan.
Once your website has been created, it is time to make it go live on the internet. To have your website seen on the internet you will need to choose a hosting plan. A hosting plan is different from a domain name. You own your domain name but you rent a hosting plan. To make your website live on the internet you will be paying a service provider to publish it for you. That’s what a hosting plan is. Let’s go over some of the key important factors to consider when choosing a hosting plan:
SERVICE The most important consideration is the level of service provided. No consideration, including price, should supersede Good Customer Service as the criteria for choosing your hosting provider. Once your website is live on the internet you will want it to be up all the time. For that reason you want to be sure and choose a hosting provider that will provide the best uptime as well the best availability and quality of customer service.
UPTIME When shopping for a hosting company, find out if they have an uptime guarantee. Many guarantee 99% uptime for their servers. Even at 99% average uptime it can mean that your website will be off the internet for over 7 hours per month. If at all possible, choose a host guaranteeing up to 99.9% uptime.
SIZE What size, or how many pages will the website have? One of the determining factors for the price of most hosting plans is the amount of space required to store the website on their server’s hard drive. If your website will be media rich with videos or music or photo files, or a large e-commerce site with a lot of catalogue pages, you will have to take space into consideration as a criteria for choosing the right hosting plan.
LINUX OR WINDOWS This question refers to the operating systems available for hosting and which one to choose. This question has no relevance to the brand of operating system you are using on your computer. The determining factor here is what programming language was used to design the website. For example, if CGI or PHP programming language was used, the best choice for the hosting operating system would be Linux. For a website designed with ASP, the best choice would be Windows. Note that if you are simply publishing a basic html website, the choice of hosting Operating system won’t really matter as much until you get into more advanced languages such as PHP or ASP.
TRAFFIC How much traffic or how many visitors do you expect monthly? Most hosting providers sell their hosting plans on a sliding scale according to bandwith usage. Obviously more bandwidth is better because it allows more visitors to visit your site, but at the beginning this will be hard for you to gauge. The best advice here is to start off with a low cost, low bandwidth plan and upgrade it later as the traffic to your website grows.
SHARED OR DEDICATED HOSTING The question of shared vs. dedicated hosting is really answered in a very simple way: A shared hosting plan is exactly as it sounds, and means that your website will be stored on a server along with lots of other websites. In this hosting format you generally have no ability to make changes to the resident software on the system, meaning you cannot change or upgrade the operating system, or the database management system, etc. You will have to work within the software structure provided by the hosting company. Dedicated or virtual dedicated hosting is different in the sense that you will have full control over the environment that your website resides in, and you will have the only access to that space. Dedicated server hosting gives you full control over setup of the operating system and auxilliary programs such as database management or shopping cart or database management software. This type of hosting is definitely geared to the more advanced user, and usually you won’t be able to get as much customer support because it will be a custom setup. The bottom line: start off with shared hosting if you are a beginner, until you are advanced enough to progress to your own controlled dedicated hosting environment.
At StartYourWebsiteToday.com our uptime guarantee is 99.9% and we offer 24/7 customer service. The hosting plans that are offered include a variety: shared hosting, virtual dedicated hosting, and dedicated hosting plans with either Linux or Windows operating systems for every need and budget ranging from the small personal website to large online multimedia sites to those interested in ecommerce website building. To review the options we offer, click HERE: Hosting plans.
Choosing a Hosting Plan for Your New Website
Hosting plan choice is a major step when you choose to start up a website. In prior posts I discussed choosing a domain name and creation of web pages. Which brings the subject of hosting into play: One of the critical decisions you will have to make is what type of hosting plan to use and what hosting provider to choose.
Once your website has been created, it is time to make it go live on the internet. To have your website seen on the internet you will need to choose a hosting plan. By purchasing a domain name you have branded, or named your website. You own the name, but now you must pay rent to someone to actually get your website online. With a hosting plan you will be paying a service provider to publish your website on the internet for all to see. This article covers what to look for in a hosting plan.
SERVICE First and foremost in your decision is to consider the hosting provider’s reputation for it’s services. It does not matter that a multitude of features are offered or if the price is low if the service you will be getting with your hosting plan is sub par or even worse, nonexistent. Once your website is live on the internet you will want it to be up all the time. For that reason you want to be sure and choose a hosting provider that will provide the best uptime as well the best availability and quality of customer service.
UPTIME What is the hosting company’s “uptime guarantee”? Many guarantee 99% uptime for their servers. Even at 99% average uptime it can mean that your website will be off the internet for over 7 hours per month. The best hosting providers will have a track record of up to 99.9% uptime, which essentially guarantees you that downtime is negligible or even non-existent.
SIZE How large is your site? One of the determining factors for the price of most hosting plans is the amount of space required to store the website on their server’s hard drive. If your website will be media rich with videos or music or photo files, or a large e-commerce site with a lot of catalogue pages, you will have to take space into consideration as a criteria for choosing the right hosting plan.
LINUX OR WINDOWS This question refers to the operating systems available for hosting and which one to choose. BTW it does not matter what operating system you are using on your personal computer. What programming language was used in the Web site design? For example, if you designed a website using ASP or ASP.NET, you’ll need to find a Windows hosting plan. If you have a Web site that uses CGI or PHP, you’ll need to get a Linux hosting plan. For the novice user who is building a simple html website the above may not be a consideration at first, but may become important later on as you become more experienced and add more features to your website.
TRAFFIC Will you be expecting lots of visitors to your website? Hosting plans are usually sold at different level plans according to the bandwith that will be required. Bandwidth = Traffic. Obviously more bandwidth is better because it allows more visitors to visit your site, but at the beginning this will be hard for you to gauge. Usually the best way to proceed here is to start with a basic low bandwidth plan, and upgrade later as the traffic begins to flow to the website.
SHARED OR DEDICATED HOSTING The question of shared vs. dedicated hosting is really answered in a very simple way: First a brief description of shared hosting, which is sharing space on a server with dozens or perhaps hundreds of other websites. The main factor here is that you will have no control over the operating system, database structure, etc., and will have to work within the structure setup by the hosting provider. Dedicated or virtual dedicated hosting is different in the sense that you will have full control over the environment that your website resides in, and you will have the only access to that space. Dedicated server hosting gives you full control over setup of the operating system and auxilliary programs such as database management or shopping cart or database management software. Generally customer support will be low to non-existent, since this type of hosting is geared to the advanced user who will be using his own custom setup. The best advice I can give to the newbie is to use shared hosting at first, until you gain more experience and abilities and are ready to take the plunge into something as advanced as dedicated hosting.
At StartYourWebsiteToday.com I offer 99.9% guaranteed uptime and offer customer service 24/7. The hosting plans that are offered include a variety: shared hosting, virtual dedicated hosting, and dedicated hosting plans with either Linux or Windows operating systems for every need and budget ranging from the small personal website to large online multimedia sites to those interested in ecommerce website building. To see what is available, click HERE: Hosting plans.
Choosing the Right Hosting Plan for Your Website
Hosting plan choice is a major step when you choose to start up a website. In prior posts I discussed choosing a domain name and creation of web pages. Which brings the subject of hosting into play: One of the critical decisions you will have to make is what type of hosting plan to use and what hosting provider to choose.
Once your website has been created, it is time to make it go live on the internet. To have your website seen on the internet you will need to choose a hosting plan. By purchasing a domain name you have branded, or named your website. You own the name, but now you must pay rent to someone to actually get your website online. With a hosting plan you will be paying a service provider to publish your website on the internet for all to see. Let’s go over some of the key important factors to consider when choosing a hosting plan:
SERVICE The number one thing to look for in a hosting plan is service. It does not matter that a multitude of features are offered or if the price is low if the service you will be getting with your hosting plan is sub par or even worse, nonexistent. Once your website is live on the internet you will want it to be up all the time. Therefore should a problem occur it is important to select a hosting provider that is readily available and will resolve the issue in as timely a manner as possible.
UPTIME When shopping for a hosting company, find out if they have an uptime guarantee. The better hosting providers will offer up to 99% uptime. Even at 99% average uptime it can mean that your website will be off the internet for over 7 hours per month. The best hosting providers will have a track record of up to 99.9% uptime, which essentially guarantees you that downtime is negligible or even non-existent.
SIZE How large will the website be? One of the determining factors for the price of most hosting plans is the amount of space required to store the website on their server’s hard drive. Most websites do not require much space but if you’re planning on having a large site with a lot of multimedia content or an ecommerce site selling multiple items, you’ll probably need additional disk space on your hosting plan.
LINUX OR WINDOWS This question refers to the operating systems available for hosting and which one to choose. BTW it does not matter what operating system you are using on your personal computer. The determining factor here is what programming language was used to design the website. For example, if CGI or PHP programming language was used, the best choice for the hosting operating system would be Linux. For a website designed with ASP, the best choice would be Windows. Note that if you are simply publishing a basic html website, the choice of hosting Operating system won’t really matter as much until you get into more advanced languages such as PHP or ASP.
TRAFFIC How much traffic or how many visitors do you expect monthly? Most hosting providers sell their hosting plans on a sliding scale according to bandwith usage. The more visitors or traffic you expect on your site, the higher the bandwidth you will need, and the more the plan will cost. The best advice here is to start off with a low cost, low bandwidth plan and upgrade it later as the traffic to your website grows.
SHARED OR DEDICATED HOSTING Whether or not to choose shared hosting over dedicated hosting comes down to the following: First a brief description of shared hosting, which is sharing space on a server with dozens or perhaps hundreds of other websites. The main factor here is that you will have no control over the operating system, database structure, etc., and will have to work within the structure setup by the hosting provider. Using dedicated (or virtual dedicated) hosting means that you have full control over the server your website is stored on and that only your data occupies the space on that server. In other words, you would determine what operating system to use, what type database management software, what type of blog software, what type shopping cart, etc., etc. Generally customer support will be low to non-existent, since this type of hosting is geared to the advanced user who will be using his own custom setup. The best advice I can give to the newbie is to use shared hosting at first, until you gain more experience and abilities and are ready to take the plunge into something as advanced as dedicated hosting.
At StartYourWebsiteToday.com our uptime guarantee is 99.9% and we offer 24/7 customer service. The hosting plans that are offered include a variety: shared hosting, virtual dedicated hosting, and dedicated hosting plans with either Linux or Windows operating systems for every need and budget ranging from the small personal website to large online multimedia sites to those interested in ecommerce website building. To review the options we offer, click HERE: Hosting plans.
Guidelines for Choosing a Hosting Plan
Hosting plan choice is a major step when you choose to start up a website. In prior posts I discussed choosing a domain name and creation of web pages. Which brings the subject of hosting into play: Choosing a hosting plan is a primary step in launching your fledgling web presence.
Once you have created the pages for your website, now you want to publish it to the internet. Publishing to the internet involves getting a hosting plan. A hosting plan is different from a domain name. You own your domain name but you rent a hosting plan. In it’s simplest terms a hosting plan is paying a company to broadcast your website onto the internet. The key considerations for choosing a good hosting plan will be discussed here.
SERVICE First and foremost in your decision is to consider the hosting provider’s reputation for it’s services. It does not matter that a multitude of features are offered or if the price is low if the service you will be getting with your hosting plan is sub par or even worse, nonexistent. If your website is not available on the internet you are losing opportunities to connect with customers. Therefore should a problem occur it is important to select a hosting provider that is readily available and will resolve the issue in as timely a manner as possible.
UPTIME What is the hosting company’s “uptime guarantee”? Many guarantee 99% uptime for their servers. Even at 99% average uptime it can mean that your website will be off the internet for over 7 hours per month. The best hosting providers will have a track record of up to 99.9% uptime, which essentially guarantees you that downtime is negligible or even non-existent.
SIZE What size, or how many pages will the website have? One of the determining factors for the price of most hosting plans is the amount of space required to store the website on their server’s hard drive. Most websites do not require much space but if you’re planning on having a large site with a lot of multimedia content or an ecommerce site selling multiple items, you’ll probably need additional disk space on your hosting plan.
LINUX OR WINDOWS Which operating system should your hosting plan use? BTW it does not matter what operating system you are using on your personal computer. What programming language was used in the Web site design? For example, if you designed a website using ASP or ASP.NET, you’ll need to find a Windows hosting plan. If you have a Web site that uses CGI or PHP, you’ll need to get a Linux hosting plan. For the novice user who is building a simple html website the above may not be a consideration at first, but may become important later on as you become more experienced and add more features to your website.
TRAFFIC How much traffic or how many visitors do you expect monthly? Most hosting providers sell their hosting plans on a sliding scale according to bandwith usage. Obviously more bandwidth is better because it allows more visitors to visit your site, but at the beginning this will be hard for you to gauge. The best advice here is to start off with a low cost, low bandwidth plan and upgrade it later as the traffic to your website grows.
SHARED OR DEDICATED HOSTING The question of shared vs. dedicated hosting is really answered in a very simple way: First a brief description of shared hosting, which is sharing space on a server with dozens or perhaps hundreds of other websites. The main factor here is that you will have no control over the operating system, database structure, etc., and will have to work within the structure setup by the hosting provider. Dedicated or virtual dedicated hosting is different in the sense that you will have full control over the environment that your website resides in, and you will have the only access to that space. Dedicated server hosting gives you full control over setup of the operating system and auxilliary programs such as database management or shopping cart or database management software. Generally customer support will be low to non-existent, since this type of hosting is geared to the advanced user who will be using his own custom setup. The bottom line: start off with shared hosting if you are a beginner, until you are advanced enough to progress to your own controlled dedicated hosting environment.
At StartYourWebsiteToday.com I offer 99.9% guaranteed uptime and offer customer service 24/7. We also have a selection of shared, dedicated, and virtual dedicated hosting plans to suit all budgets and sizes and types of websites. To review the options we offer, click HERE: Hosting plans.
Key Factors in Choosing the Right Hosting Plan
Selecting a hosting plan is a critical step when you want to start up a website. In prior posts I discussed choosing a domain name and creation of web pages. Which brings the subject of hosting into play: Early on in your decision making process, you will want to shop for a hosting plan.
Once your website has been created, it is time to make it go live on the internet. Publishing to the internet involves getting a hosting plan. A hosting plan is different from a domain name. You own your domain name but you rent a hosting plan. To make your website live on the internet you will be paying a service provider to publish it for you. That’s what a hosting plan is. This article covers what to look for in a hosting plan.
SERVICE The number one thing to look for in a hosting plan is service. It does not matter that a multitude of features are offered or if the price is low if the service you will be getting with your hosting plan is sub par or even worse, nonexistent. If your website is not available on the internet you are losing opportunities to connect with customers. For that reason you want to be sure and choose a hosting provider that will provide the best uptime as well the best availability and quality of customer service.
UPTIME What is the hosting company’s “uptime guarantee”? Many guarantee 99% uptime for their servers. That sounds great, but it does mean that your site could go down for 1% of the time, which means over 7 hours out of each month! The best hosting providers will have a track record of up to 99.9% uptime, which essentially guarantees you that downtime is negligible or even non-existent.
SIZE How large is your site? Most hosting providers set the pricing on their hosting plans according to the space taken up on their servers by the website. If your website will be media rich with videos or music or photo files, or a large e-commerce site with a lot of catalogue pages, you will have to take space into consideration as a criteria for choosing the right hosting plan.
LINUX OR WINDOWS This question refers to the operating systems available for hosting and which one to choose. BTW it does not matter what operating system you are using on your personal computer. The determining factor here is what programming language was used to design the website. For example, if CGI or PHP programming language was used, the best choice for the hosting operating system would be Linux. For a website designed with ASP, the best choice would be Windows. Note that if you are simply publishing a basic html website, the choice of hosting Operating system won’t really matter as much until you get into more advanced languages such as PHP or ASP.
TRAFFIC How much traffic or how many visitors do you expect monthly? Most hosting providers sell their hosting plans on a sliding scale according to bandwith usage. The more visitors or traffic you expect on your site, the higher the bandwidth you will need, and the more the plan will cost. The best advice here is to start off with a low cost, low bandwidth plan and upgrade it later as the traffic to your website grows.
SHARED OR DEDICATED HOSTING The question of shared vs. dedicated hosting is really answered in a very simple way: First a brief description of shared hosting, which is sharing space on a server with dozens or perhaps hundreds of other websites. The main factor here is that you will have no control over the operating system, database structure, etc., and will have to work within the structure setup by the hosting provider. Using dedicated (or virtual dedicated) hosting means that you have full control over the server your website is stored on and that only your data occupies the space on that server. In other words, you would determine what operating system to use, what type database management software, what type of blog software, what type shopping cart, etc., etc. This type of hosting is definitely geared to the more advanced user, and usually you won’t be able to get as much customer support because it will be a custom setup. The best advice I can give to the newbie is to use shared hosting at first, until you gain more experience and abilities and are ready to take the plunge into something as advanced as dedicated hosting.
At StartYourWebsiteToday.com I offer 99.9% guaranteed uptime and offer customer service 24/7. The hosting plans that are offered include a variety: shared hosting, virtual dedicated hosting, and dedicated hosting plans with either Linux or Windows operating systems for every need and budget ranging from the small personal website to large online multimedia sites to those interested in ecommerce website building. To review the options we offer, click HERE: Hosting plans.