A client of mine paid for a solo advert to promote his website in the newsletter I publish at e-bizministry about two months ago. As I was about to send his advert to my list, he called me up on phone and told me not to send it yet. Naturally, I asked him why. His reply shocked me out of my wits.
He said he had just discovered that his website had disappeared from the net. He even said the same thing had happened to the same website earlier in the year when it disappeared in January only to reappear for just one week in May. I could not help but laugh because I knew his problem. He had made a wrong choice of web host.
Your choice of web host can either promote your business or ruin your business. You have to be very careful when choosing your web host or you will be consistently losing up to 80% of your income due to your web host's inefficiency.
Here are a few quick tips on how to know which web host is reliable, affordable and right for your website.
1. Check if the web host has a web presence. Face it, if a company claims to be a web host and they don't have a functional website of their own, then they have no business hosting other people's websites. Any web host you will use must have a functional website where you can check for domain availability, get support and order for their hosting services.
Additionally, you should conduct random checks on their website. If you visit their site randomly ten times and the site is not available more than once in those ten times, forget about that company except you want your own website too to be unavailable almost all the time.
2. Any web host you will use must have an appreciable level of relevant experience. A minimum of a full year of operation. A new web host will only experiment with your website and the result may not be good for your business. Visit the web host's website and read about them. If they don't talk about their experience, then they don't have it. Just leave them alone.
3. Look out for their present clients' testimonials on their website. Call or email the clients and ask them questions. If they confirm that the web host is good, then the company has passed this test. However, if you don't even find a single testimonial on their website, they probably don't have any satisfied client. What to do? Just leave them alone.
4. How fast or how well does the company respond to support emails? You can find out by conducting this small test. Visit the web host's website and submit or email an enquiry to them. If you don't get a response in 24 - 48 hours, please run away as fast as your legs can carry you. Why? When you host your website with them and you have a problem, it will take them more than a month to respond to your support emails or requests.
5. You should not forget to check out their prices. The prices must be within reasonable limits and their packages must have the features you desire; adequate monthly transfer, email addresses, MySQL databases, CGI bin, FTP access, control panel etc. Very high prices don't necessarily translate into very good services. Don't be fooled by high prices. It's a common trick, please don't fall for it.
6. It must be easy and secure to make payments to your web host. It is not advisable to fill in your credit card details when making your payment. You should rather use a web host that accepts other forms of payment that do not require you to fill in your credit card details e.g. paypal and egold. If you are in a country where you don't have easy access to credit card facilities, it is even better to use a web host that accepts payment in your local currency. This will ensure that you won't have any problems when you want to renew your domain and your hosting accounts.
7. Use only web hosts that give 24 hour online access to your account. With that, you have total control over your domain and your website and you can change anything including your name servers (DNS)whenever you want.
8. It is better to use a web host that offers additional web services such as web design, website promotion, search engine submission and website management. They can be of help to you in future if you have any problems with your website or you need any additional services.
9. Before you make your payment, read the terms and conditions of the company carefully. If you don't understand or agree with any of their terms contact them for more explanations.
10. Finally, I know it may be very time consuming for you to conduct these tests on the hundreds of web hosts out there before choosing one. I have therefore taken the pains to analyse hundreds of them. I recommend ten web hosts that have passed our simple tests. I can put my reputation on the line and guarantee their efficiency, reliability and affordability.
Showing posts with label affordable web hosting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label affordable web hosting. Show all posts
Friday, June 18, 2010
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Choosing Your Web Host
It isn’t easy trying to choose the correct and best web hosting plan to best suit your needs. Even though there are so many web-hosting companies out there, some thought and careful consideration should be implemented. Two things you don’t want are:
You don’t want to end up having to pay for extra features that you realize afterwards you needed.
You don’t want your sites not showing up on the Internet due to excessive downtime by your hosting providers servers.
When choosing your web host you also need to consider your requirements. You will need to consider:
How many websites will you need?
How much disk space and bandwidth do you need?
What extras will you need eg email with auto-responders included?
How much do you want to spend on web hosting?
You should compare at least 5 hosting providers to see what they are offering. Here’s what you should look for
A reasonable price for your needs - usually a monthly fee.
Disk space and Bandwidth allowance – is your site or sites going to have audio, video or downloadable material?
How Many Domains – look for unlimited.
Sub Domains – look for unlimited.
Does it have an in-built Website Builder? Comes in very handy if you don’t know much about building websites.
24/7 email and phone support – this is important. Not everyone has this.
At least a 99.5% uptime 99.9% is best
Free set-up – no hidden charges.
Unlimited email accounts allowed.
FTP accounts.
Auto-responders included – you don’t want to pay extra to add on an auto-responder later.
Compare all other special features even though you believe you may not need them like
CGI.
FrontPage.
Streaming Audio and Video.
Hotlink protection.
Web stats.
When choosing a web host it’s important you take your time to compare hosting plans before you make the decision. There are some out there that are absolutely useless at web hosting, remember that anyone can become a web host. Your best bet is to go with a company that has been around a few years. Search for online reviews on the company you are considering.
If you are considering a new web host I would recommend you include http://www.hostgator.bloggers-guide.com
in your list of 5 web hosts to compare. – Visit the link. Go to “WEBHOSTING” Take a look at the plans – and when you make the comparison you’ll find that they will come out on top.
You don’t want to end up having to pay for extra features that you realize afterwards you needed.
You don’t want your sites not showing up on the Internet due to excessive downtime by your hosting providers servers.
When choosing your web host you also need to consider your requirements. You will need to consider:
How many websites will you need?
How much disk space and bandwidth do you need?
What extras will you need eg email with auto-responders included?
How much do you want to spend on web hosting?
You should compare at least 5 hosting providers to see what they are offering. Here’s what you should look for
A reasonable price for your needs - usually a monthly fee.
Disk space and Bandwidth allowance – is your site or sites going to have audio, video or downloadable material?
How Many Domains – look for unlimited.
Sub Domains – look for unlimited.
Does it have an in-built Website Builder? Comes in very handy if you don’t know much about building websites.
24/7 email and phone support – this is important. Not everyone has this.
At least a 99.5% uptime 99.9% is best
Free set-up – no hidden charges.
Unlimited email accounts allowed.
FTP accounts.
Auto-responders included – you don’t want to pay extra to add on an auto-responder later.
Compare all other special features even though you believe you may not need them like
CGI.
FrontPage.
Streaming Audio and Video.
Hotlink protection.
Web stats.
When choosing a web host it’s important you take your time to compare hosting plans before you make the decision. There are some out there that are absolutely useless at web hosting, remember that anyone can become a web host. Your best bet is to go with a company that has been around a few years. Search for online reviews on the company you are considering.
If you are considering a new web host I would recommend you include http://www.hostgator.bloggers-guide.com
in your list of 5 web hosts to compare. – Visit the link. Go to “WEBHOSTING” Take a look at the plans – and when you make the comparison you’ll find that they will come out on top.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
What is Web Hosting and What Do We Get From Cheap Web Hosting
Web hosting basics
All web pages are downloaded from a source called the web server. All these need to be stored in a server so that a visit to your website is possible. Therefore, if you would want to manage a website, you need to host it on a web sever. Once your website is hosted, people from any points of the world can have access to your pages. A company or institutions that do all these stuffs for you are termed as web hosting providers.
There are several types of web hosting, let us discuss some of them.
Shared Hosting is basically a type wherein several to hundreds of websites are being hosted by a single physical web server. The issue of slower performance often arises in here. Yet a reputable web host don't easily add up web sites without considering their would-be effects to the entire system.
Because this type of web hosting is shared, website owners can expect cheaper rates but must learn to deal with occasional system break downs and slower server response time.
Dedicated Hosting is the reverse of shared hosting. This has the principle of one server per customer. Therefore, web hosting rates are much higher in here but with the assurance of higher traffic.
Co-location hosting is much like dedicate web hosting, only differing on the actual ownership of the web server hardware. However, the server is located in the web hosting provider's center.
Reseller hosting works in a third-party principle. The web hosting provider resells the web server storage to customers who can then structure their own branding and prices.
With that said, we can now discuss how can you make the most out of your cheap web hosting.
Cheap web hosting is now a popular choice among web site owners. However, choosing one may prove to be hard. But with bits of efforts and intensive data gathering, you can arrive on a cheap web hosting that is ideal for all your requirements.
Here are the things you need to check:
Your needs. Identify what you truly need, anything in excess may add up to the cost of your web site so examine them well. Develop criteria for features selection that you will need and start from there. Say, do you need to have a large bandwidth? Or website builders and spam protections?
Reliability. Check the ability of the provider to cope up with troubles on system breakdowns. Also check on their uptime guarantee. However, it must be understood that they normally only cover issues pertaining to Server OS crashes and hardware failure.
What's your budget? Its always getting what you paid for. Your willingness to spend for a web hosting provider will determine how much would you gamble for an account. There are a number of cheap web hosting providers that will give you the services you paid for. Normally, you would benefit for their very low rates. However, it must be noted that they normally don't generate good traffic.
It is not like discouraging you from seeking a cheap web hosting provider, only that be keen when selecting one. Always equate the benefits that may be had from them and the corresponding disadvantages.
But we must take into consideration still those cheap web hosting providers that produce satisfied and happy customers. Usually, their prices range from $6 to $7 a month. Prices lower than these must be thoroughly evaluated though.
All web pages are downloaded from a source called the web server. All these need to be stored in a server so that a visit to your website is possible. Therefore, if you would want to manage a website, you need to host it on a web sever. Once your website is hosted, people from any points of the world can have access to your pages. A company or institutions that do all these stuffs for you are termed as web hosting providers.
There are several types of web hosting, let us discuss some of them.
Shared Hosting is basically a type wherein several to hundreds of websites are being hosted by a single physical web server. The issue of slower performance often arises in here. Yet a reputable web host don't easily add up web sites without considering their would-be effects to the entire system.
Because this type of web hosting is shared, website owners can expect cheaper rates but must learn to deal with occasional system break downs and slower server response time.
Dedicated Hosting is the reverse of shared hosting. This has the principle of one server per customer. Therefore, web hosting rates are much higher in here but with the assurance of higher traffic.
Co-location hosting is much like dedicate web hosting, only differing on the actual ownership of the web server hardware. However, the server is located in the web hosting provider's center.
Reseller hosting works in a third-party principle. The web hosting provider resells the web server storage to customers who can then structure their own branding and prices.
With that said, we can now discuss how can you make the most out of your cheap web hosting.
Cheap web hosting is now a popular choice among web site owners. However, choosing one may prove to be hard. But with bits of efforts and intensive data gathering, you can arrive on a cheap web hosting that is ideal for all your requirements.
Here are the things you need to check:
Your needs. Identify what you truly need, anything in excess may add up to the cost of your web site so examine them well. Develop criteria for features selection that you will need and start from there. Say, do you need to have a large bandwidth? Or website builders and spam protections?
Reliability. Check the ability of the provider to cope up with troubles on system breakdowns. Also check on their uptime guarantee. However, it must be understood that they normally only cover issues pertaining to Server OS crashes and hardware failure.
What's your budget? Its always getting what you paid for. Your willingness to spend for a web hosting provider will determine how much would you gamble for an account. There are a number of cheap web hosting providers that will give you the services you paid for. Normally, you would benefit for their very low rates. However, it must be noted that they normally don't generate good traffic.
It is not like discouraging you from seeking a cheap web hosting provider, only that be keen when selecting one. Always equate the benefits that may be had from them and the corresponding disadvantages.
But we must take into consideration still those cheap web hosting providers that produce satisfied and happy customers. Usually, their prices range from $6 to $7 a month. Prices lower than these must be thoroughly evaluated though.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Affordable Linux Hosting Plans
The success of your small-business web site depends a lot on how you choose partners at each step of its development, right form designing your small-business website to hosting it over the net.
When you are at the start of your business, you don’t need a big website and a huge disk space on the server and probably look for companies offering affordable web hosting plans.
Let’s say, you have got your Domain Name (www.yourdomain.com). Its time to check for a good hosting service provider to have your files uploaded in the domain.
If you go for a Linux Based Hosting Plan, make sure you have the following included in your plans:
1. Control Panel - This is the nucleus of your website. In a Control Panel, popularly known as CP, you can literally do anything. The moment you signup for a hosting plan, you must be provided with a CP to manage your web space.
2. POP3 email Ids & Aliases - yourname@yourdomain.com is an example POP3 ID. You must be provided with ample of POP3 email ids depending on your package size for better mail administration.
3. FTP Accounts & Virtual FTP - This is your online folder where you upload your files, delete them, and update them. Make sure you have handful of FTP sub-accounts to provide your clients/users with password protected directories. This is very much useful wherein your clients/users can use the FTP to upload /download files from designated password protected folders.
4. Backup - Most quality hosting service providers take automated backups. While choosing your hosting plan, make sure of this.
5. Web Statistics - Say, your website has been launched and you get NIL Visits or More than 100 Visits per day. Whatever the case may be, visitor analysis plays a key role in the success of your website. You can view the Report using Statistics Application that run in the server backend.
6. Bandwidth - Choose the hosting plan that gives enough bandwidth for your website. Even though you cannot judge at the beginning, as time progresses, you can easily calculate the bandwidth required.
7. PHP & Mysql Support - All the Linux Plans support PHP & Mysql. Make sure you get this free of charge when you buy the hosting plan. Few Hosting Providers may charge extra for MYSQL Database Support & PhpMyAdmin.
8. Webmail & SMTP - Email becomes key part in your life once you launch the website. Check if the hosts provide WEBMAIL (mail.yourdomain.com) to check your mails through a web based interface using Squirrelmail or Horde. Corporate users prefer downloading mails thru Email Clients such as Eudora or Outlook Express. Only if SMTP or IMAP support is enabled you can use this option. Hence check if SMTP support is provided.
9. SPAM ASSASIN - No email user is free from a spam attack. Hence you need to have Spam Filters installed on the server where your website resides.
10. IP - If your website requires SSL Support (https ://), make sure you get a DEDICATED IP. Most of the websites are hosted on shared IPs. Ask your Hosting Provider about the extra charges involved in getting a dedicated IP and SSL Support. Note: For SSL (https ://), you need to buy a Digital Certificate.
These are the basic ingredients of Linux hosting plans
Choosing your hosting provider is perhaps the most crucial element in the success of your website. You need a good hosting partner for hosting your well-designed web pages on the server to be viewed by your potential customers.
The right web partners help you to get good footing on the net from the very start of your small-business, be it in the terms of building your brand image and presence, search engine optimization or providing small business hosting solutions
When you are at the start of your business, you don’t need a big website and a huge disk space on the server and probably look for companies offering affordable web hosting plans.
Let’s say, you have got your Domain Name (www.yourdomain.com). Its time to check for a good hosting service provider to have your files uploaded in the domain.
If you go for a Linux Based Hosting Plan, make sure you have the following included in your plans:
1. Control Panel - This is the nucleus of your website. In a Control Panel, popularly known as CP, you can literally do anything. The moment you signup for a hosting plan, you must be provided with a CP to manage your web space.
2. POP3 email Ids & Aliases - yourname@yourdomain.com is an example POP3 ID. You must be provided with ample of POP3 email ids depending on your package size for better mail administration.
3. FTP Accounts & Virtual FTP - This is your online folder where you upload your files, delete them, and update them. Make sure you have handful of FTP sub-accounts to provide your clients/users with password protected directories. This is very much useful wherein your clients/users can use the FTP to upload /download files from designated password protected folders.
4. Backup - Most quality hosting service providers take automated backups. While choosing your hosting plan, make sure of this.
5. Web Statistics - Say, your website has been launched and you get NIL Visits or More than 100 Visits per day. Whatever the case may be, visitor analysis plays a key role in the success of your website. You can view the Report using Statistics Application that run in the server backend.
6. Bandwidth - Choose the hosting plan that gives enough bandwidth for your website. Even though you cannot judge at the beginning, as time progresses, you can easily calculate the bandwidth required.
7. PHP & Mysql Support - All the Linux Plans support PHP & Mysql. Make sure you get this free of charge when you buy the hosting plan. Few Hosting Providers may charge extra for MYSQL Database Support & PhpMyAdmin.
8. Webmail & SMTP - Email becomes key part in your life once you launch the website. Check if the hosts provide WEBMAIL (mail.yourdomain.com) to check your mails through a web based interface using Squirrelmail or Horde. Corporate users prefer downloading mails thru Email Clients such as Eudora or Outlook Express. Only if SMTP or IMAP support is enabled you can use this option. Hence check if SMTP support is provided.
9. SPAM ASSASIN - No email user is free from a spam attack. Hence you need to have Spam Filters installed on the server where your website resides.
10. IP - If your website requires SSL Support (https ://), make sure you get a DEDICATED IP. Most of the websites are hosted on shared IPs. Ask your Hosting Provider about the extra charges involved in getting a dedicated IP and SSL Support. Note: For SSL (https ://), you need to buy a Digital Certificate.
These are the basic ingredients of Linux hosting plans
Choosing your hosting provider is perhaps the most crucial element in the success of your website. You need a good hosting partner for hosting your well-designed web pages on the server to be viewed by your potential customers.
The right web partners help you to get good footing on the net from the very start of your small-business, be it in the terms of building your brand image and presence, search engine optimization or providing small business hosting solutions
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Good Quality & Cheap Web Hosting
If you plan to own a new website, you will need to host your website on a web server. When your website goes live on the web server, online users can then browse your website on the Internet. Company that provides the web servers to host your website is called web hosting providers.
A web hosting provider will typically have a fast connection to the Internet housed in a physical building called 'data center' and they may host thousands of web sites on many servers. The web host essentially rents out space to you so that you can get your website up on the world wide web.
With a well-managed web host, you can free yourself from worrying the up-keep of complicated server technology and proper technical maintenance. That's the whole purpose of the web hosting companies. You should leave the technical work to web hosting professional while you focus on your own internet business.
There are thousands of web hosting providers on the internet and how do you decide which one you should use? Sites like betahosts.com can help you by comparing all best hosting providers.
The features that web hosting companies are offering are getting quite standard nowadays. There are basic features that you'll need in a web host. You can find out more here.
To give a web host a competitive edge over others, more attractive features are very necessary. You'll find that many hosts are willing to give away free stuff that used to cost over $10 per month.
These are some of the advanced features that our top hosts are offering.
* Web Buider Many of our top 10 hosts offer powerful web builder program called SiteStudio. SiteStudio allows you to make sites without any html, FTP and HTTP knowledge. You can also build site on the fly while at home, school or even at work. Hostgator's SiteStudio has over 500 ready-made templates for you to choose from.
* Ecommerce Enabled If you are selling products on your site, you need a merchant account. A shopping cart is a useful tool if you have more than 1 product in different categories. SSL(Secured Sockets Layer) is a must-have if you need to receive valuable information such as your customers' credit card information. PowWeb, Hostgator and Lunarpages provide osCommerce shopping cart and shared SSL for your ecommerce needs.
* Marketing Package Most marketing package including search engine submission software, keyword generator and link checker. Some hosting companies like iPower have established partnership with Yahoo! Search (previously known as Overture) and Google Adwords to offer you pay-per-click credit to jump start your business.
Popularity
The best marketing method is by far from word of mouth. If you sign up for a web host and are satisfied with the performance, most likely you'll recommend to anyone who is looking for a good host. Big web hosting companies know about this concept so well that they would go all out to retain their existing customer. The more satisfied customers they have, the more popularity they'll get. We take this as an important indicator of how good a host is. # There are a few factors that we judge the popularity of a particular web hosting provider.Number of existing customers. # The satisfaction level of their existing customers: We manage to get hold of their existing customers from the positive reviews they submitted through our host comment form, their comment in the 3rd party web hosting and inhouse forums and the customers' comment found on other hosting directories. # The amount of pretigious hosting awards they won # Their sites Alexa traffic ranking
Lunarpages is on top among our top 10 hosts. Network Reliability, Speed and Uptime Guarantee
In terms of reliability, we are looking at how redundant is the server, how often the companies backup the server and how well they handle emergency. "Redundant" means that if any of the Internet connections get interrupted, the alternate Internet connection will take over. PowWeb Load Balancing Technology is one of the best that we found to ensure your site is up 99.9% all the time.
A web hosting provider will typically have a fast connection to the Internet housed in a physical building called 'data center' and they may host thousands of web sites on many servers. The web host essentially rents out space to you so that you can get your website up on the world wide web.
With a well-managed web host, you can free yourself from worrying the up-keep of complicated server technology and proper technical maintenance. That's the whole purpose of the web hosting companies. You should leave the technical work to web hosting professional while you focus on your own internet business.
There are thousands of web hosting providers on the internet and how do you decide which one you should use? Sites like betahosts.com can help you by comparing all best hosting providers.
The features that web hosting companies are offering are getting quite standard nowadays. There are basic features that you'll need in a web host. You can find out more here.
To give a web host a competitive edge over others, more attractive features are very necessary. You'll find that many hosts are willing to give away free stuff that used to cost over $10 per month.
These are some of the advanced features that our top hosts are offering.
* Web Buider Many of our top 10 hosts offer powerful web builder program called SiteStudio. SiteStudio allows you to make sites without any html, FTP and HTTP knowledge. You can also build site on the fly while at home, school or even at work. Hostgator's SiteStudio has over 500 ready-made templates for you to choose from.
* Ecommerce Enabled If you are selling products on your site, you need a merchant account. A shopping cart is a useful tool if you have more than 1 product in different categories. SSL(Secured Sockets Layer) is a must-have if you need to receive valuable information such as your customers' credit card information. PowWeb, Hostgator and Lunarpages provide osCommerce shopping cart and shared SSL for your ecommerce needs.
* Marketing Package Most marketing package including search engine submission software, keyword generator and link checker. Some hosting companies like iPower have established partnership with Yahoo! Search (previously known as Overture) and Google Adwords to offer you pay-per-click credit to jump start your business.
Popularity
The best marketing method is by far from word of mouth. If you sign up for a web host and are satisfied with the performance, most likely you'll recommend to anyone who is looking for a good host. Big web hosting companies know about this concept so well that they would go all out to retain their existing customer. The more satisfied customers they have, the more popularity they'll get. We take this as an important indicator of how good a host is. # There are a few factors that we judge the popularity of a particular web hosting provider.Number of existing customers. # The satisfaction level of their existing customers: We manage to get hold of their existing customers from the positive reviews they submitted through our host comment form, their comment in the 3rd party web hosting and inhouse forums and the customers' comment found on other hosting directories. # The amount of pretigious hosting awards they won # Their sites Alexa traffic ranking
Lunarpages is on top among our top 10 hosts. Network Reliability, Speed and Uptime Guarantee
In terms of reliability, we are looking at how redundant is the server, how often the companies backup the server and how well they handle emergency. "Redundant" means that if any of the Internet connections get interrupted, the alternate Internet connection will take over. PowWeb Load Balancing Technology is one of the best that we found to ensure your site is up 99.9% all the time.
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