Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Small Business Owners Web Hosting Guide - Part 1



Your small business website needs to be hosted on a web server or simply a server (another name for computer) that is connected to the World Wide Web so that anyone can access your website.Choosing a web hosting company for your small business website is easy if you follow the guide I have layout for you. Depending on the scale of your business, the type of business you run and your level of technical competency, there will always be a right hosting provider just for your business.The general rule of thumb in choosing a web hosting provider boils down to:Excellent Customer SupportCompany StabilityRobust DatacenterAffordabilityExcellent Customer Support If all things being equal, I would rate customer support as my number 1 determining factor in choosing a web hosting provider. Relying on testimonials found on the provider's site is a common approach to assess a company's level of customer excellence but it is also quite an outdated one. After all it's not uncommon for some providers to fake the testimonials. Instead I suggest you follow my way of assessing their customer support.Sizing its level of customer support is sometimes as easy as finding out whether they have enough employees to support their level of business growth. You should look at the Customer to Employee ratio, CE ratio, as a benchmark.For example, according to our records SiteSell Inc has approximately 15,000 customers and employs about 30 support staff, it has a CE ratio of 500 (15,000/30 = 500), you can expect a much higher level of customer satisfaction and a faster response time when compared to another provider who is serving 100,000 customers but only have 75 support staff. Their CE ratio would stand at approximately 1,333. Basically you should look for a professional hosting provider with a low CE ratio.Getting As Close As You Can The other accurate way to assess the real status of its customer service is to get as close as you can to the company whenever possible via the following means:Live Chat - Check to see if it's 24/7. It helps to know that you can have your questions answered almost immediately with a live chat function. Test it out by answering some basic questions to see its response time and also test its level of technical competency. Not critical but it's good to have.Email - Send them a test mail to see how fast they respond, allowed up to 24 hours. Ask about anything but just do not be afraid to ask.Number of Telephone Lines - Check to see if there are separate telephone lines for sales, customer service and technical support. I hate companies who use only 1 line to serve everyone. A professional small business hosting provider should have this in place. It is not uncommon for reputable providers to charge for telephone support.Forum - The real condition of any web hosting company's customer support is really found in its members forum if any. You will get a good dose of complains and praises but if the complains outnumber the compliments; it's time to raise a red flag.Company Stability A company's stability can be measured by the length of time they have been in business, the number of customers they have served and are serving and lastly their financial standing.Personally as a business owner myself, a web hosting company that has been around for at least 5 years would have weathered all sorts of ups and downs in the online world, and their chance of being around is much higher than a company that has been around for less than 1 year.Financial Stability Though public listed web hosting providers have better financial transparency than the privately-owned ones, they are not necessary always in a better financial shape than them. Bottom line, you would host your small business with a company that you know is growing in their customer base. For example, Interland having been in business since 1995 is currently serving less than 200,000 websites and this number has been decreasing. It is most likely less profitable when compared to IPower in operation since 2001 and is serving over 400,000 websites as of this writing!Another aspect of company stability lies in its ability to remain relevant in this highly competitive industry. For example, as the number of internet users increase and streaming multi-media becomes the norm, you want to place your business with a profitable web hosting company who is able to constantly improve on their offerings so that the performance of your website is able to keep up with visitors' expectations.Robust Datacenter Datacenters are where the web servers are resided on, and ultimately where your webpages will be accessed from. A strong and credible small business web hosting company would have the ability to own and managed their data centers or through colocation.On one hand it might seem that is the best thing any decent web hosting company would do, but on the other hand, there seems to be a trend whereby the marketing and sale aspect of the hosting business has been outsourced to resellers.The rationale behind this is quite simple, a web hosting company should focus on what it does best, i.e. make sure all servers are up and running. And a reseller role is to sell the hosting plans and is to focus entirely on doing just that without getting bogged down by technical issues.Almost all the state of the art data centers should come equip with high level of security, uninterruptible power supplies and most importantly employs the latest technology to enable your website to be always up and running and is always accessible by high connectivity, i.e. fast access to your website.Affordability Before I elaborate further, it's important to establish that after qualifying a company with the above points, there is no such thing as the best small business web hosting plan, but only the right hosting plan for your business. This is probably the last thing you should look at before deciding on the hosting provider.Generally there are 2 main types of hosting that are available for you to choose from. They are the Linux web hosting and windows web hosting. Within these 2 platforms there are also another few subcategories of web hosting types that you need to understand before you can finally decide on the right web hosting for your small business.To continue reading this article, please visit my site Small-Business-Web-Hosting-Guide.com for a no-nonsense approach to assessing web hosting companies for small business owners.Cynthia Wang, a small business owner shares a wealth of information about web hosting for small businesses on her website, Recommended Hosting Companies For Small Businesses.Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Cynthia_Wang

Business Hosting


For many small businesses, having a website is essential to growth. With the widespread use of the internet, business hosting for a website is a normal business expense. Websites can draw in new clientele, and a good company offering business hosting for your website can bring a lot of traffic and business for your company.
Business hosting for a website allows your site to have a place to live and grow. Your computer connects to the internet and is provided with an address, commonly referred to as an IP address. This IP address is how people find your computer to communicate with you. A business hosting company for your website allows you to take advantage of a DNS, or domain name system, instead of an IP address. This way other people can find your computer via a URL, or uniform resource locator. A URL is basically what most of us refer to as a web address.
A business hosting company allows you to put your website on a server that makes it available on a permanent basis, as that server will always be connected the internet. Keeping that server running all of the time is a lot of work, and business hosting companies are the ones responsible for the daunting task. By paying a small fee to a business hosting company, they will make sure your website can be seen by the public 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Some business hosting companies do it all from designing your website to maintaining it. However, in many cases, you will be responsible for uploading your website onto the server from your computer. However, a business hosting company will provide you with some essential for maintaining the operation of your website. Many business hosting companies will offer you a domain name and an e-mail program to give your company that professional edge.
If you are going to be using a business hosting company for your website that does not do the design and maintenance, you may want to consider hiring a web designer before you pick a business hosting company. By designing your website first, you will know more about what you will need from your business hosting plan, like how much storage space you will need and what operating system will be required.
Business hosting for your website is fairly inexpensive, and there are a multitude of business hosting companies available to get your website on the internet. Yet, you should make sure that you look closely at each business hosting company to make sure they have the features you will need. For instance, if you want chat rooms, bulletin boards, or a shopping cart, you need to make sure that the business hosting company for your website offers you that capability.
Read the rest of the article here: http://www.home-based-business-world.com/articles/business-hosting.htmDownload the Home Based Business Manual (Free $97 Value!) and receive valuable tips, strategies and techniques designed to grow a very successful Home Based Business.
Charles Fuchs is an established Six Figure Income earner and one of the top online marketer's. He specializes in showing people the fastest way to Starting a business.Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Charles_Fuchs

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Is Business Hosting Different From Other Website Hosting?


Business hosting is similar to other types of web hosting; however, there are some very important things to consider when selecting a host for your business website.
A critical error that some new internet entrepreneur makes is taking advantage of free website hosting offers or web hosting options offered by their internet service provider as a value- added service.
Free web hosting is just fine for personal websites that don't really serve a purpose other than sharing memento, photos and family news.However, reliability, speed, space, and enhanced and up-gradable features are vital aspects of business hosting for a website that is intended to be professional and to generate leads and income.
When you have an internet-based business, your website is much more than a place on the web.In all reality, it is your livelihood, so yes; business hosting is different from other website hosting.All web hosting packages are certainly not created equal and when it comes to web hosting, the old saying, "You get what you pay for" really does ring true.
So, when choosing a web hosting package for your business website, there is much more to consider than cost.
Free web hosting should be avoided entirely because it usually isn't very reliable, it has limited options and you generally use the web hosts domain name instead of your own.
Web hosting options offered as part of your service by your internet service provider should be used for personal websites, not business websites because they generally are also limited in regard to capabilities and options, plus, when you host your site with an internet service provider instead of a professional web hosting company, you generally share bandwidth with a great number of subscribers so your website may not be accessible all the time.
For business hosting, a professional web hosting service that will host your website under your own registered domain name is preferred.The web host should have secure server capabilities, fast servers, and adequate web space for your current and future needs provided through your selected web hosting package.
As part of the package you should also have full email services (preferably with IMAP technology), the ability to transfer files using FTP access, access to an administrative control panel, and access to reports and raw server logs that will enable you to monitor your website's performance and the results of your marketing efforts.
A professional hosting company that offers business hosting should be able to guaranty, at a minimum, 99% uptime for the greatest reliability.When your web hosting provider's server is down, if they don't have alternative servers, your website and your email will be down and downtime results in lost customers, lost sales and hindered revenues.
They should also provide top-notch technical support that is accessible when you need them and they should make regular backups of their servers to ensure that your website and databases are safe and secure and that data retrieval will not be a problem if it becomes necessary due to technical failure.
Evaluating alternatives for hosting your business website isn't necessarily easy. It takes time, thought and consideration.

However, if you take the time, evaluate your options and think things through before selecting a web hosting plan for your business website, you will be much better off over the long-run.
Choosing a web hosting plan for your business website is not a decision to be taken lightly. In fact, it provides the foundation upon which you will build both your business website and your business.
Make sure your foundation is strong is unshakable and your internet business experience will be much more enjoyable and profitable.
Copyright Christopher J. Enders. Are you at the end of your rope, fed up and confused by all the scrambled internet marketing advice you're getting? Whether you are new to internet marketing, or a website owner who wants to make more money from your website, learn the proven strategies that will sky-rocket your internet business at http://BiznessTips.comArticle Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Christopher_J_Enders