Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Choose Top Web Hosting Service

One of the most crucial decisions that most online businesses have to make is choosing the best web hosting service. With a popular or well known and reliable Internet Service Provider (ISP) you won't face many problems, however with a poor web hosting service provider it can be a nightmare.

Choosing the right kind of web hosting service can be a very daunting task at times as there are some very important features that you need to make sure of. Here you can find below what exactly to look for when choosing the best web hosting service.

Amount of web space: A web hosting service provider would usually assign you a certain amount of space on their server. You need to ensure that does it have the right amount of space for your website and your business requirements. You might want to expand your online business tomorrow and would require much more space. So it's imperative for you that the web hosting company should be able to provide you with ample of space especially if your website is rich in graphics or has video clips.

FTP access: FTP access is very crucial since it provides the ability to upload new pages. Some web hosting service providers allow you to just design your web pages with their own personal web builder. This may be useful for beginners however you need to ensure if they provide you the facility to expand later when you enhance your online business capabilities.

Degree of reliability, security and speed of access: Speed, security and reliability are extremely important for the success of any online business. While choosing a reliable web hosting service you need to ensure that this is taken care of. A site that is not available, not updated on time or is down, will lose many online visitors. If an online visitor finds your site listed on a search engine, and he tries to access it but finds it down, he is sure to move on to the next link and you lose an important customer or visitor. Even slow working websites are very frustrating. So how do you know if a hosting company is reliable or not? By word of mouth or feedback from others! If that's not possible then you can yourself try accessing your site during peak hours and non-peak hours too. Your site has to be secure of intruders at the same time, especially if it's an ecommerce website.

Dependence and support: Does the web hosting service provide 24x7 supports? Do they respond rapidly to your issue? Can you depend on them? If you need 24-hour technical support that larger companies need then expect to pay substantially more. In fact, people are much more expensive than machines.

Pricing plans: Price is also one factor that you should look out for when choosing the best web hosting service. It's not necessarily true that the most expensive hosts are the best. Simply compare prices and services before you finalize one.

Data transfer (Bandwidth): You also need to see if the hosting company provides you with sufficient bandwidth for efficient data transfer. After all it's your website and you need to ensure that you are getting the best services for the money you invest.

Beyond the Basics of Email Hosting

If you work in a Small and Mid Size Enterprise (SME) there is a big chance that you are sending, receiving emails and sharing contacts, tasks and calendars on hosted exchange or Webmail powered email hosting solution. But what are the differences between hosted exchange and Webmail and what is the best option for your business?

Most SMEs usually do not have the time, a large IT budget or technical staff to implement and maintain an entire in-house email server infrastructure. Other factors such as costs are usually the main reasons why hosted exchange or Webmail email hosting is becoming more and more popular. By using hosted exchange or Webmail from an email hosting provider your business don’t need to physical-in-house-on-site email servers. Hosted Exchange is sometimes also called exchange hosting and is usually running on a Microsoft Exchange backend server. Using an email hosting provider you get peace of mind that your email system is always secure, backed up and up and running. Using a premier email hosting provider services also comes with high reliability and performance plus administration and 24-7-365 support. To summarize the main difference between hosted exchange and Webmail email hosting is that 1. Webmail is a budget version of email hosting and 2. With Webmail you use a web browser to send, receive and review emails, i.e. you will need internet access to utilize Webmail.

Hosted Exchange
Hosted exchange is based on Microsoft’s latest exchange server with Microsoft outlook as your client. With Outlook you can do more than send and receive email, you can share calendars, folders and contacts. Outlook is available for desktop, browser and mobile access so you are always connected, whether you are in the office, on the road or working at home. You always connect to the same exchange server; therefore your inbox always stays synched in near-real time, no matter which Outlook client you are using.

In a hosted exchange environment, the hosting provider owns and is responsible for the data centre, network, devices, operating system and application infrastructure components. In short, the hosting provider is responsible for providing a stable operating environment for every application used. Your own IT organization manages the applications and maintains full control over the applications infrastructure and business process.

In contrast with in-house-on-site email servers you need to provide maintenance and have anti-virus subscription and security update upgrades. You’ll need to purchase a new server approximately every 5 years and you will have slow access from outside of the office. You also need to invest in server hardware, server software licensing, exchange enterprise software and Blackberry server software. Finally you’ll need to hire a consultant to install software and perform maintenance/upgrades. Having a hosted exchange solution mean you don’t have to pay through the nose for expensive in-house servers, software licenses, employing IT staff to install and maintain the infrastructure, or being responsible for a 24/7 infrastructure.

Webmail
Webmail gives you anywhere, anytime, emails, calendars, contacts and task lists. It is intended to be as powerful as a desktop client, such as Outlook. The only limitation is that you need is a web browser and an internet connection. You can access email from Outlook, BlackBerry, Webmail, or any other email client or wireless device with absolutely no maintenance on your end. Webmail email hosting is a budget email hosting solution, but nonetheless it delivers great functionality for small businesses. A Webmail service takes away complexities of installing and maintaining an in-house email solution and at the same time offers the latest anti-spam, anti-virus and security technologies. Webmail is an email hosting solution that is perfect for businesses that have somewhat limited in-house budgets for IT expenses, limited IT resources to support an email environment and businesses that need the latest spam and virus protection.

Hosted exchange or Webmail – What is best for you?
What are the main differences between hosted exchange and Webmail? In summary hosted exchange is a more sophisticated solution with more shared options and is more widely deployed, on the other hand Webmail is gaining market share easily accessible and is of course a cheaper solution than hosted exchange. Below is a brief explanation of what the differences are - in terms of ability to share contacts, tasks and calendar - between hosted exchange and Webmail email hosting.

- Share contacts: Shared contacts are usually available with the hosted exchange option. Other users can be granted access to edit your contacts. Usually there is no ability for shared contacts with the Webmail option. Other users cannot have access to edit your contacts. - Share tasks: You can usually share tasks among users with hosted exchange. You have the ability to assign a task to other users. You can select the users you want to invite and automatically see the best times to meet. Collaboration with tasks among users is usually not available with the Webmail option. You cannot assign a task to someone else and you have to manually find everyone’s schedule before you agree to set up a meeting. - Share calendar: Exchange usually allows you to delegate read/write capabilities with the hosted exchange option, i.e. you can have an assistant create events for you. Events can have different statuses and colors on your calendar (i.e. out of office, on holiday, business etc.). No delegation capabilities can be given to other users with the Webmail option, so your assistant cannot create events for you. Only read access can be given. Categories of events are not available (personal, out of office, on holiday etc.) and all calendar events are displayed in the same color.

Starting a Web Hosting Company

It seems many people today want to start a web hosting company. Just by typing in “web hosting” into a search engine such as Google, one can see that there are many people trying to break into this market. The concept of starting a web hosting company seems very simple – start with a generic template, get a reseller account, configure some things, and start making money. But things can become much more complicated than that very quickly. There are definitely some things to keep in mind before starting a new web hosting company.

The first thing that needs to be done is to get the website going. This includes getting a template, creating pages that describe the company, its plans, and its services. When that is done, a program such as WHM Autopilot needs to be configured. This is so that when someone orders the web hosting, the order will automatically be received. Not only do these things need to be done but they need to be aesthetically pleasing as well.

Then comes the more difficult part of starting a web hosting company – the selling. As mentioned earlier, this is a very competitive market. The company needs to find people who need the service and will check out the website. On top of that, they need to find the price reasonable. A marketing plan must be developed before taking this step as there are usually cheaper, more reputable companies trying to get those same customers.

Once the company has their website and has customers, customer support becomes a big issue. The first thing to keep in mind is that customers are going to want technical support available twenty-four hours a day. If the company can’t provide this, they’re more likely to look somewhere else. Also customers will usually be paying around ten dollars a month for the hosting service. This is not very much. Because of this, when customers need to be consulted or they have a problem that needs fixing, the rate of pay for the company can drop very quickly. Larger hosts usually hire technicians to deal with these sorts of issues but that may not be a possibility until the hosting company becomes a little more established.

When running larger websites, the hosting company will usually need to offer dedicated hosting services. This is due to the fact that shared hosting only provides for a certain amount of storage space and bandwidth and this is not often enough for the larger sites. The speeds are also much faster with dedicated services than they are with shared. However, there are challenges that come with dedicated servers. They require time, maintenance, and the cost is much more than that of a shared server. The lowest a dedicated server will cost is usually around one hundred dollars but quality servers will usually cost hundreds of dollars each month to own.

For companies that aren’t going to offer plans that have major requirements, a shared server will do just fine. If a company does want to offer those plans, the advantages and disadvantages of owning a dedicated server must be looked at in great detail to know if it is the right decision.

Starting a web hosting company is definitely possible. However before one takes the plunge, it’s important to look at all aspects of it. It’s also important to make sure that there is plenty of time available to run the business and to deal with customers.

Author Bio:
Mohammad Salay Naderi is the president of www.salaalive.com and is a well established internet entrepreneur. He teaches SEO Tools and Tips. His Web Hosting Directory and Web Hosting Reviews at www.salaalive.com are proven to be helpful for web hosting searchers. salaalive.com helps people to find the most affordable and reliable web hosting services according to their personal or business web hosting needs.

Know How to Choose the Best Web Hosting Company

Before actually beginning your quest to find the top web hosting company, it will be a good idea to first know and understand what a good web host is so that you can make the right choice. The web host is really a service provider who will place your website on a server that connects to the Internet. Thus, when you think about finding the best web hosting company you need to be sure that its server is fast and that the company provides near total uptime since you don’t want your website to be inaccessible to visitors because the server is down.

The web host usually has thousands of websites and may use more than one web server for that purpose, and so you will need to rent out space on the server to have your website have a presence on the World Wide Web. Thus, the key to choosing the best web hosting service is to find the web host who manages things well so that you are not taken up with bothering about what the latest server technology is and how to maintain your website. So, before you go reading up on all the different web hosting reviews, you should be clear that it is the web host who will deal with the technical side of things and you only need to focus on building your online business.

Today, you will find that the top web hosting companies are more or less having standardized features and among the more common ones are Control Panel, Disk space, Bandwidth, Email Account, Scripting language and the ability to directly have customer support either through phone, email or through the web.

Next, you will need to consider what price you are paying for disk space and also the price to Bandwidth ratio. The best web hosting companies are those that will not over charge you for their Web Hosting Plans and a rule of thumb in this regard is that the greater the disk space as well as bandwidth that the web hosting company offers, the more you will end up paying per month to them.
Therefore, you need to know which the most competitive priced is for you which will depend on popularity which can be judged by looking at awards won by the web host, good web hosting reviews about it and whether it gets a lot of traffic or not. Next, you should look at reliability, speed as well as guarantee of uptime which means that the web host must guarantee a minimum of 99% uptime. Thus, you should enquire whether the web hosting company has redundant backup systems or not, which if it is affirmative, will allow alternative internet connections to kick in should the main connection get interrupted.

Furthermore, you need to look at the speed at which your site functions and this will depend on the different network connection types used. It is quite usual for service providers to choose to connect through T1 or even T3 lines. However, the better option is to use Optical Carrier lines because T1 lines give speeds of 1.5 mega bits per second, while T3 lines have speeds of 43 mega bits per second. In the case of Optical Carrier lines the minimum speed would be 51.85 mega bits per second and top speeds can touch as much as 155 to even 622 mega bits per second and this can go up to nearly five thousand mega bits per second.

So, the parameters you need to look for in the best web hosting company are proper management and reliable equipment and speedy service, which should help you decide on choosing one service provider over the other.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Do You Like To Make Money with Web Hosting?

We all know that web hosting is the basis of all web sites. It helps us attract visitors, it displays what we are desperately trying to get across, and it allows us to survive in the cut throat internet world. While these are all important qualities that come with web hosting, there are many other opportunities. Dying to make extra cash? Surprisingly, web hosting can actually help with your bills. In a few simple steps, you will be on your way to a richer lifestyle.

Fortunately, there is a new trend in the web industry. Reseller Hosting, which consists of purchasing a web hosting package and reselling it for a larger price, has been making webmasters just a few cents richer. Although this sounds like a daunting task, it actually only requires a large amount of space. Once the webmaster acquires such a large server and bandwidth, he/she is able to divide it up among other people. As long as they are willing to pay a monthly fee, you will never get screwed over.

Regardless of how much money you want to make, purchasing this re-seller hosting does not cost much. For an average of $30/month, you can purchase enough space to make a profit. While all of these websites will be on a shared server, the majority of webmasters do not mind this downside. After all, not everyone can shell out thousands a month just to acquire their own dedicated server. Once you have found a few loyal customers who will not create any illegal material, you will be generating a profit every single month out of the year. Fortunately, until you stop your hosting, you will never be out of a job.

In order to sell this type of hosting, you absolutely need to network. Regrettably, there are many webmasters trying to follow the trend. For this reason alone, you should look in unpopulated areas. Try and find a website or forum that has not yet been tackled by other masses of website owners. For instance, find websites similar to your own. If you do not have one, look on webmaster-related forums such as Digital Point or Webmaster-Talk. These areas are populated with thousands of interested clients, who will be more than happy to jump on the bandwagon, if you do have a great deal.

Still desperately trying to find other ways to market? Many website owners advertise through blogs and buy text link ads. As a result, people will be more apt to find what you are offering. If this doesn't work, you could even start marketing in a local newspaper or a newsletter that goes out to professional companies who are always looking for alternatives. Nevertheless, there are plenty of consumers out there. You just need to be creative and put in the effort, in order to get anywhere.

For years web hosting has been flooding the market. However, it has just recently become a form of revenue for webmasters who just don't own their own web hosting company. It is a wonderful alternative to an additional part time job, especially if this is what you love to do. Networking with others, controlling a server, while working on your website certainly sounds like the perfect occupation.

All Affordable Web Hosting Does Not Provide Quality

Are you searching for cheap website hosting? There are several website hosting are present on internet for you. Although getting an affordable web hosting is not a difficult task but finding the best one is not also easier. You have to learn to find the best, web hosting solutions, hosting reviews and resources for building the best website. Apart from searching the best web hosting you also have to learn about different ways to save at the server.
1. Every online business demands excellent web hosting for an attractive online presence.
2. There are several points are written below to help you for searching the best web hosting company and solutions and also tips for getting affordable web hosting for qualitative outputs.
3. Always try to use a variety of hosting companies for better results. You can link them together with same shared server. If you want to link more than two websites, then you will get two hosting packages, which will provide you long term SEO profits for your websites.
4. The long term commitments are giving more benefits, for which you will save more money. Once you plan your website then try to purchase long term hosting solutions with fixed durable time schedule. This not only save your money but also make you free from every month money deduction tension. Once you fix your project for long term then your deposited money will automatically deducted according to service.
5. In online market you will find enormous affordable web hosting companies availability, which will attract you a lot. But it is up to you, because you have to choose which one fits according to your needs. Be specific on your demands and requirements. Every company offers you attractive and unique packages, which seems to be very different. First you figure out your needs from those special offers and then go forth.
6. If you wish to publish more websites, then can go for those hosting companies, which are offering unlimited domains or else can purchase reseller accounts for getting unlimited hosting accounts. But must check your server space, or else you have to pay extra for crossing the limit of publishing space.

7. Keep in mind to always read hosting reviews and testimonials, because these are the parameters of a company reputation. Reviews and testimonials can create company good or bad image. Also search for others views about a particular web hosting company.
8. After deciding the web hosting company it is better to ask several related questions to that company, if you will receive satisfactory answers with in accurate time, then ensure that this web hosting company is reliable and well responsive. Before dealing, with them ensure about their support during the tough periods and emergencies. Also look for their customer care service, how friendly they are and how do they respond to customers.
These are the few simple ways to search for the higher quality within your affordable hosting websites. These write ups also protect you from cheaters or doing unnecessary expenditures. There are unlimited numbers of web hosting companies, so do not loose hope if you did not get nice one at your first attempt.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

7 Easy Steps to Becoming a Web Hosting Reseller

There are several key elements you must take care of before you can go into business as a web hosting reseller and expect to survive and prosper. In this article, we will touch on five basic steps that are required for reselling accounts that are provided by a web hosting firm. Although success for any business is based on the quality of products services, and the perseverance and diligence of owners and employees, you don't have to reinvent the wheel. And just because it is easy to list or understand these steps doesn't mean they will be easy to do well or easy to keep going.

While you are attending to these five steps, there are plenty of other things that need to be done, too. You should have a business plan, of course, and know where your operating funds are coming from until such time as your business is self-supporting. This means you will have to guess at some things until you have enough real-world experience to "fill in the blanks." Follow those who have gone before you, and make use of their experience, especially in regards to what you should not do and what are must-dos.

1. Your name - The first step in a successful host reseller venture is getting a domain name that is catchy, out of the ordinary and at least somewhat descriptive. A domain name is, in fact, your business's personal ID. Your customers will need to have access to your products and services, and a good company name will help them remember where to find you on the Internet.

2. The equipment - Next you need to locate and set up a hosting reseller account. You could conceivably establish your own domain registration procedures, arrange for connectivity from one or more "major bandwidth" providers and fill a warehouse or two with powerful computers and racks of servers. Or you could get a reseller account from a firm that has all of those things going on already, an established supplier.


3. The software tools - Any good reseller hosting account will offer customers the tools, often combined in a web-accessed "control panel," to manage website hosting, domains and customer accounts from a central location. That way, you can log in check billing, uptime figures, account status and everything else, all at once.

4. Look, feel and functions - You must look professional to make customers feel safe in signing up with you as their website host. That means your own website must be designed and implemented by a professional. Try not to save money by using cookie-cutter website templates, as they tend to say, "We're cheap." One of the major benefits of using a professional designer is that you end up with a unique website, one that looks the way you want it to look and doesn't look like a copy of someone else's. One way to save money is to hire a designer simply to tweak and personalize the look of a good, flexible template, an option you should investigate if your funds are limited.


5. Easy sign up - However you decide to design and implement the site, make sure that you make the sign up process easy and straightforward. Keep your order form as simple, uncluttered and easy to complete as you can. One way to do this, as well as steer the customer a bit, is to have some choices pre-selected (default). It is important to supply customers with a summary page of their orders so they can review all of the details before making the purchase.

6. Differentiate yourself - Try to present yourself as being different in some essential way from every other web hosting offer. You can create a special offer, run a contest or promotion featuring a prize, bundle services and tools that other companies don't offer - it matters less what is different about your hosting offer than that it "seems" and "acts" different.


7. Be a good driver - And that doesn't mean in a car, either. You have to learn how to drive a lot of qualified traffic to your website, as that is the only way to get customers. There are entire textbooks - make that shelves full of textbooks - on how to market a website, build traffic, qualify leads and convert visitors into paying customers. If you take just one lesson from this article on possible traffic-driving solutions, one that has a proven track record for thousands of small, online businesses, it would be Google's AdWords program. Check it out, as well as the other million things you can do to get traffic to your site and get customers to sign up.

You never know what several or dozen different things might combine to create success for you and your web host reseller service. But one thing is certain. If you do not provide a high level of customer service, your newfound customers won't stay around for long. It is true of customers in any kind of store, online or offline, high-tech or not. If you are not taking care of them, and treating them like their business (and they, personally) are important to you, they will move to another web hosting firm as soon as they can.

You will need good luck to succeed in reseller web hosting, like in any other endeavor. If you follow seven steps outlined above, and tend to the other million or so things that are required of a successful business, you could be well on your way. Stay focused, stay busy, stay attentive and stay positive, and you just might stay in business, too.