A Web Hosting Plan with Room to Grow

There are lots of things that could stifle your online business. Email issues and merchant account restrictions are just a few of the things that could slow you down. A common but often overlooked growth stifler is an inadequate website hosting plan. Getting stuck in the wrong web hosting plan could make you look like an e-commerce amateur long after you’ve learned the ropes.

When shopping for the perfect web hosting plan, you will come across a great many that seem to offer a plethora of features at a fantastic price. However, once you’re on board, you may run into several of the following growth inhibitors:

The most desirable features are excluded from your plan – On the surface, that $9 per month hosting plan may look appealing.  However when put to the test, you may find that you need $30 per month worth of additional a-la-carte features just to make your website work the way you envisioned. Be sure to sign-up for a trial of the hosting plan you intend to buy to make sure it will meet your needs. When possible, choose a thirty-day trial period. It will definitely reveal much more than the quickie 5-10 day trial offers. If you choose the right web hosting plan, you can make a template based website look like a custom design.

The site is not user-friendly for website visitors – It’s great to find a website hosting plan that makes it easy for you to create and modify your content. It’s also important for your visitors to experience that same ease of use. Your website should use fonts and colors that are easy on the eyes. It should have a logical flow that provides a link to the most popular items directly from the home page. Video, audio or text instructions should accompany items that are not so easy to understand or ones that have summary descriptions. And finally, the checkout process should not require a doctorate degree to understand.

Poor customer service from the hosting provider – Unless you are a veteran or plan to outsource your project to one, you are very likely to need the support of the customer service department. When looking for a hosting plan, make sure that the hours and the type of customer service available will meet your needs. If you prefer talking to a real person, you’re likely to experience frustration with the online chat or “email only” customer service options. Often times, both of these options are geared to provide very generic tips that do little to get you back on track. It’s a bit disappointing to receive the “you’ve outgrown our website hosting service” answer to a very pressing question.

When choosing a website hosting plan consider where you want to be 6-12 months down the road. Then find a provider that offers features you can grow with. Otherwise, once you get hooked into a plan, even one that doesn’t work so well, you may find it hard to cancel. Switching to a different server and experiencing a new learning curve may be more of a headache than what you’re already going through.

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Jan 05, 2010 : General No responses yet

Exploring Hosted Membership Site Solutions

If you’re looking to repurpose your content to create passive income online, you may be a candidate for a membership site or knowledge portal. Membership sites are a great way to both manage your content and make it available for sale to the public. Entrepreneurs, clubs, religious organizations, and other non-profits make use of membership sites to provide and manage content in a way that is easy for them and their subscribers.

The functionality of a hosted membership website exceeds that of a standard website. While you could enhance a standard website or blog to include similar features, it could be very time consuming and very expensive to do so. It could easily cost tens of thousands of dollars to create and manage a sophisticated subscription-based service. The hosted membership site solution makes it more affordable for small businesses and organizations to create a stream of reoccurring income that could last for years.

A hosted membership site can be a stand-alone product or offered in conjunction with an existing product or service. Giving access to a member site after a product purchase can increase that item’s perceived value tenfold. Content housed on a hosted membership site can be offered in a variety of formats including text, audio and video. For many, it has created the continuity needed to keep their clients on board for years. Some internet marketers offer their students lifetime-access to content because their membership site solution makes it so affordable to do so.

Let’s take a look at some of the top features that good hosted membership site solutions typically include in their monthly fee:

• Both WYSIWYG and HTML text editors
• Easy image, video and audio uploads
• Standard and custom membership levels
• Email addresses for subscriber communication
• Usage and financial reports
• Easy integration with popular payment processors like Authorizenet and PayPal
• Attractive templates with the flexibility to change colors and themes
• The ability to offer both free and paid content
• Event registration and management
• Email notifications and email reminders
• Easy member enrollment and renewals
• Easy password selection and retrieval process for subscribers
• Safe “member-only” content distribution
• An easy and automatic cancellation process
• Automatic notification of subscriber billing issues
• Optional blog, forum, newsletter and RSS feed features
• Ability to sell products to both members and non-members
• Optional member-to-member communication
• Reliable customer service department
• Video tutorials and training resources for membership site administrators
• Easy database imports and exports
• The ability to offer free or paid trial memberships for the time frame of your choice

As you can see, you can certainly do a lot with the right hosted membership site solution. It can be a great way to launch a new product or to simply give new life to a product is past its prime. In time, a good hosted membership site solution could bring in enough income to cover the operation expenses for one or more of your departments. That’s a pretty good deal for a $50-$350 per month fee.

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Dec 31, 2009 : General No responses yet

Choosing the Right Web Hosting Service Based on Your Needs

According to recent surveys, there are roughly 200 million websites on the internet today. While every website is unique in it’s own way, every one of them requires a web host to exist. Web hosting brings the ideas of a website owner to life, by giving them the server space and amenities needed to run and build their website efficiently. While every website has a web host, this does not mean that all web hosting packages are the same. In fact, the features of web hosting packages vary greatly.

The kind of web hosting service you require will greatly depend upon the needs of your website. The wonderful aspect about web hosting is that no matter how small or large you would like your website to be, you are guaranteed to find a service that fits your needs.

Shared Web Hosting

If you are planning on building a website that is not enormous, and you do not want to pay exuberant fees each month, then shared web hosting may be for you. Shared web hosting bears it’s name because you are sharing a server with other people and their domains. While you are sharing a server, this usually is not a factor and your website should function normally without any problems. Of course, shared hosting should only be considered if:

A) You would only like to build a moderately sized website that will have traffic levels of less than 10,000 visitors daily.

B) You are on a budget or would like to test a cheaper web hosting service.

Keep in mind that here are some risks associated with using shared web hosting. Since you are sharing an IP address with your fellow server users, your website may be shutdown if one of the people you are sharing your IP with engages in illegal activity. For this reason you should be careful when deciding to share a server or an IP address with someone under any circumstances.

Dedicated Web Hosting

Dedicated hosting bears it’s name because it provides a dedicated server to each customer. With the added security comes a multitude of enhanced features such as more bandwidth, visitor tracking, and of course a private I.P. Dedicated hosting is a much more secure option than shared hosting. You should consider dedicated hosting if:

A)You run a business online.

B) You need more features.

Reseller Web Hosting

Reseller hosting gives you the opportunity to resell hosting services for profit.  Basically you are given a certain amount of server space and features which you can then split up and sell as you see fit. Reseller hosting is a good way to cover your own hosting costs by reselling the services to another webmaster.

Free Web Hosting

There are also services that will host your website for free. If you wold like to try your hand at building a small website, then you may want to consider free web hosting. Sites like Blogger, Blogspot, AngelFire, and GeoCities will allow you to create your own website for free.

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Dec 24, 2009 : General No responses yet

Website Templates VS. Custom Designs

Having a professional looking website is one of the best ways you can boost your companies sales.  Customers are reassured when they see you have made an investment in your business in the form of a good looking, user-friendly website. However, this doesn’t mean you have to invest a lot of money, or even a lot of time. Or do you? The answer to this question greatly depends upon what you are trying to accomplish with your website. When it comes to building a website, you really have two main options. You can use a pre-designed template, or you can have a custom design made.

Custom Designed Websites

If your business is already very successful and you have a brand name to uphold, then undoubtedly the best choice would be a custom designed website.  Building a custom website, and having access to freelance programmers will ensure that your site can be updated whenever there are important industry changes. These types of updates cannot be done with a preset template. A custom website will not only give your customers a more visually stimulating experience, but it will also allow them to enjoy unique interactive on-page features. Having a website designed to your needs will also make it easier for you to project the desired image for your business.  While customized websites also allow you to continuously make adjustments to your websites design, they also require a greater investment off two synonymous things; time and money.

Template-Based Websites

If you have a new business that is not yet established then you may want to consider a pre-made template for your website design. Also, if your website is going to serve a basic function, such as providing information on a certain topic, then a template would also be a good option. Of course the advantages of using a template are obvious, you will be saving time, money and effort. However there are a great deal of disadvantages as well. If you would like to customize your site in the future there will be distinct limitations. This makes choosing the right template crucial as you are going to have to get used to looking at it daily. Also, the pre-loaded features of the template will have to suffice, as you do not have the option of adding more interactive functions. Of course, it is possible to make adjustments to a template, however you may need to seek the help of a web designer if you are not experienced in this field.

Conclusion

Keep in mind that if you are running a business then the most important aspect you should focus on in regards to website design is customer satisfaction. After all, the website is their to please your customers, and to increase your sales. Your main goal when designing a business website is to show the customer you are a professional and reliable business. Sometimes the only way to do this is to invest in a custom design. However, this is not necessarily true for small business owners. The best advice to consider is to use your own discretion, and to experience with multiple solutions at once. This way you will not only learn more, but you may potentially reach more customers as well.

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Dec 17, 2009 : General No responses yet

Does Your Host Support You?

If you want to have your very own website, rest assured that there are many web hosting providers around to fulfill that desire.  However, there is much that needs to be  considered in order to find the provider that is truly appropriate for your needs.  One of the most important of all is the level of support the company provides with the service.

Before signing up for any web hosting plan, it is advisable to find out just how competent the support staff is and how fast they will be able to respond to your questions or concerns.  It may also be a good ideal to find a company that provides different methods of support to ensure that you are covered from all angles.

Common and Advanced Support Options

In today’s web hosting market, support is provided in several ways.  Most companies make online documentation available in the form of knowledge bases, FAQs and tutorials.  These support options are great for customers who want to find their own answers as they generally contain information related to the service.  A well designed support system will make it fast and easy to find out how to set up email accounts, create databases, add on domains, implement your site builder, and much more.  While very convenient, online documentation should not be the only form of support the hosting company provides.  You also need the benefit of advanced support options, including the following:

Email – When signing up for a hosting package, email support should be a given.  No exceptions.  Even companies that have limited support options usually offer email support 24/7.  Because email can never assure you the speediest response, you may want to look for other methods to obtain the support you need.

Support Tickets - Ticket systems have become a common way to provide support on the web hosting market.  You simply fill out a ticket expressing your questions or concerns, submit it to the support department, and then wait for a response.  Support tickets offer the power of convenience and make a great alternative to email.

Live Chat – This is another feature that has become very popular in the on-demand world of internet computing.  Live chat allows you to get support in near real-time.  No waiting for a response via email or from the ticket system, both of which can be slower than you would prefer.  Although live chat is a matter of preference, this support option can turn out to be useful when yo need to communicate with a real person.

Toll-free Phone – The support feature many consider a must have is toll-free phone.  All the above options are great, but nothing beats the old fashion method of being able to get a live employee on the phone.  It would be nice if you could find a host company that at least keeps its technical support line open around the clock as problems could occur at any time.

Finding a good web hosting provider is never as easy as it sounds.  However, due diligence is required to find the solution that is best fit for your needs.  Therefore, you should access the company’s level of support as much as you can to better determine if it will live up to expectations.

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Dec 10, 2009 : General No responses yet