Web Hosting Articles & Tutorials

The Flexibility of Multiple Domain Hosting

CommunicateBetter — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 18:31:33 +0000

Business is about expansion, regardless of what industry you are in. In order to expand you need to have plenty of options that will let you maximize your revenue stream and expand your overall outreach to new prospective clients. On the internet this mean shaving access to various social venues and owning multiple web properties. Web properties are at the present possibly more valuable then actual real estate. If a website is correctly monetized and has the right domain name, then you are almost guaranteed to turn a profit with it. Whereas even appealing estates are not selling in the current real estate market. Web properties can be acquired for cheap and then turned into empire using nothing but hard work and time as an investment. The same cannot be said about nay other industry.

Broadening Your Horizons

The best way to broaden your horizons online is to purchase multiple domains for your business endeavors. To achieve the most success you need to venture into various niches and industries, and the only way to do this is to have access to multiple domains. Image visiting an electronics website where they also sold clothing and pet accessories. Would this site not lose some of its credibility? Your customers need to believe that you are an authority in your niche, and most people believe that you can’t master a trade if you are jack of all trades. Therefore you absolutely must keep your business endeavors separate with multiple domains. The best way to own multiple domains under the same hosting account is with multiple domain web hosting.

Advantages of Hosting Multiple Domains with a Single Host

The most obvious advantage of hosting multiple domains with a single host would be the cost. Since you will be paying for one service you will undoubtedly save a lot of money due to factor alone. However you will also be saving yourself time in regards to the administration of your website as well, and as you know time is money. With multiple domain web hosting you can access all of your domains within a centralized control panel, without having to login in and out of multiple hosting account.

Website Security and Anonymity

Another benefit to having a multiple domain hosting account is the ability to haveseveral IP addresses -one for each of your websites. While not all multiple domain hosting accounts offer this service, it would be optimal to choose one that does. Having your own IP address is very important towards the long term success of your website. When you share an IP address with a lot of other sites you are taking a substantial security risk, as your site could be taken offline at any time due to the actions of other sites. By having multiple IP addresses to work with you not only prevent this problem, but you are also able to interlink all of your sites without the search engines viewing you as the same entity and penalizing your linking efforts.

How to Choose a Qualified eCommerce Hosting Plan

CommunicateBetter — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 22:33:31 +0000

Finding the necessary hosting solution for your website is not always a simple task, especially when you are not even sure which type of hosting plan would be suitable for your needs. If you have decided that you absolutely need an eCommerce solution, then you should know that you still have some decisions to make in regards to which specific hosting plan you are going to purchase.

Different hosting companies offer various hosting plans, so it is very important that you examine all of your options and make sure you are aware of the various feature before making the final decision. To choose the right hosting plan without regret you will need to base your decision on a certain set of criteria that will help you narrow your search and select only the most optimal eCommerce hosting plans. One of the first things you can do is think about what you need in a web host. Once you know what you need then you’ll be able to search for a solution that will accommodate those needs.

What Will You Be Selling

First, decide what you will be selling, and think about how that will affect your hosting decision. If you are going to be selling digital products, or if you have a very large product catalog complete with pictures and other multimedia files, then you are going to need a lot of bandwidth and storage space for your site. Keep in mind that the larger you want your site to be, the more server resources you will ultimately need to keep the site operating optimally. If you decided to purchase a hosting plan that gives you inadequate server resources, then the performance of your eCommerce site will undoubtedly suffer and you may even lose customers due to this.

Customer Interaction

Another important factor for you eCommerce site is customer interaction. One of the ways you can interact with your customers, and let them interact with each other, is through product reviews, comments and site forums. Many hosting plans offer these features included in your control panel, letting you easily add such features to your site. If you want a fully functional eCommerce site then you may want to consider a plan that includes these features. One of the biggest incentives to buy for a customer is positive reviews from other customers. Letting your customers review the products they buy from you is a great way to instill confidence in your site visitors. A forum is a great way to keep your customers on your site for longer periods f time, and it will let them share information with each other, thus removing the need for frequent customer service.

Shopping Carts

The primary concern when building an online business is convenience. Most of your customers shop online because it is convenient. If this convenience does not exist on your website then they will quickly go somewhere else. The best way to make the shopping experience convenient for your customers is to offer a comprehensive shopping cart solution. Shopping carts will expedite the checkout process and allow customers to quickly add new items and automatically calculate shipping costs.

Backlinking Etiquette – A Guide to Better Backlinks

CommunicateBetter — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 20:12:48 +0000

Building backlinks is perhaps one of the most important aspects of search engine optimization in any scenario, as it directly affects the way the search engines view the popularity of your site. Without an adequate amount of backlinks, it is nearly impossible to get the search engine ranking you desire, as your site will simply not have the overall web presence it needs. Building backlinks is also one of the most difficult aspects of search engine optimization as it often requires a lot of manual work. If you are not familiar with the concept of backlinking, then you’ll need to know that a backlink is any link on the web hat links back to your website. The more links there are, the more popular your site appears to be to the search engines.

Proper Link Exchange

It may sound impossible to get a lot of other sites to link back to your site with no experience or connections in the web industry, but it is actually quite possible with the right technique. All you need to do is exchange links with other webmasters in your industry. Simply contact them, and offer to place their link on your site, if they will do the same for you. You have to remember that it is not the quantity of the backlinks that matters, but the quality. Meaning, your goal is to have backlinks placed primarily on sites that are highly relevant to yours, and that have plenty of incoming traffic. The reason for this is because you want the traffic that is coming through those links to be as targeted as possible. If the traffic is not targeted, then you’ll simply be wasting bandwidth and time, as the traffic coming to your website is simply not going to convert into sales.

Take Your Time

Since there are two different kind of backlinks, the amount of time it takes to build those backlinks varies. If you want high quality backlinks then it will most likely take you several weeks to several months before you have established a healthy amount of backlinks. On the other hand, there are other options for you if you are not concerned about the quality of the backlinks, such as automated software and backlink building services. The problem with the backlink shortcuts are that Google monitors the progression of backlink building closely, and if your site is building too many backlinks too quickly, it can easily become de-indexed from Google.

Link to Your Whole Site

One of the main mistakes people make when building backlinks is using only links to their home page. If you decide to spread only the link to your homepage, then you’ll effectively be promoting only your home page. This means the rest for your site will not get nearly as much search engine traffic, thus minimizing your overall web presence. The best way to drive targeted traffic to your site in large amounts is to have at least 5-10 backlinks to every one of your pages.

What is Captcha and How Can it Protect My Website?

CommunicateBetter — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 00:18:08 +0000

Website security is composed of many factors, and each factor is just as important as the next. A single vulnerability in the security of your website could lead to a massive lapse that results in data loss and possibly even fraud. Many people overlook one of the most common security threats, and that is spam. Although spam does not seem like a security threat at first glance, when you realize the detrimental effects spam is capable of causing, you soon realize it is a serious issue that needs to be addressed with any website.

How is Spam Dangerous?

Spam is a security threat because it compromises the integrity and validity of your website. Your site gains success due to authenticity and quality content. If you;re site is flooded with spam comments, then the of the quality content you worked to produce can instantly become littered with content that takes away from the overall quality of your website. This ultimately results in loss of traffic and even a decrease in your search engine ranking. In fact, many people have been de-indexed from the search engines due to a high amount of spam on their website. Most spammers place comments on your web pages that link to their website, in efforts to get quick backlinks with very little work. Instead of doing this manually they use programs called bots to do the commenting for them. However there is a way to stop these bots from commenting on your site, using Captcha.

What is Captcha?

Captcha is an image verification module that is used to verify whether or not someone is a real person. If you have signed up for an email address before, then you have probably seen a Captcha box before. It is a strange looking image with oddly shaped characters in it, also it is very difficult for a program to decipher the image content. The Captcha box prompts the user to enter in the information sen in the image to verify that the user is indeed a genuine human being.

What Other Ways Can Captcha Protect My Site?

Another way that Captcha is useful in protecting your site from spammers is that it protects your site from false user registration. Instead of just preventing spam comments and fraudulent user registration, Captcha can also be used to prevent bots from doing anything else on your website that you would only want genuine human beings doing, such as contacting you via email using your sites contact form. Many times your competitors or hackers will bombard your business inbox with spam using the contact form on your website which is directly linked to your business email. If you don’t use Captcha to protect your contact form from spammers, then you could find yourself trying to delete a sea of spam from your inbox. The main reason why this method works so well to spam people, is because the spam folder in the business email is not going to recognize the emails as spam, since the emails are coming from the contact form of your own website. For this reason it is absolutely imperative to use Captcha with your website in every way possible.

3 Reasons to Choose a Dedicated Server

CommunicateBetter — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:35:33 +0000

A dedicated server is a web server that is devoted to one customer, thus giving that customer all of the resources they need to effectively run their website without experiencing server downtime or other pitfalls. Although dedicated servers are available to every customer, they are usually only used by larger businesses due to their high cost and overwhelming amount of server resources. Most small business owners would not necessarily need a dedicated server, but nonetheless it is a common solution for small business owners as well. One of the reasons why a dedicated server is so suitable for the large business owner is because the server setup is completely customizable and expandable. The following reasons should help you decide if a dedicated server would be suitable for your online business.

Enhanced Customer Service

Aside from nearly unlimited server resources, dedicated hosting plans get the best customer service from any hosting company, as these plans are given priority over other hosting plans. Since your server is dedicated to your site only, the host can work with you to make sure your server is meeting all of your needs. You’ll usually have shorter wait times on the support line, and you’ll be able to have the server configured to your likings, unlike shared hosting plans which only give you restricted access to server configuration. In essence, having a dedicated hosting plan is the same as leasing your very own private server in a remote location.

Multiple Domain Hosting

With your own dedicated server, you could also host multiple domains without having to use different software to manage each domain. Meaning all of your domains could use the same control panel, the same shopping cart, and even the same point of sale software. All of this software could be installed on multiple websites simultaneously since each website is hosted on the same server. You could also have several dedicated IP addresses for each website to maximize site performance. Hosting multiple domains on the same server is a must for any online business owner that regularly operates several websites at once.

Reselling

Perhaps the most advantageous aspect of having a dedicated server would be the reselling capabilities. If you want to have all of the aforementioned features of a dedicated web server, but you do not necessarily need all of the extra resources, then you could opt to resell some of the resources allocated to you and then use the rest as you please. Most dedicated hosting plans will give you the right to resell your resources, since the server resources will only be used by you. If you’re in the business of offering web services such as web development, then you may want to consider a dedicated hosting plan as you’ll be able to offer your customers server resources in combination with the existing plans you have on offer. Bundling your services is one of the best way to sell hosting plans and make a profit with a dedicated server.

Assessing the Value of Your Domain

CommunicateBetter — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:45:57 +0000

As the domain name industry is expanding rapidly on a daily basis, it may seem as if all of the good names have already been taken. While this is unfortunate for the people who have not taken the initiative to buy a good domain name, this actually works to the advantage of the people with the good domain names. Good domain names are selling for exuberant prices, some even going for millions of dollars, so there is definitely money to be made in the domain selling industry. The question is, how do you assess the value of your domain?

How Much Does Your Domain Produce?

The answer to this question is extremely complex, and in fact there is no real way to determine the ultimate value of your domain. There are however certain aspects that will most definitely make your domain name more valuable. One thing that makes domain’s particularly valuable is the popularity and productivity. Obviously a website that is already making money would be much more than a website that has no revenues. Yet even the revenue generated from a website can be a variable in the domain selling industry as well, and in some cases a monetarily worthless domain can sell for thousands of dollars based on just the popularity and catchy nature of it’s name.

While having a good domain name is great way to increase the value of the domain, it should be noted that even with a popular name, you could still increase the value of the domain by giving it some of the following attributes.

What Makes a Domain Valuable?

Although the value of the domain will ultimately be decided by the client that purchases it, there are ways to increase the value of your domain in anyone’s eyes. As mentioned above, the popularity of your domain will contribute greatly to it’s worth, so search engine optimization is very important towards the value of your domain. It is an indisputable fact that people are willing to pay more for domains that have a high page ranking in the search engines. In fact, even domains with very abstract names can sell for thousands of dollars base don their SEO attributes alone. Another huge factor in deciding the value of the domain is the number of incoming links the domain has. Incoming links are great way to judge the popularity of a website. The more incoming links a site has, the more likely it is to receive an abundance of traffic, and n the domain selling industry, traffic is key.

Supply and Demand

Ultimately the value of your domain will be decided by the person that wants it the most. Even will all of the above fact taken into consideration, you may find that a seemingly worthless domain can sell for thousands of dollars based on it;s name. As the old saying goes, “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” You may feel your domain is worth very little money, however before you list it for a very low price, remember that you may have something that an eccentric millionaire wants badly, based on the name alone.

Is Colocation Web Hosting Ideal For Your Business?

CommunicateBetter — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 20:40:34 +0000

When you’re in business, it’s important for you to have a presence on the Internet. You want to be able to advertise your products and services and offer potential customers an easy way to find you. Advances in technology over the last decade alone have given way to a bevy of options for both building and hosting of websites. You simply have to evaluate your choices and decide what’s right for you and your business.

Why Colocation Web Hosting is an Excellent Option to Consider

If your business requires complete control over server configuration (unlike dedicated servers where the server is owned by the web host company), this is the ideal choice. Essentially, your company will pay another company to connect the server you own to the Internet. If you don’t already own one, most companies will build one for you.

Colocation web hosting provides you with greater flexibility. You get to choose your hardware and software for the server. The hosting company is responsible for keeping your server connected to the internet and handles all those environmental details. You will simply be responsible for maintenance.

Initially, you will have to pay a start-up fee including the server itself, the space it takes up, purchase of other equipment, such as a switch or router, the cost of staff time to set-things up and possibly a few other costs. Of course, there is also the monthly fees for rental and connection.

Other Colocation Aspects to consider

Colocation web hosting offers you support from knowledgeable and helpful staff. The host will also offer uptime guarantees on the performance of your server. This means you won’t have to worry about much downtime that will leave you absent from the web and suffering business losses because of it. You can also rest assured that this type of hosting will provide you with great security assurances.

There are other minor things to consider, such as the contract terms, facility where your server will be located and bandwidth, but those are minor details that vary from host company to host company. You will want to do your homework and find the options that best suit your preferences.

Not all Colocation Web Hosts are Created Equal

Research collocation providers before making a final decision. It may sound like it takes a lot to get started, but if you find a good company to work with, they’ll walk you through the tough stuff. That’s their job, after all.

Colocation web hosting is a great investment for your company. It will help ensure a constant web presence for your business and a greater chance for increased revenue. For mid-sized to large companies, it’s really a great way to go. You get the greater flexibility in the what goes into your server and for a company that needs a lot of space, you get much more with colocation hosts than you do with dedicated servers and some of the other options out there. Colocation hosting could be the best investment you make for your company in the long-run.

Top Five Reasons To Use Reseller Web Hosting

CommunicateBetter — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:23:02 +0000

We’re living in an age where technology matters. The Internet has become our most valuable tool for keeping in touch, promoting projects and conducting business. It’s next to impossible not to want to have some kind of presence on the web. In fact, it’s almost a need and your success may very well depend on it. When you find yourself in need of setting up that website and getting your name out there in cyberspace, where do you start?

While there are many options for website building and hosting, reseller web hosting could be the solution you’re looking for. Why opt for reseller web hosting? I’m glad you asked! Here’s the top five reasons why reseller web hosting really is the cream of the crop.

Save Yourself Some Green.

Reseller hosting packages will cost you a fraction of what the other guys charge. You pay a small fee to get started and will easily recoup that investment as customers sign up. Your monthly fee for hosting is minimal. Your customers will save even more. The package they purchase from you will most likely cost less than what you initially paid and their monthly fees will be reasonable, as well, depending on how much you choose to charge.

Oh, the potential! Income potential, that is.

Reseller web hosting provides you with the opportunity to make quick profits from both your own business services and your activity as a reseller. Once you have acquired several customers, your home free! You can count on residual income from your clients’ fees for some time to come with very little effort on your part.

Freedom of Choice

Face it, many of the hosting packages on the market today tell you what you’re going to get. They typically offer you a couple of options and that’s that. You just have to live with what you’re given. With reseller web hosting, you’re given more options and the freedom to choose what best fits your needs. Furthermore, when it comes to the reselling side of things, you get to decide which parts of your package to resell, how to present it and the prices you set. No one will be standing behind you, dictating how you run your business!

Room to Grow

You get a vast amount of space for a small price. That’s ingenious! For those of you needing a lot of bandwidth, reseller web hosting is the affordable solution. So wave goodbye to all those hosting plans that inform you of how you have apparently exceeded your bandwidth limit when you have barely used any and still have tons to add to your site. If you don’t use all your allotted bandwidth, you simply have another way to diversify your income, as you can sale the resources that you’re not using.

How Does Free Hosting Sound?

Free. Everyone loves that word. If it means you can keep your money in your pocket, then it’s got to be great. With several customers on your roster, you could eventually have your site hosted for free. The fee will still have to be paid, but it no longer has to come straight from your pocket and your regular income. Your profits from the reselling alone will easily pay your fees and you’ll still have plenty of green leftover!

Now that you know the reasons why reseller web hosting is so great, don’t miss the opportunity to have your own affordable web presence and a chunk of the unlimited revenue stream!

Outsourcing the Design of Your Ecommerce Website

CommunicateBetter — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:13:31 +0000

Perhaps the most important aspect of a business website’s success is it’s design. You can spend all of the marketing money you want, but in the end, one of the leading factors that your customers are going to base their decision on is how professional your site looks. Building a website without any experience can be a very difficult task, and this is why there are freelance programmers and designers available to help you. If it weren’t for these professional website designers, many of the most powerful ecommerce website’s would not exist.

If you want your website to flourish then you’ll need to take the appearance of your website seriously. The following tips will help you find programmers that are reliable and capable of building your website.

Always Check the Background

Hiring a worker without knowing their background information is a great way to drain your time and money. Therefore it is important to never employ the services of a programmer or website designer who’s background cannot be thoroughly scrutinized. Instead of hiring a service through a personal website, you may want to visit a freelancing site or forum. The sites have feedback systems that you can use to view the work history of your potential employees. This information will aid you in establishing the deserved pay rate, and you’ll also know what to expect form your workers.

Work Experience is More Important than Educational Credentials

Many programmers and developers possess skills that are self taught. In fact, some of the most highly skilled workers are those that took the initiative to learn their craft through experience. Many of the people who have degrees in web design are not as skilled as these self taught entrepreneurs, because instead of learning through experience, they simply sat through a class and passed a test once every week. Therefore, instead of judging a worker by their academic credentials, you should first consider the experience they possess.

Always Use Contracts

Make sure you have your employees sign an agreement that thoroughly outlines what is expected of them. You’ll want to make sure your workers understand the task at hand, and know exactly what they are expected to do. Many conflicts result from a dispute between the employee and employer based on the lack of a work statement. All jobs should be completed under contract, and all contracts should contain a work statement. Work statements, at minimum, should outline the overall workload and the scheduled deliver date for the task at hand.

Hire Only Realistic Employees

Man freelancers try to sell you an all-inclusive package, and in doing so, stretch themselves to thin and are unable to complete the task as promised. Instead of hiring workers that promise grand results, hire many workers that promise to meet realistic goals. Doing this will ensure you are never let down by employees that fail to live up to false expectations. Make sure you have a chat with your employees and screen them thoroughly before hiring them. Test them to see if they are in the habit of saying yes to every request, even when the outcome is unrealistic.

cPanel Tutorial – How to Create an FTP Account in cPanel

CommunicateBetter — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:59:51 +0000

Due to it’s user-friendly interface, virtually any task can be executed with ease within cPanel. However, there are many people that are completely unfamiliar with various internet terms and site navigation in general. To these individuals, even the term “user-friendly” raises a question mark. If you feel you are in this category, then you’ll be glad to know that this tutorial is going to explain everything the process of setting up an FTP account in detail. Rather than the usual step-by-step instructions, which are a bit too concise and evasive, we’ll be using a paragraph format that will go through the entire process.

Now that you have paid for your web hosting account, you’ll be able to use cPanel to access all of your site’s administrative functions. One such function is FTP setup.

What is FTP?

FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol, and it is essentially the method used to upload content to your site. Instead of uploading files individually, you’ll be able to upload hundreds of files to your website with ease using an FTP client.

How Does an FTP connection Work?

The FTP client establishes a connection between your website’s server and your hard drive, making it easy to update your site. In order to establish the connection with your site’s server, you need to create an FTP account in your web hosting account. Once the FTP account is created, you’ll be given a set of login credentials that you can use with your FTP client.

What is an FTP Client?

An FTP client is a local program that you download to your computer just like any other application. Once the FTP program has been downloaded to your computer, you can use the credentials given by your web host to connect to your web server and upload and download files form your website. If you are worried about the cost of an FTP client, don’t be. In fact, they are often free! Most people use a popular FTP client like FileZilla.

I have my FTP client and I know what it is. Now how do I set it up with my hosting account?

Go to your control panel (in this case cPanel). Now look for a section that says “Files.” This section will let you manage every aspect of your website’s files, including all FTP functionality. Click on the link that says “FTP Accounts.” At the top of the interface you’ll see the option to create a new FTP account. In many cases your host will have already created on for you. You can view your existing FTP accounts by scrolling down and viewing the table of your existing FTP accounts. To create a new account simply fill out the forms with the required information (such as Username and Password) and then hit create FTP account. You’re done! Now just use the login information provided and login to your FTP account in your FTP client (in this case FileZilla).