Monthly Archives: July 2010

A Guide to Choosing Small Business Web Hosting

Posted on July 30, 2010 by arra| Leave a comment

With so many options in web hosting and the fierce competition that takes place between hosting companies, it is easy for small businesses to find reliable and affordable web hosting. There are many things to consider when choosing a when host for your website, and you should compare the services of at least a few hosting companies before choosing one.


Before you start looking at hosting companies, decide what your business needs. Will your small business website require dedicated hosting because it will require large amounts of bandwidth, storage space, and get a lot, 10,000 or more, visitors per day? Or, will shared hosting fit your needs if your website does not require as much space?


You should also consider what type of features your website needs, it is purely informational or will you need to integrate order forms, shopping carts, and payment options? Some hosts make it easy for you to set up an ecommerce website and others do not, the type of hosting you will need is be determined by the features your website will possess.


If you are not a web designer by trade and cannot afford to hire one for your website you will also need to consider how easy it will be to set up your website and how much knowledge of scripting, HTML, and file transfer you will need to set up your website. Some hosts offer website building packages with their hosting which makes it relatively easy to create a website without too much technical knowledge but you will end up paying a little more and loose some functionality.


It is possible to find hosting for your small business for as little as a few dollars a month for shared server hosting or as much as a few thousand dollars a month for a dedicated server. Once you know how much bandwidth, storage, and space you need and determine which hosting solution, shared or dedicated is best for your small business, you can then evaluate the different features of various hosting companies, including price, to determine which is best for you.


You will want to look at factors such as uptime, technical support, cancellation, upgrade and transfer policies, as well as how long the host has been in business and any complaints or awards they may have in the community.


Uptime is related to reliability and will tell you how often you can expect your website to be unavailable to web surfers due to hosting technical issues. Most hosting companies that have good uptimes will advertise this; some of the major hosting companies advertise 99% uptime however no matter how reliable a host is if you run a website for long enough you will encounter at least a few technical glitches from your hosts end.


You should also consider the amount of technical support you will receive from a host and make sure you choose one that will fit your level of expertise. If you know you will need help make sure you pick a host with good tech support. Take a good look at their policies as well to make sure you will be happy if you decide to cancel, transfer your site, or upgrade your hosting plan.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Web Hosting

Tagged , , , ,

How to Make an Impact With Web Design

Posted on July 30, 2010 by arra| Leave a comment

A Dallas Web Design company can help you make an impact with your business by practicing many different techniques. They will use a Dallas SEO Company that provides navigation, contact information, load time, branding, and even content on your site to ensure it is proper. These are the right ingredients to create the best impact online.

Dallas Web Design will show you how important navigation is on a site. Users should be able to click on site pages without getting lost. When users have no idea where they are on a site it might be because the pages have run far too deep. Users need to know where they are at all times when they visit your online business. a Dallas SEO Company can help determine if your site runs too many pages deep or is too confusing to navigate through when clicking through it.

Proper Dallas Web Design provides the right contact information on a site. The fastest way to lose a customer is not to provide contact information. A Dallas SEO company will also show you how you can provide a way for customers to contact you without receiving a lot of spam to that email address.

A way for customers to contact you should be provided also. Dallas Web Design will design a contact page and a frequently asked questions page for your site. Providing a way for customers to ask questions is essential if you want to maintain your customers. A Dallas SEO company will provide the right content on a frequently asked questions page so customers will find the answers they are looking for online rather than bother you with questions all of the time.

When users click on your web pages they need to load quickly. Users expect speed and they want things instantly. Dallas Web Design can work with you to remove many things from your site that might be slowing down the load response for users. They can also provide a Dallas SEO Company that can help you with the right graphics that include keywords inside of them. You can integrate keywords in video.

A Dallas SEO Company can also help with branding your product and your name. They will separate you from the competition so you are better than the rest in the eyes of the users and the competition. The proper Dallas Web Design will give you a brand that users will remember.

There are many reasons why you want to hire a Dallas SEO Company to help you with your online business efforts. Your site can make a big impact with the online communities when you have the proper content, functionality, advertising, and more. You should consider Dallas Web Design for your site building, content, and other efforts online. They can help you provide contact information that will avoid spam, provide a brand for your business name, quick loading of your web pages, and much more. Impact is everything when it comes to users and you can make a significant impact.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Webdesign

Tagged ,

Never Let Someone Else Host Your Blog

Posted on July 30, 2010 by arra| Leave a comment

Curious as to whether you should host your own blog, or blog from a remote server? This is a question more and more people are asking themselves after witnessing just how far the blog has come. Note that there are just as many disadvantages as there are advantages to doing both. But being experienced in a little programming, we believe blogging on your own server is far more advantageous for a couple of key reasons.

Reason #1: Limited Blogging Resources and Tools

Posting content through a remotely hosted blog requires that you relinquish a tremendous amount of control over how messages look and work. This is mainly because a remotely hosted blog by design is built to accommodate hundreds of thousands of bloggers. For such a big volume of activity, it can only afford to offer the very least. A blog that offers an extensive amount of features to a large number of people consumes much more resources than what its own servers can provide — ultimately running the risk of major crashes.

Even something as simple as a low-graphic poll can consume an insurmountable amount of bandwidth if over 100,000 bloggers decide to offer one to their visitors. Imagine for example how much bandwidth a popular blog already consumes. **Popular** blogs can consume anywhere from two to three times that a week. If a blog server hosts 500 popular blogs, its capabilities would reduce with each use of a simple poll!

Resources simply aren’t an issue with a self-hosted blog these days. With your own server, you can deck out your blog with as many plugins and widgets as your heart desires without having to fear server crashes or time outs. In fact, you shouldn’t consume any more bandwidth with your own hosted blog than you would consume with your own hosted website.

Reason #2: Limited Money Making Opportunities

We couldn’t count the number of people who want to monetize their blogs if we wanted to. The simple fact is that everyone and his “mom” wants to monetize their blog but the ugly reality is that many (free) remotely hosted blogs don’t allow it. Limited resources could play a factor in this restriction, however since most monetized campaigns call upon the resources of a 3rd party, this restraint is mostly censorship. Blogs that curb 3rd party ads generally want to limit advertisements to their own products and/or services.

With your own blog of course, you can advertise whatever, whenever, where ever. You’re only restricted by your conscience (or by the data revealed from your visitor stats) and the only policies that you have to follow are the policies of your 3rd party ad providers. This accordingly opens doors for tremendous opportunities with Adsense, Amazon, and any number of the hundred other affiliate schemes we have available.

An example restriction that you’d still have to watch for — even with your own blog — is Adsense’s restriction against multiple ads. Although your own blog gives you the freedom to advertise what you want, Adsense restricts you from advertising more than a specific number of Google ads at a time and advertising Google ads with other competitive schemes like Bidvertiser. We find that Google ads used in conjunction with Amazon books ads, Clickbank affiliate links, and AuctionAds eBay products create a nice restriction-free mix of quality wares.

You will of course want to experiment. Just remember that all the plugins that your own blog comes with helps create a unique visitor experience. Open opportunities often lead to abuse, so keep a watchful eye on how your audience reacts to the ways that you customize your blog. Don’t overdo it with ads and don’t overburden your visitor’s Internet connection with unnecessary plugins.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Web Hosting

Tagged , , , ,

What to Look Out for in a Singapore Web Hosting Provider

Posted on July 30, 2010 by arra| Leave a comment

What are some of the things you should look for when choosing a web hosting provider in Singapore? There are many web hosting providers in Singapore, some are large reputable web hosting company, while others are setup by one man show. Choosing the wrong web hosting company can result in serious damage to your company email communication , reputation and loss of profit, when badly managed servers goes down.

Reliability and speed of access

Not only the web host be reliable and fast, it should guarantee its uptime (the time when it is functional). Look for a minimum of 99.5% uptime guarantee. The host should provide some sort of refund (eg prorated refund or discount) if it falls below that figure. Without that guarantee, the web hosting company will have little incentive to ensure that its servers are running all the time.

Support Level and Team Strength

When you host your company email and web site services with a budget hosting company running on one man show, there will be times the owner is sick or away due to un-forecast issues, disaster start to happen when no one is monitoring the server; your email goes down, your customer cannot reach you; your email bounce; customers starting to doubt your company reliability; you lose the customer. You tried to contact the owner, but to no avail. There you are, left hanging with nobody to turn to fanatically. Such scenario have happened many times! (many customers who switched to us is partly due to such problem they faced with their previous web host) . Always check with your prospective web hosting provider on the team strength and support you will be getting when signing up for their services. Sometimes you want to save a few dollars, ask yourself how much your company reputation is worth compared to the money you can save.

Age of the Web Hosting Company in Business

While we always encourage more entrepreneurs in Singapore to setup their own businesses. A new startup some times may not have the level of experience and funding to provide top notch hosting and network infrastructure that your company can heavily depend on. A company with more than 10 years of experience is likely able to meet the expectation of support and reliability than a newly setup company with less than 2 years of experience. Find out the year your prospective hosting company begin their business.

Network and Hosting Server Infrastructure

The most simple server setup for hosting business is simply getting a single server, host it in a datacentre, install Cpanel (control panel) and starts to offer hosting. Now this is far from a highly reliable network setup. Many hosting company owner fail to troubleshoot problems when it arises within the server due to software or hardware problem. Learn the types of server hosting environment your hosting provider is offering. Generally, a clustered network of servers give you more assurance than a single server environment which can goes down anytime due to software or hardware problem.

Who are the customers of your web hosting provider?

Always find out from your prospective hosting provider who is actually using their services. With customer list of MNCs and SMEs, it offers more assurance that big corporate names who use their services are provided with proper and reliable service, you can ensure the same level of service is likely to happen to your company when you sign up with them.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Web Hosting

Tagged , , ,

Planning For Your Church Web Design

Posted on July 30, 2010 by arra| Leave a comment

In this age of modern communication and business methods, creating your own web design firm is a business that has a lot of prospects to grow. Indeed, small- to big-time businesses are springing left to right and they all want to build a website that can compete. There are several Sacramento web design companies in existence but you can still create one that can compete and long before, online newbies will turn to you for their web design needs.

You will begin by funding your business and there are loan options for that. Once you have the funds you need, think about other variables to your business such as location of your office, internet route, and other business prerequisites. You need to clearly outline all of these as they can impact your budget projection.

Then, you can look at hiring the staff that will make up your Sacramento web design company. Make sure that you properly screen your staff since they will serve as your business’ gem. Therefore, you have to establish a standard for your business right off the bat. Then, you’re off to the web development proper…

When developing a website for your client, it requires complex work. Here are some of the considerations you need to make:

* Identify how much hosting space is required for the client’s website. If you want to store a massive amount of data and have several pages, then you will need a bigger space for that.
* Then, figure out the domain name for the website. There are also several domain name extension for you to use. As for the domain name itself, think of something that web visitors will be able to quickly remember so they can visit the site more often.
* Work together with the client in designing the concept for the website. Although visual and graphic elements are important, it is important that they are able to communicate their business through the web design.
* Tap one of your staff to work on the search engine optimization for the website. Nowadays, in order for a website to stay competitive, proper SEO strategies incorporated within the website design is vital to success.
* You can opt to include a content management system in order for visitors within the website to stay updated about the latest information within the site. However, you need to discuss it with your client to ensure that they have the budget for it.

Website development is never easy but with a proper understanding of the nature of this business, you can help establish your own Sacramento web design firm and excel in the market.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Webdesign

Tagged , ,

The 3 Key Numbers When Buying Web Hosting – Price, Bandwidth and Storage

Posted on July 30, 2010 by arra| Leave a comment

There are 3 numbers all web hosting companies use in their marketing – it is the price, the bandwidth you get and the disk storage you get. Let’s look at those 3 numbers closer so that you can get the best deal when shopping around for web hosting.

Price sounds straight forward, but it isn’t that easy to always figure out what one will actually pay for hosting. Most hosting companies list the price for hosting in dollars/month, even if you really pay for one or several years in one go. So a common price would be $5.95/month if you sign up for 2 years – that means that you will pay $142.80 directly when you sign up (24 months x $5.95), and then another $142.80 again in 2 years etc. This means that the per month price can often appear much lower than it is when push comes to shove. Since the hosting company wants you as a customer for a long time you usually get a better deal the longer you sign up. Signing up for 1 or 2 years usually gets you quite a good deal. Some web hosts also charge a one time setup fee to activate your hosting. Especially this is common if you want to pay per month since they want you to sign up for at least one year.

There is also one cost in hosting that is usually a bit hidden until you really have to pay, and that is the cost for a domain (ie a .com or .net address to your site). Many hosts overcharge for this and don’t tell you that you need a domain until you are halfway through the signup process. If you are on a tight budget it is worth shopping around for cheaper domains, you do not have to buy the domain from the same company you buy the hosting from. A .com domain shouldn’t have to cost you more than $9/year.

Bandwidth is also known as Traffic or Monthly Bandwidth Allowance. It is the amount of data you are allowed to move to and from your hosting account, it is usually counted in Giga Bytes per month (GB/month). This includes all the data you upload to your web site and the data each of the sites visitors needs to download to their browser to see the site. Normal web sites need a very small amount of Bandwidth. Photos, big images, videos and big files (such as software downloads) take a lot of bandwidth, other files requires basically no Bandwidth even of you have quite a popular site. So unless you are hosting a photo sharing site or similar you need not to worry about the Bandwidth of your hosting. Just a couple of GB/month is more than enough. The way it works is usually that you get X GB/month included in your hosting, and if you use more than that you have to pay a bit extra for what you used. So if you notice that you go over the alloted Bandwidth a couple of months in a row you might want to upgrade your hosting plan to one that comes with more Bandwidth.

Storage can also be called Disk Space, Web Space or Disk Storage. It is the amount of data you are allowed to store on the web hosting company’s servers, it is usually counted in either Giba Bytes (GB) or Terra Bytes (TB). Just as with Bandwidth you do not need very much unless you are going to host a huge amount of photos and if you use to much you need to pay for the extra space you use. For even a very popular page 10 GB or so is more than enough, and unless you are hosting 100 bus loads of Japanese tourists worth of photos you will never ever need to go as far as Terra Bytes. Any host that markets that they have Terra Bytes worth of storage just bets on that less than 1 customer in 10.000 will ever come close to using that amount of disk space. If you really have a need for storing that much data you should look at hosting aimed at big Enterprise customers, and then the price will really go through the roof.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Web Hosting

Tagged , , , , ,

Importance of simplicity in Web Designing

Posted on July 30, 2010 by arra| Leave a comment

A web design represents the face of a company online on the net. It gives a company a unique individuality among the millions of websites on the world wide web.

Simplicity in web designing means how easily and effectively your website can communicate the company messages. It is the look or design of the webpage that will communicate to the web surfer about the personality of the organisation. It is the duty of the web designer to give you a web layout that speaks for your company. Based on company goals and requirements, the website designer will come up with an appropriate layout.

Infact it is not that easy to do a simple layout. The web designer has various knowledge about graphic software and makes use of them to the best of his ability. By overdoing things with the graphic software, the designer might make lots of mistakes. For example by putting lots of effects in an image, the beauty of the image disappears.

The same applies with the content of the website. Content that are too poetic may divert the reader’s attention and he fails to the right message for which he has come to the website.

Below we have highlighted the reasons why a simple layout is always preferable when designing a website.

• It is easy to understand and interpret a simple layout.

• The website will have a professional look and feel and thus enhances the personality of the company’s online presence.

• Simple contents like text and lighter photos are not heavy in size and are downloaded rapidly.

• Search engines loves simple websites as there download time is less and has better keyword results.

• Human scan webpages rather than read every words in a website. Thus they can easily scan a simple and elegant website than heavy and colourful look.

• It takes less space on the server and bandwidth, thus lowering the cost of hosting a website.

• Simple web pages takes less space of the server and bandwidth.

• A simple layout is more flexible in nature. Any requirement for redesigning or modifying the website cab be easily done.

• It is easy to maintain a simple layout and can work well of different platforms or browsers.

• It saves the web surfers’s time and he gets the information to the point.

It helps in building a trust between the company and the user as the user gets what information he is looking for.

Nowadays many websites are designed in Flash and other creative software. Simplicity in web designing is always appreciated. If you can keep your website simple and the user get the information he wants, you will see many viewers trusting your company’s information and products.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Webdesign

Tagged , ,