Choosing a Hosting Service: A Checklist for Business Owners
?>
Download eBooks and Software
 Ringophone.com: Best Selling Ringtone Site
Earn 75% Per Sale! Big Variety Of Great Products To Promote: Ringtones, Mobile Games. Plus Great Software: Flash Web Menu Maker, Wav To Midi Converter, Flash Text Effects, Video Chat Virtual World. Affiliates Join And Start Making Big Money Now!
Curationsoft Marketing Software
Earn 40% On An Easy Sell. Easily Post Content Across The Web Using 8 Different Sources With Drag And Drop. Converts At 3% To Cold Traffic! For Affiliate Tools Visit: Http://curationsoft.com/affiliates
Winslips - Amazing Lottery Application!
Web-based Lottery System. Real Test Results Published On Live Blog. Makes It Easier To Win Your Local Pick 4, Pick 5, Pick 6, And Pick 7 Lotto Game. Perfect For Low-budget Players. Integrated One Ticket System. No Hype, No Bull. Brand-new!
Articles > Web DevelopmentChoosing a Hosting Service: A Checklist for Business Owners
by: Maria Marsala
For a website to appear on the Internet, you require a “server” that is usually provided by a web hosting company. Hosting companies are paid monthly, quarterly or yearly. Some companies come with guarantees, too. Recommendations from other business owners and web designers are excellent ways to find a good hosting service.
One of the primary features I recommend is that the hosting companies can grow with you. If they only offer one package, and you need more, your web site maybe down for up to 2 days and/or you may have to change the code on any forms you use to match the new “server settings”.
Don’t be afraid to read a hosting service’s subscriber information, FAQs (frequently asked questions), note areas or bulletin boards on their sites.
A good hosting company offers as many of these basics as possible:
- This is a hosting company I can easily afford.
- They offer a Money Back Guarantee.
- They have information on their site about server uptime/downtime.
- The company contacts me, at my primary email address, when/if there are any server problems. (Could be problems when they’re updating their server, hurricanes, etc.)
- They offer your own IP address http://postmaster.aol.com/info/ipexpl.html
- They provide at least 5 POP email accounts (example yourname@yoursitesname.com) Your email accounts should include Alias Accounts, which look like a POP account to the person sending you an email; however, the address is actually an “alias” that's forwarded to any other email account you choose. And when you send an email back to the original sender, it is the forwarding email account, NOT the yourname@yoursitename.com that the sender receives.
- There is a Web-based Email system (a place for you to read your email online). If not, my favorite is www.e-mol.com
- An easy system for email forwarding (and vacation notice) capability.
- 24-hour customer service, by phone, even if it’s a long distance call, is best!
- 50 mg space (the space you need for a 100 page website with each page being approx. 8x11)
- 2 Gig Data Transfer/month (this will be enough for quite a while!)
- Front Page Extensions – only necessary if you create a web site with MS Front Page
- Cgi/PHP/MySQL (or asp availability). Check with your designer to see what you’ll require for forms to be created).
- Easy Control Panel: This feature is especially important if you want to maintain your site or have someone else easily maintain it. It's the one place to visit when making changes to your site, add addresses, etc
- Statistics - Does your hosting companies plan include monthly and yearly statistics on each of your web pages? Will you know how someone found each of your web pages?
- Secure server, Shopping cart (and other things you’ll need to set up a merchant account system)
- Server type: The type of server a hosting company you choose, should take into consideration the programs you will run for things like your shopping cart, affiliate program, web site pages, etc. If you're using ASP, JSP, PHP, CGI, PL, or CSS, these programs will influence the choice of a server and vice-versa. Your hosting service may use Windows (which for example accepts ASP but not PHP), Linux or Unix-based (Apache/FreeBSD/etc.) servers.
- Password Protection – If you have plans to create a membership are or client’s only area of your site, this is something to consider.
- Newsletter or announcement list
- Auto-responders (not usually available on very low cost hosting packages)
Special thanks to wise-women.org and HTML-on-the-WEB@yahoogroups.com for some assistance with this list.
About The Author
© 2004 Maria Marsala, Business Builder and former Wall Street Trader. "Powering-UP service busine$$es and their owners". Providing articles, tips, classes, and resources for owners of service businesses. Learn more at http://www.ElevatingYourBusiness.com.
|
?>
News on Web Development
Web Development Firm theREDspace Partners With ModelKarma For Its Global Brand Expansion
Firm Is Helping Build The World’s Largest Online Modeling CommunityNew York, NY (PRWEB) May 24, 2012 ModelKarma, which is aiming to become the world’s largest online community and a virtual agency for both aspiring and established models, has hired web development firm theREDSpace to bring their vision to life.Headquartered in Bedford Nova Scotia, Canada, theREDspace is an interactive ... Mozilla announces web development initiative
Users can learn web development with provided authoring tools, and existing developers can volunteer to run their own events. Razoa Releases Preview of New Java Web Application Development Tool
Alpinia accelerates and simplifies the web application development processSan Francisco, CA (PRWEB) May 24, 2012 Razoa, LLC, an enterprise software company based in San Francisco, today launched a preview of its innovative Java web application development tool that greatly simplifies the development of professional web applications. Designed for Java developers, the Windows version of this new ... oniric.com
Find Web Designers For Your Business In 3 Easy Steps NOW! Compare Price Quotes & SAVE!!! http://www.WebDesignPriceQuotes.com Web development services for any budget. Utilize our extensive experience in Design & Development, CMS, SEO, E-commerce and more. Get your free consultation and quote today. 10 Best Free Web Application Frameworks
LinuxLinks: To provide an insight into the software that is available, we have compiled a list of 10 high quality web application frameworks.
|
