Thursday, November 13, 2008

How Much Bandwidth Do You Really Need?

Bandwidth is the measure of data volume that is transmitted over an internet connection. Bandwidth is measured on a lot of things, and there are different ways to assess how much bandwidth you use. In order to choose the correct hosting plan, you need to know your bandwidth requirements. Web hosting companies will offer different prices tailored to your bandwidth needs. Once you have an idea of what kind of bandwidth package you need, you can search around and make comparisons in prices.

It is good to err on the side of caution when happening upon service providers that offer "Unlimited Bandwidth." This is impossible, and any company offering this just wants to trap you. There are no broadband companies that offer unlimited bandwidth connection to their clients, so how is it possible that the web hosting companies that use them would be able to provide unlimited bandwidth?

When you come across a hosting company that offers "Unlimited Bandwidth" as one of its services, be sure to take a good look at its "Terms of Service" menu item or the "Acceptable Use Policy" section. Read the fine print about this so-called "unlimited" disclaimer. Some sites will just use that term to pique your interest, whilst others discuss your site "qualifying" for unlimited bandwidth. For example: your bandwidth may be "free" but if you go over 5 GB per month they will charge you. Some may even offer unlimited bandwidth but with a torrent of terms and conditions such as no image galleries, HTML or graphics! You may also not even be allowed to link other sites back to your own. Your website will basically be non-functional, and all because you have fallen into the "Unlimited Bandwidth" trap!

It is good to do proper research and to find a web hosting service provider that has a range of different services and specified bandwidth packages. It is also wise to find the web hosting companies that will allow an upgrade should the bandwidth you had chosen prove not to be enough after a while.

Before you decide on your bandwidth requirements, take the following factors into consideration:

Roughly how many users will be accessing your website?

How many pages does your website consist of? You have to realize that it is not the quantity but the quality of the text. You may have a few pages, but they could be filled with bandwidth chewing graphics. The HTML in your content will also use up a lot of data volume. You should even take links to other websites off your site into consideration too.

Large audio and video files will require a lot more space. You also need to think about whether you will be adding more in the future. Computer programs and file downloads will also require more bandwidth.

Virtual Reality and full-length three-dimensional audio and video presentations will require the most bandwidth of all.

It is good to watch your usage carefully over the first few months to check whether you have chosen the right bandwidth requirements for your website. Naturally, it will take you some time to determine whether the bandwidth you have chosen is right for your site, because you will need to see the amount of traffic you are receiving.

Christine Anderssen is the owner of Tailormade4you and offers all your web hosting

and web design

requirements for small business owners in South Africa.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Web Hosting Marketing - How to Get Your First Client

If you just started new web hosting company your main task will be to get your first client. In this article you will find some solutions which can help you to get in this very competitive business.

Your business plan should cover both short term and long term strategy. We will talk more about short term strategy because you need to get your first clients as quickly as possible. In the beginning you have to pay monthly fees for the server or reseller hosting plan and it is very important to avoid losses caused by paying for unused web space. Anyway, when you are implementing short term strategy you should always try to do it in the way which will help you in the long run too.

First solution is advertising in web hosting forums. Just google for phrases like web hosting forum or web hosting board to find some of them. Join 3 - 5 forums which allow members to advertise their services for free. Also make sure that you can set up the signature which will be displayed under each post you make. The signature should be visible no matter if you are logged in or not and should be do-follow. This way you will not only get targeted traffic but also improve pagerank of your website. Before you create your first advertising thread read the forum rules. Some forums require about 10 - 15 posts before you can post to the advertising area. Make quality posts -- try to answer questions of your potential customers. You should choose carefully where to post. If you will answering questions like How much web space do I need for my photo gallery you will probably get more targeted traffic through your signature link then if you will answer questions of other web hosts like Which payment processor do you prefer.

Another way how to get small instant traffic together with SEO effect is submission to the web hosting directories. People who look for new web host usually want to compare a few companies before they sign up for any. This is the reason why web hosting directories are so popular and why you should submit your company to most of them. 99% of them allow free submission and link directly to your site so you will get some links to your site too.

The first two ways was good for those who have limited budget and can not pay for advertising. If you have some money to spend try to invest them in advertising. You can use PPC systems like google adwords. Put the tracking code on the page which is displayed when the order form is submitted and payment received. This will give you control over the costs. For example if your profit from single sale is $20 and your conversion ratio 10% you can spend up to $2 for every click. There are many advertising solutions on cost per click bases. You can try a few networks which pay the commission to their publishers who display ads on their websites. The advantage of such networks is the possibility to buy advertising space across the whole network. You can target your ad to webmaster related sites without contacting the site owners.

Very popular way how to increase the sales is running affiliate program. It is very cost effective solution because you pay only commission for the sales. This way you can never lose. It is possible to buy php script or join some of the affiliate networks. The first solution is cheaper, the second one more comfortable. If you join affiliate network you will have to pay about 10 - 30% extra but you will not need to send payments personally to every affiliate. If you join the network with a lot of affiliates it will be easier to attract them for your offer then surfing around and contacting every site owner.

Marble Host offers quality web hosting with preinstalled WordPress with website builder.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Do You Need Dedicated Web Hosting

There are many types of web hosting that you can choose from these days so why choose a dedicated web host solution. Having your own server means that you are the only one that is allowed to host websites on that server. You get all of the computers processing power and storage space. Plus you get to run your own programs or services on that machine.

Not having to share a server with a dozen or maybe hundreds of other webmasters means that there is much less of a chance for things to go wrong. If you thing of a hundred people trying to do something on a computer as opposed to one person you can imagine what I mean. It only takes on person to install a script incorrectly or get a sudden traffic surge and not only their site goes down but every other site on that server.

With shared hosting you are very limited to what you can do. With your own dedicated server you get SSH or shell access which means you can control everything that goes on with that server.

A dedicated server is a specialist machine that is designed to do one job and one job only and that is to serve your website up to visitors. It has been optimized so that all of its functions are geared towards web hosting.

There are of course more than just one type of dedicated server. Most hosting companies offer several different hosting packages for servers. Your first decision is whether you want to use a Windows based dedicated server or one that is running Linux. This choice will depend on several factors some of which include the type of site you are running. If you have a PHP and MySQL database that needs hosting then your going to need a Linux server. If you have windows based back ends or have certain integration requirement for Microsoft software then you will need a Windows based server.

The next set of considerations are that of the specifications of your server. Do you need a server that is going to be as fast and as powerful as possible or can you get by with a lower cost server that is less powerful. You should consider the storage and bandwidth requirements. The larger the site and the more information you are going to need to store then the bigger the disk space you are going to need. There is no point in under planning and running out of storage space six months down the line.

Find out how you can get reliable dedicated web hosting at http://www.dedicatedwebhostingsearch.co.uk

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Free and Cheap Web Hosting Options For the Thrifty at Heart

The internet offers some great deals when it comes to web space and web hosting. However, you do need to search for the best available offers. You should also take into consideration the length of time that a provider has been in business. It is simple to find free web space on the Internet.

All that is necessary is that you undertake a simple Web search such as Google, AltaVista, or Yahoo and the result should bring back options for free web space. Many individuals or businesses search for a place to put their website without paying for the service. Anything from 5MB to 100MB of online web space for the purposes of hosting your web site can be provided by these free services.

There are also gifts such as blogs, copy and paste scripts that are generally Java code scripts, counters, guest books, tracking logs, virtual domain names and more with these free sites. All of these extras are great for those people that have no or little knowledge of how to build a website.

Free services provide benefits that may sound very tempting. However, it is vital that you undertake some research to ensure that the benefits are in actual fact viable. Free services can also bring other unwanted things that need to be dealt with when you sign up for the service. It is general practice that you will be asked to submit to advertising and surveys by completing a form before you are entitled to the free service. Ensure that you carefully read all user agreements that come with the free service.

You can opt for the cheap option but not wish to have advertisements running on your site. You can seek a service that is similar to free hosting, but you would need to pay a small fee to keep your web page ad-free. A service with a monthly fee of $2.95 will be offered by some of these providers with 100MB of web space if that is all that you require, and you can easily upgrade your packages.

Visit ecommerce hosting solutions homepage for more information and tips on how to secure your next hosting deal

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Web Hosting - Types and Abilities

Internet businesses are completely dependent on the quality of their Website hosting. The web host allows you to have a presence on the World Wide Web and let you put a personal or business site up on the internet for others to view. Websites can be put to many different uses. You may want a site to maintain connections with far-flung family and friends, or to help your business grow.

You can make money by using internet marketing for your website. In order to do this you need to make sure that you have a website and that it uses web hosting to connect to the internet. You will then be able promote your company (and make money) using your website.

Several different kinds of web hosting are available online. These include paid hosting, free hosting, file hosting, and dedicated hosting. Free hosting will never provide as many features as paid hosting. For example, some file formats would not be supported by free hosts, and they will not provide as much memory space. Free hosting facilities generally won't support Perl or PHP. Paid hosting provides a much wider range of features for its users.

In a nutshell, website hosting provides computer servers to guide a company's website operations. The client company is provided with space on a server and a connection to the internet. In certain cases, the client business owns the servers while leaving technical support and system maintenance to the website hosting company.

It is extremely important to know that some web hosting is different from other web hosting. Some hosting companies have better features when it comes to Web space, how data is transferred and accessed from your website, tools to build your website, technical help, customer service, and finally the price you have to pay.

When selecting a web host, you have to compare the packages of various firms. You will want to locate a web hosting service that offers a sufficient quantity of space, assorted web design tools, and a reasonable price. You need to do your homework to pick a host that's appropriate for you.

When looking for web hosting services it is often a good idea to assess the needs of your company. It is often a better idea to buy a plan geared towards small businesses than a costly package that your company will not use. Web hosting is important in being able to stay competitive in today's market as it gives your company web representation.

Web hosting is a service that allows an individual or organization to have a site on the internet. Sites can earn money with advertising, but only if they are hosted. There are various hosting options, and all are not the same. Paid offers more options than free, for example, and hosting services offer different levels of data space, data transfer limits, and technical support. A key differentiator is cost. When choosing a hosting service for a small business, there is no need to pay for an expensive set of hosting services when a cheaper package will do the job.

visit High Risk Hosting

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Cheap internet web hosting, design and marketing

So you're trying to find a reliable source for cheap internet services. If you are looking for cheap web hosting, cheap design or cheap internet marketing - this article is for you. I want to outline steps to take in order to research these products and obtain the best solution for your business!

With so many companies out there offering cheap internet services, it is growing increasingly hard to know whether you are purchasing from a quality source. However, there is good news out there for all internet service consumers!

When searching for cheap internet design services, you have to look no further than a site such as Elance or Scriptlance. Both of these web sites are going to over high quality freelance design work at great prices. How these sites work are simple. You post a project and watch the bids come in for your project. You will receive several different bid amounts and requests from many vendors wanting your business, and then you can research all offers and vendors before making a decision. This is great for quality control because you can view past transaction information and vendor reviews to simplify the process!

When looking around for cheap web hosting, there are some great resources online to find good reviews. For some reason there are thousands of hosting review sites and many of them seem to be owned by businesses themselves, so what I would recommend doing is going in to a forum such as Web Hosting Talk and reading actual reviews from live people that are not influenced by the prejudice of the dollar!

Lastly, finding cheap internet marketing. This is a touchy subject because it totally depends on what you are looking for and how large your budget is. There is a great do it yourself article at http://www.01searchrankings.com available that can help you improve your cheap internet rankings on your own. If you have a budget for search engine optimization, internet advertising and marketing a few more resources that would greatly help you out would have to be Elance and Scriptlance like mentioned above (when searching for search optimization internet marketing). You can create your own pay per click marketing campaign with sites such as google and yahoo by searching for google adwords or yahoo marketing.

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Web Hosting Basics For Small Businesses

There doesn't seem to be an end to the number of companies offering web hosting solutions. To make things even more confusing, they all offer different packages with varying features and costs.

If you're new to the Internet, you may be confused about which hosting company to choose, and what type of features your site will require.

Since different types of websites can have vastly different needs, web hosts offer a variety of features. For example, a site dedicated to storing images and media will need a hosting plan which emphasizes storage space and bandwidth (the amount of data your visitors can download from your site in a given time period).

Similarly, if your website will receive high traffic, you would require a server that efficiently balances the data load and keeps your website available on a consistent basis.

Depending upon these features, the cost of each hosting plan is different. When comparing web hosting providers, you will see that their price structure normally depends on the operating system, storage space, security options, availability of a dedicated server, the number of email addresses, and dozens of other features. Your decision to choose a hosting plan depends on how many of these requirements you want, and, of course, your budget.

If you have decided to buy a hosting plan for your website, you can often save money by getting domain registration and web hosting in one package. However, this is not a necessity, and many people choose different companies for both of these services.

For small sites, don't be oversold or wowed by big numbers. You likely won't use anywhere near some of the storage and transfer limits offered by many hosts in their premium packages. Stick with the basic package and upgrade if it becomes necessary.

For sites with higher performance or security needs, a virtual private server is recommended. While a VPS is more costly than other hosting plans, it ensures that your site will not share as much of the server with the hundreds of other sites that may be hosted there.

For enterprise level sites, a fully dedicated server is recommended. Sites on a dedicated server do not share any resources whatsoever with other sites.

Regardless of the size and type site you plan to host, look for things such as customer support forums, optional phone support, and reasonable prices. Remember that rock bottom pricing is sometimes a signal of poor quality, and opt for hosts which offer reasonable service at a fair cost.

Want to learn more about web hosts? The author recommends Cheap Hosting 101, a web hosting resource featuring reviews, promotional codes, and resources. Visit today to quickly compare web hosting providers.