Back up Your Backups - Web Hosting

Back up Your Backups - Web Hosting

by: hosting webhosting
Total views: 83
Word Count: 2159

Can you afford to lose all your data? Of course you can't. And if you can't, then not paying good money to back it all up just doesn't make sense. In this article, we examine some of the options every online business should be considering for backing up its data, in case the worst happens.

Back up your backups! Say that ten times fast. This is a life lesson as an Internet business owner I have learned repeatedly and way too often – more times than I care to count. Just when you think you have enough data backup safeguards in place, one of them fails and all your data is gone, your web site is down, your business is dead. That is probably one of the most catastrophic things that can happen to most businesses, where many jobs and incomes are on the line. There really is no room for error, and you will not realize just how extensive the damage is until it's too late. So it is my hope and intention to give you some food for thought on best practices for backing up your web site/server so that you may hopefully avoid the pain and distress I have experienced first hand.

In this article it is my hope to point out some of the obvious and maybe not so obvious ways that people and businesses alike back up their websites; then we will discuss what can go wrong with those concepts, and finally we will cover some backup/data protection concepts that have worked for us and may work for your business. The key to getting the most out of these ideas is keeping an open mind. I can almost guarantee you that some of these concepts might seem overly redundant and even a bit obsessive compulsive – and if that’s the case then it’s a good thing. And if you are budget conscious – and these days who isn’t – many of these solutions are going to sound overly expensive. The comparison I try to run in my head is the cost of backing up data versus the cost of being out of business. That's usually a very easy computation to make.

The concepts and ideas we are going to cover will apply most to anyone who is leasing or owns a dedicated server or two or twenty. Even though it is possible to apply some of this article toward shared accounts, most of the techniques discussed will not be applicable. For the simple, straightforward web sites, chances are you will be fine with a simple host-offered backup service. What we are aiming to cover in this article is the more complex backup scenarios which involve a lot of mission critical data, files, programming, and even possible customer information such as credit cards, addresses and other sensitive information.

RAID, Shmade

I used to think that so long as I had a RAID configuration, my data would be safe and I could sleep at night. After all that’s what the hosting companies tout the most for data backup – making sure all of your hard drives are in a RAID configuration. Raid is defined by Webopedia below:

“Short for Redundant Array of Independent (or Inexpensive) Disks, a category of disk drives that employ two or more drives in combination for fault tolerance and performance. RAID disk drives are used frequently on servers but aren't generally necessary for personal computers.”

Now there are a number of different types of RAID with which you should make sure you are familiar:

* Level 0 -- Striped Disk Array without Fault Tolerance: Provides data striping (spreading out blocks of each file across multiple disk drives) but no redundancy. This improves performance but does not deliver fault tolerance. If one drive fails, then all data in the array is lost.

* Level 1 -- Mirroring and Duplexing: Provides disk mirroring. Level 1 provides twice the read transaction rate of single disks and the same write transaction rate as single disks.

* Level 2 -- Error-Correcting Coding: Not a typical implementation, and rarely used, Level 2 stripes data at the bit level rather than the block level.

* Level 3 -- Bit-Interleaved Parity: Provides byte-level striping with a dedicated parity disk. Level 3, which cannot service simultaneous multiple requests, also is rarely used.

* Level 4 -- Dedicated Parity Drive: A commonly used implementation of RAID, Level 4 provides block-level striping (like Level 0) with a parity disk. If a data disk fails, the parity data is used to create a replacement disk. A disadvantage to Level 4 is that the parity disk can create write bottlenecks.

* Level 5 -- Block Interleaved Distributed Parity: Provides data striping at the byte level and also stripe error correction information. This results in excellent performance and good fault tolerance. Level 5 is one of the most popular implementations of RAID.

* Level 6 -- Independent Data Disks with Double Parity: Provides block-level striping with parity data distributed across all disks.

* Level 0+1 – A Mirror of Stripes: Not one of the original RAID levels, two RAID 0 stripes are created, and a RAID 1 mirror is created over them. Used for both replicating and sharing data among disks.

* Level 10 – A Stripe of Mirrors: Not one of the original RAID levels, multiple RAID 1 mirrors are created, and a RAID 0 stripe is created over these.

* Level 7: A trademark of Storage Computer Corporation that adds caching to Levels 3 or 4.

* RAID S: EMC Corporation's proprietary striped parity RAID system used in its Symmetrix storage systems.

The types of RAID we want to concern ourselves with the most for data back up purposes are RAID 1 and RAID 5 configurations. RAID alone should not make you all warm and fuzzy. What a RAID configuration will help you with the most is if one drive fails. Then you should have a mirrored drive which you can then rebuild the data from with no data lost.

That is in theory. Many times a RAID controller will become bad, possibly from an electric short or spike, dust, an ant (did I say ant, yes I did!) or some other malfunction which can cause damage to all drives connected to it simultaneously. Sound far fetched? It isn’t – this has happened to us at least on three different occasions!

Tape, Shmape

Tape backups are considered to be one of the very first ways created to back up data. This mechanism is still used today. Usually tape backups consist of an automated process which can be run incrementally each time data is altered, or nightly, or weekly, or at some kind of regular interval.

There are three big problems with relying upon this solution. First, tape backups are prone to hogging system resources while they're doing their thing. Second, most tape backups are only as good as the software than runs them, and often they have difficulty backing up certain files/directories. Finally, restoring from a tape backup is extremely painful and time consuming. One other thing to consider is sometimes the tape, over time and depending upon temperature conditions, can become corrupted – so even if all your data is backed up onto tape, you may still not have a complete backup.

Many hosting companies to this day will still offer tape backups as an affordable alternative solution to a RAID configuration. Or they may even combine tape backups with CD/DVD backups, where they will archive your tape data onto CD/DVDs each day/week/month or whatever you are willing to pay for. Naturally CD/DVD backups are still only as good as the tape backup, since the data would be pulled from the tape first and then burned onto a CD/DVD, but even with CD/DVDS there can be scratches, they can get lost – you get the idea.

Ultimately this kind of backup procedure is better than nothing, but should only be considered as a stand alone solution if you simply cannot afford anything else. Still, the other question you should be asking yourself is if you actually can afford to lose all of your data. Not many people or businesses are able to afford such a disaster.

Other Types of Not So Obvious Backups

Some hosting companies will offer a more direct back up approach, whereby they grab all of the content off your hard drive nightly or weekly and place it on one of their hard drives on a separate server. This approach is an unusual one, and not many hosting companies offer it. The ones that do tend to charge an arm and a leg for it. However, you can see this means of backup definitely has some serious upside potential. First of all it is usually much more reliable than the previously discussed back up options. Second, to restore from an identical backup which is located at your existing hosting company is usually pretty painless. There will still be some down time, but not usually as much as the other back up scenarios (with the exception being a RAID configuration where the RAID stays intact).

There are also some back up services outside the web hosting spectrum where you can pay a third party to log onto your server(s) and download your data as frequently as you wish to pay for. This is also not a bad solution which takes into account the minute possibility that something disastrous happens to your entire hosting company. At least with this scenario your data should be safe since it is being stored outside the hosting company facilities. The main downside with this alternative is that it tends to be extremely expensive and not entirely secure, as a third party would have all of your data and would require FTP access to all of your boxes in order to pull down the data.

One other possibility, depending on how handy you are with customizing and creating your own scripts, is putting together a cron which would grab select data at regular intervals and copy it to a destination of your choice. A "cron" is the clock daemon in UNIX which executes commands at specified dates and times according to the instructions you provide it. Crons are used to run scheduled jobs such as system tasks and nightly security checks. In this particular instance, a cron would handle backups as well.

And Now It's Time For the Breakdown

Okay, so we covered all of the different types, forms, and functions of backups and the obvious question is, which one should you use? Well I can tell you the kind of set up Developer Shed uses and you can decide for yourself if any of it makes sense. I will say this much – I have at some point during my 10 years of running web sites tried all of the previously discussed solutions and have still lost my share of data to all kinds of freaky situations you never think could occur – until they actually do.

We actually employ a mix of all of the above back up solutions. Like I said at the beginning of this article, you might think that it would be overkill to have so many different solutions in place which are all basically doing the same thing – backing up data. But it has been my experience that whenever I have had to rely upon a back up due to hard drive failure or any kind of hardware issue, more than half of the time it was not a complete restore.

We have our own home grown crons which back up critical data on a daily basis, we have RAID across all of our hard drives and servers, and we also have secondary boxes which are constantly replicating all of our data. Finally we have our hosting company download all of our data nightly to one of their own servers. Would you consider this to be overkill? It most likely is. Even as I sit here typing this article it occurs to me that I should probably look into one of those off site third party back up solutions because we are located in South Florida, landing site of numerous hurricanes, and our hosting company is also located in South Florida. I suppose the answer to that question really depends on just how paranoid I really am. Please excuse me, I have a few phone calls I need to make…
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Article Source : http://webhosting.devshed.com/c/a/Web-Hosting-Articles

Hosting - Why You Shouldn`t Become a Web Hos

Hosting - Why You Shouldn`t Become a Web Host

by: hosting webhosting
Total views: 101
Word Count: 1627

So you’re dreaming of quitting your job and starting up your own web hosting business. You figure that it can’t be too hard, especially with reseller web hosting packages. Just lounge your way to easy street, right? Wrong.

Web hosting is a business, like any other, and the vast majority of businesses fail in their first year. It is not a way to fast, easy money. Don’t believe me? Do a little research for yourself. A recent article at Tech News World on choosing a web host pointed out that “many of the biggest [web hosting companies] filed for bankruptcy protection or were saved by being sold to some other company…” So if even the big guys have problems, how can it be easy for a little guy?

You’re probably thinking that little guys can be more agile, and besides, you don’t need to deal with the huge cost of overhead that is part of the burden of a large company. You therefore don’t need to make as much money as, say, GoDaddy. So surely you won’t have the same kinds of issues, right? Well, it’s true that when a problem increases in magnitude to that degree, its nature changes – but just because you’re not paying a salary to thousands of employees and rent on a corporate campus doesn’t mean you don’t need to worry about what you’re paying yourself and one or two employees, to say nothing of the electric bill for your home office.

I don’t expect your dream of entrepreneurship will die an easy death, so I’m going to give you a list of reasons why shouldn’t become a web host, or at least rethink your decision. If you’ve read Matt Inglot’s article on the top five reasons not to become an entrepreneur, you’ll spot some parallels here. But web hosting has some special issues that can’t really be mentioned in a general article about being an entrepreneur, and I’m going to expand on those here.

No Vacation Time

The Internet is up 24/7. Site owners expect their websites to be up 24/7. And if they aren’t, they’ll call their web hosts to complain; that’s you, and you might find yourself working 24/7 just to keep up with your customers’ needs. But that’s just the most obvious manifestation of the problem with being your own boss. The work never stops.

It isn’t just customers either. If you’re a reseller web host, you’re dealing with the company from whom you’re buying your hosting space. If you aren’t, you’re buying your own equipment and dealing with suppliers, whose workers and products may or may not be reliable. You also have to spend time promoting your business, which involves a lot more than just slapping up a web site.

In fact, the number of skills you need to operate your own company is staggering. You are your own salesman, marketer, bookkeeper, trainer, IT person (particularly important when you’re a web host), website designer, purchaser, quality control person, customer support, and on and on. If you are missing any of these skills, you have to acquire them yourself by taking the time to read books, attend classes, or do whatever it takes. Your other option is to hire someone with these skills, either as a full-time employee or as a contractor.

If not having the right skill set is one reason that many web hosting businesses fail, another reason is time management. Let’s face it, you can’t be available to your customers every single moment; you have to sleep sometime. Don’t assume you won’t get a phone call at three in the morning from one of your customers with an issue. It’s not unusual to put 15 hours a day into your business, and it’s unlikely that you’ll be at the top of your form the entire time. If you’re not naturally well-organized, you can look at time management as another skill you must learn before starting your own business, whether it’s web hosting or another field.

Of course, this feeds right back into the point that there’s so much to do when you’re running your own business. You want to refine your business plan and grow your business, but when you’re caught up in daily activities it’s hard to see the forest for the trees. How can you work on maximizing your growth when five customers are screaming at you because they can’t get to their sites to update them, the new server hasn’t been set up yet, your customer support person is down with the flu, the firm handling your web connection has you on hold, some of your bills are overdue because some of your customers are late with their payments, and your pay-per-click advertising campaign just ran out of money for the month? Sure, that’s overly dramatic, but you probably get my point.

Where’s the Money?

Any business is going to need some start-up capital. That comes out of your pocket and the pockets of those you can convince to invest. You need this before you open your doors (figuratively or literally) to your first customers. You might not need too much at first: a domain name, a website, the cost of a reseller package, and so forth. But costs will mount as you continue, especially as you make the effort to look polished and professional. You may well find that you have to go to a bank to secure a loan, possibly even take out a second mortgage on your house or run up painfully large credit card bills.

That’s just one part of the equation. How are you going to produce income for your business? Do you know how much you need to charge customers and what kind of web hosting packages you need to set up to turn a profit? If you’re offering free web hosting or low-cost web hosting in exchange for advertising, do you know how much money you need to make from advertisers? This is one part of the business you can’t afford to fill with pipe dreams. Do your research!

While we’re on the topic of money, are you certain that putting your money into your own business really is the best investment? In economic circles, this is referred to as “opportunity cost.” What didn’t you spend that money on so that you could spend it on starting a web hosting business? Would you get a better return by putting that money into a retirement account, with compounded interest? That’s just one possible alternative; think about the income you’d be giving up on the money you’re putting into this business.

And speaking of income, how long do you think you’ll be able to last without much of one? If you’ve spent most of your adult life getting a regular paycheck, starting your own business will be an eye-opening experience. You’re not getting that wonderful deposit every other week anymore, but your creditors will still want you to pay them just as regularly. If you can get your business started while you’re still employed, that will help, but the very nature of a web hosting business may cause it to intrude on the work time of your “day job.” It’s not a long term solution if you’re serious about making your business more than just a hobby. You may also find that you actually net less money as a business owner than you did as an employee.

Don’t Look Behind You

Matt Inglot pointed out that “As human beings we tend to find change uncomfortable, but there isn’t much room to be in a placid comfortable nook when you’re an entrepreneur.” He went on to explain how entrepreneurs must always be willing to try new things. As a web host, you have a huge incentive: the competition. If you’re not prepared to adapt to a changing field, they certainly are. And there are plenty of web hosts out there, because many have been attracted to the industry by the same kinds of dreams that are getting you all fired up.

You have to come up with ways to make yourself different from the rest of the field, and stand out positively in the eyes of prospective customers. Indeed, you must continue to offer advantages over the competition after you win your customers over, because there is nothing to keep them from switching to another web host if they aren’t happy – and there are a ton of web hosts who would be happy to have that business.

And there’s no getting around the fact that starting and operating your own business is a lot more stressful than being an employee. Oh, it’s true that some personality types actually find it less stressful, but most people tense up when they constantly have to make decisions with too little information. When it comes to being an entrepreneur, taking risks is in the nature of the beast. Do you try to attract bloggers? How about podcasters? What about controversial websites (and how do you define “controversial”)? Will customers pay more for that new service you’re offering – and will it cover itself with the money you make from it?

There you have the major reasons that you shouldn’t go into the web hosting business. I hope that I’ve busted some of your illusions so you can examine the idea with clearer eyes now. And if I haven’t completely dissuaded you, at least now you know the pitfalls you’re likely to face along the way, and can prepare for them.
About the Author

Article Source : http://webhosting.devshed.com/c/a/Web-Hosting-Articles

Business Hosting - Web Site Hosting For Your Business : Free or Paid?

Business Hosting - Web Site Hosting For Your Business : Free or Paid?

by: hosting webhosting
Total views: 75
Word Count: 1469

It’s time to choose! Should you spend some money to get a web hosting solution for your business or get one for free? This article helps you sort out the advantages and disadvantages of each option, and helps you figure out which one is better suited to your needs.

Yes, the big moment has finally arrived. Your business is now on the verge of taking the next step forward. It will establish a web presence. This is an important step as from now on your business is able to reach more customers, is able to get more exposure, and hopefully enjoy online recognition.

Space, bandwidth and domain name all come with a cost, but there is a possibility to get them all for free. Resource management principles will probably tell you to choose the free solution.

Nowadays the cost for web hosting services is very reasonable partially because of the technological progress, partially because of the stiff competition on the web hosting market.

Still... why pay for it when you can get it for free?

Free web hosting

Dozens, even hundreds of free web hosting providers offer their services on the Internet. Could there be one that meets the needs for your business? Hardly, if any.

Please let me state clearly that this article is not intended to attack or discredit hosts or advertisers. Its only purpose is to assess and understand how can be best met the hosting needs of a business. Any business. And yes, in spite of everything stated here, even the author of this article has resorted at some point in time to the services of free web hosts!

You probably learned too, and at a very small age, that in life everything comes with a price. However, there it is ... all over the Internet: Free Web Hosting.

Nothing in this world is free. So why is there free web hosting?

The definition of the term "free" according to The New Lexicon Webster's Dictionary is:

adj. not subject to external restraints or domination; not captive, at liberty; not having to be paid for; unhampered; open to all without restrictions; etc.

adv. without expense; without penalty
v.t. to release from constraint, set free

Therefore a literally free hosting service would mean no restraints, no expenses and no restrictions for the user. Webmasters would design only limited by their imagination and skills. All the space and the bandwidth you would possibly ask for at no cost whatsoever. Real-life scenario? Could anyone really think so?

Indeed nothing in this world comes without a price, even if it is not apparent. And the price you must pay for free web hosting comes in many forms, as free web hosting providers must pay too for bandwidth, not to mention other costs.

While some free web hosts require you to have one of their banners on your web site, others place pop up adds, or flashing advertising messages. So it's free for you as long as you fulfill their set of requirements and meet their conditions. In addition to this, you should consider that host's service is free with let's say 25 MB of space; more space means different conditions and you could have to pay for it.

Paid web hosting

If you are billed, it means you own something. There is now a contractual bond between you and your web hosting provider, which in turn must offer you his services. Ownership gives you more control of your online presence. Important as ownership is, it is neither the only nor the biggest advantage of paying for your hosting solution.

The identity of your business would be clear from your URL down to your web content without banners confusing your customers. What I would say, is ask yourself if you would deal with someone offering a product/service similar to the one you are promoting, who was obviously using a free site. If you would, then fine, but if not, don't expect anyone else to deal with you!

You will have usually sufficient e-mail addresses to accommodate the needs of your business. How serious would you take someone who hands you a business card with e-mail like john.doe@afreewebhostingprovider.com. And more important: would you do business with him?

It's almost a standard for paid web hosting providers to offer features like PHP and MySQL, features that allow your site to grow along with your business needs. With such features you can easily have an online store, offer your customers the possibility to track their orders, and more.

Often the web hosting provider offers guarantees for the uptime of the server, and this avoids unnecessary frustration for your customers. To complement this, support services of higher quality allow your business to overcome possible technical problems easier and faster.

Review

Let's review the main points of each option.

Free web hosting:

(+) It's free. No money for space, bandwidth and domain name.

(-) Your URL will contain the mark of the free web-hosting provider and thus would not reflect the identity of your business. Changing providers might result in losing some or all the traffic to your online business.

(-) Required advertising items such as banners, frames etc. have a detrimental effect on your content in terms of accessibility and look, making it very unprofessional.

(-) If you plan to use banner exchange on your site read carefully their Terms and conditions. Some free hosts doesn't allow it.

(-) You will probably have lower bandwidth than a paid host provides and space could also be restricted.

(-) Features like PHP and MySQL are rather rare for a free web-hosting provider. Some don't offer FTP access to your website.

(-) It's common that free hosting providers change their Terms and conditions at some point in time. Consider that no ads today could mean a banner or a pop-up tomorrow. Such changes could mean that the free hosting service is canceled and only paid web hosting services are offered. At this moment either you pay or you lose your web site.

Paid web hosting:

(-) You will have to pay for it. Usually you have to pay for hosting (space and bandwidth) and for the domain name.

(+) You can host your own domain. With your unique domain name changing web hosting providers doesn't cause you to lose your traffic.

(+) Support is offered by most paid web hosting providers. This usually means 24/7 support via email or live chat and, in some cases, toll-free phone support is available.

(+) The uptime of the server(s) hosting your web site is better than on free hosts, and more and more frequently the web hosting provider offers an uptime guarantee.

(+) The amount of disk space and bandwidth available is very likely to cover the needs of your business.

(+) Features like PHP and MySQL are almost standard for a paid hosting plan. Also you will have FTP access to your website.

It could be tempting to embrace the idea that free web hosting is good point to start from, but it's not something you would want to consider if you are looking to establish your business as a serious web presence.

In the end it all comes down to this one question: how big are the ambitions that you have for your website?

If you look to make some savings while getting your business online, save time instead and register a domain name. The small amount of money saved on web hosting might cost your business customers, and a loss of image. The cost of a paid web hosting solution is small compared with the freedom it gives to your online presence. Yes, freedom to establish your image, and the way you treat your online presence.

If your online business is important to you, better make that if you care for it at all, when coming to the decision of opting for free or paid web hosting choose paid.

Keep in mind that the success of your online presence will play a significant role in the future growth of your business.


About the Author

Calin Indre is editor at HostPinPin (www.hostpinpin.com), a Cheap Web Hosting Directory. HostPinPin.com is a resource for webmasters and consumers looking to find a web hosting company. Providing web hosting articles, tips, web hosting reviews, compare web hosting plans and more.

Web Hosting - Give Your Customers What They Want

Web Hosting - Give Your Customers What They Want

by: hosting webhosting
Total views: 84
Word Count: 1562

Whatever may be said about attracting customers to your business (be it web hosting or anything else), it all seems to boil down to one thing: give your customers what they want. It sounds like a simple formula, but there are layers to it. With a recent offering from Monsterhosting.ca as an example, we’ll pick apart what it means.

When you’re a writer searching for a topic for your next article, sometimes you get lucky. You go through news items and how to articles and several of them crash into each other in your brain in a way that both makes sense and creates something new. They illuminate each other, and perhaps even reveal some principles (or at least good ideas). That’s what happened in this case.

You might have read Monsterhosting.ca’s press release about the free live online courses the web host has begun offering. I not only read it, I visited the company’s web site (though I haven’t signed up for any courses yet). I think it’s a great example of a company giving its customers what they want. Let me explain how.

The first and somewhat obvious step in giving your customers what they want is actually finding out what they want. If you visit the home page for Monsterhosting.ca’s live online courses, you’ll see that web host polled its customers to find out what kind of courses they were interested in. There’s also a link you can click on to send an email with your own suggestions for more courses.

Put another way, Monsterhosting.ca is trying to solve a problem for its customers – in this case, lack of knowledge in certain areas. Or, put more broadly, the problem could be described as the need to learn what will help an online business succeed. There are a number of ways this need could be filled, of course; for a variety of reasons, Monsterhosting.ca chose this particular format.

How can you as a web host find out what your customers need? Well, one easy way is to ask them. Another way is to be receptive when they talk. Haunt web hosting forums and see what issues are raised, particularly if the person raising the issue owns the kind of site to which you’d like to cater.

You might even consider treating your trouble tickets as suggestions. By this I don’t mean you shouldn’t take them seriously! But once you’ve solved the issue, realize that the trouble ticket represents a need you may not have been fulfilling. Are you not supporting a script someone needs for their web site? Was your control panel a little too complicated for one of your customers? It’s food for thought.

Speak Plainly

The idea of complicated control panels brings up another thing to keep in mind when giving the customer what they want. People like to think that solutions to problems are simple; therefore, if you’re trying to offer something that solves a problem, keep it simple. Simple doesn’t mean skimpy; it means easy to understand.

For example, if the way you choose to give your customers what they want is by writing articles on topics of interest to them (an excellent approach, I might add), keep your language conversational. Depending on the topics you write about, you may have to resort to technical language or other jargon, but you should try to keep these to a minimum (unless you already know your audience can handle more). You don’t want to talk down to your readers, of course, but too much jargon – or a too-formal style of writing – is even worse. Keep it natural, and then don’t forget to edit it! That’s when you smooth out any problems. Strive to make sure your customers understand what you’re offering them.

On the home page for Monsterhosting.ca’s live online courses, the company makes it very clear what you’re getting. Each course is conducted online through conference software that lets you see the presenter’s screen. You listen to the presenter over the phone. You register for each course, which occurs at a specific date and time. Each course accepts a total of nine people, after which it is full.

But it gets even better than that. Click on the name of each course, and you go to a page that gives you the low-down on the course. You find out how long the course will last (most of the courses are either 30 minutes or an hour in length), read a one-sentence description, and bullet lists of course objectives and prerequisites. In short, you know what’s required of you, both in ability and time commitment, and what you’ll learn. The registration process looks as if it is very easy as well (I didn’t go all the way through it because I don’t have my own domain name, and that’s apparently required before you sign up – which, given Monsterhosting.ca’s likely goals for this offering, is not surprising).

Grab Their Attention

Remember, you’re trying to give your customers what they want, right? So you should give them the impression that you’re talking directly to them, and that it’s all about them. If you’re writing an article to attract customers with your wonderful content, make sure that first paragraph speaks directly to their situation. Let them know you understand their problem, without minimizing it, and that if they keep reading, they’ll find the solution they’re looking for.

Needless to say, it has to be real content if you want to get the attention of potential customers; you can’t just try to grab them and then not deliver. Word of mouth is a very powerful advertising tool, but it cuts both ways. If your offering is not up to what your customers expect, they’ll tell other potential customers.

So how does Monsterhosting.ca’s offer of live online courses address this? Well, the company is using perhaps the ultimate attention-grabbing tactic: it’s giving something away. The online courses are all free, and there doesn’t seem to be any limit as to how many you can sign up for. Remember, we’re talking about GIVING your customers what they want after all!

Of course this doesn’t mean that you should give away your MAIN products or services. The point to keep in mind is that any customer that does need those products and services, and is willing to pay for them, is likely to have other, related needs as well. If you can fill these needs well in a way that costs you little or nothing, so that you can give them away to your customers or potential customers, you’re ahead of the game. You’ve already proven that you can fill some of their needs; that’s the beginning of a trusting relationship. If they turned to you to fill some needs already, they’re more likely to turn to you when it’s time to fill other needs, for which you can reasonably charge.

Finish on a Positive Note

Filling a need…doing something for someone…solving a problem. These are all positive things. So after you do this for your customer, you should finish on a high note. For example, if you’re writing an article, don’t let it just sort of drag out and end with a thud. (Granted, that can be a real challenge; welcome to my world). You also want to avoid giving it a trite ending. How many times have you seen someone end an article with “So what are you waiting for? Start today!” That pair of sentences all but reek of marketing. Most people who are online can smell that a mile away. You’re not trying to market to your customers and potential customers so much as help them with their problems.

That being the case, ask yourself: what do you usually feel after you’ve solved a problem? I’ll bet you feel pretty satisfied. The way you end an article should leave your customers and potential customers feeling pretty satisfied as well. They should feel hopeful and optimistic about being able to tackle the original challenge that caused them to read the article or take advantage of what you offered in the first place.

I don’t have a colorful example from Monsterhosting.ca for this one, but if I were them I’d spend the last few minutes of every course on a quick summary of what was taught, and what the students should now be able to do thanks to what they learned. In the case of an article offering a solution to a problem, you should enumerate the benefits of using that particular solution.

If you give your customers and potential customers what they want and need, you’ll be on your way to building a trusting relationship with them. If you get their attention, they’ll listen to what you have to say – and if there’s meat to it, they’ll be happy to use it. Put all these factors together, and they’ll think of you the next time they need something you can provide – and those are benefits you can take to the bank.


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Article Source : http://webhosting.devshed.com/c/a/Web-Hosting-Articles

Web Hosting - A Brief Introduction to FTP

Web Hosting - A Brief Introduction to FTP

by: hosting webhosting
Total views: 67
Word Count: 1549

If you’re setting up a web site, you will probably need to transfer files to your web host. To accomplish this task, FTP is invaluable. But what is it and how do you use it? Keep reading to find out.

FTP stands for "File Transfer Protocol." As you may have guessed from the name, it is a protocol for transferring files from one computer to another over a network connection. While this is often done over the Internet, it doesn't have to be. Users on a large intranet, like those at a corporation or on a college campus, may also transfer files between computers within the intranet via FTP.

In basic outline, it works like this: one computer, known as the "client," uses an FTP Client software program to request a file from another computer. The second computer is known as a "server." The file is then moved, or downloaded, to the computer that made the request. The same FTP Client software can be used to upload files to another computer. For example, if you have created files for your web site on your own computer, and you want to send them to your web host, you would use the FTP Client software to accomplish this task.

FTP can also come in handy for downloading software to your computer, and transferring information between your home and work computers. Calling it "transfer" is really a misnomer, though. You're not "transferring" files from one computer to another; you're copying them. It beats "SneakerNet" any day, and you can even transfer files that are too big for email attachments. You will need to have an account on both computers to make it work, however (unless you're doing anonymous FTP, which you don't see very often anymore for security reasons).

While FTP can be done with a command line interface - after all, that's the way it started - these days, there are a variety of FTP programs available that provide users with a friendly GUI interface. Even Internet Explorer will allow you to use FTP (which I'll discuss in more detail later in this article), but many good shareware FTP programs have extra features that come in really handy (like being able to transfer a whole bunch of files all at once).

FTP Connecting with IE

Let's put aside the question of FTP programs for the moment. If you have a website you need to build (or update), and you're eager to put the power of FTP to work for you, you probably have everything you need for the basic stuff right on your computer already. As I mentioned, Internet Explorer supports FTP, and it's available on practically every Windows PC. You won't get the extra features available in many FTP programs, but you'll be dealing with a very familiar interface. Best of all, of course, it's free.

In order to use FTP, it helps if you know the site you're going to connect to. You can use either the site's URL or its IP address if you know that (the four-part number that you don't have to memorize anymore thanks to friendly URLs). Instead of using http:// as you normally would for viewing the site, however, you use ftp://. If you have your own domain set up with your web host, you'd probably type something like ftp://ftp.MyDomain.com/ into the address bar.

The whole point of this exercise is to connect IE with an FTP site. The FTP site is supposed to let you transfer files from your computer (the local machine) to a folder on the Internet server. Or vice versa, if you need to grab a file and update it (or download new software, or any one of a number of tasks). If you've typed the right information into IE's address bar, you'll get a login dialog that looks something like this:

FTP Connecting with IE

Yes, I admit it, I couldn't resist checking with a big site to show you what the login dialog looks like. Somehow I think Amazon.com will forgive me. Anyway, at this point you'll need the user name and password that your web host assigned to you when you opened your account with them. Enter them in the appropriate spaces in the dialog, and hit the log on button.

What you'll see next in your browser will look very much like what you'd see in Windows Explorer - a list of files. Since the FTP site - in this case, your web host - controls the files you can access, the only files you're likely to be seeing are your own. Of course, you don't merely want to look at your files; you want to transfer some files. And that's the next step.

Transferring Files with IE

Transferring files from your computer to your web site on your web host takes a little bit of set up if you want to do it efficiently. Now that you've connected to the web host via IE, minimize your browser and open up Windows Explorer. Go to the place on your hard drive where you have the files that you want to transfer to your web site. You can do this either by clicking the My Computer icon or by navigating to Windows Explorer in your Start menu (try Programs -> Accessories -> Windows Explorer).

Now you'll want to resize and reposition the Windows Explorer window so that it takes up roughly half your display. Maximize your Internet Explorer browser with its FTP connection to your web host, and resize it so that it takes up, roughly, the other half of your display. In other words, you want to position the two windows so that they are side by side.

At this point, all you need to do is drag and drop the files you want to transfer. You can copy and paste if you're more comfortable doing that. Either way, you need to keep in mind that as soon as you transfer a file to your web site, it is "live." You will immediately be able to navigate to your site (using http:// this time) and see that file. So it's a good idea to make sure you've thoroughly tested any files before you transfer them!

The transfer process works the other way, as well; you can transfer files from your web site to your computer. Keep in mind that "transferring" files doesn't actually transfer the file; it copies it. So if you want take down a file to work on it, you'll first have to "transfer" it to your own computer, and then delete it from the web site. You do the latter in the same way you'd do it on your own computer: by selecting the file and pressing the Delete key. You can also use the Delete command on the menu that pops up when you right click on the file name. You can also create folders on the FTP site, simply by right-clicking and choosing New|Folder from the pop-up menu. If you want to see all the files in a folder, just double click the icon, exactly as you would in Windows Explorer.

Using FTP Client Programs

There are literally tons of FTP client programs available. A search on Google with those three key words yields more than 43,000,000 hits. Some well-known FTP programs include Cute FTP, SmartFTP, and WinSCP. These programs usually provide an intuitive graphical user interface, and many of them are free. Some even provide video tutorials and screen shots!

If you use Dreamweaver to design your site, you'll be pleased to know that the program already has FTP capability. Check your documentation; you may be able to take advantage of this, and save yourself some work. The capability will need to be configured before you can use it.

Whatever program you use, you go through the same basic steps: establish a connection with your FTP site, then upload or download the appropriate files. It's hard to be more specific without talking about specific programs (and excluding others). SmartFTP's site gives a fairly good explanation of how its program works, complete with video tutorials. There are versions of this program that are free, and others that carry a price tag; aside from the price, the biggest difference between the two is that the free version does not come with maintenance and support. SmartFTP is only available for various versions of Windows.

The company that sells Cute FTP offers a free 30-day trial period. The software comes in Home and Professional versions (with the Professional version priced higher but offering many more features). Unlike SmartFTP, Cute FTP comes in both Windows and Mac versions.

WinSCP is not only free, it is open source software. It offers an easy-to-understand GUI. In fact, we use it here at Developer Shed.

You may not have needed to use FTP software before, but once you start using it, you'll see how easily it can help you maintain your web site. I hope I've encouraged you to explore your options.


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Article Source : http://webhosting.devshed.com/c/a/Web-Hosting-Articles

Hosting - Are You Ready to Offer a New Service ?

Hosting - Are You Ready to Offer a New Service ?

by: hosting webhosting
Total views: 54
Word Count: 1590

Businesses often need to grow in order to survive, and web hosting businesses are no exception. One way to grow your business is by adding a new service. This article discusses some points to consider if you are thinking about expanding in this direction.

Many web hosts are expanding their businesses with new packages, new services, upgrades to existing services, more capacity, and so on. It seems as if companies post press releases about this kind of growth almost daily. Maybe in this competitive field, you’ve been feeling the pressure. Are you ready to add another service offering?

If you don’t think you are, maybe you need to examine your reasons. (Don’t worry, I’ll talk to those of you who are in just a minute!). You might be holding back out of fear. Are you afraid that you might not be able to manage the new service? Or that what you’d like to add won’t fit in with the rest of your offerings? Maybe you’re so afraid it will fail that you can’t take that first step. Or maybe you believe you don’t have the resources, and as a result you will be stretched too thin and shortchange your customers.

All of those are valid concerns, but you should not let them paralyze you. With so many web hosts chasing customers and coming up with new ways to serve them, the fear of failure can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. This doesn’t mean you should rush right into doing something new, of course! But if you step back and take some time to think about it, you can roll out a new service that will make sense as a part of what you already offer.

Not convinced? One management consultancy insists that businesses need to create a “revenue octopus” for the sake of their own security. Joel G. Block, founder of Growth-Logic, says that “You need around eight different revenue-generation streams.” One successful stream can support a company, but it’s very risky to depend on it.

Ready to start thinking about what else you can do for your customers now? Good. You might not be quite sure where to start. It’s right in front you: start with what you do best.

How Does it Fit?

You might start by going back to your business plan. If you don’t have one, write one now, as simple or detailed as you want. Make sure it shows you your company as it currently exists. For example, let’s say you host mainly small business websites that use their online presence to drive customers to their stores. You are thinking about giving your customers the option of using a software package that will allow them to make sales over the Internet. How will that change your business plan?

There is a lot to think about here. Does the software package build appropriately on what you already have in place? Do you have the resources to handle an increase in e-commerce being conducted on the sites you host – and how much of an increase? Look not only to your hardware and bandwidth, but your own skills and those of your employees.

Will this addition be cost effective? Does it build on what you already have in place, or are you going to have to acquire a lot more resources (hardware, software, people with particular skill sets) that don’t fit in with the rest of your company? To quote Joel Block again, “If you have to spend an inordinate amount of time getting another part of your business up and running, then you’re using up valuable resources.” You don’t want to start from scratch; you want to make sure those eight revenue streams are related.

If you are the kind of person who needs to see it all in front of you, this might be a good time to sit down with a pen and paper (or a computer and a spreadsheet) and start making some educated guesses as to numbers to crunch. Research other companies that have offerings similar to the new service you want to add. What are their prices? Can you match or beat them?

According to Michael Holigan, owner of a $15 million business that includes a service-based website, it’s very important, when considering a new offering, to “sit down with a piece of paper and figure out your upside and downside. Come up with worst-case and best-case scenarios…you really need to go in understanding the risk factor and how much liability you can afford to take.”

This will help you decide whether a new service offering that you want to add to your business will work, and fit in with what you have. What if you want to come up with a new offering, but you find yourself genuinely stumped? Say you’ve been offering your customers the same thing for so long you don’t know what else makes sense. Keep reading.

Know What the Customer Wants

To start with, if you’re stumped about what to offer next, you have a problem. It means that you may have lost touch with your customers. If you touch base with your customers regularly, you will know what they need and want – and many of them will be quite up front about any products or services you don’t offer that they would really like. If your customers have told you that they need something new – like the ability to support certain scripts on their websites, perhaps – listen to them. Your bottom line is depending on it.

By the same token, if you’re coming up with this new service yourself, think about how your customers will benefit. If they can’t see what they will get out of the new service – or you can’t show them – it could be a real waste of time and resources. Will the service cost less than what you have in place now? Will it offer your customers better results?

Consider, too, what effect this new service will have on your ability to serve your customers. Will it allow you to host more sites? Host fewer sites, but with more features? Going back to our example of the e-commerce software package, you might find that you cannot host as many accounts because of hardware, bandwidth, and security needs, but with fewer clients, perhaps you can offer your customers more personalized service – and you might be able to charge a little more as a result. You might find that the new offering makes sense as part of an add-on or premium package.

Remember that it comes down to your customers. Is this really what they want? To quote Holigan again, “I think the main thing is to watch your customer base. Can you diversify with your existing customer base?” It’s important to maintain that focus. By keeping an eye on his customer base, Holigan knows that “there are certain things I can do and other things I should never get into.”

Is the Timing Right?When it comes to unveiling a new service offering, timing is akin to location in real estate. So ask yourself: why this particular offering, and why this particular time? What is pushing your decision in this direction at this time? Is it really the right time? These may all sound like the same question, but when timing can mean the difference between success and failure, it makes sense to be sure.

Especially if you’re the sole proprietor of your business, you need to think about whether the timing is right for you. You also need to think about what you’ll be getting out of it. How will it improve what you’re doing now? Will you get additional income out of it? Or will you have more free time, or more mobility? Maybe it lets you go into an area that is more interesting to you. Yes, it is important to serve your customers, but you should get some definable personal benefits out of it, too.

There are other ways in which timing is important. For example, you need to make sure you give your customers adequate notice of the new offering. If rolling out the new service is going to affect your current service (and don’t think it won’t), make sure your customers are aware of how they will be affected. Will you be less available for a while as you take care of setting it up? Will your prices increase? Customers deserve to know what’s going on and why; when they do, they are much more likely to understand as you deal with the issues involved in ramping up.

While you’re keeping your customers in the loop about how these changes will affect them, be sure to let them know how excited you are to be offering the new service. In fact, share the news with everyone you know. Your view of the change will influence what your customers think of the change, and how they will respond to it.

Make sure you have a marketing campaign together. While you were number crunching, I hope you made some projections and figured out a way to measure your results. You will need this information to help you determine whether you are on track.
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Article Source : http://webhosting.devshed.com/c/a/Web-Hosting-Articles

The Credit Card Question - Credit Cards - Hosting

The Credit Card Question - Credit Cards - Hosting

by: hosting webhosting
Total views: 46
Word Count: 1873

Practically every online business accepts credit cards, and so should yours. But you should be prepared to shop around and ask questions before settling on a provider for your credit card merchant account. This article lets you know what to expect.

Maybe you haven’t been in business long enough to have to confront this issue yet, especially if you started small. Sooner or later, though, you will have to face the fact that customers prefer to make purchases using their credit cards. What’s more, when they can use their credit card, customers tend to buy more. To someone who sells anything online, be it web hosting services or collectibles through eBay, the implication is plain: you need to be able to accept credit cards.

Maybe you’re still fighting it. To be able to accept credit cards, you know that you need to get a merchant account. Maybe you think it will be too expensive, or too complicated, or that you won’t qualify. While it is a good idea to shop around for an account, and there are certain questions you need to ask, it’s a relatively easy process – certainly much easier than running a business!

Still not convinced? Let me give you a few points to think about. The average customer won’t take you seriously as a business unless you accept credit cards. Even arts and crafts vendors at malls take credit cards; you’re trying to sell goods and services over the Internet! Most people who buy anything online do it with a credit card; they won’t be inclined to change their habits just for you.

You may have conducted some business via Western Union or PayPal. Those methods aren’t enough. Too many people are unfamiliar with Western Union. As to PayPal, there are still too many horror stories circulating about it. What it comes down to is a matter of trust. If you can accept credit cards, this means you have a merchant account, which means your name, address, and social security number are on file with a bank somewhere – so you’re not a fly-by-night. From your customer’s point of view, you’re less likely to be a crook.

For argument’s sake, let’s say that you have been conducting business via cash, check, and PayPal up to this point. When should you get a real merchant account? Look at your PayPal receipts. When your monthly sales volume reaches $1,000 or more, it’s time to get real. You might even consider making the move before that point if your sales are showing a consistent upward trend.

Types of Merchant Accounts

There are several different types of merchant accounts. As you might expect, not all of them are suitable for a web host or online business that will be conducting most of its transactions over the Internet. Not all providers of merchant accounts user the same terms, fees, and pricing structures. In general, however, credit card merchant accounts fall into one of the following three types:

* “Card swiped” retail accounts. You have probably done business with any number of brick-and-mortar merchants with this kind of account. They take your card and slide it through an electronic terminal reader. You probably didn’t think about it at the time, but by reading your card in that way, the merchant proved that your card was actually present, providing the credit card company with an added level of security to show that the transaction was legitimate.
* “Keyed entry” retail accounts. These are designed for situations where the card is present but the merchant can’t electronically swipe it. Often card numbers are keyed into a physical terminal. You have encountered a merchant with this kind of account if you have ever done business with someone who took a manual imprint of your card (and if you’re old enough, you might even remember when all credit card business was conducted this way). Fees charged for these kinds of accounts are generally higher, because the risk of a stolen card being used and getting past security measures is considered to be greater.
* Internet accounts. These are also sometimes referred to as mail order or telephone accounts. If you conduct business over the Internet, this is the kind of merchant account you want; it is designed for businesses that often don’t see their customers face to face. This means the physical card is not present to be swiped or imprinted. These accounts are a little more expensive than the other two, because of the security issue involved when the card itself is not there.

If you don’t know the differences between these accounts – particularly in what is required for each transaction – you could end up paying lots of extra fees. That great deal you thought you made will turn out to be not so great when you get your monthly bill!

There are three parts involved in a credit card transaction when a customer buys something from you online. The first part is your order form. This is what the customer sees when they decide they want to purchase your goods or services, and clicks to access your order form on your website. You will need to have software in place that collects client and billing information. This information must be stored in a way that it can be accepted by the payment gateway.

The second part is the payment gateway. Sometimes called the virtual terminal, this transmits your customer’s order information to your merchant account provider. It works in real time, like a store clerk swiping a card through a reader. In this case, your customers enter their credit card numbers through the computer. The transaction should complete in less than 10 seconds, at which point you receive an email letting you know about the sale.

The third part is, in a sense, the merchant account itself. The merchant account provider receives a transmission from the virtual terminal when the transaction is completed. This transmission contains the billing information received from the customer. In this way, the merchant account provider knows how much business you’re doing…and of course, how much to charge you in fees.

Speaking of fees, one of the things you should ask to see when shopping around for a credit card merchant account provider is a typical bill. You should then ask for an explanation of all fees listed on the bill. Of course, you’re probably thinking more in terms of how quickly you can see the money from these online transactions. It is worth noting that a merchant account provider should be able to send the money from credit card transactions into whatever bank account you specify. Some merchants advertise that you will receive the money within 48-72 hours. This is not unreasonable.

Fees and Other Questions

You need to be aware of all the fees your merchant account provider charges. There might be quite a few. For instance, some companies will charge an upfront application fee, supposedly to cover the initial cost of processing your application. It can cost as much as $25, but some companies charge as little as $10 and others waive it entirely.

Another fee you might encounter is a set up fee. Different merchant account providers charge different fees, and may vary their fee based on the products and/or services you sell. Some providers charge nothing, others may charge nearly $200.

You might also encounter a fee for the virtual terminal. A few years ago, when online sales were just taking off, some companies sold their virtual terminals for up to $2000, or leased them for $39 to $59 per month on a four-year contract. Prices are lower now, making it important to shop around. Some companies even charge nothing for the terminal, though there is usually a monthly fee of $10 to $20.

Practically every merchant account provider charges some kind of ongoing fixed fee that you will have to pay every month regardless of how many sales you make. This is often called a “statement fee.” Again, shop around; this shouldn’t cost you more than $10 per month.

You will pay something called the discount rate. This is the sales commission that the merchant account provider earns on each sale. Depending on the card, this will be between two and four percent. For each transaction, it is not large, but it can add up; after all, it is how your provider earns its bread and butter. For a $10 sale on your website, your merchant account provider will charge you $0.30.

That’s not the only per-transaction charge you will have to pay. You will also encounter a fixed transaction fee. Fortunately, this fee is the same regardless of the amount of the transaction. If the fee is $0.20, it doesn’t matter whether the sale is $1 or $100,000, the fee is still only $0.20.

Read the fine print carefully, and you might find a termination fee. This will apply if you cancel your merchant account within a certain period of time. Usually this is only one year, but some contracts specify two years. While you’re reading that fine print, you might want to hunt for other miscellaneous fees. For instance, some merchant account providers issue a chargeback fee – a fee they hit you with if a customer disputes a sale. In that case you would not only have to refund your customer’s money, but also pay the chargeback fee. Some merchant account providers will even cancel your account if you have too many charge backs on it.

What do you get for all these fees? Well, aside from the ability to accept credit cards, you should get excellent customer support, both via telephone and email. In fact, it is possible to find a merchant account provider that offers 24/7/365 technical support over the phone; they are worth shopping for, especially if you can find one that doesn’t charge an additional fee for this service. If you can find a merchant account provider really willing to make your life easier, you should also be able to get preconfigured shopping cars and web payment forms. That means you won’t have to do anything to your website – everything is set up for you.

You should also get fast service. Some merchant account providers will let you do it all over the Internet in minutes, and have you ready to accept credit card payments within hours. There are even some that don’t lock you into an annual contract, but let you work with them on a strictly month-to-month basis.

In short, you will have to do your homework, but you should be able to find a merchant account provider that suits your needs perfectly. Once you do, you’ll find the ability to collect credit card payments can increase your total sales anywhere from fifty to 1000 percent. Happy selling!
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Article Source : http://webhosting.devshed.com/c/a/Web-Hosting-Articles

Hosting - How to Choose the Host with the Most

Hosting - How to Choose the Host with the Most

by: hosting webhosting
Total views: 42
Word Count: 1590

The other day I was speaking to a client of mine about selecting a host for the website that they were planning to build. They asked me a question that I am sure many have on their minds. “Out of millions of options and hosting companies, how do we know which one is the best for us?” The answer is simple. There are three terms that must be met.

Quality Service

Most site owners shopping for hosting will go online, find a $4.00 hosting company that offers 1000 Mbps of server space along with 24/7 technical support, and think that they have found a great deal. The truth is that those are just letters and numbers. Most hosting companies offer 24/7 technical support, but that statement is subject to a lot of interpretation. Does 24/7 support mean that when I have an issue I will submit a ticket and wait 48 to 72 hours before my problem is resolved, or does it mean that I will reach a live person when I call the 800 support number that will actually answer my questions and resolve my issues?

My method usually involves calling the hosting support number before I even order the service to see what type of response I receive. If I get a machine I will leave a message explaining my interest in their services and give the company one hour to respond. If they don’t respond in one hour to close new business, then it is unlikely that they will respond quickly once they have your business and you have an issue. In the event that I do get a live person or immediate response, I then proceed to outline my hosting needs with the tech. Most good techs know the products and services offered by their company. If they don’t know enough about the product to sell it to you, then they can’t know enough to manage it and fix it. Look for the tech that will answer your questions and make useful suggestions towards your goals.

Another important detail to know about the level of service is billing. Important questions to ask include:

1. Who handles billing? An outside company or the same company you are purchasing the hosting from?

2. Can billing issues be resolved by calling a support number?

3. What payment methods are accepted?

4. Do you have full control of your billing through an online account management platform that lets you change your information or look up current and past statements?

5. Do you receive credits for referrals?

There are many hosting companies out there that will answer positively to all of the above questions. Don’t settle for less…it might come back to bite you later. Once you have reached a level of comfort with the service that you are being offered, you should proceed to ask questions regarding the type of equipment the hosting company uses to provide your service.

Quality Equipment

I know more than fifty clients who have lost every piece of data on their web server due to faulty equipment and policies provided by their hosting company. The company (who is now out of business) didn’t have redundancy or backup policies of any sort. They were in fact reselling the service without even knowing where the equipment was housed. In this instance the equipment happened to be located in the World Trade Center and when 9/11 came along all of the clients on those servers lost everything. This can be avoided by anyone willing to take a little time to do a bit of research.

Always find out where the physical servers are located and how the company handles backing up the data on those servers. Is the backup performed on separate drives or a separate server altogether? Most important is that you know your data IS being backed up at all. Also be sure to find out their policies in the event that a server goes down, such as what their guarantee is for bringing the information back up. If the server is down past the guaranteed time, then at a minimum you should receive a credit to your account.

That rule also applies to the network connection that the server has. If the connection is down for longer than a certain period of time past the agreement, then it's more than likely that the hosting company is getting credited -- and that means you should be as well. Verify with the company that there is existing network redundancy. If there is only one T3 and no network redundancy, then I wouldn't even think about using that company. If you do, you are begging to fight day after day with receiving email and constantly having your visitors tell you that your site is unreachable. On that same note, make sure to find out some of the clients hosted by that company and visit their websites. Too many companies oversell their bandwidth and the last thing you want is to have a website that takes 10 minutes to load.

In addition to everything listed above I strongly recommend always keeping a backup CD of your own. It doesn’t take a lot of time and it is certainly worth the trouble! Too many people think it can’t happen to them, and with the amount of marketing power a website has, it is just not a chance worth taking.

Reasonable Features with a Reasonable Price

Quality service, support and equipment should be primary and non negotiable. For most people their website is a strong part of their business, and that should be protected at all costs. Now we get to the features. It is so easy to get blown away in the endless sea of hosting features and make the assumption that if a company offers that many features, then the price is right. “What? 1000 Mbps, Unlimited Email, OsCommerce, Fantastico and all that stuff for ONLY $16.00 a month? What a great deal!” I see it all the time. Meanwhile a company that offers the same features and better service at a lower rate was just one click away on the Google results.

The important thing to remember is that if you don’t or won’t need the feature, then don’t pay for it. If you have a company with five employees and never plan to expand past 20, then you do not HAVE to have unlimited email accounts. Likewise, if you just use your website as an online business card and never plan to make a bulletin board or use a shopping cart then there is no point in looking for those features. I am not suggesting that you forsake any company that has seemingly limitless features. This is just a note to be cautious and make sure that you can’t find a better deal on pricing as long as the hosting company has the things you absolutely need or think you may need in the future.

Make sure to analyze your business needs and plan for the features that may be required. If you are planning to make a dynamic website then be sure to select a host that has the appropriate server side programming versions that you will require. If you will need PHP Version 5 in the future, then do not go with a hosting company that only has Version 3. In addition be sure to look for a host that has different package levels, so that in the event you do expand or downsize you can adjust your level of features to control cost. As long as you follow those guidelines you should always at least have an option.

Features to Look For

I typically look for hosting companies to work with that provide support with their script installation along with any technical server issues that arise. Let’s face it, not every single person (even web developers) knows how to use all of the scripts that come in the features of the hosting package. Sometimes the hosting package will come with instructions that are located in the scripts library, but if you can find a company that offers actual telephone support regarding the scripts, then you have struck gold.

Another critical feature that I look for is reporting. I want to have the capability at all times to monitor how many visitors I am getting, how long they stayed, and from which website or search engine they found my site. This is absolutely critical if you plan to do an Internet marketing campaign or optimize your website. There are outside companies that can gather and provide those statistics, but that usually requires scripts being installed on each webpage, and has a tendency to slow the site down. That is why I recommend making sure that the statistics feature is available and inherent on the server where you website will be hosted.

Those are the important factors in choosing the appropriate host. More often than not, it is the service level and equipment that differentiate one host from another. Better to pay more and receive the quality you need, than pay less and end up spending all of your valuable time trying to get some service. I hope this article helps you plan right and avoid the issues that so many have encountered. Thanks for taking the time to read it!
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Hosting Business - Four Building Blocks for a Web Hosting Business

y: hosting webhosting
Total views: 57
Word Count: 1401

There are many things to consider when you begin building your web hosting business. One of the most important concerns how to attract customers. This article discusses four areas you need to pay attention to if you want to get visitors who need web hosting to your site...and turn those visitors into clients.

There are a million things to consider when you decide to start your own web hosting business. You need to think about what company to buy your package from (if you’re a reseller), make sure you have the technical skills, create a business plan, deal with the bookkeeping, and so on. Some of these points are the sorts of things you would need to think about no matter what kind of business you decided to get into. But some challenges are a bit more peculiar to web hosting, especially as an online business. In this article, I will discuss four key areas that deeply affect how well you attract customers to your fledging business.

Let’s start with the design of your website. This is the first thing that any prospective customer sees. As you’ve heard before, first impressions last. On the Internet, that’s even more important; if you make a bad first impression, you won’t get a second chance.

So how do you want to be seen? Your website should be easy to navigate, of course, because nobody is going to take the time to learn how to maneuver around a confusing site, especially since there are a million other places a web surfer can check out for the same services (just enter the phrase “web hosting” into Google to see what I mean). It also shouldn’t look like the thousands of other web hosting sites out there, which seem to have been built with generic templates. How will you ever develop a professional corporate identity if you look like everyone else?

Someone who is looking for web hosting for their website wants to feel as if they’re dealing with a professional. If you come off looking like an amateur, you will lose their business. That’s true whether the site they want hosted is a small hobby-style site, an educational not-for-profit information center, or a large commercial e-tailer.

Be More than Just a Web Host

You offer various web hosting packages to your clients. You provide customer service via phone, email, and IM. You answer their questions about what software will work with your hardware. You’ve streamlined your billing process so that it is quick and painless for both you and your customers. Guess what? You could be doing a whole lot more.

There are very few website owners who know everything, and the ones that think they do are wrong. You could do your clients a great service by posting articles and tutorials that help them get set up. If you’re targeting your service at small e-tailers, some articles that talk about what to look for in an online shopping cart, how to set one up, and organizing an e-commerce website would certainly be in order. Prospective customers who see these articles will know that you understand the needs of their business, which will weigh strongly in your favor.

You can go beyond phone, email, and instant message in customer service if you start a set of forums. Support forums not only let your administrators address issues in a more informal setting; they also let your customers communicate with and help each other. You could see a community start to grow, which would be all to the good. You might even start getting suggestions about ways to serve your customers better. These might be in the form of complaints, or they might be phrased more like, “I’m trying to do X, and it would be really helpful if I had Y to support it. Is anybody else having the same issue?” Nobody likes to feel as if they are an island; support forums give you a potentially more proactive way to communicate with your customers, and both you and your customers stand to benefit from this. Besides, many website owners check out various support forums when they are considering what web hosting company to hire.

All of these services provide additional content for your clients and prospective clients. Think of them in part as opportunities to prove that you are a professional who is serious about his business and about helping your customers. Remember also that the extra content will bring extra traffic to your site, and quite probably result in more sales. That can certainly make it worth the extra work!

Don’t Ignore the Search Engines

Actually, the heading of this section is an understatement. Since more than 90 percent of your business is likely to come straight from the search engine results pages (SERPs), you must understand how search engines work. The success of your business depends on it.

What this means is that you need to learn how to learn to optimize your site so that the search engines will index it and give it a high ranking for your chosen keywords. But keep in mind the points I discussed in the previous section; you must also build your website so that it is friendly to visitors. Fortunately, it is possible to build a site for your web hosting business that will appeal to both search engine spiders and flesh and blood visitors. Remember, if you have the greatest hosting plan in the entire world, it’s utterly useless if nobody knows about it.

So how do you learn about search engine optimization (SEO)? Well, you could start by doing a search on the phrase in Google. Or even better, you could pay a visit to SEO Chat (http://www.seochat.com). Either way, you will find more information on this topic than you can shake a mouse at, much of it free for the viewing.

If you decide you would rather hire someone else to optimize your website, you will also find plenty of SEO companies. Please be cautious when choosing one, however, since many of them are somewhat less than honorable. Some even engage in practices that could get you banned from the search engine indexes entirely. Google has some webmaster guidelines that talk about SEO and what to watch for when you consider hiring a company.

Find a Niche and Fill it

Especially when you are just starting to build your business, you cannot be all things to all people. As with the search engine business, the web hosting business is highly competitive, with a number of highly visible players that get a lot of customers. That doesn’t mean, however, that the little guy has no chance at all. It does mean that you may need to think differently.

Rather than catering to everyone, think about the market and the kinds of people and organizations who want web hosting. Not all of them have the same needs. You may be able to cater to some needs better than others. Think about this, and be honest. If so, you can turn this into a virtue, and specifically set yourself up to sell web hosting to those whose needs you could fill best.

Catering to a niche is a great way to set your web hosting business apart from others. For example, there are web hosts who cater to the special needs of those who run online forums and communities. Others offer web hosting to podcasters, who have technical concerns that include eating bandwidth for breakfast. Still others cater to small online e-tailers, while others enjoy handling the web hosting needs of not-for-profit organizations.

While the four main points that I’ve mentioned in this article aren’t the only things you will need to succeed, they will certainly help to get your web hosting business off to a good start. You need a website that projects a professional image and includes extra content that attracts visitors. The site needs to be friendly to both search engines and web surfers. And finally, you need to cater to a niche to help set you apart from the thousands of other web hosting companies competing with you. Good luck!
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Hosting Business - Planning Your Web Hosting Business

Hosting Business - Planning Your Web Hosting Business

by: hosting webhosting
Total views: 72
Word Count: 1738

Just as you wouldn’t travel in territory you don’t know without a map, you should not proceed in business without a plan. That’s as true for the web hosting business as it is for any other. In this article, the first of two parts, I will mention the six important parts of any business plan, and discuss three of them.

Many people who get into the web hosting business figure that it’s just a numbers game. While it is important to get the numbers right, those figures that add up to a profitable business on paper may be hiding some mistaken assumptions. Let’s look at someone who plans to sell web hosting for $5 per month. He does the math for his business at 300 customers. Here is what it looks like:

Gross income=$1280 (300 times $5 minus credit card fees)

Server cost=$100

Control panel cost=$100

Advertising=$300

Customer support=$350

Total Costs=$850

Net income (profit) =$430

Net income per customer = $1.43

That might be a nice projection, but there are a lot of things it doesn’t take into account. How is he going to manage until he actually gets those 300 customers, hmmm? Until then, he’ll have to cover his costs himself. Likewise, how did he figure that his advertising cost would be $300 per month? That number can’t just be drawn out of a hat. How will he advertise? How well can he close sales?

If you want to go into the web hosting business, you need to treat it seriously, just as you would if you were starting any other business venture. A good place to start is by taking a job with another web hosting company to learn the ropes. Another way people start is by becoming a reseller web host, but even that is a serious business and should not be treated casually.

However you choose to start, you’re not going to be able to escape the responsibility of doing your research. That means reading books, asking questions on forums, checking out the industry online and at conferences. There are certain questions you need to be able to answer before you turn on your first server, and certain issues you need to at least be thinking about. In other words, you need a business plan.

If you are just starting out, and the business plan is chiefly for your own edification, you may be able to get away with just a few pages. But you should be thinking of the future, and what you plan to do with your business five years down the line. There are plenty of books that describe how to write a business plan; I’m going to cover the most generic elements of a business plan here, with a focus on web hosting. Even if you don’t see these elements as applying to your business—yet—you can benefit from reading all the sections, as they will get you thinking about the areas of your business you will probably need to address sooner or later.

Key Parts of a Business Plan

A good generic business plan features six key parts: executive summary, the enterprise, the market, operations, organization, and key risks/timeline. Not every business plan will cover all of these parts in the same amount of detail, and in the same business plan, these will vary significantly in length. Your own business plan will change as time goes on, you acquire more information, and your own needs (and those of your customers) change.

If your business plan is like a nonfiction book, the executive summary is a comprehensive introduction. As with most introductions, it should be written last, and for the same reason. You need the information contained in the rest of the work to give an introduction that truly covers the subject.

An executive summary tells the reader what the company is all about, who the founders are, and what they see the business doing—the vision for the company, if you will. It should also include a statement about the market opportunity: why now is the right time, and your company is the right company, to take advantage of the current situation. You’ll see these points repeated in other parts of the business plan.

The part of the business plan that covers the enterprise describes your company’s product or service, and how it holds an advantage in the marketplace. Obviously, for a web hosting firm, the basic service is hosting websites, but you will also offer customer support, and you might offer services related to web hosting (such as website design). As for your firm’s advantages, they will vary with your own and your employee’s backgrounds, among other factors. Maybe you have actual experience running, say, a small boutique. This gives you an advantage in understanding the needs of this kind of business, which may assist you in hosting websites for small boutiques. Or maybe you have a lot of experience explaining technical details to the less technologically savvy in a way that they can understand.

Key Parts of a Business Plan: The Market

This brings us to the third section of your business plan: the market. It might also be one of the most comprehensive. Yes, you need to do research (and maybe some soul searching) when you write the section about your enterprise, but you really need to dig when you work on this section. A thorough version encompasses seven parts: the industry; market size and rate of growth; target market; the competition; sales approach; pricing policy; and promotion and advertising. Some of these sub-sections may contain only a paragraph or two; you might find that putting the information from certain sections into a graphical format (such as a chart or a table) helps you think about it better than writing lots of text.

When writing about the industry, you’ll need to do significant research to get a good overview. What are the major challenges that face web hosts today? How much does it cost to get into the business? How much does it cost to serve customers? What keeps the industry a going concern? How much turnover is there? Finding the answers to these questions will get you off to a good start.

Discussing the market size and rate of growth naturally follows from the previous topic. How big is the web hosting business? How much money was made in the business last year? Two years ago? How much will be made in the next couple of years? How many people will need someone to host their websites? These are the kinds of questions that this section deals with.

Next, and perhaps most importantly, you must consider your target market. This is the specific segment of people looking for web hosting that you hope to serve. Do you hope to serve businesses in a specific geographic region? Podcasters? Online auction runners? Not-for-profits? Whatever segment or segments you serve, you need to know what they want and need, how to fill those needs, and—for the future security of your business—what the trends are for your target market’s future behavior (i.e. how their needs will change, and what they’re likely to do about it).

The Market, Continued

Now we come to another important subsection: the competition. Don’t pretend that you’re so special and unique nobody can compete with you. I used to make paper bead jewelry that looked so good, even an antique dealer mistook the beads for Murano glass. I displayed my work at art shows, and it was unique; no one else was making paper bead jewelry. So I had no competition, right? Wrong. Every other jewelry maker was my competition.

Likewise, every other web host who could fill similar needs is your competition. So you need to cover their key attributes in this subsection. Or, if it doesn’t make sense to look at specific web hosting companies as your competition, you might look at broad classes of web hosting companies—all firms that offer web hosting in a particular price range, for instance.

Next, you need to look at your sales approach. How are you going to reach your customers? Will your sales be conducted chiefly face to face, or (much more likely for web hosts) over the Internet? How much experience do you have with Internet sales? If you don’t have a clear idea of how you are going to reach your customers, guess what? You might not get any customers at all.

You may not have given much thought to your pricing policy, but you should. How and why did you pick the price level for your service? Is it higher, lower, or comparable to similar offerings on the market? Is there any particular risk to the business in having your prices at their current level? Or, on the contrary, is there some benefit to your price level? The point is, you shouldn’t just pick a number; you should know what it would take to turn a profit, and whether you can get enough business at that price point to stay in business.

Finally, we come to promotion and advertising. This covers any public relations, advertising campaigns, educational programs and other tools that you will use to drive demand of your service. Planning to get a booth at the local county fair and give out brochures about your web hosting service? That falls under this section. How about pay-per-click advertising through the search engines? Ditto. Radio ads? Sure. Visiting the local public school to give a presentation on building a website, then helping the students to set up their own—hosted on your server, of course? That counts too; even if you set the students up for free, their parents just might become paying customers.

That’s all I have room for in this part. Hopefully, it has given you a better idea of what you need to think about when starting your web hosting business. In the second part, I’ll tackle the final three sections of a business plan: operations, organization, and key risks/timeline. See you then!
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Virtual Hosting versus Dedicated Hosting : Which is Right for You

Virtual Hosting versus Dedicated Hosting : Which is Right for You

by: hosting webhosting
Total views: 68
Word Count: 1920

So you’re starting a website, and one of the first things you’ll need to do is to find a web host. After searching all of the hosting possibilities, you find there is more than just one type of hosting. So what do you do?

A successful web site depends on a good web host, but it's just as important to select the right kind of hosting account. Most web hosting companies offer a choice between virtual shared hosting and dedicated hosting. The basic difference between the two types of accounts is whether a site has its own server or shares one with other web sites, which determines whether that site has its own IP address or shares one with other sites. With a virtual host, many websites are sharing a single machine with a single IP address. In a dedicated hosting situation, a single machine is “dedicated” to a single customer.

In this article, I wanted to show you the major differences in the two types of hosting: virtual versus dedicated, and when you can determine it’s right to choose a dedicated server, time to move to a dedicated server from a virtual server, or stay with the shared hosting.

The Virtual Hosting Benefits and Risks

Virtual hosting has both its benefits and its risks. The most obvious benefit of a virtual hosting account is price: it is low. You can pay anywhere between $2.00 and $20.00 per month for shared hosting, depending upon the features of the host. If you are just starting a website or don’t get a lot of traffic, or are concerned with price, then you’ll probably start with virtual hosting. There are even free virtual host accounts available, although you’ll most likely have to put up with the advertising on the site from the host. (Hey, they have to pay for the servers and your bandwidth somehow.)

One of the disadvantages of having your website hosted on a shared server is going to be server response time, or server load. A server receives requests for files and serves up those files in the order the requests are received. It's like waiting on hold with your computer customer support company: if you're second in the queue, then you get served pretty quickly; but if you're the 20th customer on hold in the queue, you'll have to wait a lot longer.

How many sites reside on each server and how much traffic those sites get will also determine a server’s response time. While it isn’t necessarily due to the number of sites on a server, it will also depend upon those sites’ traffic. Response time may be slower if you share a server with 50 busy sites than if you share a server with 100 sites that only get a few hits per day. A good idea is to ask the web host how many sites they allow on a shared server, and what the maximum traffic and transfer allowed for each site.

Virtual Hosting IP Risks

Finding out the IP address of a shared server ahead of time can allow you to use tools to find out the server response time of the virtual host. It doesn’t do you any good to have a great website if your site visitors can’t access it due to slow server response time. They’ll either get frustrated or go elsewhere. You may also find that you are getting quite a bit of downtime based on server load. NetMechanics.com has a good tool you can use to test this out, as long as you don’t try to use it during peak hours.

Another drawback to virtual hosting is having to share your IP address with bad neighbors. A web host is not going to tell you what other sites share your IP address; you take the risk of sharing your address with an adult site, a spam site, or other site you wouldn’t want to otherwise associate with. Some search engines see red flags with some spam or adult sites, and other search engines have been known to ban IP addresses altogether, like AltaVista and it is rumored that even Google crawls by IP for efficiency, skipping those that it doesn’t like. Make sure you know what kind of sites your web host allows in order for you to make an informed decision before you sign up. You can usually find this information in their terms of service.

Another risk you run with sharing an IP address with other sites on a virtual server is the likelihood of more server crashes. Most web hosts don’t allow certain kinds of scripts that may crash the servers, while others don’t monitor this type of behavior. Scripts that are written poorly, with built-in loops, for example, can overload a server’s resources. This can slow the server as well as it could cause the server to crash. Some web hosts allow unfettered shell access, whereas other require you to have some kind of identification on file in their office, and monitor all shell access behaviors. You want to make sure that your web host at least has some sort of shell access guidelines in place, and that it is well protected.

I know it seems that these disadvantages far outweigh the advantages of virtual hosting; however, while I wanted you to be aware of the issues, for most sites out there though, virtual hosting does just fine. Millions of websites use shared hosting options and most don’t have problems.

Dedicated Hosting Advantages and Disadvantages

One of the best features of having a dedicated server at your disposal is not having to worry what other sites out there are doing to increase your risk. There are no other sites on your server to deal with, and you don’t have to think about cgi scripts gone awry thanks to someone else.

Dedicated servers can be built to handle higher traffic loads, and you only have to be concerned with the traffic from your own site, instead of everyone else’s too. Because of this, there are usually no bandwidth limitations on dedicated servers.

The major disadvantage to going with a dedicated server for your hosting needs is going to be the cost involved. Many of these start at about $70 per month for the bare minimums, and after that, the sky’s the limit on price, depending upon features the web host offers. Many small to medium companies simply cannot justify the expense, especially if they are startup companies, not making money with their site, or not having been online very long.

While it may seem that the advantages to having a dedicated server may be worth the price, it really can be a waste of your monetary resources to have one when you really don’t need a dedicated server.

There are a few guidelines you can follow to determine whether you really need a dedicated server over using a virtual host. If your traffic is so much so that it is overwhelming the server for others, then it’ll be a good indication that it’s time to make the jump. A slow server isn’t pretty for the website owner or for visitors, and it is a nightmare for web hosts.

Do You Really Need Dedicated Hosting?

If you are exceeding your monthly bandwidth limits on a continual basis, you may actually not have to decide at all how much traffic is too much. You may get a nice email from your web host telling you that you need to stay under your limitations, or there will be consequences: added cost most likely, but there are even more extreme measures the web host may take on repeated offenses. It is in your web host’s (and their customers’) best interest to determine which sites are bogging down their servers, and take appropriate action. This may mean additional cost, moving the “offending” site to its own server, or booting it altogether. While this kind of action may not be seen favorably by a web site owner who is the target of such action, a host has to weigh the cost of losing dozens of other customers due to overwhelmed server resources, or the cost of upgrading versus keeping the business of a single customer. Bandwidth is expensive; not just for you, but also for your web host. Even they have allocations provided by their ISP, and they need to make sure the expense of bandwidth is going to outweigh the revenues that are coming in.

Regardless, you should already be aware of the symptoms of the need for your site to have its own machine. So how much traffic is too much traffic? Well, normally if you ask me this question, I would say this: there is no such thing. But in this case, it really is up to your web host to determine what too much traffic and transfer is. Just ask them. I’m sure they’ll tell you.

Another guideline to use to determine your need for a dedicated server is the purpose for which it will be used. If you are simply moving your site to a dedicated server to “escape” the risks of virtual hosting, then this may not be a good enough reason. Don’t misunderstand me, there is nothing “wrong” with going with a dedicated server for this reason, but it may just be a waste. But if your purpose for having your site on a dedicated server is for functionality of the site, then there is good reason to assume that this is a good reason.

Another good reason for you have a dedicated server is the ability to customize both the hardware and the software. With a virtual host, you don’t get to choose which CPU or how much RAM is in the machine; on the same token you usually don’t get to decide what software is going to be installed on it either. If your company requires that you use Novell Networks as your email client, and you need to customize it to the needs of the company or you require a fast, customer service live support console that has to have minimal downtime, chances are good that you’ll need a dedicated server. There are multiple examples of why a company would want a dedicated server, but ultimately they fall into three categories: customizable hardware, customizable software, and unlimited bandwidth without server load issues on or from other sites.

So what if you decide you don’t necessarily need your own whole machine to host your website on, but don’t wish to take the risks of sharing your IP address with bad neighbors? You may not be ready to switch from a virtual host to a dedicated server, but you may need your own IP address, especially if you are using your own SSL certificate or running an ecommerce store, or for SEO purposes. Most virtual hosts allow you to pay for a dedicated IP address, which may serve to keep your site protected from some of the other risks associated with virtual hosting.

Hopefully this article can help you make an informed decision about which type of hosting you really need for your website, and which type is really right for you.
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