|
|
Hosting Options for an Ecommerce Web Site
Deciding how to host your ecommerce Web site and what approach to take can be daunting. There are several approaches available, each with different advantages and disadvantages.
Storefronts
If you have a small business, you may want to consider a storefront or an online mall. For a fee, these services help you build a small Web site to sell your products. These "site in a box" Web site services include everything you need to sell online.
Features and support vary by program and can include options such as search engine placement, credit card processing, and advertising. These tend to be template services, however, with less flexibility than a custom site. Familiarize yourself with the current offerings in this area before making a final decision.
Custom Sites
If you have a business that is too large for or has outgrown the smaller storefront services, you may want to consider the more costly - but also more flexible - custom site. For the added cost you can have a unique site, receive greater support, and handle more traffic. You have the options of hiring the same company to design and host your site or using separate design and hosting services.
Hiring the same company to design and host your site.
This option involves the fewest logistics, but may come with trade-offs in design quality or host reliability. Be aware that designing and hosting require different sets of skills and expertise. When choosing a service, evaluate their experience and ask for references in both areas. Go to sites the company has designed and navigate them. Note how the sites look, how easy they are to understand, and how quickly they load into your browser.
To evaluate the company's hosting service, contact current customers and ask how pleased they are with the service. Find out how often the server is down and ask about help desk responsiveness. Also, consider how your site will be updated. Can you upload changes directly or do you have to wait for someone at the hosting company to get to it? If it is the latter, ask current customers about their experience with this process.
If you are still considering the design/hosting service after studying their design capabilities and talking to their current customers, you may also want to find out if there has been recent turnover in key personnel. An individual designer, coordinator, or account manager can make a large difference in support or design quality.
Using a separate design and hosting service.
By separating the design and hosting, you have more choices. Thus, you can have more control over both your budget and your site. Technical incompatibilities are a risk when taking this approach, however. Be sure your designer is familiar with your hosting service and it's technical capabilities. To help facilitate information flow and minimize technical problems:
Choose a short list of hosts with both the ecommerce capabilities you require and that pass "reliability" tests. Read "Don't Make These Hosting Mistakes", http://www.take-payments-online.com/ECommerceWebHosting.html , for questions to ask and other mistakes to avoid.
Find a Web designer experienced in ecommerce applications. Together, decide on the hosting service and ecommerce systems you will use.
Making the Decision
Deciding upon the right combination will take some research. One way to gather a list of hosting options is to first find ecommerce sites that you like and/or have ecommerce abilities similar to your needs, then ask about the sites' hosting and ecommerce providers.
Asking for referrals from business acquaintances is another. Many times, people are more than happy to share their positive experiences. For example, I use five different hosts and am generally pleased with all of them. When asked about hosting, however, I always recommend Lexiconn.com (my WebSiteMarketingPlan.com site host) because of the exceptional help desk service and support documentation.
Another way to develop hosting options is to look for online advertisements. The sponsored search engine ads and advertisements directly on Web sites are two places you can find these. While there's no guarantee all of the companies you find will be high quality, the willingness to pay for ads can be an indication of commitment.
Diligently decide upon ecommerce features and choose a host with those features in mind. By doing so, you are creating a smoother path to ecommerce success.
Copyright 2004 Bobette Kyle. All rights reserved.
About The Author
Bobette Kyle is publisher of http://www.Take-Payments-Online.com , an ecommerce information site. She is also proprietor of The WebSiteMarketingPlan.com Network, subject-specific Web sites designed to help you find the right information for marketing plans and marketing programs. Visit at http://www.WebSiteMarketingPlan.com.
10 Helpful Tips to Follow When Switching Web Hosts
You've made your decision to move from your website from your current web host to a new web host. The following tips will help you make the transition easier and make you aware of some potential pitfalls to avoid.
Which Is The Better Server Operating System, Unix or Windows?
Anybody who decides to get a web hosting service or facility for their website will also soon be faced with the tough question of what server they will need. Will their website be run by a Windows server operating system or will they prefer to go for a Unix system?
How to Find Good Web Hosting for Your Site!
When building your first site the main things that you will probably think about is what types of content you will be adding to your site, how you are going to get visitors to your site and how you are going to generate good revenue from your site.
Great Web Hosting - What to Look For!
Web hosting can best be described as a modern-day marriage: none of this till death do us part stuff, it's more like I'll stick around as long as your uptime is 100%, you answer my frantic queries instantly, and you charge me less than a decent latte at Starbucks. What follows is a few tips to help make the relationship less rocky and possibly prosperous!
Buyer Beware: Web Hosting, Registration, and Site Building All in One Package Nightmares
Starting out in any type of online marketing or Internet business can be confusing and overwhelming. There are so many different aspects of a start-up: domain name registration and purchase, Web site host purchasing, and of course, the "building" of the Web site itself. This leaves many consumers looking for an easier way to purchase everything in one place, both to save money and to save time.
Web Design and Hosting - Free Web Hosting Perks That Will Perk Up Your Web Site
If you've got or are considering a web hosting account with PHP and mySQL support, you'll find a wealth of free programs and scripts to take advantage of their powerful combined capabilities.
Virtual Web Hosting - What Is Virtual Web Hosting?
If your web site has outgrown its shared hosting solution, it may be time to move it to virtual hosting, which is often seen as a low cost alternative to getting your own dedicated server. A virtual server gives you most of the advantages of a dedicated server at a fraction of the price. The web hosting service takes advantage of the fact that few small to mid-size web sites need the full resources of a machine and puts several web sites on the same server.
Dedicated Web Hosting : The Executive Summary
What is Dedicated Web Hosting? Dedicated web hosting can alleviate the need to share hardware or software with any other sites or web pages. Webmasters are given the autonomy to decide on applications that are installed on the server to create specific configurations for their web needs, and have the ability to provide a secure environment for their site. As compared to a shared-server environment, dedicated web hosting offers a peace of mind that a site will be delivered in a reliable and secure manner.
Choosing the Right Web Host
So you've decided about your website design and now you are ready to have your website hosted!
Budget Web Hosting - Dirty Secrets That Can Squash Your Websites Chance of Success
When it comes to budget web hosting, there are a lot of dirty secrets that can really hurt your chance of success. However, if you know about these dirty secrets, you will be prepared and better able to handle any possible problems before they arise. Review the following secrets and make sure you know for sure what your web host is about before you sign up and risk your websites chance of success.
Configuring DynDNS.org in Linux via DDClient
Most Internet service providers do not give you static IP addresses (without paying more for them), which makes hosting your own Server (Games, FTP, Web) a pain in the butt. There is however a means to create a relatively static looking connection by using a the wonderful service provided by DynDNS. They allow you to get a subdomain off one of their many domains that will automatically forward to your dynamic IP address.
Choosing Your Web Hosting Reseller Software
As a web host reseller, one of your most important business decisions is your choice of web hosting control panel software. The web hosting software you use will save or cost you time, money, and frustration. What reseller control panel features will reduce your workload? What hosting software programs are integrated with the reseller control panel or work with it? What website control panel features will your clients like? In this article, we've compared four quality web hosting reseller software programs:
UNIX vs. Windows- What Server Operating System Should You Use for Your Web Hosting?
So you've decided to create a website? The most obvious thing that you need is of course web hosting. Among other things, like cost and features, you'll need to decide which server you'll need: Windows (NT, 2000 or XP) or Unix (Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, etc.).
How To Have Several Websites But Pay For Only One Websites Hosting
Many online entrepreneurs these days are faced with the problem of running several websites and having to maintain several web hosting accounts for the various sites. Actually there is a very simple and effective solution to this problem. The answer is to run sub domains. Although sub domains are very similar to having a site within a site, they are not simply additional web pages of an existing website. Each sub domain can have a website of it's own and completely separate from the main website.
Woe the Web
Finding a good and reliable web hosting company is like looking for the right husband. The word 'right' and 'husband' don't belong together in the first place, many insists! Well, how can I argue with something to inadvertantly correct and incorrect at the same time?
How to Choose a Right Web Hosting Service?
Indeed, choosing a right web hosting service for your website is not an easy task especially when there are thousands of web hosting providers all offering almost identical web hosting packages. Therefore, it is important to know few major considerations even before you start your web hosting search. Below are three major criteria for web host seeker:
Reseller Web Hosting - A Cheaper Alternative?
There comes a time when the internet bug hits us all and we tend to acquire a wealth of domain names and web sites to feed our frenzy.
How Much Bandwidth Does Your Web Site Need?
One of the most common concerns people have when deciding to host a web site is figuring out how much bandwidth they'll need. Get too little bandwidth and you might be hit with overage fees or have your web site shut off altogether. Get too much and you're paying for bandwidth that you don't really need. The following is a helpful guide for determining the amount of bandwidth that's right for your web site.
How To Host Several Websites Under One Account
If you operate several websites, each with its own domain name, signing up of separate hosting accounts can be an expensive proposition. Even if your hosting company offers the add-on domain feature (which will allow you to add different domains to the same hosting account) you will be charged a monthly fee for each domain you add, sometimes costing almost the same as your full hosting fee.
Finding a Home for Your Internet Enterprise - A Point by Point List
After much Net surfing and looking at all the offers you've decided to take the plunge! You've investigated a good name for your idea. You've decided it's time to start searching for a home for your Internet vision. By golly, it's time to start your own enterprise! You're tired of all the reading and research! You're ready to go mano-a-mano!