Shared web hosting provider Certified Hosting just introduced CloudFlare functionality to all its shared and reseller hosting services. The service is integrated within Certified Hosting's existing cPanel web hosting setup.

CloudFlare is a "firewall in the cloud" service designed to help secure websites and protect them against online malicious attacks. Visitor traffic is passed through one of 13 data centers where it can be monitored. In the event of a traffic spike, CloudFlare checks for signs of spam, DDos attacks and bot crawling. What really makes CloudFlare a valuable platform however is that since it acts as a proxy to numerous websites, it effectively learns from attacks and grows more intelligent over time.

“CloudFlare takes security off of the list of things our users have to manage for themselves,” says Kacy Carlsen, co-founder and CEO of Certified Hosting. “After selecting a security level for their website, our shared web hosting users can let CloudFlare manage their security with no further input required. Even better, in the event that a web hosting server does become overloaded with disruptive traffic, the CloudFlare system automatically calls upon a cached version of the website from one of the distributed cloud servers. Our customers can be completely assured that their website is available to end-users consistently, and is always performing at its best.”

It’s been written countless times that the cloud is the future of Web tech and will
possibly be the most important investment most businesses make in the near
future – especially enterprise companies.

Of course, there are those with strong (and valid) opinions
on the subject, both in favor of cloud adoption and stringently against it. However,
as the debate ensues, there are many companies in the industry providing great
services to customers of various sizes and requirements.

2011 saw Internet empires and hungry young companies alike
playing a crucial role in the development of cloud technologies and, more
importantly, services. Here are five of the best cloud service providers from
the past 12 months.

Amazon Web Services
Most people just know Amazon as the online retail site, but Web professionals are aware of its
other prominent role on the ‘Net as one of the largest cloud service providers
available.

This may be a somewhat controversial choice seeing as the
service has some highly-noted mishaps this past year, but nonetheless it
remains a leading innovator in the industry, including adding a “white glove”
service for premium customers that will route your calls (and concerns) to the
nearest engineering specialist.

AWS will scale to meet the application demands of its
clients, “whether one server or a large cluster,” offers a pay-as-you-go, low
cost service, instantly deploys applications and allows for full open and
flexible control of all of your data. Despite the blunders of 2011 (of which
customers have understandable concerns), Amazon Web Services continues to be
(one of?) the best cloud provider out there.

Box
Box is probably the busiest provider on this list. It has
been constantly innovating its product over the last year, especially in mobile
applications, and has been able to carve out a significant segment of the
market as a result.

While it may be most popular as a personal consumer service,
Box has accrued and impressive list of businesses and enterprise-level
companies as customers, including Proctor & Gamble, Six Flags, Taylor Made,
Pandora, Clear Channel, the San Francisco Giants and more.

Businesses are helped to a host of features in areas like
content management with desktop syncing and link-based file sharing, mobile
access on Android and iOS devices, online workspaces, a host of administrative
controls and easy integration into existing business software like Google Apps,
Salesforce and NetSuite, as well as offering APIs for custom integrations.

Rackspace
In terms of revenue generated, Rackspace trails only Amazon Web
Services. While that’s not necessarily an indicator of competence, it does
speak highly that so many users are willing to trust it over major brands like
Microsoft and Google.

This year saw less in the way of innovation than most
companies, the soft launch of OpenStack was notable and they released their
impressive Hybrid Hosting option that provides both cloud and managed hosting
in one service. Still, Rackspace has continued to impress with solid service
and security; after all, there are currently over 100,000 companies currently
working with Rackspace.

Rackspace’s on-demand scalable servers come with up to 30 GB
of storage, only require businesses to pay for what they use, are
fully-customizable with root access and are completed by the company’s
“Fanatical Support.”

Dropbox
Many have at least heard of Dropbox, and it has long been
one of the more heavily-utilized cloud service providers available. (For instance,
my own list of Dropbox Alternatives suggests that it has become the standard
for business and personal cloud computing.)

Like Box, Dropbox offers a really impressive mobile service
that is compatible with Windows, Mac, Linux, iPad, iPhone, Android and
Blackberry devices and still works even when the user is offline. The service
also provides businesses with the ability to utilize the same tools they work
with daily, get started in minutes, put all of their services on a single bill and
manage and migrate accounts. Heck, you even get unlimited version history for
all of your files hosted with Dropbox.

Evernote
If the opinions of tech industry insiders around the globe
are to be trusted, it looks like Evernote may be the next big thing in cloud computing.
What sets this product apart is that it is more of a note-taking and idea-saving service than a traditional cloud storage platform. The idea with
Evernote is that users can save important ideas in “notebooks” and then
retrieve these ideas later, which is made simple thanks to a search function
and the ability to tag things you save.

It also has mobile compatibility, so you can access your ideas
from almost any mobile device, as “Evernote works with nearly every computer, phone
and mobile device out there.” What makes Evernote an especially convenient tool
is that you can take notes everywhere you go and keep all of them in sync and
readily available on any device you may use anywhere.

Cloud technology is one of the most rapidly evolving areas of the Web, but it still has its fair share of kinks.

For major enterprises requiring massive server space and IT departments, as well as small and medium-sized businesses that handle a lot of data, the cloud may very well be their next most important technology investments. However, deciding to store everything in the wispy aerosol of cyberspace could end up being more costly than cost-efficient if it’s done too early.

That New Tech Smell
Jumping right into the cloud is risky because it’s still a very new industry. There are many unanswered questions about things like data ownership and retrieval and how much control providers have over the content they host. Predicting potential problems with data storage is hard when there’s no precedent. For instance, what if the cloud provider hosts your entire server, instead of just some of your data? How does that affect the way they interact with your data?

Since the purpose of using the cloud is to back up important information, these companies make copies of data for security and retrieval purposes. Depending on the type of service, users don’t always keep their own copies, and thus wonder what happens to this extra data should they ever choose to switch providers, their current provider goes out of business or they want to re-localize their servers.

These situations could become sticky unless they’re clearly tied up at the beginning of a relationship. But users may worry about putting data in the cloud until they see how some as-yet-unencountered issues are handled by major service providers, so they don’t become the unfortunate guinea pigs of these complex business deals.

Security Measures
Security is the most frequently referenced concern with cloud computing. After all, in some cases all of your business’ data is floating around on the ’Net and open to being compromised.

Many people fear the cloud being hacked, especially now that major incidents are becoming common. (If the Pentagon is susceptible to attacks from bored V for Vendetta fans, what can a small business with a minimal security budget do?) Of course, cloud companies take this issue into account when designing their systems and often utilize some of the strongest security technology available to protect user data. Dropbox insists that “your files are actually safer while stored in your Dropbox than on your computer in some cases.”

Still, security breaches are a legitimate threat, even if they’re unlikely. And though high-level hackers probably don’t have an interest in the inventory information stored by most SMBs, those hosted on major services like Amazon, Google, etc. might find themselves vulnerable to invasion by people attempting to infiltrate high profile cloud service providers.

Most of these security questions spring from concerns about control and accountability. When a company puts data in a cloud service, as opposed to hosting the data on its own server, they lose some of the ability to implement security features they feel are most appropriate, instead leaving those decisions up to the provider. Plus, there is less direct accountability when using a cloud service, as opposed to being able to hold oneself or an IT department/company responsible, and it’s frustrating not to have someone to yell at sometimes, right?

This compounds fears about a lack of direct data oversight in the cloud, which is an anxiety that may persist for some time.

Are We There Yet?
Finally, some worry that the tech may just not be ready yet to handle all of the demands required of it, especially for enterprise-level businesses.

Concerns about the infrastructure of the cloud rose in prominence this past year when Amazon’s Web Services, one of the world’s largest cloud service providers, went down and affected many popular sites like Zynga, Reddit and Foursquare. This obviously had effects on their day-to-day operations, especially as it relates to Foursquare and the local businesses with which it works.

A high-profile technology failure like this no doubt worries businesses that may be considering transferring their data to the cloud. Some of these potential technical problems, along with security and data retrieval/ownership concerns, don’t yet have practical or complete answers that companies may want to hear before making the big transition (and investment).

While Cloud computing may very well be the go-to data storage platform of the future, considering the risks in the present may prove that it’s not yet time to make the move.

Top 10 Things to Look For in a Web Host

Let us consider the top 10 things to look for in a web host:

1. Reliability (“uptime”)

Your host should be reliable, stable and fast, and should guarantee its uptime, the minimum figure for which should be 99%. A straight 99% is actually considered low these days, as 99.5% or higher is rapidly becoming the new standard. Check to see if the host provides a prorated refund if uptime falls below the stated benchmark. With how much business a company can lose any time their website is down this crucial aspect of web hosting probably does deserve to be in the #1 spot, but read on for other important info.

2. Data transfer (traffic or “bandwidth”)

Data transfer mean the number of bytes delivered from your site to its visitors as they browse. If a web host advertises “unlimited bandwidth,” find out how much traffic the particular deal you’re considering really allows. Most new sites that are not archives, storage or “drop-send” sites normally use less than 3GB of bandwidth per month. If you expect your traffic requirements to increase over time, check the host’s policy for “overages.” If there is a charge (usually per additional GB) over the allowed bandwidth, you need to determine if it’s cheaper to pay it once in a while (if it will not be ongoing) or to upgrade your service level.

3. Disk space

Be on guard against the “unlimited disk space” deals, too, and view them with the same skepticism as you just observed being applied to data transfer. The vast majority of sites need no more than 10-20MB of web space, so don’t fall prey to enticements like 500MB, or “unlimited space.” To get an idea of relative size, a site with about 200 pages and the usual assortment of text, pictures and motion graphics will use only about 10-15 MB for all of the pages and supporting files.

4. Technical support

Is the tech support 24/7/365? You should probably avoid a host that has no staff working weekends or holidays since things have a habit of breaking down at the worst possible times. A claim of “24/7 support” is not always true, so test the sales pitch by e-mailing or calling on a Friday night or holiday. Measure how long it takes for you to connect with a human being on the other end. In addition response time, ensure that the support personnel are technically proficient. Believe it or not, some tech support personnel are converted sales people “learning on the job,” which is not the kind of help you need in an emergency that threatens your business.

5. Technical features (FTP, PHP, CGI-BIN access, SSI, etc.)

What once were luxuries are now necessities. Fact is, you simply must have all of these. There are many commercial hosts that require getting their approval to install PHP or CGI scripts, which means that you cannot implement a feature on your site when you so desire. You need these functions if you want to customize error pages, maintain databases, set up additional security measures and so forth. Make sure you have full access to these tools, and find out about any restrictions on their use.

6. Server type

The operating system and server can be very important, and there are good, practical reasons for choosing one server over another. If you intend to take advantage of ASP, for example, it is available only on a Windows NT/2000/XP server. However, it is often cheaper to go with a Unix system running the Apache server software, which is stable and dependable. Another advantage of Unix-based hosts –using Linux, FreeBSD, etc. – is that an Apache web server lets you create and manage error pages, block IP addresses, stop email harvesters and more, without needing your host to install or approve a thing. Finally, if you plan to do some e-commerce on your site, find out if you get SSL (Secure Socket Layer), MySQL and a shopping cart. At the very least, you will need SSL if you plan to get credit card information from your customers over the Internet.

7. Email services

You have your own domain now, so you probably want e-mail addresses with the domain name. Although the vast majority of plans include e-mail services, find out about the quality and level of auto-responders, mail forwarding? and list management. Ensure that you also have web access to your mail (“webmail”) and investigate the spam tools that are provided.

8. Control panel

It may be called this, it may be called your “Net Tool Kit,” but all hosts give you a set of utilities to manage the particulars of your web account, and a web page from which to do it, too. You need to be able to manage your e-mail, change passwords, block spammers and so on. These are all standard maintenance chores for webmasters and if you have to wait on your host’s tech support to take care of things, you will lose important control over your business.

9. Price and payment plans

Naturally, price is always a consideration, but remember that the most expensive hosts are not necessarily the best. Factor in price, and be wary of great price differentials on similar plans. Most web hosts offer annual or even quarterly payment plans that discount the monthly rate, but if you are using a new or less-well-known host, you should consider paying monthly until you establish their reliability. When you are satisfied with the host, you can change your payment plan and grab that discount.

10. Reviews

What do others say about the hosts? Use Google to track down both complaints and congratulations, and consider the source of each comment. There’s a lot to do, but with your business possibly at stake – or at least the fate of those model train photos – you can’t be too careful. Get the information you need to make an informed decision, and weigh things carefully. You will save yourself a good deal of frustration if you do.

5 Sizzling Tips For Choosing The Right Web Hosting Company

If you want to set up a personal blog, a company website, or even a multi-million dollar social network, choosing the right hosting company for your website is paramount. Without laying this essential foundation, your internet site may experience frequent downtime, or worse still you could lose all of your important data.

With the five tips below I will show you how to make the right choice when it comes to choosing a company that can responsibly manage your website or blog.

Tip #1 – What is their advertising campaign?

If you head over to your local bookstore and go to the magazine section you will probably find a few magazines targeted to the web developer crowd. Often in these magazines there will be advertisements for web hosting companies that flaunt their impressive stats such as “99.9% server uptime” and others.

If a company is not running a legitimate operation, they would likely not be able to afford this type of advertising and also the magazine would pull the ad immediately if they began to receive a lot of negative feedback about this company. Any hosting company that you find this way will probably be a very safe bet for your business, because the more customers they have the more they have to keep their servers up 24/7 and put in place proper data backup procedures.

Tip #2 – What are other people saying about them?

One of the best ways to check and see if your web hosting company has a good track record is to see what kinds of reviews other people are giving them. Bring up any popular search engine and type in your host’s name with the word “review” afterwards and see if the feedback is positive or negative.

Tip #3 – How much does their shared hosting cost?

While the cost of website hosting has gone down dramatically in recent times and you likely can find a reliable hosting company for under 7 dollars per month for a small site, there is a scam that some shady hosting companies use which is to overload the amount of shared hosting accounts.

For your small monthly fee you may get a large amount of space and bandwidth, but the host counts on the fact that you are only going to use a small percent of it, so they will put more shared accounts on a single server than the server could handle if everyone used up all of their allocated capacity.

This means that with this type of account if someone else who had a shared account went over their bandwidth limit, it could bring your website down. Not a safe bet for someone who wants constant uptime.

Tip #4 – What kind of guarantee do they offer?

Even to this day the website hosting industry remains semi-anonymous, and there are a great deal of sob stories about people who lost all of their valuable data and literally their entire business overnight. But if your hosting company has a plan to take your money and run, it is not likely that they will offer a refund policy and money-back guarantee that is fair for customers.

Check to see what your hosting company’s policy for refunds is, and if they hold themselves to strict measures of transparency and accountability than it is probably a reliable company.

Tip #5 – Do you feel safe trusting them with your business?

Sometimes the most important tip you could follow is your gut feeling about whether or not this is a competent company. If they have a poorly designed website and no customer service then maybe it is not a safe bet for you.

And even if they do have all the bells and whistles on their website, if they do not return your email requests in a timely fashion then it may turn out that they are not a safe and reliable web hosting company.

No programming skills? No problem! Switzerland's largest webhosting provider, Hostpoint, just launched SITES, "an intuitive and powerful cloud-based building set for the creation of websites," so that even the most novice of Web users can build a website all their own.

Hostpoint SITES comes stacked with features to simplify the creation process. This includes easily-edited templates and widgets to integrate Facebook, Twitter, YouTube videos and more into the website in question.

Users can also integreate contact forms, photo albums, calendars and online shops through an easy-to-use drag and drop feature. Perhaps most importantly, Hostpoint has taken measures to ensure that "the websites are not recognizalbe as 'building set sites,'" meaning each site will have its own unique look and feel.

The basic version of SITES comes free with Hostpoint's Smart and Business webhosting packages, which also feature up to 75 GB of storage space, an unlimited number of email addresses and much more.

7 Different Levels of Web Hosting for Your Site

The different levels of web hosting are shared hosting, reseller hosting, cloud hosting, Virtual private server hosting, dedicated server, co-location, and self service.

As an online merchandiser, it is always vital to keep track of the growth of your online business. When your business meets higher demands, then your web hosting should be upgraded to accommodate all of it. Here’s a comparison of the different levels of web hosting you can use:

1) Shared hosting

With shared hosting, your site is set up on a server that is shared with other websites. This type of hosting is handy for those who are just starting or have a limited budget. Fees can be as low as $5-$-10 a month, because of the shared cost. One drawback, though, is that the cost also depends on the other shared websites. A site that has more traffic can affect your own performance.

2) Reseller hosting

Generally similar to shared hosting, reseller hosting has extra tools and options which assist you in reselling hosting space. Usually included in a reseller hosting package are free website templates, white label technical support, and servers under private names. This option is more costly than the shared hosting at $15-$50 per month, depending on the features.

3) Cloud hosting

Cloud or grid hosting is a more advanced hosting feature that allows many servers to seemingly fuse making it look like a giant single server. While the number of sites continues to grow, a new hardware can easily be added to accommodate them. The price you pay is parallel to the degree of service you are receiving. Fees for extra bandwidth and memory usage may be charged.

4) Virtual private server

A virtual private server, or VPS, acts like separate servers but actually shares only one server. They each have a specific program of the computing resources, though it is just sharing hardware resources. It spares your website from getting down from your hosting neighbors while at the same time evading higher costs. Prices usually range from $50-$200.

5) Dedicated server

You are entitled to one rental physical server from a hosting service when you have a dedicated server. This gives you full control of it. These options are much more expensive and may cost a least $100 per month.

6) Co-location

In this set-up, you rent a space in a date service provider. You have your own server hardware, while they provide power, internet uplink and other necessities. You are in-charge of your own software and data and are responsible for any drawbacks from your hardware.

7) Self-service

This is do-it-yourself set-up and is considered the best option of all. You purchase the servers and do all the configurations by yourself. Things you might need are extra bandwidth, server hardware, systems administrator, data back-up and more.

Web hosting is important. Customers always go for the website which is accessible and convenient. If your site is slow due to heavy traffic or it needs a better web server, try getting a new one, or you may lose some potential customers.

Dedicated Server Hosting in UK

Dedicated server hosting is a form of website hosting protocol that is specifically designed and implemented to run the services of only one particular client. This form of server hosting is essential for organizations that wish to keep their online activities robust and have them running smoothly 24×7.

One of the issues that arise with website hosting is caused not by the creation of the site itself, but by the actual implementation i.e. the web server. This is because there are several factors involved. For example: The type of server on which the server sits; the server installation & build, monitoring the operational status and carrying out regular maintenance work. Here, IT firms have the upper hand as their employees generally have the desired skill set for carrying out these jobs. But what can non IT organizations do? Hiring dedicated network administrators for this job might not always be in the interest of such businesses. This is why it may be a good idea for them to outsource such services to dedicated server maintenance firms.

* Shared versus Dedicated Server Hosting in the UK

The world of web hosting is divided into two categories, shared and dedicated. Here, shared server hosting means running several websites on a single server. This implies the sharing of vital hardware resources such as network connectivity, CPU speed, memory and disk access. To maintain equality, certain restrictions are placed on the extent to which such resources can be used by any particular website. Despite this, such websites are sometimes unable to perform effectively. Data loss, slow response rates and long load times are some of the common drawbacks.

Dedicated server hosting does away with all the shortcomings of the shared format. Here, the whole server is designed to support only one business client and their website. This means that the network port and processing power are focused on a single role. However, these servers can be a little bit more costly than the standard shared models.

So, which server hosting is best suited for your website? The budget is probably the first parameter that can help answer the question. You will also have to consider the expected net traffic the website will attract daily and the level of security that you need to provide to them. For organizations that wish to use the website for advertisement of the online sale of products and services, dedicated server hosting is a serious option.

* Factoring the Cost in Managed Dedicated Servers

Assuming you decide on dedicated server hosting for your website, you then need to choose how to look after your server’s needs – its configuration and maintenance. Without in-house technical resources to call on, managed dedicated servers could be the perfect solution.

With these servers, you decide on the server that meets your requirements (for the non-techies, a good hosting company will help you decide which server is best). A service contract is set up and then, the rest is handled by the server management team.

Here are some of the benefits of using an organisation providing dedicated server hosting in the UK:

• state of the art systems with redundancy features to provide 99.995% uptime.

• 24/7 support ticketing for server management issues.

• Secure and resilient hosting.

• Using economies of scale to provide high levels of equipment and services (such as high speed communication links) not normally available to small businesses

However, hiring all these services might mean paying a good amount of money each month. So, what can you do if you have a limited budget? Cheap dedicated servers are the best option for you. Here are a list of options you might want to look out for:

• Processing Power: Either a quad or dual core CPU

• Connectivity of 100Mbps – capable of supplying 300,000 typical Web pages each hour

• Protection against disk failure (uses RAID technology)

• Your chosen web platform may be limited to specific operating systems, so at least one of these should be supported by the dedicated server

• The option of monthly billing, which makes it easy to budget for and to spread the cost

As you can see, the word ‘cheap’ is relative in this case, as even these servers can come packed with power.

Guide To Server Hosting And Colocation

Hosting is a very important part of owning a website, because without it your site will not appear online. The first step is purchasing a domain name but the very next step is purchasing hosting so the site can become live. If you have just a single website or are a newbie into the world of websites then the chances are you won’t want to own your own server (the computer that makes the website “live”) and you certainly won’t want to equip your own data centre in which to place the server. That is where hosting companies come in. There are a range of services offered by hosting companies as described below.

* Shared Hosting

This is perfect for those with just one or two websites who don’t regularly update them and for whom the website is not a central part of their business. The biggest advantage of shard hosting is the price, because it is so competitive the rates are rock bottom. This system allows multiple users or webmasters access to the same server. The hosting company will ensure it is totally secure and free from bugs. They will carry out any necessary tasks or maintenance and fix any problems that crop up straight away.

If opting for this system of shared hosting, there one or two things to consider. The hosting company should offer 24 hour support, as well as provide a very simple to use control panel through which you can access all the information you may need. If either service is missing, you may want to look elsewhere. The competition is plentiful in the world of shared hosting so if one company is not quite right, there are plenty more to choose from.

If shared access to a single server is not appealing and you would prefer additionally server space and an extra layer of security then dedicated hosting may be more appropriate.

* Dedicated Hosting

This goes further than shared hosting and is often the preferred method for serious webmasters and those with multiple sites. Dedicated hosting enables users to rent their very own server with a unique IP address. This means no one apart from you has access to your server and this makes it more reliable and definitely more secure than shared hosting. It provides the user with far greater overall control of the server too and allows more than one website to be hosted at a time. It also results in faster loading times. This is particularly important for websites with many visitors as slow to load sites are very unpopular and discourage visitors from returning.

E-commerce sites should always be hosted by a dedicated server as the financial transactions taking place need the very best security and customer details must be kept as secure as possible. Shared hosting just doesn’t provide adequate levels of security for these type of sites.

Going yet further still however, colocation allows companies or businesses to own their own servers but rent the space within a data centre in which to place them. Owning the hardware itself guarantees the greatest control and security for a webmaster.

* Colocation

When a company has their own server physically stored in a rack belonging to a hosting company, this is known as colocation. It is a very beneficial way of managing your company’s IT infrastructure because it means that you don’t carry the costs involved with managing and storing the servers yourself. By renting space in a data centre in this way you can avoid associated costs such as bandwidth and network costs, power, air conditioning, maintenance costs and more. Owning the hardware however means you retain full control of it and can guarantee its continued security. Colocation also allows you to make regular checks of your server at the data centre because you have physically placed it there yourself.

Server hosting can seem daunting at first, but once you know the basics it is relatively straight forward. Whether it is colocation you are looking for or just access to a shared server, there is a solution for everyone. With intense competition amongst companies offering hosting, it is not too difficult to find affordable hosting and even cheap dedicated servers to rent.

Benefits Of Managed Dedicated Server Hosting

Dedicated server hosting may not be as cheap as shared hosting, but it is accompanied with a whole host of benefits that makes up for that. It is often well worth the additional cost of choosing a dedicated server, especially if you have multiple sites or need extra security levels. Shared hosting certainly has its place – it is perfect for those whose website is not central to their business and who rarely make any changes to it, but anyone who is more technical or who relies more on their site or sites needs something more. That is what a dedicated server can provide.

Renting a dedicated server is as flexible and controllable as it is possible to get for a webmaster without owning your own hardware. No one has access apart from you which greatly reduces the risk of security breaches and server hacking. The server is a physical piece of equipment, a computer that hosts your websites and makes them “live”. No one else uses the server or has access to it and it is yours to do as you please. You can host multiple sites on it too which makes it worthwhile if you do have more than one as it keeps them in the same place.

Sites that have high traffic benefit greatly from a dedicated server. Loading times are faster as you are using exclusive rather than shared bandwidth and processing power and have your own IP address. Nothing drives visitors away from a site quicker than a slow loading page. Those on shared servers also share an IP address which means that all web traffic has to be directed to host header reading software situated on the server before a web page can load. Although this is usually quick, occasionally it is not and can slow the loading times right down.

Dedicated servers are also much more reliable than shared servers which are more prone to problems and down time. Downtime will discourage visitors from returning to your site so it is important to minimise this risk. If you are sharing with a site that sees a sudden surge in traffic, then your own site could come down due to the congestion. If another site on the server is infected with a bug or a virus, then your site too could become infected. Although this is relatively rare, it nevertheless does happen and should be considered before taking out shared managed hosting.

Security is another area that sees dedicated servers come out on top. You and only you have access to the server. That means viruses cannot make their way there on the back of another site or application. Also it is possible to implement an external firewall which provides a further layer of protection against problems, bugs and viruses. When you choose a dedicated hosting plan, it is possible to quickly and easily upgrade the plan. That means additional bandwidth or memory can be obtained and it is also possible to increase your processor speed. This makes it a flexible solution to hosting that can grow as your website grows.

Although shared hosting is good value for money and works well for many people, it is not ideal for the serious webmasters and technical gurus out there. E-commerce sites in particular should not be hosted on shared servers due to the financial transactions that take place and the need for high security levels of customer details. Server hosting may seem a little bit confusing at first, but once you have assessed your needs it is simple to find a plan that suits you. Managed server hosting takes all the hassle and stress out of hosting websites as the hosting company take care of everything. It is possible to find a variety of affordable and perhaps even cheap dedicated server companies on the web who will provide a great service for a very reasonable monthly fee.

Things to Consider when Choosing Dedicated Servers

Dedicated servers are computer systems leased entirely by one organisation rather than shared between many. Typically dedicated servers are rented from specialised service providers and are located at the premises of the hosting company. Technically one such server is just a single computer that is connected to the Internet and this computer caters solely to the needs of this one specific client. This is in sharp contrast to shared servers, where the machine is divided among several clients and their websites, each demanding its own share of the server’s resources.

By not sharing your web server resources with other clients the server benefits gained (such as security) are quite varied. For example, one UK based firm decided to host its website on a shared server managed by a local service provider. However, they were not aware that they were sharing their server space with a file transfer site. Within a year, the firm found itself in a legal tussle for violating copyright laws. On a shared server all the clients have the same IP address, so further investigation was requested. It was discovered that the sharing site was the actual culprit. However, the firm never recovered from the shame of the incident due to all the negative publicity the event had garnered.

* Choosing One or More Dedicated Servers for Website Hosting

The type of server required will depend on the business budget and the server’s workload.

• Economy Servers: You may have a website that gets low to moderate hits each day and/or a smaller budget, in which case a heavy duty server is not appropriate. An economy level dedicated server may be perfect for you, as it is both robust and cost effective for your limited bandwidth needs.

• Enterprise Servers: For a website under heavy load and with a larger budget available, a high performance enterprise-level server may fit the bill. (A slow and unresponsive website under load will severely hamper your business and, in time, your reputation, so it doesn’t pay to skimp in this area). With a high performance enterprise server you can expect fast processing and fast delivery of data.

If you need even more server power, then you may need multiple core CPUs in operation, with increased redundancy in terms of disks, power and networking.

* Providing Your Own Dedicated Servers

Colocation is another method of gaining some of the benefits normally provided by a dedicated server service. Here, the client places its own servers at a server hosting site, rather than locally at the office. The data centers, having been built specifically for the purpose of server hosting, have a long list of benefits that a small business just could not afford. For example: air conditioning & security systems, redundant power, multiple and large communications links and qualified engineers.

Outsourcing systems to a hosting organisation allows the client to focus on core competencies while the IT is well taken care of. With a server management service bolted on, the client doesn’t even have to worry about upgrades or repairs. This reduces IT headaches considerably for a small organisation with minimal resources.

So regardless of whether the client purchases dedicated server hosting or simply colocation rack space, they can still gain from at least some of the benefits provided by a large data centre.

Economy servers are also known as cheap dedicated servers. The name is misleading, as the performance of the servers is in no way weak. Some of the options available include:

• Dual or quad core processors

• Internet connectivity from 100Mbps

• Large data transfer allowances

• RAID option, to ensure protection against hard drive failure

• A choice of operating system

• Monthly billing

These services are adequate to effectively serve any small-medium sized websites, and can be combined by managed hosting providers to support much larger websites.

Choosing and Using the Right Web Host

Your Host is Your Foundation

Online business operators have a tendency to forget that the
company hosting their store is the foundation of their business
and a successful business needs a strong and reliable
foundation. When looking for a web host, remember that finding
the company with the cheapest price is not the goal. Paying a
higher fee for better service and more dependability is
ultimately the smartest decision. Conversely, the most
expensive company is by no means going to be the best either.

When launching a new e-commerce business, finding the best web
host for your needs can be a tremendously daunting task. There
are simply so many web hosts out there and it is a tiresome and
grueling process to separate the good guys from the bad. Many
folks looking to start a website begin by checking out web
hosting review sites and directories. On these sites, you can
read what clients have to say about their current and former web
hosts.

However, there is a bit of a problem with many of these hosting
review sites – bias. The majority of these websites are
actually owned by web hosting companies and most, if not all,
sell advertising space. In theory, if a host has a big
marketing budget then they can buy their way into the
marketplace. A review site is not generally going to give a
negative review to a company that is spending thousands of
marketing dollars with them.

However few and far between they may be, unbiased review sites
do exist. A great place to start when searching for a new web
host is Web Hosting Talk (http://www.webhostingtalk.com/), a
very informative site with great, impartial forums. On this site,
you can gain priceless, valuable insight into the web hosting
and e-commerce industries by discussing, conversing and learning
the opinions of the experts. Another review site that has been
noted for its impartiality is HostJury.com (http://hostjury.com/).

When searching for a host, do not be suckered into buying into
gimmicks. Things like “unlimited” plans may sound appealing, but
there is really no such thing as “unlimited.” When a company
says unlimited, that means that your site will be generally
placed on an overcrowded server where you will be forgotten
about. It’s important to research the history of the company
and find a reliable host with great technical support.

Your Host Dramatically Impacts the Performance of Your Store

There are a variety of major ways that your web host impacts the
performance of your online store including:

1. Uptime and Downtime
2. Technical Support
3. Site Speed and Page Load Times
4. Management of your account including data, email, backups
5. Virus Protection
6. Defense from Hackers and Malware
7. The ability of your hosting to grow with your business (you
should be able to increase hard drive space with one quick,
simple call)
8. Your host should aid with the technical aspects of
accepting credit card orders, including setting up a
payment processing system.
9. Hosts should help you find developers or modules to make
your site function properly.

No Such Thing As Good Downtime

Choosing a reliable web host and the correct plan for the amount
of traffic your site will generate is of the utmost importance
to the success of your online business. Site uptime and
downtime are perhaps the most important components of how web
hosting affects an online store’s performance. Downtime can
really break an online business quickly.

Simply speaking, when your site is down and inaccessible then
customers cannot make purchases and you cannot make money.
Furthermore, potential customers cannot peruse your site. Let’s
face it – people shop online to save time and money. If your
site is continuously down, then you will not be able to make it
in the competitive marketplace of the Internet.

The industry standard for web hosts regarding downtime is a
99.9% uptime guarantee. Never sign up for a hosting package that
does not guarantee at least 99.9% uptime because this will
surely negatively impact the performance of your store. To put
it in more practical terms, with 99.9% uptime, your site should
never encounter more than around 45 minutes of total downtime
per month.

Sometimes there might be a situation where your server has a
critical error and your site may not be online for 99.9% of the
month. In any such case, it is your host’s responsibility to
credit your account with the pro-rated amount you owe for that
month’s charges.

Quality Support is a Must

Reliability and good technical support go hand in hand. When
choosing a new host, make sure that they have an excellent
support staff. When you first call them, go with your gut
instinct. Do they sound knowledgeable and easy to understand?
Are they polite? Ask detailed questions and make sure you get
well-informed responses. You want to have the comfort of knowing
that in any instances of malfunction your issues will be
resolved quickly and correctly. A solid web host will have
email and phone support available 24/7/365.

Looking, feeling and operating professionally are critical
components to running an e-commerce business. Having a sub par
web host will toss professionalism out the window rather
quickly. It is imperative to establish trust between you and
your customers in order to successfully sell online. Customers
will not feel safe spending their money with a site that seems
unprofessional in any manner.

A Speedy Site is Essential

Another manner in which your web host can impact your store’s
performance is your page load times. This can even affect your
ranking within Google and the other search engines as they begin
using site speed as a factor to determine page rank on the
results pages. Having fast load times is imperative not only
for the sake of ranking well with search engines but to make
your customers happy. No customers like a slow site and
chances are that if your site is not performing well, they might
just click on over to your competition.

A Solid Web Host + A Good Business Model = Happy Customers +
Success

Unsatisfactory web hosting can directly impact the customers of
your store. Therefore, it is imperative that you choose a
quality web host that will not play a part in your store
functioning inadequately. Studies have shown that approximately
fifty percent of consumers will leave a preferred site if they
are experiencing technical problems. All it takes is one
unhappy customer to begin the process of bringing down your
business. If a customer is not happy, the following results
could occur:

1. They may never return to your store as a shopper again (this
is especially traumatic to your business if they are repeat
customers)

2. Word of mouth is a big deal. Unhappy customers have big
mouths and they will most likely vent their frustrations with
others.

3. A dissatisfied customer may leave a negative review regarding
your business on a forum, message board or review site. One
bad review can stick with you and your business forever so
you must go to all lengths to avoid them.

If it does happen, be proactive about it and try to squash
it as soon as possible. Try to explain your side and apologize
to the customer (remember, the customer is always right).
Offer the person a discount or their money back to appease
them. With today’s social networks, news travels fast. One
tweet could go viral and your brand and image can be quickly
tarnished.

How To Use Web Analytics To Grow Your Business
By Mike Tekula (c) 2009

Got a website?

If you own a business, chances are you do. But don’t pat
yourself on the back too quickly.

By now it’s widely-accepted that if you have a business
card you should probably have a website. It doesn’t matter
what your company is selling – a website, however modest,
has become a standard.

The real question is: what is your website doing for your
business?

As a web marketer I often put this question to the business
owners I meet. Not because I’m trying to lead into my sales
pitch, but because I’m intrigued to hear the answer.

Most people get a certain “deer in the headlights” look in
their eyes when I ask this question. To be fair, it’s not a
question we’re used to hearing. But that’s not all that’s
going on here.

Traditional advertising mediums – print, TV, radio, etc -
are notoriously difficult to track. Sure, you’ll know how
often the phone is ringing or how many people come in with
a coupon clipped from the Sunday paper, but what you don’t
know is how many people saw/heard your ad and whether they
were interested, oblivious or, worse, annoyed.

Business owners are used to this. We all know we need to
advertise – it’s a necessary cost of doing business – so we
buy that half-page ad in the Yellow Pages or the local
newspaper, we sponsor an event or a little league team, we
have a radio commercial written (maybe even with a jingle)
and we hope for the best.

This has been a given in marketing since the beginning. But
the web, and analytics, changed the game.

So how should you be using your web analytics to grow your
audience, and your business, online?

Track Everything

With web analytics on your site you can track:

  * Where your traffic is coming from by
       – The referring website and page
       – The search engine and keyword used

  * Your website visitors by
       – Their location
       – Their operating system, browser and monitor
         resolution
       – Their network

  * Visitor behavior and actions by
       – Duration of visit (time on site)
       – Pages per visit (number of pages viewed)
       – Bounce rate (percentage of users who viewed only
         one page before leaving)
       – Conversion rate (percentage of users who completed
         a preset task)

If you’re planning on doing any kind of web marketing, be
it through search engines, email or advertising on other
websites, information on your past and current traffic is
crucial. Not to mention you’ll want analytics in place so
you can properly track the new traffic your promotions will,
hopefully, bring in.

Tie Your Traffic Sources to Your Users’ Actions

When looking at your analytics data the behavior and action
metrics mean little by themselves. If the bounce rate of
your site overall is 75%, what does that tell you? Well,
this is a pretty high bounce rate – you should at least be
shooting to have a bounce rate lower than 50%. But does
this tell you exactly what is wrong?

Likewise, if you have secured advertising or a listing on
another website, the number of visits coming in from that
site only gives you part of the picture.

Tying your bounce rate to a specific traffic source, on the
other hand, can tell you a lot.

If a given traffic source is generating a bounce rate of
85% or more, for example, this indicates that users are not
being satisfied. There are a few possibilities as to why:

  * The users may not be well-qualified – or the site where
    you are listed or advertising might not have the best
    audience for your content/offer.

  * The listing/ad may promise something that the entry
    page does not live up to (or, at least, the promise is
    difficult to locate once the user arrives at your site).

  * Your site is simply not usable, is unattractive or
    unprofessional, causing users to leave immediately (and
    most don’t come back)

  * Your users are  not connecting with your content/offer.

There are other possibilities, but you’ll want to find the
most likely answer here – and try to fix it. Then, using
the same metrics (traffic source + bounce rate), you can
see whether things improve moving forward.

Using metrics like these you can also get a sense of which
advertisements are bringing you a return on your investment
and which aren’t. With goal tracking in Google Analytics,
for example, a conversion rate is added to just about every
traffic metric, including referring websites. If you’re
finding that a website is sending you plenty of traffic but
none of it is converting, re-examine the referring website’s
audience, how your site is being presented and the user’s
experience when they click through.

The Point

Your website is more than a brochure. It’s an interactive
tool for your users. The only true way to find out how
they’re using it (or not using it) is to get web analytics
set up properly on your website (including setting goal
points to track conversions).

And the best way to improve your website in the aim of
building your business is to use the information your web
analytics give you.

The age of blind advertising – of throwing money at the
problem and hoping for the best – is dead.

If you aren’t tracking everything, taking time on a regular
basis to understand what the data reveals about your users
and adjusting your efforts based on this information, you’re
missing an opportunity to optimize your advertising and get
a better return on your budget.

In this economy, is that something you can afford?

Be careful when converting your company name / brand name into an (available) domain name; it can have embarrassing repercussions. Imagine seeing a web address like, arsecommerce.com. This domain name may appear rather ordinary to us Americans. But to those who speak “the Queen’s English” – including those in the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand – I bet they get a chuckle when they see it. You can imagine them thinking to themselves “Is this the company that put the “arse” in commerce?”. The company is ARS Ecommerce, not Arse Commerce.

Company names that work well in one context may not work so well in another. A classic example of this from a hilarious piece in Business 2.0 magazine (circa 2001), Here’s the money quote:

In October 1998, an e-commerce software vendor launches with the name Accompany, which, when said aloud, sounds exactly like “a company.” As in “Hi, I’m calling from Accompany.” “Which company?” “Accompany.” And so forth. It changes its name to MobShop in March 2000.

Here’s another classic example of a domain name faux pas: therapistfinder.com. No, it’s a site for finding therapists, not rapists.

You also have to consider whether your choice of domain name will get you inadvertently blocked by email firewalls or the search engines’ adult filters.

Take for example this parts store – partsexpress.com – hyphenating the two words would have been a good idea. Ditto for whorepresents.com, an agency that represents celebrities.

Here are a few other examples of domain names gone horribly wrong:

• cumstore.co.uk for Cumbria Storage Systems, Ltd.
• choosespain.com to travel in Spain, pain-free!
• mammotherection.com deals with modern architecture and engineering
• cummingfirst.com is for a church in Cumming, Georgia

While these are pretty funny (and/or disturbing, depending upon your point-of-view), these are reputation management nightmares. Sadly, they were all preventable — usually with merely a well-placed hyphen or change in keywords. NYCanal.com could have saved themselves a lot of embarrassment by choosing ny-canal.com or newyorkcanal.com instead.

By not following these 5 points in your checklist, you are putting yourself at risk.

1. Copyright Notice. Check Your Copyright Notice. Your copyright notice consists of the following elements: the word “copyright” or copyright symbol (c in a circle) followed by the year of first publication followed by the name of the copyright owner.

2. Protect Your Blogs, etc. Have you recently added a blog or any other functionality that permits visitors to post text or digital files to your site? You need to have a DMCA notice in your Terms of Use and you also need to file a DMCA Registration form with the U.S. Copyright Office. These steps will create a “safe harbor” from strict liability for copyright infringement if a site visitor posts infringing material to your site.

3. Personal Information. Review your Privacy Policy to make sure that you identify all of the categories of personal information you collect and the way in which you share this personal information.

 4. Data Security. Check your data security measures. If you collect personal information, you are required to implement “reasonable and appropriate” data security measures.

5. Future Sale of Your Business? If your online business is starting to be successful and generate positive revenue, have you ever considered that you might want to sell it for a profit in the future? If so, be sure that your Privacy Policy specifies that personal information collected may be transferred and shared in the event of a sale. If you don’t do this prior to collecting personal information, you won’t be able to pass it on to your purchaser. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) stipulated in recent settlements that personal information collected prior to posting this notice in your Privacy Policy will not be transferable in the event of a sale. And this personal information (your opt-in lists and customer lists) are the real value of your online business.

Having a website that effectively communicates your image can be a rewarding and profitable experience if you follow five basic concepts:

1. Know you Audience, you can be proud of your site but remember, it’s the customer who buys. You are designing your website and logo for your customers, not for yourself. Your likes and dislikes may be similar to your clients’ likes and dislikes, but since they come first, your website and logo should reflect what they need and will respond to.

2. Simplicity, fancy over functionality is a guaranteed path to frustration.
Simple is better. A neutral background with accents in bright colors looks more professional than a rainbow-colored site with white text. When you visit a site, you do not want to be bombarded with overwhelming confusion–and neither do your customers. 3. Color influences the viewer, choose and influence your audience, don’t just get the one you like. Many people arbitrarily choose the colors for their logo and site. The issue with choosing the right colors is that they mean different things to different people on a subconscious level. Please take a look at http://www.squidoo.com/colorexpert to give you a good idea of how to start choosing your colors.
4. Readability is important, I can’t tell you how many sites I can’t read because the red text is on a black background. No matter how well designed your site or logo is, if it is not readable to visitors, it is useless. For example, putting blue text on a red or highly textured background is not a very good combination. If it’s hard to see or hard to read, your customers won’t even look at it.
5. White Space does not literally mean white space; it means “space that does not contain text or images.” Well placed white space lets the eyes rest when viewing a site. If you do not have white space on your website, visitors’ eyes could become strained and cause headaches.

Apply these 5 simple concepts when you are considering creating a website for your business and you will avoid a lot of headaches.

Having your own web site for your home business is probably the most cost-efficient way to expand your business into something that will truly become a source of income and independence for you and your family. But how do you solve the problem of web hosting?

Solving the Problem of Web Hosting
Every web site needs a host. Web hosting is the service that allows users from all over the world to explore the internet and find your business to buy your products or your services.
Web Hosting in Your Spare Time
It has never been easier or cheaper to begin building your own web site today. Web hosting services can be provided for literally nothing, or more if you wish to give your web site more professionalism. And all of this can be done in moments, without taking any of your time at all. The most difficult aspect of creating your own web site will be choosing the web hosting provider that best suits your needs.
Choosing a Web Hosting Provider
When choosing a web hosting provider, make sure that you find a company that you trust, and will give you the most bang for your buck. There are many sources available online which will tell you which are the best web hosting companies to use. They give a list of services provided and prices, and review the quality of the company and their provided services.
Building Your Web Site
One of the most wonderful things about web hosting providers is the wealth of tools they offer the small business owner to create a professional looking web site without requiring programming knowledge and tons of time. Graphical Web Page Editors, HTML toolkits, free images and templates are all often provided by web hosting companies.
Now that you have a web host, start building your business today.

There are no tricks here, just a bit of work and some time. So let’s get started by reading the following list of SEO Techniques!

1.   Domain & File Names: Choose your site domain name that contains words from your primary keyword phrase.

2.   Keyword Phrases: Use keywords that are being searched for.  

3.   Keyword Density: Keyword density is the percent that your keyword or keyword phrase are of your web page text. 4.   Bad Techniques: Techniques that are considered spam are cloaking, invisible text, tiny text, identical pages, doorway pages, refresh tags, link farms, filling comment tags with keyword phrases only, keyword phrases in the author tag, keyword density to high, mirror pages and mirror sites.

5.   Title & Meta Description Tag: When search engine results are displayed the title is the first thing people see.

6.   Meta Keywords Tag: The meta keywords tag is not as relevant, but put it in anyway This tag should be different for each page.

7.   Author & Robots Tags: The Author Tag should contain the name of the company that owns the site.

8.   Quality Content: Your content should be written with your keyword phrases in mind

9.   Quantity Content: The more the better, but content will need to be both quantity and quality.

10.  Changing Content: You can do this by hand or with a script.

11.  Avoid Dynamic URLs: Some search engines may have a problem indexing them.

12.  Frames: Many search engines can’t follow frame links, so provide an alternative method.

13.  Site Map: A good menu system is really a site map.

14.  Site Themes: All of the top 3 search engines look for site themes or a common topic when they crawl a website.

15.  Site Design: You may think, what does site design have to with search engine optimization. Well if your website has a bad color scheme that is hard to read, is not organized, is a cheesy looking site, then all your site optimization has been a waste of time. Make your site attractive to the viewer, make things easy to find, have you graphic header and menu bar the same place on each page.

16.  Separate Content & Presentation: Put all your presentation code into Cascading Styles Sheets (CSS). This separates the presentation from the content and makes your html files up to 50% smaller. It is reported that the search engine bots prefer this and the more content you have compared to presentation in your file, the better you get rated.

Good Luck!