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Choosing a Web Host Based On Price Dont!David Leonhardt Its tempting. There are so many companies offering cut-rate hosting – loaded with astounding post-futuristic techno-gizmo features ! – that it just makes sense to save a few dollars, right Think again. First, consider how much you would be saving. If you run a business site, saving $5, $10 or even $15 a month is not a big saving. No going concern will become a stopping concern on account of even $15 a month. But the wrong web host can stop a business cold. Here are three reasons to look beyond price when choosing your web host. 1. Usability. Confession time: I chose my first website host based on price. The control panel was not easy to use, and I often found myself traveling in circles trying to enter it. I switched to my second web host based not just on price, but on usability, and I instantly became a pro. Well, not quite. But I was able to manage my email accounts and learn about CGI, and check my traffic stats and edit my html files right on the server. Not bad for a newbie who couldnt even find his files on his previous hosts server. 2. Service. I thought my second host had great service. They even answered my emails. Until the dreaded day that some guy with a chip on his shoulder filed a phony spam complaint. I was out in the cold. In fact, they would not answer my emails or even speak to me at all. Meanwhile, my ISP responded to the same phony complaint immediately, sharing with me a copy and giving me a chance to deal with it. That ISP is now my third web host. I pay a little more, but the personal service is worth it. I have no hesitation recommending http://www.phastnet.com to anybody who wants the assurance that they wont be hung out to dry at the first whiff of somebody in a bad mood. 3. Reliability. When that phony spam complaint struck, my website was down for four days. Ouch! But there are many other things that can bring down a site. What is your web hosts uptime And how reliable is its reporting Other things can happen, like a form not functioning – meaning lost sales. Worse still, what if Google comes crawling just when your site is down Search engines dont like sending people to unreliable sites. Companies like http://www.dotcom-monitor.com monitor websites for a variety of measures, and the cost is nothing compared to the cost of lost sales. Sure, save a few bucks on hosting, and pay a whole lot more in lost sales and increased stress. Your web host is your Internet landlord. Take as much time choosing your web host as you would the place you live in. Price alone just is not enough.
| | | | RELATED ARTICLES The "Unethical SEO" Myth "The use of black hat SEO techniques are completely unethical." Really I completely disagree. The Top 3 Mistakes That Can Ruin Your Websites Search Engine Rankings- and How to Fix Them! Getting your website up and running is hard enough. After spending hours getting the HTML code just right and trying to make sure that you provide a great user experience, the last thing you want to do is change everything around in order to get your site ranked higher on the search engines.Follow these tips from the beginning and youll see the benefits. Traditional businesses on the Internet Have you ever thought of putting your business on the Internet, but simply not known where to start or youre not sure whether the Internet is really meant for your business Getting Your Site Seen By Search Engines Is your website listed on search enginesWhen people search for you, does your site show up on page 1 or page 20 of the search engine results The Contrast And Similarities Between A Web Designer And Web Programmer The concept of web designing based on the nature and rapid growth of the Internet is nothing to boast of any more. This is because of the large number of web sites published to the Internet everyday, so as to showcase one’s presence and dominance on the World Wide Web. You may ask why this is so, well, the so simple answer is the rate at which technology is evolving. Keep Them Coming Back - Update Your Site If you are anything like me, your website is a reflection of yourself. It contains your thoughts and communications, exposed to the entire world at all times. Look at virtually any non-commercial web site and you will get a glimpse at the person behind the monitor. The Importance of Links Link: {noun - lin[ng]k} 1 : a connecting structure: 2 : something analogous to a link of chain: as a : a connecting element or factorb : a unit in a communication system c : an identifier attached to an element as an index term in a system in order to indicate or permit connection with other similarly identified elements as defined by Merriam-Webster Online - http://www.m-w.com/ The Smartass Series #1 -- Guide to Building the Perfect Website: a Narrative How-to on Five Top Web Advisors You Should Use instead of this Know-it-all who Knows Little ~A man [woman] is a success if he [she] gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he [she] does what he [she] wants to do.Bob Dylan~ Bulk Email, Spam, and Email Marketing Excerpted from PlanetLinks Enews - an email newsletter delivered for FREE to your computer. To subscribe, go to www.planetlink.com Benefits Of Making Your Website Accessible To Disabled Users – Part 2: The Business Case The Disability Discrimination Act states that service providers must not discriminate against disabled people. A website is regarded as a service and therefore comes under this law. 50 Surefire Web Design Tips Tips to brand your websiteInclude your logo in all pages. Position it at the top left or each page.Complement your logo with a tagline or catchy sentence that summarizes your business purpose. For example "Always low prices" is the tagline for Wal-Mart.Create a favicon. A favicon is that small graphic that appears next to the URL in the address bar.Have a consistent look and feel in all your pages. Use a color scheme and layout that are clearly recognized across your site.Have an About Us section, that includes all relevant information about you and your business.Include a copyright statement at the bottom of each page. Metrics Matter! Recently, I talked with a speaker about her "extremely successful" Website.She based this opinion on the fact that she was selling several e-books every day and generating "some calls".When I asked if she was reviewing her traffic analysis, she said "No, why should we - its clearly working - we can tell that from the sales".I didnt ask if she knew how her sales and calls compared to the actual visitor numbers for the site - I suspected that shed have been shocked to learn how many more opportunities she was losing. Cheap Web Hosting - When Cheaper is Better Anyone who has ever shopped for web hosting knows that you can spend anywhere from nothing up to several hundred dollars to host your web site. So what’s the difference Well often times if you’re talking about typical shared web hosting in the $6 to $20 range – nothing. That’s right – nothing! Nothing that is, except good old fashioned marketing and hype! Absolute & Relative Links How Do They Rank The question for this article is whether or not you should use "absolute urls" or "relative urls" Not only that, this article researches whether or not Google ranks these methods differently. If Content is King, then surely Relevance is Queen! There has been a lot of to-ing and fro-ing in the search engine world of late and there are lots of conspiracy theories as to why these things happen. eCommerce, How much does it cost Making profits with your existing website design or creating a new online store can be exciting, affordable and most of all; rewarding. Mmmm . . . thats what the last sales guy told me. How to Boost Your Chances at Having a Successful Web Site New Web sites are springing up online by the millions. However, when they don’t reach a level of success, the Web site owners assume that they can’t make money off the Internet. Top 10 Web Design Mistakes As a webmaster, you want to keep your visitors content so they’ll come back again.Below you will find ten common mistakes made by webmasters that may deter people from returning. Web page buiding for beginners 1 Making a web page is a simple job that can be done in minutes by anyone with no previous experience, so I will refrain from going in that direction as much as possible. The first thing an inexperienced webmaster should learn is search engine optimization, before ever making a page. The reason for this is simply because if they learn it after the page is made, it will cause them too much extra work that could have been avoided. Be the King of Your Domain So there you are. You’ve got a topic that you really love. You’ve done your research. You’re ready to start your new website. As good as it is, you’re certain to get traffic and tons of sales. All you need to do now is register a domain name and start designing the site to end all sites! |
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