How To Choose A Reliable Web Hosting Provider

Learning how to choose a reliable web host for your web hosting needs is an important and difficult decision. Make sure that you prepare a detailed list of your web hosting requirements before you start searching to find the most suitable web host. Here are few ‘verification’ points to make sure that your web host is reliable.

- Past performance: Go through the web site of the host to find out details like how long the host has been around, up time commitment (I will come to this later), any awards that the web host has won, any well known sites that are being hosted by this provider (normally a list of clients can be found on the host’s site or you may find testimonials). These should provide you with a sufficient amount of confidence in the first place to deal with this specific web host.

- Up time: This is a very important feature. Web sites hosted on the servers of a particular web hosting provider are subject to technical problems and things can happen and servers crash. This means that during this period if a web surfer comes to see your site, they will be unable to view it. Normally represented as a percentage, this value gives you the idea of the time the sites hosted by the particular host are up and working fine. A value above 98% is good. Nowadays many web hosts guarantee a certain percentage of up-time like 99.8%. This is exceptional.

- Flexibility: A flexible web hosting plan is useful because you can start with a minimum plan and later upgrade to another hosting plan when your needs grows. Web Hosts who provide only one kind of plan are always not useful for everyone.

- Cost and features: Compare the features and costs of a few web hosting providers. See if the features match your need. Also make sure that all basic requirements are covered and also check out the availability of latest technologies on the hosting feature list. Even if you don’t need them, this can show the reliability of the provider.

- Payment plans: Check out very carefully the payment plans of the web hosting provider. A monthly payment plan is always good even if it costs you a few dollars more. You always have the choice to change providers at any time you want. Most web hosts now provide a 30 day money back guarantee period.

- Support: This is something you will need the most. What kind of support the web hosting company provides the clients such as telephone support, email, FAQ sections, etc… Maybe a dedicated discussion board or forum will help as well. Also check on the delay in responses especially for the email support service. A web hosting provider who supports clients 24-7 is an excellent feature.

- Backup: Last but not least. Recently we have been hearing a lot about sites with tons and tons of pages disappearing. Why, because of some technical problems on the servers and no backups. No one likes to see their years of hard work disappear within a few seconds. Now, many reliable web hosting service providers have a daily automatic backup feature.

Learning how to choose a reliable web host for your web hosting needs is really about what is important to you and your needs!

Web Hosting – How To Choose The Right Web Host!

Choosing the right web host for your particular situation and website needs is very important!  You can choose a “free” web host or a “commercial” web host, for which you pay a monthly hosting fee. When considering a paid commercial web host, ask your friends and associates what web host they use and how they like it.  Specifically, ask about downtime and customer service, which seem to be the weak points of some web hosting services.  Getting feedback from others regarding choosing the right web host may keep you from selecting a less-than-reputable web host, and save you many headaches in the long term. 

After you have chosen your domain name and got it registered, you will need a web hosting service to host your website files and publish them on the World Wide Web (WWW) for everyone to view.  You will need to copy your website files from your computer hard drive to a web server.  Some Internet Service Providers (ISP) will host websites, though the amount of bandwidth and the reliability factor may be lower than what will work for a decent business website.  If you do not use your Internet Service Provider (ISP) to host your website, you will need to make a decision as to what web hosting service to use.  A majority of web hosts will also provide some type of site builder or templates for you to use to build your website.

A web host will provide you with a “user ID and password” that allows only you to access your files.  This is so no one else can access your files and change your website without your knowledge. When you sign up for web hosting services, you will be provided with adequate instructions on how to upload files to the web server.  Do not worry…the process is not complicated at all, and anyone with basic computer skills can do it.

Of course, you will want to check prices, and whether the price structure of a particular web host service fits your budget and payment plan.  Some web hosts require that you pay for a year at a time, which kind of locks you into using that web host for that amount of time, or continuing to pay for hosting that you may not want to use.   Many hosting services will allow you to pay monthly with no contract for any longer time period, making it much easier to switch web hosts if you decide to at a later date.  Most web hosting services set up a system where they automatically charge your monthly payment to your credit card, or debit it from your bank account, so you do not have to remember to make the payment.

It is important to choose a web host that guarantees reliable consistent up-time and personal technical support 24/7 in case something goes wrong.  You should seek out hosting services that can guarantee over 95% up-time.  Before you sign with a web hosting service, call their tech support or e-mail them at times other than normal business hours…see if you actually get a prompt response, and what kind of attitude is displayed.  This will give you a good indication of what you may expect for technical support and customer service if you use their web hosting service.  After you start having technical problems is not the time to find out that your web hosting technical team is unavailable, inadequate, or unprofessional.

You will also want to choose the right web host that allows you the administrative authority to, at the very least, perform such tasks as manage the e-mail addresses and change passwords for your account.  Get the details on how much bandwidth is offered, and what the penalty charge is for using over the limited amount.  Though in the beginning, it might not seem important to you, but you will want to choose the right web host that allows and supports FTP, Perl, CGI-BIN, etc.  All of these tools can be very important for maintaining the freedom to expand, transport, and control your site as you learn more about website building.  Find out what type of operating system and server is being used.

To get you started, visit my website today!

How To Choose Best Free Web Hosting

Some web hosting companies offer hosting services for free. People who are going to have websites for the first time can open an account in any free hosting websites. You can either point your domain to the free host or create your open sub domain with the host. So for a starter, you need not spend even a penny to start a personal website. Free web hosting also includes free file and image hosting. These sites allow you to host your files and images for free, but there will be restrictions in the size of the uploaded file.

How do they offer free web hosting?

The answer to this question is simple. They place advertisements on your website at the top, bottom or anywhere in your webpage. They get money from the clicks generated from the advertisements on your website. Most of the hosts give pop up advertising which will be really irritating to some users. But this is their normal earning factor.

Is there any limitations? Yes, there might be many limitations. If you have signed up for a free hosting account, it might take 1 hour to 1 week to get your account activated. Many of the free web hosts approve new accounts manually. Since it is free, there won’t be any PHP, MySql, ASP support. The numbers of email IDs, FTP accounts are also limited. Most of the web host won’t give you the possibility to add additional domains to your account. All files are not supported for uploading to the server. Most of the hosts don’t allow you to upload compressed zip files for security reasons. Use a search engine to find your free web host.

There are also many forum based websites which offer post to host features. Here you have to register first to become a member for free. Then you can post in the forum by creating a thread or making a reply to another thread. By doing this you will start accumulating points. These points can be exchanged for a free hosting account. The more you post, the more features you will get in your hosting accounting. You can get more space, bandwidth, e-mail IDs in these websites. This is also an interesting concept. The owner of the website earns by displaying advertisements in the website. Thus, it helps both the owner and the members of the website simultaneously. If you don’t posts regularly in the forum, your account might be suspended.

If you are not satisfied with the free plan, you can upgrade to paid services. Paid services offer customized hosting with good customer support. It’s not necessary to move to a paid account, unless you are not satisfied with the current free services. Enjoy free hosting without spending your money.

So You Want to Choose a Web Host?

One of the biggest decisions facing anyone looking for quality web hosting is whether they should sign up with a free web host, or just spring for a paid hosting plan. The choice really isn’t as black and white as it might first seem and it depends on a number of factors. Free web hosts may seem like a godsend, especially for someone on a budget, but can they really live up to all the hype? Let’s take a look. First, let’s outline some of the advantages of these free hosting plans.

1.  Well, they’re free, and to a lot of people that may be the biggest advantage of all.

2.  You don’t need a college degree to utilize them, whether you’re a novice or an experienced webmaster. In most cases, you don’t even need to know one iota of HTML coding. A lot of these free hosting plans offer at least a basic WYSIWYG editor and some of them, such as Geocities, come packed with templates and other exciting freebies.

3.  It’s a great way to learn the basics. Most features are simple and easy to use so you can familiarize yourself with the straightforward stuff before moving on to more complicated things. For example, you can learn how to painlessly upload files through your browser before delving into the inner workings of FTP.

4.  You get what you need. Just do a quick search of hosting providers and you’ll see that some of the features you can get are amazing but, let’s face it, what are most people going to do with unlimited space? Many providers charge for features that you’re never going to use.

Those seem like pretty big advantages, don’t they? Right about now, you’re ready to start searching through free hosts, if you don’t have one in mind already. Hang on, I’m not done yet. Those were the advantages; now it’s time for the disadvantages, and they are just as important.

1.   Here’s the big one: Ads. Don’t be fooled by all those companies who offer so-called ad-free sites. Very few of them actually mean it. Hosting services must make money to stay afloat and they do this in a number of ways. The simplest way is to charge for hosting. Free hosts generally rely on advertising so their sites usually include pop ups, banners or text links. Another strategy is to offer a scaled down set of features in the hope that the user will be impressed enough to want to upgrade to a paid plan.

2.  Lack of reliability: This can actually be two-fold. On one hand, if a free hosting company has no visible means of income (either through ads or upgradeable plans), chances are they’re not going to be around for a long time. Don’t be surprised if you check on your site one day and find it missing. On the other hand, even if the company is making money by some means, everyone wants a free site. This can put tremendous pressure on their servers and cause significant downtime.

3.  Little or no support: A fair amount of hosting companies with upgradeable plans will blatantly tell you that they do not offer support for their free services. They’re not really willing to spare the resources when they’re not getting paid. Can you blame them?

4.  Less advanced features: If you’re new to the whole website experience then you may be happy having just basic features. However, if you need something more advanced, such as MySQL databases, you’ll probably have a long and frustrating road ahead of you.

5.   It’s a gimmick: What does that mean? These days it’s easy to get a domain name for under $10/yr. But some companies will charge you much more than that with the promise of free hosting once you’ve made a purchase. Translation: your free hosting account isn’t actually free.

So what’s a girl, or guy, to do? Well, it all depends on what you want out of your hosting plan. Are you looking to establish a personal or a business site? Will you need a lot of space, taking into consideration possible expansion in the future? What kind of features are you likely to need? How experienced are you and are you likely to need a lot of support? Can you build your site offline or will you need a plan that includes an online editor and templates? Can you afford a paid hosting plan? If not, then you really don’t have a choice, but there are some things you can do to minimize the risks involved with using a free host.

1.  Research, research, research. Read as many reviews as you can get your hands on. That way you’ll have an idea of what people who are already using the services think, and you can benefit from their experiences.

2.  Familiarize yourself with the terminology. It’ll be easier for you to figure out whether or not you need a particular feature if you actually know what it is.

3.  Look for hosts that have been around for a while and still have a high ranking. Free hosting sites are always popping up, and disappearing just as quickly. While the new sites may get some favorable feedback, they have not yet established a record for continuing good service.

4.  If you already have a site designed, you may want to consider a more selective host. These companies keep up their reputation, and their resources, by only accepting sites that meet their strict criteria.

5.  Reconcile yourself to the fact that you may have to display some sort of advertising on your site and look for the most unobtrusive types. Most people hate pop ups. A banner is better, but a text link or button is best.

6.  Test drive a few hosts. Sign-up for a few of the better plans and play around.

7.  Back up your files

Ultimately though, it’s best to reach into your wallet and pay for a quality hosting plan, the going rate of which can actually be as low as $5/month. You won’t have to contend with forced ads, you’ll have a guaranteed uptime of at least 99.5%, and you’ll have more features than you can shake a stick at. In most cases, you’ll also receive a free domain name with your account and this is especially important if you plan on building a business site. An added advantage is that many paid hosting sites now offer multiple domain hosting. This means that you can host more than one domain on the same account so you don’t need one account per domain name.

So what’s the bottom line of all of this? If you’re a novice (or you can’t afford a paid plan right now), consider using a free hosting site to hone your skills but be very careful of whom you sign up with. If you’re an experienced user, and especially if you intend on using your site for business purposes, pay for a reliable, full-featured plan.

How to Choose the Best Domain Name For Your Business

Choosing your own domain name is very important and can be critical to your success as a network marketer. Take your time and choose the right one.

Why is it important for you to choose a domain name you are happy with? You need to realize that once you start your business and/or have a lot of customers you will not be able to change your domain name. If you do you will lose all of the advertising exposure for the previous domain name and you will look unprofessional to all your customers.

To set up a domain name you need to find a domain hosting company. There are plenty of hosting companies you can find on the internet and buying your own domain name is not very expensive. You can usually buy domains for $5-$10 a piece, per year.

“Mike’s domain registration rules:” Rule #1: keep it simple. You want to find a domain name that is easy to say, easy to spell, and easy to remember. This is not optional. If you can’t find an address that fits all three of these qualifications, keep looking.

If you are giving your website address to someone over the phone or to a group on a conference call, there can be no room for misinterpretation or spelling errors which means you need to follow the next piece of advice.

Rule #2: Register plural and hyphenated versions. You want to register all plural and hyphened versions of your domain name of choice in order to capture anyone who might misspell the name, and to protect yourself from competition who will intentionally register any domains similar to yours.

Now this is not going to matter much if you are just a tiny fish in the big internet pond and you are aren’t promoting yourself in a massive way. But if you ever start to brand yourself and that domain name, then you need to follow these suggestions.

I recently started a project on creating lead generating capture pages, so the very first thing I did was register several possible domain names for it. (The hyphened and plural versions of each name).

Do not leave a door wide open for a competitor to leech visitors and customers through a similar domain name. You can bet that if I had not registered a hyphenated version of my domain name right after registering my real domain name a cyber squatter would have bought it and would have then owned a very valuable piece of internet real estate. (And he’d probably have a law-suit on his hands).

Always remember that entrepreneurs are opportunistic people by nature. Just do it right the first time and you won’t have to worry about any of these issues.

Rule #3: Use the top “key words” In the domain itself. (But not every time. I will explain why in Rule #5). Search engines give high relevance to sites with top key words in the domain name itself, and a higher relevance for .com names over any of the other extensions like .net .biz . org or .info.

So how do you find the right key words to use? Head to a search engine and go to the resources page for current advertisers, and click on the link for key word selector tool. (Most, but not all, search engines have a tool like this).

Type in a common search term for your category or product or service. Example: If I type “capture pages,” it brings back the following results: The top result is “lead capture pages,” so I would want to try and register something with the words “lead” and “capture,” right in the domain name itself.

NOTE: If the .com version of your preferred domain is unavailable, choose another. You want to have the .com address, because that is what your visitors will automatically type in when going by memory. And if they do not, many will type it in just out of curiosity, and if it is owned by a competitor, you are in trouble.

Rule #4: pay attention to phonics when purchasing a domain name. Try not to use numbers unless you can purchase both the numerical and alphabetical names. If you can find a domain name with both listings available, then go for it.

Rule #5: Register a “generic” domain name that can be used to promote anything now and in the future. Choosing a generic domain name can be very important when generating leads if you are a network marketer. 99% of the time, you do not want to have the name of your company or product in the domain name because your capture page is not going to be promoting your company, it will be promoting you or your business team.

Why? Because I want to keep control of what my prospects see and when. I want to keep control of the presentation of my business and the timeline in which it takes place. My prospect does not know what company I am with until I tell them. They cannot look at my network marketing opportunity website until I give it to them.

Most network marketers will register a domain name with their company name in it, but what if you change companies? What if you decide to leave your vitamin company and decided to sell products for another natural health company? What are you going to do with an email address (that everyone now knows, with your company name in it) when you change companies?

That is why you always register a generic domain name to use for your email correspondence that you can keep forever, no matter what kind of business you decide to build.

I chose a very generic domain name for my first website for this reason: Once you have a generic domain, you can always register another one for your specific opportunity that you can give to your prospects when the time is right. I have purchased over 100 domains in the last year alone. It is like owning cyber real estate.

This is probably going to be a very frustrating process for you if this is your first time

registering a domain name. Why? Because you will soon find out that 19 out of 20 domain names you think of will already be taken. Coming up with something generic is pretty easy though.

Here are a few ideas: Use your name in combination with an extension, like “LLC” or “Inc.” Think of a company name, or “Doing Business As”, name. Once again, keep these three rules in mind; easy to say, easy to spell, and easy to remember. If your last name happens to be Leibowitz, then pick something else!

Rule #6: You want to buy the .com, net, and .biz versions of each domain you choose. When coming out with a new product I might end up buying a total of 15 a domain names: each with a different “.” ending.

You get the idea. Purchasing this many domain names for one project is not necessary, just recommended. So go ahead and make your purchase, but do not buy any of the other services your registration company will want to sell you like traffic generation, search engine submission, etc. You do not need those.

All you need are the domain names, and a basic hosting account which you can set up with any of the many hosting companies.

Start with the domain search box. You will get to know this one well as you search for a name that is actually available. Continue to search until you find a name that meets all of the criteria we have discussed today.

Once you find a name that works, choose to register the .com, .biz, and .info names. Go ahead and start the check out process. Skip all of the extra services they will try and sell you. You do not need them.

I only register my domains for one year at a time to keep costs down. They will automatically renew each year as long as your credit card on file is current. If it is not, your hosting company will notify you.

Congrats! You now own your very first domain name!

How to Choose a Web Host? List of Important Features

There are thousands of webhosting companies in the industry screening for business. To ensure one makes best of ones decision possible consider the points mentioned here.

1. Server Space

First think to consider is the amount of space ones site will acquire on a server. Files might require just 1 and 5 megabyte of disk space unless one is planning to run a software repository or an image gallery. Just to out perform their competitors many companies offer several hundreds of megabytes of webspace for a very rational price. Before taking that much space one should question oneself whether that much space will be required ever. Though one should allow extra space for site to grow in future but at the same time one should not opt for a great deal on an extraordinarily sized account if one will never use all of the space which is being offered. One can always find a better deal with amount of space which would be more suitable for ones site size.

2. Data Transfer Allowance

Decision for Data Transfer Allowance should be based upon the above principal. Many are under the impression that their sites would be equal to next Yahoo or Amazon and would be receiving enormous number of visitors daily but one does not require extremely high data transfer allowance unless and until as stated above one is running a software download site or a large image gallery. One should not exceed ones limit just because one is getting an awesome deal as even heavily trafficked normal HTML sites usually use s just a small amount of gigabytes every month in bandwidth allowance. Many companies are offering “unlimited” data transfer if one is planning to go for such an offer, be sure to read terms and conditions very carefully before opting for this type of account as there are generally some fine-print stipulations that make this claim not entirely true. For a small to medium sized business or personal site. A five or ten gigabyte bandwidth allowance is usually ample enough.

3. Technical Support

When choosing a web host types of technical support offered by the company and how easy they are to contact when needed is a very important point to consider. There are companies who do not even offer their contact number on their website though ideally a company has to offer 24/7 toll-free telephone support and email. Company that is very easily accessible in the time of need should be looked for. If one is in the mid of working on ones site and an important piece of information is required to conclude the job but is not able to contact the hosting company to get the information can be very frustrating.

4. CGI-Bin Access

Whether it is a contact form processor, mailing list management script or may be even a fancy credit card processing script one needs to install some type of CGI script eventually no matter what type of site one is planning on running. Hosting account will need to allow one to install and run them. One requires access to a special folder on ones server called “CGI-Bin”. Because of security measure only “pre-installed” scripts are allowed to use by few hosting accounts. As these scripts are already installed and configured by the owners of the company they are aware that these scripts will work properly and will not affect their server’s performance adversely. If one is acquainted with scripts, it’s always better to install ones own scripts that suit ones individual needs and configure them. One should make sure that the account one is using should support the languages like PHP, Perl, etc in which scripts are written

5. Up-Time Guarantee

How often and for how long servers “go down” for the webhosting company one is going to choose is a very important factor to be valued. Remember site cannot receive visitors or produce revenue if the machine on which it is hosted is not up and running no matter one has got a good deal on server space, bandwidth allowance, or tech support service is good. So select a company which can guarantee the highest up-time percentage possible. Its true that none of the company can offer 100% uptime as servers are taken down temporarily from time to time for maintenance or upgrading purposes but one always wants ones site to be hosted on dependable, well managed machines that do not have problems frequently and are down for long periods of time.

6. Email Accounts

Some companies offers heaps more email accounts than required just like transfer allowance and server space. Few even offer hundreds or even unlimited email accounts as a selling point. If one is just one person or is a small company 10 or 15 is enough but this can be an important factor if one is having thousands of employees each requiring email box.

7. Reputation

Last but not the least this is one of the most important factor to be considered while one is choosing ones web host. Today there are numerous sites around the Web featuring discussion forums that permit people to discuss and critique various hosting companies. Be aware of any negative feedback one may hear or read about a particular hosting company. Try Putting up questions about any company one might be interested in using to check if someone had any negative experiences with that company. While beginning a business one of my friend contacted a company to host his site and he was promised good, dependable service at a very low price. But for no obvious reason his entire site was deleted without giving any warning or explanation. He then visited few forums and found that many had negative experiences with that hosting company. So my suggestion is to not make the same mistake which my friend did so search out from beginning and make sure that the hosting company one chooses will not let one down.

How to Choose the Right Domain Name for a Successful Web Site

Choosing a domain name may seem like an exercise in frustration, and you may be tempted to register the first one you stumble upon that isn’t already taken.  Slow down!  It requires more thought than that, and your choice will have a tremendous impact on the ultimate success of you Web site.  In this article, we will discuss how to discover a domain name that will work for you.

There are four main concerns when choosing a domain name:

1.  Technical Requirements.

2. A Memorable Name.

3. A Descriptive Name.

4.  Keyword Research.

Technical Requirements for Domain Names

Let’s get the easy part out of the way first.

When we talk about a “domain name,” we’re referring to the part of a Web site address that comes between “www” and “.com.”  For instance, in “wwwYourWebSitecom,” the domain name is “YourWebSite.”  You must register the domain within a particular “top-level domain,” the part that comes after the rightmost “dot,” as in “.com,” “.info,” “.us,” etc.  That is, “YourWebSitecom” is a different domain than “YourWebSiteinfo.”  You might be able to register “YourWebSitebiz,” even though “YourWebSitecom” is already registered.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (”ICANN”) defines what a domain name must look like.  These rules may be summarized as follows:

*  63 or fewer characters.

*  Only numerals, hyphens, and English letters.

*  Must not begin with a hyphen.

*  Must not end with a hyphen.

Unfortunately, it’s not quite that cut and dried.  There are varying interpretations of the rules.  Some say that a domain in a four-character top-level domain (.info, .mobi) can only be 62 characters long.  There are several schemes regarding how to encode non-English letters, etc.

We can avoid getting bogged down in these points of confusion by remembering two things:

1.  You don’t want a long domain name anyway, so don’t worry about whether the limit is 64 or 62 characters.

2.  Non-English letters, encoded in schemes that might not be universally applied, mean that your domain name may look different (and nonsensical) on various parts of the Internet, so don’t use them.

Choosing a Memorable Domain Name

Your domain name must be something that people can remember and that they can type in readily, or recognize at a glance when they see it as a clickable link.

Among other things, this means that your domain name should be short.  All of the genuinely short domain names are already taken.  Virtually every single word in the English language has been registered as a domain name, as has every combination of up to five letters.  So, don’t get too hung up on “short.”  As we will discuss later in this article, you want to find a balance between “short” and “descriptive.”

Although a domain name may include hyphens, you are better off without them.  If you wanted to register “YourDomainNamecom” and found it was unavailable, you will not be doing yourself any favors by registering “Your-Domain-Namecom.”  Users will confuse the two Web sites, and will be more likely to go with the shorter version.

Choosing a Descriptive Domain Name

Your domain name should describe what the user will find on your Web site.

Look for a descriptive phrase about your chosen specialty.  Is your Web site about baby care tips for working mothers?  For parents of babies with special needs?  Whatever specific area you intend to address, put together three or four words that say it.  You don’t have to say it very well, at this point.  As we will discuss shortly, there are tools to help you refine your descriptive phrases.  For now, just come up with a few phrases that describe your Web site’s content in three or four words.

Keyword Research when Choosing a Domain Name

You want your domain name to be short and descriptive.  That means that each word in it must have value.

Keyword research can identify powerful keywords for your Web site’s content, but it can also find words to use in your domain name.  There is one difference, as will be discussed below.

Keyword research identifies the words and phrases that people are using when searching for information related to your planned Web site.  You will use these keywords in your Web site’s content and in any pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, but you should also use them in your domain name.  A keyword-rich domain name is more likely to rank high in search engine results.

When researching keywords for use in your Web site content or in PPC advertising, you want search terms that are frequently used but rarely matched.  These are the high-value keywords that can make the content of your Web site stand out in the search engines.

However, when you are looking for keywords to use in your domain name, you should concentrate on frequently used keywords, and not necessarily those that are rarely matched.  This is the difference alluded to earlier.

Keyword research can not tell you whether a domain name is available.  It can only tell you what people are looking for and what they are finding in the content of Web pages.  So, identify terms that people are looking for, then determine what domain names are available that use those terms, and you will have a winning domain name.

Take the list of descriptive phrases you identified in the last section, and use each one as the starting point for keyword research.  From your keyword research, build a list of phrases that people are searching for when they want to find the kind of content you plan to offer.

From that list, focus on the shortest phrases that are relevant and clearly descriptive of the content you intend to offer.  Now, check to see which of these phrases are available for you to register as domain names.

What if you find two or more keyword-rich domain names available?  Register all of them!  Choose the one you like best as the main name for your Web site, but keep the others.  You can use them as “redirect” pages, and you always have the option of using the alternate names later.

For the same reason, register your domain name in various top-level domains if they are available, such as .com, .info, etc.  Lock in your options on those alternate names, and lock out your competitors from stealing the results of your research.

Conclusion:  What to Do Next

Before you rush out and register the first available domain name you come up with, do your homework.

*  Think of a short list of descriptive phrases about the Web site you intend to build.

*  Do some comprehensive keyword research on each of those descriptive phrases, and build a list of more keyword-rich descriptive phrases.

*  Choose the shortest, most memorable phrases from your list, and check which ones are available to register as domain names.

*  Register as many of these keyword-rich, descriptive domain names as you can.

 

How to Choose a Business Web Hosting Company

So you are finally opening your own home business, congratulations! Having an online presence is important to any home business, and finding the right company to host your online business website can mean the difference between success and failure.

Online web hosting basically boils down to two categories personal use, and business web hosting. Each category then can be broken down into smaller sub categories, such as paid or free personal sites, and different levels of business Web hosting where different options are offered depending on the monthly cost. The key difference between the two of these hosting packages besides features is that many Web companies will not let you conduct business using a personal web hosting account. This is both for your benefit, and the web hosting company’s benefit. Personal websites generally are not stored on the same servers, and thus do not have the same levels of data security, backup, and redundancy. Personal use website hosts also generally cap the amount of data throughput that can be used in any given month.

Because companies that offer business web hosting put your data on special servers it usually costs a little bit more depending on the amount of data you plan on storing, and the amount of traffic you anticipate generating. Business web hosting packages also offer a larger feature set then available with personal web hosting packages. Most business web packages offer more database tables, enhanced CGI support, and even more specialized tasks such as running Cron jobs.

Depending on your host when you use a business package will also be assured some level of customer support. Website service providers are notoriously bad at customer service; often times customers are left waiting for days at a time before a customer service representative gets back to them. With a business to web host the company usually spells out in exacting detail what level of customer service the client can expect. This can include anything from guaranteed live phone support, to technical support available through chat dialogue using their online help messaging system. Even if support is only available through e-mail it is generally quicker than what someone would otherwise experience using a personal web hosting plan.

When choosing a business web hosting service consult the Internet for customer reviews of the various companies and the packages that they offer. It is often easy to see trends of customer satisfaction, and thus find a package that fits your needs. Not all companies live up to their advertisement claims so it is definitely importance to do your research ahead of time.

Because this is a web host for your business cost cannot be your sole point of analysis. You will end up paying more for increased feature sets, however these features are important for maintaining a reliable presence online. Try to find the right balance between cost, customer satisfaction, and necessary features such as database tables in CGI scripts. Once you find this balance, and you have spoken to their representatives asking any questions you may have sign up and enjoy your new business web host.

Domain Names: How to Choose & Protect a Great Name for Your Website

Product Description
With clever (and even not-so-clever) names for websites disappearing faster than you can say “Internet Start-Up,” e-entrepreneurs need to know that their choice won’t be whisked out from under their ISPs. This book explains in plain English how to choose, register and protect a domain name that works. Written both for those shepherding an existing business onto the Web and those launching an e-commerce start-up, it explains how to: * check on the availabili… More >>

Domain Names: How to Choose & Protect a Great Name for Your Website

Free or Paid Hosting….which to Choose???

While doing selection between a free or paid web hosting service there are several things to be keep in mind. Excluding cost, there are some other critical factors which play a key role.

Top most things which user should concern about are the intention of creating a web site. Is the intention is to share mere photos of the relatives and friends? Or else, the aim is to include several pages with dissimilar text on each making the task comparatively more composite? Or rather the site is meant for professional purposes?

User should know the objective of his/her concern web site in order to choose an ideal host. For instance, if the site is meant for personal snaps then it need not to counter an excess amount of traffic and limited amount of disk space and bandwidth is quite sufficient.

For the above mentioned objective free hosting can also be recommended. If the web master is inexperienced then also a free web hosting service can help him/her to brush-up html skills.

The user should be aware of the fact that he/she will enjoy less features and assistance in free service in comparison to paid service. But, the provided services are quite sufficient to hold up a web site on a small scale. However, user should remain ready bear the problems related to displaying of offbeat advertisements.

If one going to choose for paid hosting, he/she will find several options to choose from including various sorts of packages. Talking about features like disk space, bandwidth, free domain names, free sub-domains and unlimited email accounts are comparatively more and quite advanced in case of paid hosting. Other advanced features include a CGI-Bin, MySQL databases, Microsoft FrontPage extensions etc.

One can largely depend on the hosting services provided in paid hosting including customer support which is not to that extent in case of free web hosting.

If one talks on money basis then registration for a free web hosting service is free, even though user needs to buy his/her own domain name. When one talks about a basic paid service, then the expected range will be $5 to $10 for a month. By paying a small amount one can enjoy enhanced services, customer assistance and features.

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