According to a joint Nielsen Online and Webvisible survey taken
last year, 44% of small businesses don't have a website. Furthermore,
the survey found that 82% of consumers and small businesses find
information primarily through search engines, as opposed to Yellow Pages
and other sources. You would think that the latter statistic would have
affected the former, but the fact is that not enough small businesses
are putting effort into marketing their brands online.
By now,
it's conventional wisdom that if you have a business, you need a
website. Any arguments against this rule are simply excuses; there are
so many benefits to having a website that outweigh any potential costs.
Benefits
of a Website
1. A website makes you visible to
people who are searching for you. If eight out of every 10 people
are using search engines instead of Yellow Pages, doesn't it make sense
for you to put yourself online? If you had a website, you could create
multiple pages and target keywords (or search terms) that are relevant
to your business. This lets people find you in the search results when
they are searching for a specific term. For example, if you had a cookie
delivery service in Austin, TX, you might want to target "cookie
delivery Austin" and other similar terms. You could also submit your
site to the local listings on the top search engines where the people in
your community (i.e. your potential customers) could find you.
2.A professional website makes customers think professional
service. Even if you aren't selling goods online, your website
exists to promote your product or service. An informational website
serves as a snapshot of your business that can attract potential
customers. A professional website takes a bit of thought and effort to
create even when using a website builder and customers will appreciate the time and effort spent on a
functional resource. They will likely equate your customer service with
the professionalism displayed on the page.
3. The web
is your oyster! The web often levels the playing field for both
small and large businesses. Often small websites can rival or surpass
those created by big businesses or national chains. Your website can
help you build your brand image and create a buzz online. These days,
things go "viral" in a matter of seconds, and with a few clicks you can
market yourself to an audience of thousands. Website = cheap and
effective marketing.
4. A website lets you control your
message. When people search for your business, Yelp.com shouldn't be
the first result they find. Although Yelp can be a great resource, it
isn't the definitive, authoritative one on your business. Your
website allows you to create the proper messages for your potential
clients.
5. A Facebook or MySpace page doesn't cut it. Facebook
pages and MySpace pages are meant for Facebook and MySpace users. If
that's all that you have, then you are excluding a large chunk of the
population who don't use and aren't familiar with social networking
sites. Unlike web pages, a website is accessible to all
user-types. Your site can simplify the process of finding information
with easy navigation and multiple pages. You can also give customers a
place to contact you or provide feedback. As your business grows, your
website can too. You could include e-commerce features like order forms
and shopping carts; you could create forums and help pages. The sky's
the limit. Facebook is great, but it can't give you that functionality
because it's not a website.
One of the common terms that you might have come across in the
world of website and the online business world is web hosting, and
essentially, without this service, you would not be able to get started
at all in your journey online. For one thing, web hosting represents the
gate way and the digital space for you to actually conduct your
business. With hosting, you are able to own and operate your website
online and this is quite important.
For one thing, you would be
able to the get some space where you would be able to upload some of the
content that is crucial to your website. Content requires space and
this is what you need to have when you are thinking about the kind of
website that you are going to be uploading online. Now, in the world of
web hosting, there are many things for you to consider. Now, one of the
things you need to want to avoid if you are going to be a power of
business user online is the concept of the free web hosting service, and
this is because of the lack of security and the horsepower that you are
going to need to be able to function as well as you would as you are
online.
Now, one of the things that are attached to this is of
course, the brand of your company, and the last thing you are going to
want to do is to actually lower the brand and the professionalism of the
website just because you wanted to save some money and cut a few
corners. Which does not make sense in the first place, because of the
simple fact that web hosting is really quite affordable at all levels.
Even the most intensive and powerful commercial services that are
available online only runs up to just above 100 dollars a month.
Beyond
that, there are things like the shared server, which means that you
share resources with other computers and websites. Of course, the most
interesting and the most powerful of all f these hosting options is the
dedicated web host. Now, this allows your website to run through a
single data and support funnel, which means that you are not sharing any
of these resources with anyone else. If your website is holding some
crucial, sensitive or important data, then this is the kind of web
hosting plan you should be going for. Just know that there are many
other sort of plans out there, and there will always be one that will be
able to meet your needs.
So if you need to start something
online, then just know that web hosting should be one of the first few
things that you should be getting on to. Just know that there are plenty
of these web hosting companies out there, and you just need to be
prudent in your choice for you to actually just get something good and
have a good base for all of your operations.
There are a number of key factors for you to consider when choosing our web hosting company for your business web site, but ultimately only you are in the best position to know which criteria are most important to you. Our goal is to give you the information you need to make an informed decision. With that in mind, here are some things to look for when considering Web hosting company:
A free web site host could cost you more money in the long run because of lost sales due to unreliable service. But that doesn't mean you need to go to the other extreme, either.
Cost should be an important consideration when researching web hosts. Like any other business expense, you should plan a budget for your website hosting and carefully weigh the services you need with the price you are willing to pay.
Inexpensive Web hosting will cost you between $5 and $40 a month depending on the services you want to include in your account. If you are not sure what additional services you need, look for a hosting company that offers multiple plans and flexible configuration. This will allow you to start small but add services as you grow paying only modest upgrade fees.
Make sure that when you compare plans, compare apples to apples. Comparing plans with similar prices but different bandwidth or storage limits is not a fair comparison. Since most web hosts offer similar plans, it should be easy to make similar comparisons.
Reliability is probably the most important consideration. Every minute that your website is down and inaccessible is money you are leaving on the table. You cannot afford to have problems with reliability.
Reliability not only means "up time" - a phrase to indicate how often servers are online as opposed to "down time" - but speed. If your clients can't find your site or it takes too long to load, then they will go find your competitor.
(Caution: Not all slowness is a result of slow servers. There are some common web design mistakes that you can make that will slow things up on your web site. Be sure your web files are optimized for fast loading.)
This Web host provider can offer 99% or better up time. That's a high standard, but most providers today offer redundant networks and regular backups so that if something happens they can switch to another computer system and get back online very quickly.
Redundant networks are simply duplicate computers. Good providers run redundant networks in different parts of the country or even in different parts of the world. A data center in California, for example, could be affected by a power failure but a redundant system in New York would prevent the websites from bring down for long.
The Web hosting company listed here performs daily back-up of all of their servers. Not only will they be able to restore their data in the event of a natural disaster or server failure, but they can back up your web site if you make a mistake - like accidentally deleting your entire web site.
The more contingency plans your web host has in place, the better they are able to respond to problems, emergencies, and disasters. Don't dismiss this capability. You may take reliability for granted until you experience a major problem that takes out your web site. When that happens, you'll be glad you found a reliable web host.
This Web host is an important partner for your business and the people who work for your web host are just as important as the people who work for you. Qualified technical support people who understand your problems and can respond quickly are an asset to your business. We place technical experience first. Your host should employ knowledgeable and competent technicians and network engineers. These people understand network security and how to safely upgrade network and web server software.
Next, consider response time. Responding to an email or phone message within one day is good. Responding within 8 hours is better. If you can find a company that will get back to you within 30 minutes or less, you've found a great company. It's important that you not be left hanging when you are experiencing a problem.
Our support staff is accommodating and is also a great asset. I've talked to my Web hosting support team about a number of topics only slightly related to my web site, I always get a good response and some interesting ideas and solutions to my problems.
Bandwidth. Bandwidth refers to the amount of data you can transfer between your server and other computers that are making requests for files. For example, if you have a file that is 10K and it is downloaded 100 times, you have used 1,000k of bandwidth. Most accounts give you a low bandwidth limit but they tend to be relatively high. I've never run up against a bandwidth problem but if you want to host a large number of video and sound files, this could be an important consideration. Again, this web hosting company will let you expand your bandwidth needs as your site (and traffic) grows.
Email Addresses. It always surprises me when I see a company that has a web site and their own domain name but still uses an email address at one of the free email services like Yahoo, Gmail, or Hotmail. It's important for your professional image that your email address match your domain name. In other words if your domain name is www axprofessional com, then your email address should be taxpro @ taxprofessional com. Look for a web host that offers multiple email accounts. This gives you two advantages.
First of all, you can give every employee an email address at your domain. Second, you can create email accounts with names like sales@ taxprofessional com, or info@ taxprofessional com, or webmaster@ taxprofessional com.
Even if you're a one-man shop, having these different email addresses can make your company seem larger than it is. Of course, your clients don't need to know these email addresses just forward to your regular email in-box.
Another email consideration is how you will access your email. POP3 is a technology that allows you to access your email from an email reader program like Microsoft Outlook. Most people don't realize that you can add multiple POP3 email accounts to MS Outlook and check several accounts at one time. You'll have the most flexibility if your web host offers these accounts.
This host allows you to check email through a web-based interface. This is great because it allows you to check your email from anywhere you have an internet connection. If you travel a lot, you may like this option. Of course, if you can find both type of email in a web hosting account, you will have the best of both worlds.
Domain Names. You must have your own domain name. This web host will be able to accommodate your own custom domain name without any hassle. In fact, this is a standard feature of your hosting account.
This inexpensive Web hosting provider allows you to have unlimited domain names. This is a tremendous advantage to you as it allows you to have multiple web sites under one hosting account. Of course, you might pay a little extra for this service, but it's well worth. If you intend to expand your business, you may want to consider a plan that allows for more than one domain name.
This web hosting company, also allows you to register new domain name and associate them with your web hosting account from within your account control panel. This makes the process of registering a new domain extremely easy. Once you pay for your new domain, all of the settings are automatically set for you and your new website is up and running within minutes of creating a new domain name. Otherwise, you would have to know all kinds of technical details like DNS settings and IP addresses.
Scripting Capabilities. Most websites today use some kind of script to automate processes and help with interactivity. For example, a form that collects the name and email address of a potential client requires a script to accept the client's information and save it into a database for later retrieval.
This website host can handle the most common script types: PHP, Perl, Java, VBScript, ASP, etc. You may not need to deal with these yourself - if you're lucky you'll have a technician that can help you install and configure websites for you - but you want to make sure your host account allows easy access to one or more of these scripting languages,
Note: Scripting can be a security risk for web servers, so many hosting companies severely restrict scripting capabilities or require that all script installations be approved. This website hosting provider that does not impose these restrictions. You'll be happier in the long run.
Database. Along with scripting comes the ability to create and manage databases. A database allows you to store common information. Some types of databases include customer lists or a list of products in an online store. More and more websites today are using databases to hold data about the website itself allowing them to create what is known as a dynamic website. A dynamic website doesn't exist as a series of static files that are delivered to the visitor. Instead, a web page can be created on the fly using data in the database and information provided by the visitor to create a unique and custom experience for each visitor. This kind of technology is only available through the use of scripting and database technology. It's something you'll want to have.
Note: Although there are a number of different scripting/database combinations, the standard seems to be PHP scripting combined with a MySQL database. You don't need to understand how this technology works right now, but if you have a web host that provides this combination, you will be able to run a majority of the popular scripts that are currently available.
Site Management. You'll be spending a lot of time working on your website, so you want to make sure it's easy to make changes and upload files.
Some web site design software can upload files directly using FTP (File Transfer Protocol). Other software lets you save the files and use a separate FTP program to upload them to your server. In either case, you'll want to have FTP access to your server. Don't use a website hosting company that only lets you upload and update files through a web-based control panel. This may be OK for one or two files or minor changes, but it will take you too long to upload your site and make routine changes.
There are a lot of different tools available here for managing your website. One of the most important is an easy-to-use control panel interface that allows you easy access to all of the features and settings of your web site. Our control panel will let you create email accounts and databases, manage your files, install scripts, check email, and a lot more.
Statistics. This Web hosting company allows you to track, within a few hours, your visitors and their traffic patterns which is critical to improving your web site and growing your business. In the old days of web site development, many web site owners simply put up a page counter on their web site and checked the statistics. The problem with this approach is that it only counted the number of times the page was delivered. If the page was refreshed several times by the visitor, the page was counted over and over as a new visitor. These page counters were crude and simple, but they did the trick - for a short time.
Nowadays, many web hosting accounts come with sophisticated tracking systems that can report a number of statistics about who is visiting your website and where they are going while they are in your online store. These statistics programs can provide you with a wealth of important. Nowadays, many web hosting accounts come with sophisticated tracking systems that can report a number of statistics about who is visiting your website and where they are going while they are in your online store. These statistics programs can provide you with a wealth of important information you will need to increase your sales, improve your web site, and grow your e-commerce business.
Don't be afraid to pay a little more to ensure you have access to the features and services you need and that are critical to your business. Think of it just like any other business expense. Would you be so worried about saving money if it ultimately cost you business in the long run?
