Philadelphia Website Articles - Introduction to Hosting Services (text only) If you can visualize how a website can open new markets, cut costs, provide better customer support, and pay for itself in a variety of ways, you’re in good company—according to Network Solutions (the folks who sell domain names) there are now over 36 million website names registered (22 million are dot-com names). If you’d like to join them you’ll find it can be painless and far less costly than you might think. In fact the whole process can be broken down to perhaps four basic steps. We explored the first step in the previous chapter, Website Benefits, and we’ll explore the remaining steps in the following chapters. There are over 36 million website names. 1. Clarify Your Goals Of course the purpose of your website is to generate revenue, but by what means? - By finding new customers? - By making it easier for existing customers to order? - To sell online? - To reduce travel and communication costs by publishing company information online? - To act as a temporary website while you research what it really should be? - To look bigger than you really are? To scare your competition? All are worthy goals but the time and cost to implement each certainly isn’t the same—there’s no “one size fits all” website that can address every possible intention. So in addition to thinking about your website goals you’ll also benefit from thinking about a budget for your website. 2. Secure Website Hosting Services Your website needs to be “hosted” by an Internet Service Provider in order for others to be able to view it on the WWW. A commercial hosting account typically includes email addresses and other website development tools to help make your website a powerful marketing tool. 3. Create an Informative and Easy to Use Website Unless you’re a seasoned website designer it’s probably best to not create your own website. You’ll find yourself spending excessive time and money to create a website that won’t powerfully represent the quality of product or service you want to promote. 4. Secure an Online Identity Your domain name is the the address folks enter into website browser software to view your website. Examples you probably know include Yahoo, eBay, and Amazon. It’s easy and inexpensive to buy a domain name. What’s not always easy is choosing a good domain name. Even in this infancy of the Internet the domain name you want may not be HREF="../ilable. In the Choosing a Domain Name chapter we’ll reveal some of the tricks for choosing a great domain name (and how to avoid choosing a bad one). Chapter 5—Introduction to Hosting Services Even if you own the best computer on the market, with the fastest Internet connection, it doesn’t come close to the important services an Internet Service Provider offers including: - Bandwidth If you think of an ISP as an “Internet water works” it’s not to hard to understand how its pipes can handle far more flow than your residential plumbing. It’s this bandwidth, the total amount of data flowing at any moment, that allows any number of visitors to enjoy your website simultaneously. - Reliability A typical ISP has multiple computers which “serve” each website to visitors. If one web server isn’t HREF="../ilable the others instantly pick up the load. This and a variety of other website server features insure your website is HREF="../ilable at all times. - Security A number of security services insure visitors see only what they need to see, that your email is safe and secure, and other potential online threats are stopped in their tracks. - Services ISPs provide the software and services to enhance your website with online forms, shopping carts, database interactivity, and custom programming. Understanding Hosting Services The two most notable services an ISP provides are Internet access, so you can get online; and hosting services, so others already online can view your website. Though there’s little difference between Internet access for a home or business there are several important distinctions between residential and commercial hosting services. Residential Hosting One of the first things you do when you purchase Internet access is to choose a username. The username also serves as your email address. For example, if your username is “earlgrey” and your Internet access is provided by Tea.Net, the merging of the two results in your email address: earlgrey@tea.net. Along with Internet access and an email address a residential Internet access account also includes website storage space, typically five megabytes, which is more than most business websites typically need. An e-commerce website might require more storage space to accommodate a large number of product photos. But there’s a catch. If the Internet account is residential so is the storage space. For example, the WWW address of earlgrey’s storage space is www.tea.net/~earlgrey, not www.earlgrey.com as might exist for a commercial website. If you’re clever you might decide to purchase a residential access account with a username that describes your business, like “weddingcakes”. Although you’ll get the username you want in your web address, such as www.aol.com/~weddingcakes there are still at least three problems that can’t be easily overcome: 1. A business website should have a business website address—a domain name. The tilde (“~”) character is the giveaway of a residential web address. With a residential website address you’re promoting your ISP as much as your business. 2. You won’t be able to take advantage of the commercial website services an ISP provides such as visitor statistics, online forms, online shopping services, or custom programming. ISPs reserve these services solely for commercial hosting accounts. 3. Many search engines will not list a residential website in their commercial directories. A tilde (“~”) in a web address denotes a personal web page. Commercial Hosting A commercial hosting account includes all the features you need to bring your first business website to life such as multiple email addresses using your domain name, additional storage space, and most importantly the ability to promote your website with a commercial domain name. But, not surprisingly, there’s a cost to do business on the Internet. A commercial hosting account typically costs between $25 and $35 per month. Subdomain Hosting To offer a business style web address without the cost of commercial website hosting, some ISPs offer what is called “subdomain” or “subsite” hosting. With some technical magic subsite hosting lets the ISP take a residential address like www.coffeenet.com/~darkroast and turn it into www.darkroast.coffeenet.com. This allows you to make a residential web address appear as a business domain address. The good news with this strategy is that you can avoid domain registration costs and choose the exact name you’d like. The bad news is that a subdomain still has all the same failings as a residential web address and should typically be avoided. The exception to the rule are websites where the subdomain is closely related to the main domain. For example, Apple promotes its QuickTime product with the subdomain address www.quicktime.apple.com. Although entering this address actually takes you to www.apple.com/quicktime they avoid the confusion and stigma of promoting a web address that might be falsely recognized as a residential web address. Buying Hosting Services Though an ISP provides a plethora of services it’s neither practical nor necessary for you to attempt to become a hosting/ISP expert to secure quality hosting. The simplest, and best, solution is to secure hosting services through your web designer. An experienced web designer will typically have business relationships with several ISPs. As part of this symbiotic relationship the ISP will often provide hosting services to the web designer at a bulk discount. In turn web designers provides website hosting services as part of their own services. The result is the opportunity to secure quality hosting at a discounted price and, perhaps more valuable, the peace of mind that comes from being able to rely on your web designer when a question or technical issue arises. A web designer who doesn’t offer website hosting services is like a car mechanic who doesn’t do oil changes. If you’d like to find website hosting on your own the best advice we can offer is to: - Think locally—often the smaller the ISP the better the service. - Avoid long-term contracts - Get referrals. Everyone has a friend with a website. Ask if they like their hosting service.