Posts Tagged ‘Business Owners’
Free Ad Supported Website Hosting By Jim Degerstrom
Based on one recent experience with a custom website client, I feel site owners need to understand that free ad supported website hosting is not for everyone.
The ads exchanged for free hosting offered from one major hosting company are described as done by inserting “advertising on a small portion of the site”. In fact this “small ad” is a top banner that covers the width of the screen with a height of 1.2 inches (30.4mm), and displays 3 separate ads. The choice of ads placed in the banner advertising is fed based on page content, so your site might feature an advertisement from your competition. This is fine for non-commercial personal sites, or a website monetized for advertising revenue only. It is senseless to advertise for your competition.
Website hosting is inexpensive. The decision to use free ad supported hosting should be considered carefully.
The cost for paid hosting ranges from modest to outrageous, so many business owners fall victim to overpriced hosting services because of inexperience. Some pay 00′s USD per year for their domain, hosting, and maintenance when in fact their site is static and nothing is ever added. A monthly fee based on the contingency that something might need to be changed in the future is a waste of money if your website is launched and just gathers dust. If it is dynamic adding content frequently and you receive value for money, monthly fees are practical.
Tip: You do NOT have to include the copyright date on your web pages. Using the copyright symbol and the year means you have an obsolete website a year later. The cost to change the date each January hardly justifies paying thousands annually in monthly fees. Published material is covered locally and internationally by copyright law without specifying the year or including a copyright statement. The fact that content is published on your website means you own it. My advice is avoiding dated material and simply state “Copyright Material – All Rights Reserved”.
Another client told of a service where they paid 9 a month for a similar package which included a logo design and website graphics. Although their agreement also included high quality artwork of their logo for printed marketing materials, the service provider refused to make it available when requested. The website version was 3-color low resolution and looked fine online. Creating a 4-color CMYK high resolution version appropriate for professional printing should have been easy. Instead, the website owner was compelled to shop around and pay extra to have printed marketing materials designed.
When you remove “maintenance” as a service in the example above, your small business website can be online for less than 0 USD annual cost instead of 48.00. The amount this customer saved was enough to pay for a custom site design, and then future savings of 00 a year after the first year. You need a www domain and hosting, plus a site design. Dependable service companies are out there at less than a year for your domain, and less than a month for hosting. Why pay more? Choose carefully when you select someone to design your small business website, and their advice may save you more than the design.
Next, the technical implications of free ad supported website hosting may escape the notice of most site owners. In the recent incident, the XHTML code to create this site was deprecated by the free service when they automatically inserted code to generate the advertising banner. Instead of a website with zero code errors, 10 XHTML errors were added to each page because of the extra inserted code. Currently proper HTML or XHTML code is not mandatory for favorable search engine ranking, yet if you have a perfect design, there is the risk that deprecated code could affect ranking in the future if search algorithms change.
Small business owners are usually too busy running their day to day operations to learn about the best options for getting and keeping a website online. Free ad supported website hosting is available, but the downside needs to be understood before you opt for free hosting. If you select a web developer to design your website and they do not offer monthly fee based services, they will most likely offer advice for your best hosting options.
In conclusion, designers who offer value added services are viable choices for small business owners who choose to have fresh content added to their site frequently. Just make sure to communicate your needs for online and in print to maximize your results and avoid disappointment. I am opposed to free ad supported website hosting for small business websites because anything displayed on your site needs to promote your product or service. Advertising, especially competitive ads, detract from the positive first impression that is critical for the success of your small business website.
Jim Degerstrom offers small business advice based on 30 years in management, sales, and marketing, including President or General Manager of small companies in 5 states. He is proficient in website and graphic art design, and runs his online Small Business Resource Center at http://www.jimdegerstrom.com from Kissimmee FL USA.
Creating Free Websites As A More Cost-Effective Move
You have two general options when you want to have some presence online. The first option is that you can hire someone and the professional can create the websites for you. This is the common and the traditional route for many business owners who have the financial muscle and this is the choice by those looking for quicker results. But there is a problem here if you want your free websites made this way. This can route can be costly since the services of the professionals can be expensive these days and even though you can find providers of cheap services, you cannot be sure of their work and the websites that they can create for you can be questionable at best.
A better option is creating these free websites
But there is nothing to worry since you have option number 2. Your second option is getting free websites without having to pay too much. These free websites can be yours for less or no price since you are the one who will do much of the work and you will use the free tools as provided by free site builders online. Now if you are looking for cost-effective ways on how to expand your presence online then you know what to get and where to turn to. You should get the services of the builders of free websites and you need to make use of the tools provided for by the free site builders online.
The many benefits of choosing free websites as assisted by free site builders
Taking this ‘shortcut’ to building free websites just take a fraction of your time and this can be considered as less demanding for people who have limited knowledge in HTML and coding. Going this route is also cost-effective on your part since you will spend more time using and taking advantage of our free websites rather than spend so much time designing and developing these free websites. And more importantly, this route effectively provides the right balance between time and money. So if you are already convinced that this route is the route that you should take then now is the time to learn the fact that in creating these free websites you will be required to follow a number of simple steps.
General steps required in creating free websites
The first thing that you need to do is to find site builders that can guide you in creating your free websites. These online site builders that come for free will allow you to freely make use of their online tools in order to design and to publish your free websites. These online site builders will make the creation of free websites easy thanks to their easy drag and drop interface which can be followed without having the need to have technical skills. These websites offer step-by-step guide in finalizing the free websites plus these site builders will come up with free domain hosting and will also give you with lots of professional designs to choose from. There is another simple way of creating your free websites, and this can be done by starting blogs. Business blogs are now considered as hot industry marketing tools right now and these blogs are often used in conjunction with typical free websites. And often, you may no longer need the services of free websites and all you need are these blogs!
Is Having a Dedicated Server Worth It?
The debate of having a shared or dedicated hosting package for your website is one that is ongoing. Both have their benefits and deciding on the best choice for you will depend largely on your business requirements. In general, dedicated server hosting is more expensive. It often also requires more technical expertise. When looking at it from this perspective, many business owners ask, Is it really worth it? Let’s look at dedicated server hosting in more detail and the benefits associated with it.
What Is a Dedicated Server?
By simple definition, a dedicated server hosts just one client on the server. Compare this to a shared server where there can be hundreds of websites on a single server and you can immediately start to see the benefits of having a dedicated server. While a dedicated server has only one client, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you can have only one website. In fact, for large companies where there are multiple divisions, it is often more cost effective to host several domains on a dedicated server than it is to host each one on a separate shared server.
When Would You Choose a Dedicated Server?
Typically, dedicated servers are used by larger companies with a large web presence. They may have exceeded their capacity on a shared server and have more technical requirements for their website that cannot be accommodated on a shared server. If you are looking at the options of dedicated servers then it is probably because you have a large capacity website. You may also want to customize certain aspects of the hosting on the server. Most shared servers don’t allow for customization so if this is important for your business, dedicated server hosting may be your only other alternative. What prevents most companies from having dedicated servers is that they are generally much more expensive. This is why usually only larger businesses make use of them. While you may have started out hosting your website on a shared server, you may get to the point where your business has grown sufficiently and a dedicated server starts to make more sense.
What Are the Benefits of a Dedicated Server?
There are many benefits to having a dedicated server. Often, when you weigh them up compared to the higher cost, they still make a convincing argument. A great advantage of a dedicated server is the higher level of security on the server. Because your business is the only client on the server, if you are vigilant about your security systems and anti-virus software, this greatly reduces the risk of infection. Compare this to a shared server. You can be diligent about protecting your website but someone else on the same server might not be. This means that they could fall prey to a virus or spyware which could then inadvertently affect your website as well just because it is on the same server. With a dedicated server, you completely eliminate the risk of this happening. In general, you have a much more secure hosting platform.
A second benefit is the level of customization available on a dedicated server. Often, the technology that you can use on a shared server is limited because it needs to conform to a shared interface. However, on a dedicated server, you have the freedom and flexibility to set up your website using whatever technology and scripts work best for you. This means that if you have advanced technical knowledge, you can go into a great amount of detail on the back end of the website and incorporate whatever technology works for you.
Often with dedicated servers, you get a higher level of customer service from your hosting provider. You have access to their technical expertise to help you troubleshoot when you have problems with your website. Because you are a more valuable client, hosting providers usually go the extra mile to make sure they are meeting your needs.
Another benefit of having a dedicated server is stability. With a dedicated server, you have much more control over what is processed on the server. In this way, you can ensure that you have maximum uptime for your website. On the dedicated server, your website will be unaffected by other websites or hosting clients. You can control what scripts and processes you run to ensure that the website functions optimally. On a shared server, your uptime can often be affected by things that are beyond your control. With a dedicated server, you do not need to worry about this.
Free Web Hosting Services
A web hosting association is a single which provides server tough expostulate space for websites. It seems similar to everybody has a website these days so anticipating a right web hosting operate is crucial. Companies which yield these services have been popping up all over a Internet. Some have been good as good as a little have been not. Some have been costly as good as a little have been free.
There unequivocally have been companies out there which yield web hosting services for free. Some of these companies suggest total storage space. Does which receptive to advice similar to a good deal, generally if you’re in business? That depends upon a association upon condition which a operate as good as your website needs.
If we sort a difference “free web hosting services” in to any poke engine, we will get multiform pages of links to differentiate through. Choosing either to go with a giveaway operate or not is a preference which usually we can make. It will mostly rely upon a reason we have a website. Free web hosting services have been good options for people which operate their sites for personal use. They can work for businesses as well, though many times commercial operation owners feel some-more gentle selecting a veteran paid hosting operate due to a many critical cause to cruise when selecting a hosting operate of any type-dependability. The list next contains tips which will assistance we in your search.
Does a hosting association have 24/7 patron operate available? If we get stranded creation changes in a center of a night as good as do not know what to do, how will we get your website behind up as good as running? Customer operate is critical during times similar to this.
How most record space do they concede you? Any site which offers fewer than 5 GB for a commercial operation is not value your consideration. If we have a business, we might instruct to cruise carrying some-more than 5 GB of space accessible to you.
Will we have entrance to CGI garbage bin files? You might not assimilate technical aspects of this subject though it is critical to have this access.
How does their upload routine work? Can we operate FTP?
How prolonged has a operate association been in business? If they have been around for multiform years, they have been starting to be some-more stable.
Can we hit them by phone? Some tiny companies do not have patron operate departments. You still need a capability to get in hit with someone by phone if we have any critical questions or needs.
What kind of confidence do they have? Hackers have been everywhere as good as they might aim your site. Sometimes they will try to penetrate in to a server itself to benefit entrance to your critical files. What systems have been transposed to keep your website as good as files secure?
How arguable is this company? Is there a backup complement in place in a eventuality which a server with your website goes down? This is critical since your business design your site to be there when they instruct to visit.
Free Web hosting services can be a good choice if a association is dependable. Do you investigate carefully? If we confirm to giveaway hosting operate is your most appropriate bet, go for it.
Does Your Business Need Dedicated Server?
Does your business need Dedicated Server? Lots of people who owns a business might be asking this question to oneself. Almost everyone knows the effectiveness of information safety and convenience as an important part of respective business as we all know that the world is becoming more digital. There are lots of people who want to know about dedicated servers and also does they really need one? This question might be bothering lots of business owners or managers. The easiest way to get the answer for this question is to study and get educated on dedicated servers and then know how important are dedicated servers and what role does they play in the world of business. As everyone does not have much free time in today’s world so it might be the best decision to take some time here from the busy schedules and get oneself familiar with dedicated servers and how they affect business.
A web hosting company that allows one to have the entire server is termed as dedicated server. As the name itself says that it is dedicated to only one person and it is not shared by anyone else. There are many types of dedicated servers existing for purchase, but the most important thing you need to know first is whether your business really call for a dedicated server or not.
If one is thinking of having a dedicated server, then he/she possibly owns a business website. If this is the situation, the every day use of the internet will rather help to decide whether or not he/she should go for a dedicated server. For example, if their site is having more than 2000 users daily, he/she should sincerely think about having a dedicated server. Besides, if one observes that his website is working slow then this might be a sign that his business would be boosted and need to switchover to dedicated server.
One now needs to think about what type of dedicated servers he/she needs after doing research on whether he/she is in need of a dedicated server and has come to the conclusion that dedicated server is required for his/her business. Two most important types of dedicated servers that one might think about using are Managed and Unmanaged Dedicated Servers. Now if one decides upon an unmanaged dedicated server, here he/she is purchasing the server and the equipment one need to run it. But on the other hand, if one goes for managed dedicated server he/she will end up with all of the equipment required as well as help in getting it set up and retained. Here one need not worry about anything else apart from the content of his/her website.
Consequently once one has decided that he/she needs a dedicated server and that it should be either managed or unmanaged, one now need to think about “where to get it from?”. Online purchase is the best place to investigate for dedicated server. Here we can find pretty good number of server dealers and manufacturers having great websites. And going through the reviews of different servers by nation who have already bought and used them can be a good idea. One can help oneself to make a good purchase by doing the research in advance.
It is not easy to decide whether you should make such a big business move or not, as when you are buying a dedicated server, should take your own time to measure the company’s requirement against the cost of making a large investment like managed or unmanaged dedicated servers. Sometimes people end up with spending a lot of money which was not at all required if they make such a purchase blindly whereas on the other hand if the numbers work out properly, a dedicated server can be of immense value to the company and can boost business, and raise ones efficiency. So always take your own time to evaluate ones server requirement, investigate properly before any purchase one chooses to go for. One will positively make the correct server decision, just with a little bit of education.
Creating Free Websites As A More Cost-Effective Move
You have two general options when you want to have some presence online. The first option is that you can hire someone and the professional can create the websites for you. This is the common and the traditional route for many business owners who have the financial muscle and this is the choice by those looking for quicker results. But there is a problem here if you want your free websites made this way. This can route can be costly since the services of the professionals can be expensive these days and even though you can find providers of cheap services, you cannot be sure of their work and the websites that they can create for you can be questionable at best.
A better option is creating these free websites
But there is nothing to worry since you have option number 2. Your second option is getting free websites without having to pay too much. These free websites can be yours for less or no price since you are the one who will do much of the work and you will use the free tools as provided by free site builders online. Now if you are looking for cost-effective ways on how to expand your presence online then you know what to get and where to turn to. You should get the services of the builders of free websites and you need to make use of the tools provided for by the free site builders online.
The many benefits of choosing free websites as assisted by free site builders
Taking this ‘shortcut’ to building free websites just take a fraction of your time and this can be considered as less demanding for people who have limited knowledge in HTML and coding. Going this route is also cost-effective on your part since you will spend more time using and taking advantage of our free websites rather than spend so much time designing and developing these free websites. And more importantly, this route effectively provides the right balance between time and money. So if you are already convinced that this route is the route that you should take then now is the time to learn the fact that in creating these free websites you will be required to follow a number of simple steps.
General steps required in creating free websites
The first thing that you need to do is to find site builders that can guide you in creating your free websites. These online site builders that come for free will allow you to freely make use of their online tools in order to design and to publish your free websites. These online site builders will make the creation of free websites easy thanks to their easy drag and drop interface which can be followed without having the need to have technical skills. These websites offer step-by-step guide in finalizing the free websites plus these site builders will come up with free domain hosting and will also give you with lots of professional designs to choose from. There is another simple way of creating your free websites, and this can be done by starting blogs. Business blogs are now considered as hot industry marketing tools right now and these blogs are often used in conjunction with typical free websites. And often, you may no longer need the services of free websites and all you need are these blogs!

