What Kind of Things to Look For in a Business Web Hosting ServiceProvider



When it comes to setting up a business website, it is important for you to find a good business web hosting provider first. There are many factors to consider when looking for a provider. It is important not to choose the first company that comes your way, but to make sure that your provider is able to cater to the needs of your business best. In order to do this, you have take into account several factors that come into play. Some of these are the following: disk space, bandwidth, affordability, reliability, money back guarantee, and technical support availability.

First off, you need to check whether the business web hosting provider allows you to upgrade into a bigger bandwidth and disk space in the future. Some providers offer small hosting packages, which may be well suited to many start-up businesses; however this may not suffice once your company begins to experience growth and consequently starts to build up on traffic. There is a need for a bigger bandwidth when your website accumulates traffic, or when you begin to add more images and content into your site. Thus, you might want to go for a hosting provider that offers more flexible plans for your business.

Secondly, you also need to check on the reliability of the business web hosting company. There are many hosting companies found online, all offering different services at different rates; however you need to find a company that you can truly rely on. Does the company employ hosting professionals who can help you with your needs? Have they been in the business for a considerable time already? Do they have sufficient back up servers which can cater to emergency needs? By asking questions like these you can find the hosting provider that gives you the kind of services you really need.

Affordability is often a crucial factor but there are also instances when you get the kind of service that you pay for. Thus, before you settle for any affordable business web hosting provider, you also need to look into the kind of services that they offer. Does their cheapest plan cover your needs? Or would you rather get a more expensive plan that will give your business the kinds of solutions it needs? Many start-up businesses begin with a cheaper plan, only to choose a more expensive one as their business needs begin to grow. However if you have a smaller budget in the meantime, choosing affordable services will help you get started.

Whether you have a web-based business or you plan on improving the presence of your existing business online, it is important for you to have a functional website. You cannot do this however if you are unable to choose a reputable business web hosting company. A web hosting company can give you right online hosting solutions. By looking into the factors listed above it will be easier for you to find a web hosting company that will provide your business with what it needs, in terms of building online presence and targeting more customers.

Top Tips For Small Business Web Site Design



Many companies spend thousands of pounds paying designers to develop their web site. These budgets are often beyond the reach of small businesses. This article provides tips for small business web site design to get fantastic results from simple and inexpensive design implementation.

Your website is like a shop window into your business. To entice potential customers to browse around, it has to have a structured look about it. To encourage them to stay and return, you have to present them with quality content. Purchases follow when the user trusts you and you have a compelling offer that solves their problem. All of this can be aided considerably with easy web design.

Your well organised web site tells the user that you are a professional and take care of your business. It's likely to install far more confidence than something that looks like it was put together in five minutes. If you take care of your web site, you will be perceived as being more likely to take care of your customers.

Good design starts with how your site looks. People don't read sites in the same way that they read books. Instead of taking time, they are looking to quickly skim through a site, pick up the required information, and move on. Thus it's essential that you present your content in an easy to digest manner.

For your site to have a good visual impact you should ensure,

  • A high contrast between your text colour and your background. The greatest contrast you can achieve is black and white and, as black text on a white background is what most people are familiar with, this is also easiest on the users eyes.

  • Font used is easy to read. This essentially comprises of two parts - the size of the font and the style. Don't make your font so small that it's difficult to read. For the same reason flamboyant styles should be avoided. The number of different styles used should be kept to a minimum.

  • Use simple backgrounds. A plain background will allow the user to focus on what is on your site. Using busy or patterned backgrounds simply provides something to distract the visitor.

  • Avoid clashing colours. Colours that are too different such as purple and yellow, or the use of lots of bold colours are generally hard on the eye. Visitors are likely to click away to a more visually pleasing site.

  • Images and videos display correctly on the site. A page showing numerous empty boxes just looks tatty and clearly isn't showing your offering to its best potential.

  • Pop up windows should be kept to a minimum, if used at all. Having something, totally unrequested, suddenly appear on the screen, is likely to annoy your visitor and therefore do more harm than good.


Good web site design isn't only about visual impact, but also about the feel of your site, i.e. how easy it is to find things and navigate around the site. This experience can be aided by providing,

  • A consistent layout. For example, if a search box is in the top right hand corner of one page, it should be in the same position on all other pages.

  • A logical menu structure. The main subject categories of the site should have their own menu heading. Related subjects should be found under the appropriate main heading.

  • Good internal links. These will help the user to move quickly and easily to the information they are interested in.

  • A sitemap. Here a user can get an immediate feel for what the site is all about and where things can be found. As the site grows in size, the presence of a sitemap becomes more important.


The final element of good web site design is your content, after all this is what your visitors are actually interested in. When presenting your content you should ensure it is,

  • Quality content. It needs to be interesting, informative and relevant to the subject of your site in order to capture the interest of your visitor.

  • Regularly updated. This will encourage your visitor to keep returning to your site.

  • Presented in an easy to read format. Readers are looking for bite size chunks of information so, as well as complying with the points discussed above, you should ensure that your paragraphs are kept short. Where possible, bullet points should be used. This allows the users to quickly skim through, picking out the salient points.

  • Use images correctly. Images should be used as they break up the space on the page and add to the visual experience. However, they need to be high quality and loaded with an image editing package which can reduce the file to a minimum size. Large files will simply take too long to load so you will risk losing the reader.

  • Avoid music. Unless you have a music site, background music should be avoided. A sudden blast of music which then proceeds to loop is often unwanted and annoying. As such it detracts from the users' experience.


Finally, you should make sure your site conforms to the standards set out at www.w3.org and that it is compatible across the main web browsers. When you put all of the above into practice you should end up with a small business web site design which promotes your business to its best advantage giving you a fantastic business asset.

5 Costly Small Business Web Hosting Mistakes



As every small business startup or owner you are seriously thinking about cutting the costs. And one of the first things to look at when doing business online is web hosting.

You want to get top quality, but don't want to pay much. It makes sense given the fierce competition in web hosting space. However, there are numerous cases where people just lose money when they choose a bad host. So how do you make sure your small business hosting needs are satisfied? Well pay close attention to these 5 mistakes many startups makes when choosing a host. This may save you money in the long run:

1. Not Emailing Technical Support - Tech support is #1 priority when choosing a web host. You would assume that companies who do business make sure their support is top notch. Boy would you be surprised. Many times they don't respond or are lacking basic understanding. What will you do when you have a technical issue and need a quick fix? Always email the host and look at the response time. Good hosts reply within hours, sometimes minutes. Test their phone, live chat support, see what they know. Ask many questions, you need to test their expertise.

2. Not Checking How Long They've Been in Business - When you invest money in web hosting even for small business, you expect a good quality. But choosing a new company to work with is risky. They may be too small, run from a warehouse or garage. Or they may be heading for bankruptcy. If a web host can last longer than 3 or 5 years in the environment, they're pretty save to do business with. Check their domain age to make sure they are long enough in this business.

3. No Analyzing the Features - You have to plan this step ahead. What will be your requirements. What's your business plan and strategy. If you are thinking of making one presentation website for your clients, but doing business mostly offline, then you don't need much really. On the other hand what if you plan to make 10 websites a week with WordPress blogs. You later notice that your small business web host only allows 1 MySQL database per account. Ouch, you're busted. So plan ahead and carefully examine the features of a web host.

4. Falling for Review Sites - There are so many review sites around that it's hard to count. If you type in web hosting review into search engine, you'll get millions of results. No it's a good idea to look at some review sites, but you have to be careful. Most of these sites (99% to be correct) are there just to make money. So they'll promote anyone who pays them most. Do not blindly believe reviews you read from these sites. Check their Whois data, if they're hosting with a different host than their #1 recommended, then why should you even listen to them?

5. Jumping on "Unlimited" Bandwagon - Now more and more companies offer unlimited bandwidth and space. It means you can store unlimited number of files and also receive unlimited monthly traffic. However not always unlimited is really unlimited. Read their policies carefully. Some small business web hosting companies say unlimited, but actually put a limit on number of files you can store. In this case, it may be better going with the one that offers specific server space, than unlimited. If you're pumping 100,000's of small files to the server, then unlimited is usually not for you. Check with you host.

In Conclusion

I have shared just a few small business web hosting tips. But you may want to pay close attention to these. You don't want to invest hundreds of dollars into a web host to later find out that they're lacking small feature, which you desperately need.

And when you do get small business hosting, make sure you take full advantage of them. Use coupons and grab the chosen host for a year or two. If you've done proper research, you'll choose the right host. Most of them offer money back, so you're safe in the beginning anyway. But buying long-term hosting will always cost you less, sometimes 30%-50% less.

Three Things to Consider Before Submitting to a Business Web Directory




It's a fact, no matter how well designed or how impressive your product, if nobody knows who you are odds are your website might as well not exist.

Things have changed from the days of the brick and mortar marketplace. Where store fronts and marquees were all easily seen and located. Where once a city's growth, was a determining factor for the amount of business's available in any given area, a drive down main street and the local mall were all that was needed to identify and locate any particular business. Now we see a much different marketplace, gone are the good ole days when local shop owners had the security of knowing they had the only game in town. Now the rules have changed the number of business available to the average consumer are almost infinite, as well as the products offered.

Getting your business web site up and running is the first step. The second step is getting your business noticed. One of the best ways to get your new online business up in the public eye is to submit to a business web directory. Finding one is as easy as typing in the search engine "web directory" or "business web directory," and choosing one of the many web directory services available. Each business directory on the web will require submission of your web site for approval and will have certain criteria that must be met on the content and site operation. Making sure that your site meets these requirements before submitting will ensure quick and easy placement in the search rankings.

Three important things to consider:

1. Does your website contain unique and interesting content? Dynamic and informative articles, product displays and interesting content are usually viewed as more appealing to the consumer and will rank higher in the numerous search engines. The more innovative and informative the better.

2. Is your website user-friendly? Make sure your links, pictures and products do not contain broken or incorrect links. This is a sure way to have your submission refused. Check all links and product information for errors thoroughly several times.

3. Check to make sure that your website meets web standards for accepted web content. These standards were developed by business's and organizations within the consortium in order to standardize web applications for the World Wide Web. To find out more visit the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) FAQs page online for a complete list and explanation of the W3C standards.

Once you have made sure that your website meets these criteria you are ready to submit your website to a business web directory. Your diligence and attention to detail will go far in assuring that your website is placed high in the search engine rankings, bringing you one step closer to getting your business off to a fast and profitable start. It could very possibly be the difference between a successful venture into the virtual marketplace and one of failure and frustration.

As with all endeavors, the more effort in the preparation the better the outcome. Whether your business is well established or new, proper search engine ranking is imperative for success in the online marketplace.

Website Content Development - 6 Secrets of Highly Magnetic SmallBusiness Web Sites




Website content development is often one of the most commonly overlooked aspects of developing successful small business web sites. A small business website built on a foundation of content marketing results in greater search engine referrals, better brand positioning, and more opportunities for relationship building with clients and prospects.

Here are 6 tips for building a highly magnetic small business web site; one that attracts thousands of highly targeted prospects, draws return visits from clients and customers and converts web traffic into revenues.

1. A Clear And Focused USP

A Unique Selling Proposition and a marketing communications strategy should be established for your business before you start developing your web content strategy. When web visitors come to your website, they need to know fairly quickly what your web site is ultimately about.

2. Personalized Content Positioning

Building trust online is one of the most difficult elements to master in your internet marketing plan. People who visit your website need to know that there is a person behind it that they can connect with, and hold accountable. Many business owners unwittingly bore their visitors away by copying the dull, personality-free copywriting of their competitors.

Have at least one person in your organization be the "voice" of your web site. That means your articles and your informational sections should represent a particular person, offer opinions and a feature a unique "voice".

3. Long-Tail Keyword Strategy

Long tail keywords are the 3, 4 or 5 word phrases that might be entered into the search engine inquiry boxes by web visitors seeking very specific information. A website built on a foundation of numerous "long-tail" keywords very quickly develops a strong traffic base that attracts highly targeted visitors.

You are likely to rank in the first page of the Search Engine Results Pages much earlier for these terms than for very broad (and highly competitive) keywords or keyword phrases.

4. Multimedia Content

Having a section of your site dedicated to podcast recordings and relevant video content is a great way to build engagement on your site and bring people coming back. You may want to store the actual files on a different server from your website or on a content sharing site (i.e. YouTube, iTunes) so that you do not affect the load times of your web pages.

5. An Email Series

Connecting an email contact form to your web site and following up with web visitors is the most reliable way to stimulate return visits. Since most internet visitors never go back even to websites that they bookmark, you should never take the risk of depending on visitors to remember your site.

Instead, create a complete system for motivating visitors to give you their contact information, develop an email contact (auto-responder) series to stay in touch and to invite them back to the resources of your website, including your products and services.

6. Visitor-Generated Website Content Development

Give your website visitors a way to send you feedback about your products, your services, and your content. Your website content development efforts will be in vain if you avoid interaction with your website visitors. Since people are quite voyeuristic, the most engaged visitors to your website will be as interested in what other visitors are saying as they will be in the content you share.

Most small business websites solve the challenge of creating interaction by creating a blog. However, the powerful small business website platform known as Site Build It! now includes an amazingly powerful module called Content 2.0. This module allows small business website owners to invite visitor feedback and add their feedback as search-engine indexable web pages. This means that the web visitors can now lend a big hand in creating website content.

Conclusion

By implementing these and other web content development strategies you will ensure that your website powerfully pre-sells your business to prospects and brands it to your clients, partners and market influencers.

Are You Missing 3 Important Crests While Providing Business Web DesignServices?




While doing one or the other things forgetting a small tip is not something very big although but it is important to rectify that small mistake instantly. Are you confused whether you are aware of your mistake or not? A very common question asked by everyone. However there are few points which should be remembered always while designing any website no matter whether you are prioritizing corporate sites or general trading site. The job of the web designer is to follow those crests in order to serve the clients with the best web design services.

While considering business website design services, the focus should be on professionalism. While you work in a corporate your search process directs to professionalism similarly while designing the corporate websites, professionalism is the only constraint that is expected from the web designers. The question is not only of professional web designing but there are few other constraints that should be taken into consideration while planning to design the corporate websites.

That's Business Web Design Services!

When you are dealing with the corporate sector, it is important to display the goodwill in the market as well as the services to the huge world so that, people could know about the business and the market reputation. People while surfing internet, gets attracted by the design so, just one shot and you can drive traffic at your website.

While designing professional websites, designers are more focused towards the "to the point" designing concept. That means they do prefer to design the website in such a way where bluffs are strictly avoided. Decent color schemes are selected for the website designing. The website is designed in such a way that it demonstrates mainly regarding the 'company' and less regarding the 'design'. The website should be mainly designed to drag the dealer's attention and less to the general public. It should meet all the required expectations of the people visiting the website.

3 Important Constraints to Indulge in Business Web Design Services:

A lot many things one needs to be incurred in the websites while planning to provide business web design services. Few amongst them can be points as follows:
*Creativity with Professionalism:
This is true mixture of innovation. Website designers are in born creative but while designing business websites, designers must indulge their professionalism in the quality work because it is all about the business that needs to get focused and not the design. However the look is obviously get portrayed through the best design services. So be creative and professional rather than biased.
*Goodwill is More Important:
For the corporate based websites the main idea is not to sell products but to leave a good impression among clients. Websites help in creating impression to the offshore clients with who you might be dealing with. So, whenever planning to design the corporate websites always search for the best web designing company who can guide you to the right space.
*Customers are Always Right!
If visitors are proposing something while visiting your website then, take it positively. Make improvement in the designing so that it can become more users friendly by properly setting the navigational keys. This will not only increase the market reputation of your business but also it will help people to understand their importance.

These are the tips, which is not possible to practice unless you hire web designers from a respectable firm. So before anything chose a reputed website designing firm that can serve you the best with the business web design services. While your desires will be high, it would be definitely accomplished soon.

Business Web Hosting - For the Business Type




Business web hosting is oriented towards personal or commercial business plans that include creating a functional, reliable and safe web-site which can server your clients for information and orders. It is important for the future of your web-site to choose a good and reliable secure web hosting which can ensure you with unlimited bandwidth and hard-disk space and other extras and options depending on your plans for the web-site. But not all of these statements are true - many of them just seek personal benefits by just taking you are money and giving you an unreliable and poor quality services which can result in you losing clients of you are using that web hosting for a business web-site. And that is why we are here to offer you the best plans that can provide you with high quality services and reliable support.

The important characteristics you should look out for when selecting a secure hosting are - bandwidth and hard-disk space limits, database and development languages support. The bandwidth and hard-disk space depend on what your web-site is promoting and how many times it will be visited so if you are a big company with big concepts for the future you will need a hosting plan with unlimited bandwidth and hard-disk space.

Depending on what web-site you are planning to create you may need support for different web development languages like php, perl and others as well as support for databases that can allow registering of users, posting of comments and other needed and functional extras. Of course the decision if the web-site should have those extras is completely for you to choose.

So depending on your needs you will have to choose from different business web hosting plans that will provide you with different resources and extras. From the cheapest secure web hosting providing you with limited bandwidth and hard-disk space to the top plans which give you unlimited bandwidth and digital space and the possibility to create a flexible and functional web-site using different development application languages! So if you are a small home company or a big enterprise you will need a web-site which can promote your new offers and products. No matter which category you go to we can give you the best offers at extremely competitive rates of cost.

Why Small Business Web Design Gets a Bad Name: Findability, Brandingand Content




Part 1: Findability The findability of most small business websites is so poor that the only prospects who ever make it to your site were probably already aware of your company and were searching specifically for you. Maybe they typed in the url off of your business card, or clicked your link in your email signature. This is good, but what about the mass of people who are searching for your products or services, who don't yet know that you exist? Will your website show up in their Google searches, Facebook combing, LinkedIn asking, or forum posting? How many times have you heard a business owner gripe over the lack of "results" that they have seen from their website? The problem is that results come from actually doing something on an ongoing basis, in a skilled way.

  • search engine optimization

  • online advertising

  • Google AdWords

  • social media marketing

  • content development

  • traditional advertising

  • blogging

  • link-building

  • email marketing

  • direct mail


These all need to work together from a big picture plan, down to the nitty-gritty, in order to have a truly findable website. Only then can you start to get down to the real nuts-and-bolts of what really works or doesn't work on the website. Moral of the story: don't bash a site until you're doing all of the right things to get people to the site. If you're getting traffic, and still no conversions, then you know you've really got an on-site issue.

Part 2: Branding

In Part 2, we will go over Branding, how many small business websites fail to execute it effectively, and what effect that has on the business. Firstly, what is branding? Branding is an umbrella term for the overall perception of your business. For our purposes, true branding is the sum of all of the intentional efforts that you make to portray a certain attitude, emotion, philosophy, or value about your business. This includes your logo, your brochures, the typefaces and colors that you use, how you answer the telephone, and of course, your website. Basically, your brand, and your website, is responsible to give the right vibes. How do you want your company to appear? Corporate? Friendly? Authoritative? Neighborhood beauty shop, or celebrity stylist? We'll come to you, or you come to us? You must have a clear and detailed answer to this question - an answer that is tied to your business goals. Then all of your website's visuals, interactions, copywriting, structure and functionality must follow suit. You might think that the most common problem with small business web design that fails to brand effectively is that they choose the wrong voice - that the website presents the wrong answer to the "Who are you?" question - a friendly, neighborhood family accountant coming off as an impersonal tax cruncher, for example.

While that is often the case, just as often the website looks almost totally unbranded. The small business website design is too often an afterthought executed in between the operational hubub of actually running the business. It gets tossed up onto the web without any inkling of the true personality of the organization, but instead looks templated, unprofessional, nondescript, and worst of all, forgettable. Let's say you're that neighborhood, family-values accountant - would you rather your receptionist answer the phone flatly, "XYZ Taxes." Or in a friendly tone, "Good Morning, XYZ Family Finance Consultants, how can we help ensure your family's financial comfort?" Which do you think your callers will remember? The Branding segment's answer to the question, "Why does small business web design get a bad name?" is this: Upon hearing your dull receptionist answer the phone forgettably, you should demand that he do better to represent your brand, or hire somebody who will. Just the same, while working with your online marketing company in developing your website, you should ensure that you ask the right questions. Once they've been answered completely, ensure that, based on those answers, your website is a clear and compelling representation of your brand's personality and purpose.

Part 3: Website Content

A big problem for small business websites is not having content that is well-written and structured. Once someone has found your website, you want to be able to grab their attention and tell them how they will benefit from using your services in a way that will hold their interest. There are 3 very important factors to the content on your website: Content Strategy In most cases, when a company wants a website built, the last thing they tend to think about is how relevant and interesting the content is to the visitors of their site. They fill the site with an overabundance of "fluff" that only serves the purpose of filling up the pages. This kind of content consists of vague and confusing statements which usually don't give the potential client a direct answer as to HOW they are going to serve them. This is indeed one of the failings in small business web design. This is where "Content Strategy" comes in.

This is the planning stage. You have to think about how relevant the content would be to your target audience and write about what you know they would care about most. Get to the heart of what you're offering, but if you need to get there through the side-door, do it. Find the middle ground between your readers' interests and your core offerings and value. When you have a clear Content Strategy, you have a plan for growth which is more than essential in small business web design. Your blog posts will all follow a relevant theme, your new pages will be on-point, even your email blasts will have a compass to your reader's clicks. Content Language When someone visits your site, they already have a certain goal in mind. When you've figured this out in your Content Strategy, you must then provide information that is straightforward, concise and if appropriate, entertaining. Web content is not like print content. People do not want to read brochure fluff. They expect to be spoken to directly in a conversational tone. They expect action-oriented copy that stays on point and serves them, not your business.

Further, when writing web content you need to quite literally choose your words. Having a strong search engine strategy in place will allow you to pepper every piece of content with keyword phrases that search engines will gobble up and serve to searchers on a silver platter (otherwise known as the first page of Google). Content Structure Structure your content so that the path to what your potential client is looking for could be easily found and acted upon. This includes both the internal structure of each content piece as well as the structure of your site's navigation. Time is of the essence, most people just move on if they can't find what they what and need right away. Have a clear path to relevant content based on what the user is currently viewing and how they got to you. Use bullet points, callouts, headlines, and get to the point quickly. Don't try to build up suspense in the first paragraph and hit them with a bang in the fourth, which happens quite a bit in small business web design. Hit them with relevant content in the first sentence. Content Should Be:

  • to-the-point

  • action-oriented

  • easy to read (bullets, highlights, callouts, sidebars)

  • clearly organized

  • conversational

  • SEO friendly


By having a well-written website with a well-planned content strategy, you could potentially increase the amount of business you are taking in. This will be due to your site being much more organized, interesting, visible and geared toward the customer's needs.

Summary

Pay close attention to the website findability, website branding, and website content of your small business web design and you will have a formula that even the flashiest websites that ignore these can't beat. Prospects will FIND you, prospects will RECOGNIZE you, and prospects will RESPECT you.

Choosing a Small Business Web Design Company




Choosing the right web design company can be a very tedious task. There are thousands of small business web design companies and some not even companies at all. Doing research is very important before choosing a web design company for your small business. Small businesses have unique challenges whether being a start up or a company operating already. Most companies have strict budgets and the last thing that business wants is to get taken for a ride and have to shell out more money than originally wanted. Good news for you business owners, I am about to give you some tips on choosing a small business web design company that is perfect for your company.

The first and maybe the most important thing is due diligence. Doing research on a company is critical before signing contracts or handing any money over. Do a quick Google search with the companies name as the keyword. If you are seeing positive results then that's a good thing. If you are seeing rip off reports, or complaint boards coming up that is a big negative. As a small business web design company owner I would never give money to a company that has negative listings on Google. There can be some exceptions to the rule but highly unlikely.

The second important tip is to look at the work that small business web Design Company has completed. Compare the portfolio with multiple companies. You will be able to see the difference between good design and bad design. If you take a look at the portfolio and it's not up to par then I would move on to the next company. The small business web design company portfolio speaks volumes for the creativity and cleanliness of the designs they can develop for your business.

Another great way to find the right small business web design company for you is calling and speaking to someone over the phone. If you are calling companies and never getting a response back from them or you are getting voice mails all the time that should raise a red flag. Submit an online quote request and see how fast they get back to you on business days. Our company responds within 24 hours to all quote requests submitted during the week, whether it is by email or phone. If the company is not responding quickly then that should give you a heads up on how they do business and I would stay clear of that company.

The last and final tip I can suggest to small business owners looking to have a small business web design company create their website is to use a design company that is located in the USA. Sure you can save a ton of money by farming your work to India, but think about it for a minute. In this day and age you get what you pay for. I have had tons of clients tell me that exact same thing and it's really true! Most of the work that is done overseas is very low quality design and development coding. Would you rather pay a little extra to get your small business website done properly or would you want to pay a small business web design company twice to fix or start over on the errors that happened by outsourcing your project. Another thing about using outside the USA companies is there policies can be very vague and if they disappear with your money you are out everything you spent and have nothing to show for it. At least with the USA laws you can try to collect from that company by contacting your local law enforcement or attorney general. Language barrier is also another key problem to using companies overseas.

If you follow the tips I have supplied in this article you will find that perfect small business web design company to help you achieve all your business goals and needs.

Affordable Business Web Site Hosting - Read This Or Waste Time and Money



Choosing affordable business web site hosting is a delicate thought process. It is not just so simple as selecting personal web site hosting. A number of components have to be taken into consideration or it could end up costing you time, money, complications and frustration in the long run.

Listed below are few key issues you need to think about when choosing business web site hosting:

Type of Hosting - While you shop around for reasonably priced business web site hosting, you'll often see an alternative for Linux or Windows hosting. This is customary. These are website server selections that will allow you to run Windows or Linux software. Consider carefully about your needs and packages that you will want to run when making your selection. Or better yet, seek out a host that gives you the option to run both Linux and Windows applications.

Bandwidth - It's good to try your best to get affordable business web site hosting with several thousand gigabytes (GB) of bandwidth, unlimited if possible. By doing this, your monthly price will cover all site visitors that you generate to your site be it large or small. Some business website hosting companies may sound good, but it may not have enough bandwidth to deal with your online business (or future enterprise quantity). This is when they are going to charge you more on the back-end for extra bandwidth, and you really don't want this now do you? So select your hosting bundle carefully. You by no means can project how many visitors your site will generate - so it's best to go BIG!

Control Panel Access - And this is essential, at least it is to me. I would positively suggest that you choose a web host that will provide you with full control panel entry (cPanel). This will enable you (or your designated webmaster) to be able to check account statistics and make changes or alterations to your website whenever necessary.

The above are key points to consider when selecting an enterprise website online hosting provider. Depending on your online business, there may be different considerations that have to make to accommodate your business needs, but this should steer you in the right direction.

It is not necessary to spend an arm and a leg for business quality web hosting. Affordable business web site hosting does exist. However don't get caught up on the cheapest price; think about what your business needs - and be sure that the web host provider can fulfill those needs! It is best to shop around and examine no less than 3 business web hosts before making your choice.

The Importance of Small Business Web Design



Small businesses have a lot to evaluate, but really the most important thing is attracting customers.

In a challenging economy, that can be much easier said than done. Try taking a step back and evaluating things from your customer's perspective. Customers have needs, and want to locate the places that meet that need as quickly as possible.

There's always the phone book, but there are questions that go along with the purchase. It'd be best to get answers without having to make several phone calls, and doing all that investigative work. So instead of the phone book, many customers will sit down at their computer and do an Internet search.

This is where quality small business web design comes into play. For a web site to be completely successful, it needs to be strong in three areas, all equally important. If one area is lacking, it could be detrimental for your web site.

First, you'll want your business to come up in searches, such as the example above. Otherwise the hard work sunk into other phases of the project is pointless. Your web site needs to work for you to attract new customers, and be search engine friendly. While it is impossible to directly predict or guarantee anything the search engines may do, there are plenty of things web designers and even the business owners can do to aid the site's chances of success in this area.

Next, the site also needs to be well-designed and inviting for customers. An attractive design will go a long way in keeping customers interested in your web site, and ultimately your brand. There also needs to be a clear navigational layout to the web site, so that customers can find their way around and get the information that they need.

Last, but still important, is a web site's written message. The message needs to be quick and clear. It needs to answer the original question that the customer came for. It needs to do this while being well written at the same time. Nothing will turn a customer away quicker than spelling or grammar errors.

Small business web design needs to strike a balance in all these areas in order to succeed, and a strong web site is one of the best marketing tools that a business can have right now to attract new customers.

Good Business Web Hosting Plan Is Not Necessary Expensive



Contrary to the belief that quality should come with extra cost, a good business web hosting plan need not necessarily be expensive. In fact, there are a lot of business web hosting plans that are excellent and yet very affordable. If you only know what to look for in a web host, you will definitely get the best deal.

While cost is one of the major considerations in choosing a hosting company, quality and performance should not be compromised. The benefits that a good business web host offers can never be equaled by any amount. In any business web site, it is very important to sell products and services directly through the site itself. Thus, eCommerce hosting solutions are important considerations in choosing a business hosting service as well.

Although a lot of businesses most often fail to see the importance of having the right business web host, most of them still prefer having a good hosting company for their business needs. Basically, small business web site hosting requires these standard features from its hosting provider.

First and foremost are powerful Linux or Windows servers that are grounded on reliable hardware and software. These are very important in making your web site work. Regardless of the fancy design and programming, if your site is not working, no one will be able to do business with you.

Second is 24/7 technical support. Even the best monitored servers even go astray at times. Thus when this happens, it is important that the hosting company is able to provide you with solutions fast. Whether it might just be for some errors that need to be corrected, or a more serious technical problem, a reliable hosting provider offers technical support around the clock including holidays.

On top of these standard features, a good business web hosting plan should be able to allow you to manage your web site yourself through the control panel that comes with the plan. With this set up, you can have access to virtually everything occurring on your web site and make suitable changes whenever necessary. Moreover, a web host should be able to back up your web site daily. Not all companies provide this feature, but this is essential for any business web site.

In addition, the hosting company should be able to provide your customers with security. The features and tools that you offer in your site should have the same level of security as that which gives you security through SSL certification.

More importantly, a good business web hosting plan should be able to save you a lot of money through affordable prices and even discount promos. The good news is there are actually a number of these hosting companies that offer affordable, qualitative, and excellent business hosting plans for small to medium sized businesses.

Business Web Hosting - Basic Questions in Finding the Best Business WebHost



Building a web site is not really that hard to do, there are many applications, software and templates that can help improve the appearance of a website, but when it comes to building a website for business then it's a whole different story. Business web hosting will depend on a number of factors.

Choosing the right hosting provider is actually the main key in order to succeed. But because there are many hosting companies offering this today, choosing the best web host can be a bit tricky. To make it easier for you to decide, here are some basic questions to guide you in finding the best business web hosting provider.

1. Are they providing the right hosting package?

Web host companies offer different package deals. Although some of them offer overwhelming features, not all of these features can actually be use in business. Features like free Domain registration, Cpanel and free website management are some of the important features that are mostly needed in business.

2. Are they charging reasonable amount?

Of course budget is important in business. There are many hosting providers who offer the same web services for a much lesser amount, if you think they are over pricing their price then don't be afraid to leave them behind as there are thousands more to choose from.

3. Will they be able to run 24/7?

For a business to successfully prosper online, a web host provider should always be online 24/7. If it always goes offline, then look for a different web host provider immediately.

Success of a Business web hosting will be very dependent on the hosting provider, which is why choosing the best web host is definitely a must.

What To Look For In A Good Business Web Hosting Service



Choosing a business web hosting service is really important aspect of any successful business operation. The price factor is certainly going to be a major consideration but there are several other crucial factors that you will need to think about, too. A reliable, secure host will ensure that your customers will be able to find your website and it will also help them to feel confident about doing business with your company. Here are some tips to help you choose the best business web hosting service for your company's needs.

Reliability Is a Primary Concern

Reliability is one of the most important things to consider. If your website is not accessible, customers won't be able to find you. They may quickly become impatient and look for another company to do business with. Ask the host what their up-time percentage is. If it's less than 99%, go somewhere else.

Security Is Essential

Security is also an important consideration. This is especially true if you accept payments through your site. All of the transactions need to be secure, especially in your shopping carts. You will also want secure and reliable data centers to keep the financial information of your customers. Ask the business web hosting service where their data centers are located. One that has multiple data center locations will be the most secure.

Easy-to-Use Control Panels

The hosting service you choose should allow you to make content changes as you see fit. You probably do not want to rely on someone else' technical ability to do so. Many business web hosting services have a control panel that lets you change passwords, email accounts and even product listings. This will save you a lot of time and money, but more importantly, the headache of relying on someone else to take care of it.

Bandwidth and Disk Space Are also Valid Concerns

Next, you want a business web hosting service that gives you enough bandwidth. However, you really do not want a company that advertises unlimited bandwidth, because eventually, you will probably end up paying more for it. Disk space is also important, because it deals with how much information you can put on your website.

Pricing and Customer Support

Make sure you are getting a competitive price and great technical support. The best way to make sure is to look through the review sites for reviews from past and current customers. Customer service issues seem to be most of the major complaints. You don't want to get an answering machine when your site is down. You want a 24-hour support staff to contact. For pricing matters, you can also check the review sites. Some of the web hosting companies offer ridiculously low rates, but will end up charging for every little extra they offer. The reviews will be a great source of information about these types of companies and the services they provide.

In closing, finding a web hosting service that offers all of this is easier than you might think. Since there are hundreds of hosting companies, you certainly have several choices. When you find a great hosting company, you'll probably be very glad you took the time to do the research ahead of time.

Small Business Web Hosting Guide

Why We Need to Create a Web Site for Small Business

No need to explain more on this one, you will need to build web site for a small business to:

  • Build credibility: Customers expect to find you online
  • Makes it easy for prospects to learn about your company, contact you, or get directions to your location
  • Expands your reach beyond your local geographic area
  • Enables you to pursue a host of targeted, low-cost marketing strategies

Choose a Name for Small Business Web Site

First, you will need to think about a domain for your company site, choose something that will make sense to your business. Unless you want to spend a lot of money to advertise your web site, you will need to think about a domain name related to your product or service.

What kinds of Web Hosting You Need for Small Business Web Site

  • Basic Requirement of Web Hosting Plan for a Small Business Web Site

Basic requirement will discuss about the general feature of Small Business Web Hosting, such as disk space, band width, reliability, etc. Those are the basic feature you need to think about when you want to hosting a web site. - For small company site, a shared Linux Server web hosting plan is the best choice unless you really want to use ASP or .Net to build you site, spending more time and more money. About reliability, 99.9% up time is expected. Don't let your in-stable web site hurt your business. And high access speed is also required.

- Disk space will heavily depend on what you want to put online, but normally, you will use less than 100M. You might see most of the web hosting companies provide you huge disk space like 10g, 50g. Just take it, disk space doesn't cost you too much.

- For Email account, 100 email box will be enough and most of web hosting companies will give you it if their plan target at small business market.

- Need the basic e-commerce cart support, such as: Shopping Cart, Paypal, or SSL support.

- What about the server location? Place the server close to your targeted visitor, even you are not in that country. Such as, if you want to sell something in USA, it would be better to find a web hosting company in USA, so that your visitor can access the server faster, it also a way to show your respect to your customer.

- Usually you will get a free domain in web hosting plan, and if you only want one web site, I would like suggest you to get a web hosting plan that only host one site. You won't get it for free.

- Support: We would like to have 24*7 professional courteous support with toll free phone support to make sure the issue of our site can be solved quickly. And the good news here is some top web hosting companies have get this kinds of support center setup with very low cost, and it will not cost you too much.

  • Advanced requirement of Web Hosting Plan for a Small Business Web Site

The advanced requirement will discuss about what additional feature you will need in a small business web hosting. And the solution for it will heavily depend on what kind of capability your company has: - AD Credit Get some advertising credit from Google or Yahoo to promote your web site and drive the traffic to your business site, it's a good start to practice your internet marketing skill

- SEO Tools All web site will need SEO tools to promote its site, you might hope web hosting company can provide them unless you are skilled in it and want to do it by yourself or you want to get some other company to provide this service (That means big money need to pay out)

- Web Design Tools If you have basic knowledge about HTML, and know how to use the tool like Frontpage, you will have no need to have Web Design tools in your web hosting plan, otherwise, it would be good to have some basic web design tools from web hosting company.

  • Price

No great comment for this one, just pay what you want and get what you have paid.Reference

Business Web Designs

Basic knowledge of HTML encoding and a simple sense of artistic design can enable anyone to produce a web page and even a Web site. With cheap hosting solutions available anywhere, an individual or business can easily launch a Web site or page to serve their purpose. But not all Web sites produced this way can produce the intended results. If you are a company that must project credibility, creativity, and professionalism, you need to look to experienced and technically savvy providers for web design solutions.

Businesses need to come across as outlets of quality products and services. They must be able to convey that they can truly provide value for their client's money. People can only base their judgment on the look of a Web site and the experience they get from browsing though the site. First impressions do last and the only way people will ever check out and come back to a site is if it provides what he needs.

If for example you are an E-commerce company; you sell products and services online. Your Web site must feature enhancements such as catalogues, product check out capabilities, credit card payment processing, among others. You must also need to assure your clients of safe transactions in your Web site. They must be able to see that there are proper security protocols in place. A professional business web designer will be able to provide you with all these features.

On the other hand, if you are a company who just wants to have a Web site that promotes marketing and public relations, your Web site should be designed and structured in a way that is attractive, user friendly, and highly interactive. It must always create excitement and encourage a loyal following. A business web designer can integrate download capabilities, chat rooms, and nifty graphics. Your site must also be easy to maintain, as you would most likely have to tweak it often to provide excitement for your target audience and answer their needs.

Business Web Hosting and Different Types of Business

When creating a website, the form of web hosting that you use affects how your website runs. The classical web hosting possibilities available are optimal for many people in order to create pages with pictures, blogs, or basic video. However, for a person wanting to start an online business or start up a website in order to sell a product or provide a service, the classical web hosting services may not fulfill this need.

The best options for website hosting for many businesses on the internet is a more specialized type of business web hosting. This type of hosting is beneficial to the business as it is growing by leaps and bounds, and developing the latest technologies for putting your website on the internet and managing it well. These types of website hosts provide not just the storage and management needed to get your website on the internet, but also the capability for you to do more with your information and your business.

One of the strengths of a business web hosting services is its capability to reduce the size of a website's storage and content. It needs to match the requirements of the business to the storage capabilities of the website hosting service. Reducing the usable storage enables the website hosting service to manage multiple sites on one server. This is a way to save the hosting service quite a bit of money. Moreover, this reduction guarantees that the average online business could operate inside a hosting cost that is practical for the average owner.

There are differences between the way that web hosting groups work to support different types of businesses. For small businesses, web hosting is capable of maintaining a site despite the fact that solutions are used from multiple sources. When the operator utilizes an e-commerce software that is not offered by the host or when it uses a database program that is not managed by the server, such business web hosting groups are still capable of managing a website.

Business web hosting services are the most common types of hosts among those available on the internet. Recently, they have been experiencing an increased level of financial success as a result of their ability to provide more than web page operation service. In fact, in addition to being able to provide internet page storage, they are also increasingly able to offer many other services, such as e-commerce solutions, the creation of richer website content through platform development, and the organization of inventories and databases.

Business oriented hosting solutions are a great way for small business websites just starting out on the World Wide Web. They provide a complete solution for the business. A business web hosting group is a way for businesses to successfully launch their sites, integrating multiple technologies, business scalability, and other options into the site.

For many businesses on the internet, the best way of web hosting is the more specialized class of business web hosting. The website hosting is good for business because of its exponential growth and development of the newest technologies for erecting and managing a website. These website hosts don't only provide the storage and management in order to get your website up and running, they also provide the ability for you to do much more with your info and your business. Furthermore, web hosting for small business is capable of maintaining a site despite the fact that solutions are used from multiple sources.

Business Web Site Hosting and Automation

Business web site hosting plays a huge role in the automation of
your internet-based business. Business web site hosting plans
generally offer a lot of options that are not common to standard
web hosting services. In order for an internet business to be
automated, sometimes advanced web hosting features are necessary.
Advanced services offered through business web site hosting
programs may have extra costs associated with them, but the
availability of such options is necessary in many cases, even if
you intend to start with a small, simple website and gradually
automate your online business processes.

The most common processes to automate for the benefit of an
internet-based business are the sales and customer service
processes which can be incredibly time consuming. As an internet-
based business owner, you will find that the more tasks you can
automate, the better off you will be. Your time is much better
spent building your business than it is handling day to day
monotonous tasks. When reviewing and comparing business web site
hosting services, keep in mind not only the current, but also the
future automation needs of your business.

Sales processes are generally automated through the use of
various ecommerce solutions which enable customers to place
orders and to pay for them via the internet. Some common sales
automation tools that should be supported by your business web
site hosting company include the use of online catalogs,
electronic shopping carts and automatic payment processing
systems. The availability of email options such as setting up
auto-responders to send order confirmations and shipping
confirmations are also important features for business web site
hosting that have the potential of improving your customer
service while saving you time.

Automating confirmations helps to meet customer expectations
without taking time away from important matters that you need to
be concentrating on. Depending upon your shipping methods,
sending shipping confirmations can sometimes make it possible for
your customers to enjoy the benefits of tracking their own
packages rather than calling on your customer service
representatives to check the status of shipments.

The use of auto-responders as a follow-up marketing method, made
possible through some business web site hosting plans, is also a
great way to increase your sales. Whether email addresses are
collected from browsers or buyers, auto-responders can bet set up
to be sent to customers and prospects periodically which keeps
your business and your products or services fresh in their mind
while encouraging repeat business and referrals. Auto-responders
can also be used to answer commonly asked questions.

Some business web site hosting services charge a small fee for
each auto-responder that you send; however, some business web
site hosting packages allow you to send an unlimited number of
auto-responders without extra costs associated with them. When
reviewing and selecting a business web site hosting plan, this is
a feature to be taken into consideration.

Another thing to consider in regard to automating your sales
process is the options offered by a business web site hosting
service relating to scripts and software. For some sales
automation tools and website features, the business web hosting
that you select may need to support Real Audio, Real Video,
Shockwave, Java and other scripts and software. The required
support and compatibility between your business web site hosting
solution and your ecommerce solutions such as shopping cart
software, merchant account processing, and other real time
processing features should be considered.

Another feature of business web site hosting that may be
important to your business relates to various types of access
capabilities and fees associated with them. For instance, if you
share files with others via the internet or if your customers
need to have the capability of uploading information to you and
downloading information provided by you, FTP (file transfer
protocol) access is necessary to automate these processes. SSH
(secure shell) access may also be important to protect the
contents of files that are shared during the process of
transmission.

Who Controls Your Business Web Site?

As I get involved with more and more client web sites, I am noticing an alarming trend. Nine out of ten web site owners cannot access control of their own sites!

What do I mean by this?

If you had to change to a new hosting company, how would you go about it? Do you even have the login information for your domain account? (I can hear many of you going, "Huh?")

Or, if you want someone new to go in and make a few changes to your web site pages, can you give them FTP access? (Again, "Huh?")

Facts You Need to Know

Every web site is comprised of two parts:

1. Domain name (i.e. yourname.com)

2. Web Hosting (i.e. the actual web space where you "park" your domain)

You have to sign up and pay for each of these services separately. Even if your host offers domain name registration, it is still two separate accounts and you need to have the login information for each.

Domain Name

As I said, your domain name is your web site URL, such as yoursite.com. You must pay for ownership of your domain yearly. It's not very expensive, but it is very important to know that is must be renewed. If you let your registration lapse, your site will disappear, even if your hosting account is current.

You need to be able to access your domain account to tell the Internet where to look for your site. Your DNS settings inside your domain account indentify the host server space where you web site files reside.

This sounds more complicated than it really is. Your host has a machine called a server that stores web site files. The DNS settings tell the Internet exactly which machine houses your files.

When you want to change hosts, you have to change these settings to correspond to the new host's server. This is not complicated. Every host provides the information you need to do this easily, provided you can login into your domain account.

To maintain control of your business web site, you must be able to login to your domain registration account.

Web Hosting

Again, your web host provides the web space where you "park" your domain. They store your web site files (such as graphics, html files, etc.) on a machine call a server and then those files become accessible via the Internet.

You need to be able to access your web site files. This is NOT information for designers only. If you want to have complete control of your business, you need this information too.

I've already mentioned FTP, which stands for File Transfer Program. It is the software used to transfer files from your computer's hard to your server space and vice versa. All changes to web sites must be made via FTP and if you don't have the connection information, you can't do anything to your site without the person who does.

In order to have complete control of your business web site, you must have, or be able to grant, access to your web site files.

What's the Big Deal?

I had a host once that literally disappeared. A major break down in communication meant that while I had paid for a year's worth of hosting, I was going to have to settle for only two months instead. My site was down and I had to find another host right away. (To this day I never heard from that host again. I was offline for weeks while I tried everything I could to reach them!)

The point is, I didn't know how to login to my domain registration account to changes the DNS settings to my new host's server! I had long since left the host that actually registered it for me. Thank goodness he was kind enough to simply hand over my login information at my request. Thank goodness he was even still in business!

And it's the same with web sites. I can't tell you how many of my clients originally started off with another designer who has moved on to other things. Some can't even get their old designer on the phone anymore! But, when they come to me because they've decide to find someone new to work on it, they can't give me access to their site. In most cases they don't have any idea what I'm talking about when I ask.

Protect Yourself!

I know that technophobia is a real problem for some people. As soon as someone says something like "HTML" they tune out thinking there's no way they'll ever understand what's being said from that point forward. But your domain and hosting are not something you can just leave to others, they are the backbone of your business web site.

It's really not complicated. And it's so important to maintain control of your business web site. You absolutely must have access to your domain registration account AND your web hosting account. Even if you never use the information yourself, you need to have it. Without access to both of these accounts, your business could end up dead in the water.

Develop Your Business Web Site for Profits

Looking into developing your business web site? Whether creating a business web site to sell your business products online or just to give the public valuable information, creating a business web site can be an important first step to creating an important presence on the web. Here are some tips on creating a business web site as well as what is involved in getting your business web site off the ground.

Creating a business web site is an important first step in creating an online business presence on the web. Many businesses choose to use the web for informational purposes by explaining their products, their businesses mission, and as a public relations vehicle to spread the word on the good that they contribute to the community. Some business web sites also include sections which directly sell their products to online consumers. No matter what your businesses goals, a business web site can be an extremely advantageous tool.

If you have a business and want to create a business web site, there are a few options; create your business web site quickly and easily with the help of a complete web site building solution, contract out an expensive web development firm, or have your own in house IT department create a business web site from scratch. Many people think that they can create a home page, throw up some contact info and buy some web hosting space and it's done. While this strategy does get you on the web, don't expect anything spectacular. Many businesses make the mistake that they can operate online the same way as they do in the real world. The truth of the matter is that you need to understand the web and have plenty of web experience to create successful business web sites.

In order to make a meaningful business web site, you have to make sure that you have an appealing home page that is easy to navigate; fresh and relevant content that will keep your visitors interested and answer frequently asked questions, offer something unique that will keep your visitors coming back to your business web site for more, and optimize the site for the search engines so the search engines rank it high on their index listings. As you can see, creating a business web site with a proper online presence can be much more in depth than anticipated.

Using a complete web site building solution can help you make the right business web site quickly, easily and at a reasonable price. There are many great web development services that offer solutions that will add value to your customers as well as a healthy return on your businesses investment.

Creating a business web site doesn't have to be overly complicated, just choose a web development solution that makes sense for your business goals, resources, and customers. Count on their experience to help create a successful business web site and let their solutions catapult you ahead of your competition.