Free Host Review

After purchasing a domain name next step is to fill it up with contents but is it enough? No! Not yet next is –

HOSTING.

One should have proper knowledge of hosting for running his/her site successfully and its quite easy to know about it just what is required is to type ‘web hosting’ in Google, clicking ‘I’m filling lucky’ and then simply clicking the big ‘BUY’ button on a website that appears.

Ok! That was just a joke now coming to point given below is the list of what one need to learn before choosing a web hosting company.

Disk Space

It totally depends upon the size of the website. It’s easy to calculate the volume of the disk space. It can be calculated by checking the website’s weight at one’s computer folder. But one must take care to keep some space as spare to be used in future if required.

Example, if one’s web site needs 100 MB of disk space, and then he/she must opt for the plan, which offers at least 150 MB of web space, which will help in preventing a large unexpected bill at the end of the month. This is so because most of the web hosts charge heavily afterwards for extra space.

Bandwidth

For bandwidth also earlier calculation is needed. One must try to estimate how much bandwidth (data transfer) is required for his/her web site and thereafter should get bandwidth little bit in spare.

Example, if one’s website uses 5GB bandwidth monthly, then he/she must select a plan, which offers at least 8 GB bandwidth per month. This again as in above case will help in preventing extra bill afterwards for extra bandwidth at the end of the month.

Website Speed

Website speed is an important factor while considering a hosting service as only this facility will decide how fast one’s website loads when some one visits his/her site. One must keep in mind that no visitor in future will waste his/her time by just watching website getting opened.

One must ask his/her hosting provider to provide with a list of their client’s websites to check their speed. Only after getting positive report one should move ahead.

Mail Server

Finally one must make sure that he/she gets enough email addresses with own domain name. It is not required to pay more for use of a mail server as many hosts offer this service now for free, within the hosting plan.

Thus the above points can serve a lot for a beginner and will help him/her in overcoming several problems, which can arise afterwards.

The one who is working on a website must be well aware about the checklist discussed below. The word website cannot be completed without the domain, hosting (web space) and web designing. There are countless companies offering this facility. Thus one must act prudently while dealing with any of these companies.

The following are the most common problems faced by most of the clients and can be even seen on the net such as –

User complain- every day, I get few phone calls of this sort:

Sir, My domain expires in next few days, but the company which registered it is out of business, Please RENEW it”

Sir, I want to transfer the domain to your server but I don’t have the domain control panel”

Dear Support Team, The domain is registered thru ‘X’ and his name is listed as REGISTRANT and Admin Contact, help me”

I have a website since 1998 but I am not getting any enquiries thru it. So what’s the point in having it renewed? “

My website is down most of the time, can you do anything on it? “

So above are the problems faced by most or let say by all the users? Thus the below checklist is required to deal with such problem-

Checklist for Domain NAME Registration

After getting registration of domain one must check the following things-

Is the registration of DOMAIN NAME is with an ICANN Accredited Registrar? Does the REGISTRANT NAME and ADMINSTRATIVE CONTACT is showing one’s name/email?

Is there Control Panel available with the Domain Registration Service Provider with username / password to manage/modify name servers & contact details in real-time?

Is there any facility to get reminders at the time of renewals in advance?

Checklist for Web Hosting (Web space)

Support is the most crucial point in case of hosting. One must check the response time in advance before selecting a service provider.

One must check the technical skills by putting few queries and watching their responses.

One must go though the Service Provider Website and make sure its professional looking with user-friendly navigation and layout.

One must check if they are having TESTIMONIALS listed, availability of listing of sites hosted with them, facility of discount for bulk purchases and payment modes.

One must be careful for the hidden charges as well and now above all one must check for the Bandwidth offered with the hosting plan.

The facility for Multiple Domains in single hosting space should be asked if not provided.

One must act carefully before selecting any hosting plan. One must check for availability of all the essential features like POP3 mails, SMTP support, FTP Account, Control Panel, Web mail, Spam Controller, Antivirus, and Web Statistics.

Checklist for Website Design

Is the website designer providing free minor updates or for a nominal fee on a yearly contract basis?

Is the look of the website professional and appealing to the global audience?

Check out for the listing of website in any of the search engine. To check one must put the website name on www.google.com. Does it show up anywhere in the results?

Does the website designer provides with monitoring service?

Does the website taking too much time to load. One must make care that it loads faster even on slow connections. One must keep in mind that success of website do not depends on Flashy animations, bigger size jpegs etc but on the Content. So stress on content of the website.

As per study conducted by the Forrester Research, the current market is an ideal one for the emergence new web hosting companies, currently there is “positive — if modest — growth for Web hosting and managed IT services, at both the enterprise and SMB levels.”

It is an ideally suited business if one indulges as a web designer or rather IT consultant. This business suits best for small consulting firms. Now the question arises why to ignore such services which several small businesses potentially require? Hosting is a supreme source of revenue on monthly basis.

If one talks about the flourishing sectors of Internet then name of hosting industry will be among one of them. Several corporations such as Yahoo are in the race of providing web hosting services. Anyone who wishes to join this highly profitable business is always welcome and has the right to grab his/her financial share, except when he/she can rightly perform his/her duty.

For a dream web hosting company, one should adopt two tested and wrathful rules as mentioned below:

1.) The prime aspect of the user should be on offering high-quality services in a two-tiered pricing schedule.

2.) The user should know about the importance of an automated infrastructure for development of self-sufficient customers. In the case of marketing, it is very important for the user to increase the chances of accurate opportunities.

The facility of automation will not only enhance the self-sufficiency of the client but also will reduce the expenses of the user to a low level. For the purpose of giving level best services, the prime thing which user requires is at least the following processes to be automated:

1.) Order forms (in case of new customer account set up or existing customer updates),

2.) Billing system,

3.) Administration system,

4.) End-user control panel, and

5.) Technical support interface.

Order Forms:

It is mandatory that the front end of user’s order form should provide a minimum of the four key functional aspects given below:

a.) It should ensure the information of domain for registration purposes,

b.) It should legalize entered results,

c.) It should provide the facility to process the customer’s credit card or else provide creation of an invoice,

d.) It should register customer’s information into billing database for the future prospects.

It is must that the backend of the order form must process the domain registration, in case it is required by the customer and should generate the Web hosting account.

Administration System

One should know that the administration system is quite an essential factor in the purpose of managing ordered accounts. The user might require manually adding or eliminating several new domains, change passwords, etc.

End-User Control Panel

If one wants his/her customer should manage his/her account, then an end-user control panel is necessary. At the end, the customers should be in the condition where they can set up their own e-mail accounts, view Website statistics and can manage files etc.

Billing System

Another very important thing is the presence of automated billing system. The billing system should not only perform the functions like making e-mail invoices, charging credit cards, suspend overdue accounts etc, but should also enable user to issue credit or discounts as per requirement.

Technical Support Interface

There is a wrong opinion that technical support interface is merely a system that generates trouble rather it is an effective tech-support interface that automatically generates an FAQ-interface that customers can look out for before submitting trouble tickets. The advantage of these interfaces is that they can reduce technical support requests by a factor of 10.

Not only that, the company with which the user go with offers the option of taking care of technical support on his/her behalf but branded with user’s brand. Thus one can concentrate his/her potential on other parts of his/her business which requires greater attention.

How to maximize good marketing opportunities

If one knows about what platform to use, what packages to offer and set up a tiered pricing schedule and automated systems. So now how one does maximizes good marketing opportunities through new hosting service?

Pay per Click

This facility allows user to reach to a large segment of customers. In this case although one needs not to pay to list his/her site, he/she does pay when a customer clicks on one’s listing and connects to user’s site. Now an important question arises in one’s mind i.e. how does one gets his/her site high on the results lists? One option is user must engage in a bidding war over how much he/she is willing to pay for each person who clicks through to his/her site. Recently the prices of bidding have grown too high, so one needs to act careful. There are cases where one clicks into one’s site but didn’t convert into a new account. Thus, one needs to be sure to just select targeted keywords and not contending with everyone else for the same keywords. It is not at all an easy game, so one should find his/her role.

How to host Directory Sites?

There are plentiful Web sites known as hosting directories that intend to attract Web hosting customers. The utility of these directories lies in the fact that they are an excellent place to advertise, but one needs to be selective in his/her placement. There are several sites offering banner placement, spotlights, search enhancements, and other forms of advertisement. A key tip in this case would be one should always keep in mind that banner ads are considered much better for building brand recognition rather than generating new accounts, so one should advertise based on his/her budget, and should not just focus on his/her expectation for new customers.

How to influence current Client Base?

If one is running an established Web design firm, information portal, or domain registration service, he/she can quickly start marketing to his/her current clients. For him/her its not easy to generate clients as by sending a simple e-mail to his/her current customer base he/she can immediately generate a large number of accounts. Talking about marketing strategies, there are permission-based email marketing services that work best for earning more revenue from one’s current customers and gaining additional customers. Thus, one should try a free trial of one or more of these services to find one that works well for his/her needs.

How to retain customers?

One should always keep in mind that in order to retain his/her customer; one has to develop and offer new products and services and to make them feel better. This will not only help in retaining customers but also to generate additional revenue. But the most important factor is quality should not be compromised as it is in reality a key to success.

At present condition there is no head to stand in front of Voice over Internet Protocol VOIP) and internet telephony in common. This technology has reached to a sort of crescendo right across the overall internet world within a little span of time and currently stands as a red flag in front of old well established phone companies across the world and in the land of communications and telecommunications in the manner which everyone knew. In the course VOIP has effected web hosting in several ways, as mentioned below:

a. One of the important contributions of VOIP is that it has located demands on web hosting which was absent earlier. It requires not only stable and extremely reliable link but also requires brilliant service from a web host as supportive for effective output. It is a fact that now-a-days corporate world has swiftly embraced VOIP, saving immense fortunes in phone company bills and associated costs and has intended that the hosting enterprises which are better had only got advantage from it.

B. while dealing with non-VOIP web hosting it is quite a simple task to get rid from careless and unreliable services. Specifically with VOIP, and most important where most corporate companies needs communications lines to be left open every time, careless or poor quality web hosting enterprises are immediately found out and stopped. It is a fact from the early days of web hosting where many web host servers were located in cellars somewhere and school dorms. It was driven by majority of people to opt it as a hobby which was for them an extremely profitable part-time work that needs no attention from the busy schedule and vigilance could be given by the user in the free time.

These people restricted to that level of service because the Internet was a latest thing launched in that period of time. In addition too, due to lack of sufficient knowledge in those days majority of people were not very much concerned about it, it is best to left the user alone fully understood the impact of web hosting. Thus just being not able to get through a website was not really considered a big issue.

One can say that, today’s webmasters have progressed a lot, as these days webmasters flows money and valuable time like water to magnetize some amount of traffic and bear tension very soon as traffic unable to reach their site for any reason. This means they are not only losing the money but also diminishing their repute in front of public.

Earlier there were disagreements between opinions on the internet concerning which is an ideal operating system for web hosting. There is presence of people who hate windows, and there are no lesser people who prefer FreeBSD and numerously others.

But in the real sense suiting of the best system depends on user’s work. The servers and the software, all run on the field of program named operating system. There is definitely sure chances that users personal computer will possess windows ME, XP, NT or something etc similar to them. One can call this program the operating system. It is the requirement of any hosting server also to function on an operating system.

There are 3 different versions as given below:

The first version is Windows which is powered by Microsoft. So, Microsoft too manufactures a system which is designed for servers. Microsoft products are capable of trill integrate in this operating systems. It not only provides the facilities for web sites to run Active Server Pages but also allow the integration of SQL databases. The only drawback of the Microsoft web hosting servers is there high range of expensiveness. It is nothing a matter to amaze if the user fined one that costs several thousands of dollars.

The second version for web hosting servers is said to be Linux which was created and developed by some individuals who wrote the chief part of the Linux operating system. Induction of some other parts happened to customize the operating system for the specialized use of any user later on. There are several companies prevailing which are in the profession of marketing Linux, for e.g. Red Hat, Debian etc. It’s well-suiting with PHP is the prime advantage. But its stability and security add plus points to its volubility. The finest thing about it is that Linux is free.

UNIX is the third version of operating system for web hosting servers. It is approximately similar to Linux. On concentrating more one will find more similarities than differences between the two programs. If one talks about the difference, the primary one is there entrance to the world. So let’s make it transparent. Linux is somewhat like a cousin of UNIX. There are two main Unix-based operating systems one is FreeBSD and the other one is OpenBSD. The highlighting thing about these systems is that they seem to be very steady once the user manages to install them. But the things do not end here only as they are very hard to install. OpenBSD is globally respected as it most secures operating system. But it cost with scarification of some of the features. Again the highlighting thing about these systems is that both of them are free.

The best depends on what actually the user is going to make use of it. The user should prefer OpenBSd if security is his/her top priority. If compatibility with all the windows products, then he/she should choose Windows. And if they are looking for compatibility with PHP programming language preference must be given to Linux. The fact is that one cannot come to a conclusion which system is best, but employing and using it via his/her needs.