Tips for starting a hosting company
There are a couple of key things to look at when starting a hosting company. Basically there are four major factors to look at provided you have the servers, and technical abilities.
1. Site design is the first thing a prospective customer sees!! I have seen some horrible designs for hosting companies. If you think putting some text, links and a logo on a page is enough, you will likely fail before you even realize. You will also notice a lot of companies have a generic template that can be found online at templetemonster or any other temple site. Avoid these. It is very hard to develop a company image when you look like 134,000 other hosting companies. I suggest put a bit of effort and creativity into a well designed “professional” looking home page for your company. The bottom line is a new customer will not even consider you as their host if they feel you are an armature no matter how great or cheap your packages are.
2. Develop your website as a total package to it’s clients. Don’t just present your hosting packages and leave it at that. Offer tutorials, articles, support forums etc. These additional services not only provide additional content for you clients, but if developed correctly will bring additional traffic to your site which will potentially lead to more sales.
3. You MUST understand how search engines work. Over 90% of your business will likely come directly from search engine results. Therefore, it is absolutely essential to optimize your site for search engines. You could have the greatest hosting plan in the entire world, but if no one knows about it, then it’s useless. Do a search on google for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). You will find tons of great information on how to create a website that is both user friendly and search engine friendly. There are also a countless number of companies out there who offer SEO services. Just be cautious of their offers and do your research first
4. Find your niche. The hosting business as a whole is a huge industry which is very competitive. Your best chance at success is to simply find a market and develop your business to cater to that specific niche. An excellent example of this is http://elite-hosts.org/ who offer hosting and development to those who operate online forums.
Maybe in the early 90’s the idea of “if you build it they will come” might have been true. But in the year 2005 the internet is a far more competitive and complex. place To be successful today, you have to develop a business plan which works from all angels. If you can develop a hosting company which has a professional design, some extra content, search engine friendly and which targets a specific niche, you will have a far greater chance at success Of course there are many other factors to consider as well, but if you can master these four, everything else should fall into place
About the Author
Ron is the CTO for Dice Ventures Inc an internet holdings and development company. Some current projects include a hosting forum and a Linux forum
Coldfusion Web Hosting
What is ColdFusion and ColdFusion Web Hosting?
ColdFusion is a server scripting environment for creating powerful Internet applications. ColdFusion combines intuitive scripting, effortless connectivity to database information, and effective built-in search and charting capabilities. ColdFusion enables developers to easily build and deploy dynamic websites, content publishing systems, self-service applications, commerce sites, and more.
ColdFusion web hosting requires both a web server and ColdFusion server, as explained below:
How does ColdFusion work?
When a web user requests a ColdFusion page, the web server receives the request and then passes it on to the ColdFusion server. ColdFusion then reads the data sent and processes the ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML) used in the page. Based on the CFML, the ColdFusion server executes the logic and interacts with the database(s) or other technologies requested. ColdFusion then generates an HTML page, returns it to the web server and the web server then passes the page back to the user’s web browser. As slow as this may sound, proper ColdFusion web hosting allows all of this to happen with remarkable speed and efficiency.
What is ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML)?
ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML) is the tag-based server-scripting language that allows rapid development of web sites powerful enough to handle the most demanding web-application logic. CFML is ideally suited to programming applications that use HTML and XML as CFML syntax is closely related. This makes programming easy for new developers while advanced developers can easily extend CFML through custom tags, reusable components, and user-defined functions.
Who should use ColdFusion?
ColdFusion is designed to build dynamic websites and Internet applications. New developers will enjoy the short learning curve of this intuitive server scripting environment. Advanced developers will appreciate ColdFusion’s more advanced features and components, most of which are listed below:
Advantages of ColdFusion:
Simplicity and Power All Rolled Into One
* ColdFusion comes with a rich set of built-in capabilities that deliver high performance and scalability.
* Intuitive HTML-like tag-based language.
* Fewer lines of code are required by handling low-level programming tasks automatically and reusing code.
* Custom tag libraries, reusable components, Java/C++, and thousands of available third-party add-ons allow advanced users to easily extend ColdFusion web capabilities.
* Cool, integrated ColdFusion web application services for adding full-text search and dynamic charting.
* Macromedia Flash developers can now use the same scripting language for both client and server logic.
* Dreamweaver MX fully supports ColdFusion MX features allowing for powerful visual layout abilities, enhanced code editing and development capabilities, and integrated debugging.
* All the scalability, reliability, and power of the Java platform in a less complex environment.
* Easy integration with your existing technology infrastructure.
* Support for the leading server operating systems, web server software, mail servers, directory servers, file systems, and relational database management systems.
Disadvantages of ColdFusion:
* The biggest disadvantage of ColdFusion is that it is a closed source technology and the development is handled completely by one company. Therefore new features cannot be added and bugs cannot be fixed nearly as quickly as in a popular open source solutions.
* Another problem with ColdFusion is that it is expensive. You are required to purchase a new copy of the server (which costs hundreds to thousands of dollars) to obtain features that have been added since your original product purchase (which costs hundreds to thousands of dollars).
What’s New in the Latest Version of ColdFusion: ColdFusion MX 7
* Rich Flash Forms
Using just a few ColdFusion tags, rich Flash forms can be built in minutes.
* New Application Classes
Interfaces with mobile phones using SMS text messaging, XMPP (the emerging IM standard), and other Internet protocols.
* New Dreamweaver Extensions
Increase your productivity by using the new ColdFusion Extensions for Dreamweaver MX to build applications rapidly.
* Rich Charting Capabilities
Produce stylish, bold charts and graphs with modifiable attributes that can control animation, colors, labels, and more.
* Faster Deployment on J2EE
For quick and easy deployment on leading J2EE servers, package an application and the ColdFusion runtime into a single Java archive.
* Source Code Security
Make your source CFM files invisible by compiling them into Java byte-code for distribution and execution.
* New Search Power
Enable highlighted search terms, searching within a results set, spelling suggestions, and hierarchical category searching with the latest Verity technology.
* Structured Business Reports
Easily design and generate high-quality, repeating group, structured business reports.
* Printable Web Content
Using just a single tag you can transform web content into high-quality printable, portable documents in PDF or FlashPaper 2 formats.
ColdFusion Web Hosting FAQs
* Does ColdFusion Web Hosting require the use of any special tools?
Because ColdFusion integrates its code (CFML) with standard HTML code, you can use any standard Web development application or a text editor to develop your templates.
* Which databases can I use when web hosting a ColdFusion site?
ColdFusion MX 7 supports most major databases, including Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, IBM DB2, Sybase, and IBM Informix.
* Which web servers can I use when web hosting a ColdFusion site?
ColdFusion MX 7 supports most major web servers, including IIS, Apache, and Sun ONE (formerly iPlanet).
* Which operating systems are supported?
ColdFusion MX 7 supports most major operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, Solaris, Linux, and AIX.
What should I look for in a ColdFusion Web Hosting provider?
* As with pretty much any web hosting provider, you want to look for: Reliability (up time);
* Redundancy (back-up servers);
* Security (managed access to servers) and
* Scalability (ability to grow your site with your host).
Copyrights ©2005 Web-Hosting-Service-Directory.Com All Rights Reserved.
About the Author
Rodel Garcia is a Freelance Programmer, Highly skilled and versatile Web developer and consultant, Expertise in web-based development (intranet/internet) and e-commerce applications, 6+ years solid experience as programmer/analyst. Owner and webmaster of http://www.web-hosting-service-directory.com/cold-fusion-web-hosting.html
Cheap Web Package Hosting – How to Minimize Costs
There are several steps you can take to help minimize costs with a web hosting package. Some require some effort on your part while others are simply a matter of common sense. No matter what your particular needs are, you’ll likely find that there are companies out there offering web hosting with those needs in mind.
The first and arguably the most important step as you seek to minimize costs with a web hosting package is to shop around. Comparison shopping is always a good way to save money, and finding a good service for your web hosting needs is no exception. Online searches are probably your best bet for finding those great deals on web hosting, but don’t give in to the temptation to simply pick a company from a list of hits and sign on the dotted line. Instead, take time to compare the services, prices and reputations of various companies. Finding the service provider that offers the best bottom-line price for web hosting might not be the provider that saves you the most money.
Especially if you aren’t computer savvy, one way to minimize costs with a web hosting package is to find a company that offers free setup. While this is a fairly common part of web hosting for most companies at this point, you should be sure what it’s going to cost you to establish the account. If you find a company that offers a great bottom-line price but has you pay an enormous fee up front to establish the service, it will probably take you a long time to recoup that fee in your monthly savings.
By the same token, finding a company that promises no fee to set up the service but then charges a significantly more expensive monthly fee to maintain the service isn’t really going to save you any money either. If you want to minimize costs with a web hosting package, look for a happy medium between the two – a service provider that establishes the service for free and offers a reasonable monthly rate for maintaining the service.
While set up fees and monthly maintenance fees are pretty straightforward, you should also look for other fees that might be charged by a particular provider. Depending on your needs, you might find yourself paying extra for a service you expected to be provided in the monthly fee. There’s no substitute for carefully considering your options as you search for a company to help minimize costs with a web hosting package. If you need services in addition to web hosting, look for a company that can combine all your Internet service needs – that could save you some additional money.
You should look for a company that offers a web hosting package specifically to meet your needs. You might be paying a significantly higher monthly fee for a plan that simply exceeds the needs of your company. If you don’t need a larger space, don’t buy a larger space. But with an eye to the future, know the company’s stand on upgrading an account later if you should need additional space.
Finally, know the company. While it’s a good thing to search for the most competitive bottom-line price, the best set up deal and a plan that fits your needs, it won’t do you any good if you are constantly out of commission because of down time. Each time you find yourself without the web hosting service, you’re running the risk of losing orders, clients and your own reputation – all potentially devastating to a business. Even if you truly want to minimize costs with a web hosting package, saving a few dollars is probably not worth the reputation of your own business.
About the Author
Brian Thorn is a professional writer for Webhostpacks.com. For more information and tips about hosting visit: Web Host Packs and Cheap Package Hosting Web.
What to Look for in a Web Hosting
The first questions you have to ask yourself are: how much space and bandwidth do I need; do I want one site or several sites; how much will I have to spend; am I going to use an SQL database; how much uptime does the web host offer; does this site host spammy adult sites; what extras are offered; are there script limitations; do they provide a control panel; and if my site gets too big, what is the next level and how much does it cost?
Let’s take bandwidth for instance. If you are starting a brand new site and don’t have a lot of other sites to link to it, which, by the way, is becoming increasingly less efficient due to changing search engine rules, it may take over a year to build any real traffic to even worry about this point. But, with bandwidth being a lot more reasonable lately, why not go ahead and pay the 6-10 dollars a month for 1 – 4 gigabytes currently available. After all, your goal is to grow right? So get something a few sizes too big and grow into it. Don’t think that you necessarily have to pay a lot of money to get a good web host. You could just as easily spend 20 dollars or more a month and have terrible uptime and any number of hassles. Now if your site is going to be filled with images, especially wallpaper size images, then get as much bandwidth as your budget will allow. If you plan on having a growing site and it becomes even moderately popular, you’ll need all the bandwidth traffic allowable you can get. Watch out for hosts that claim they have unmetered bandwidth. Read carefully, especially if we’re talking about a host that charges below 5 dollars a month. It’s better to have a clear number that you can keep track of in your control panel. You don’t won’t them to come up and give you a generic excuse like “Your site is using an unfair amount of system resources or traffic as compared to our other customers so therefore we have to shut you down”. Please note that system resources and bandwidth are two different issues when dealing with a web host. For instance a script that locks up and has a bug could cause a server to use a great deal of system resources that could cause problems between you and your web host if you are on a shared account versus a dedicated server. So do your research on the type of script you want to run. Bandwidth is the amount of traffic going out from your site including your images, clips, pages, etc. As far as images, sounds, and clips this is easily monitored in your control panel as long as you have a clear number of what you are allowed to use. Unmetered bandwidth could mean anything and really is worthless in the long run if you plan on getting a lot of traffic sometime in the future. And why wouldn’t you want to get as much traffic as possible for your site?
Some hosts allow to host more than one domain on your account. This could be a very great way to cut costs especially with new sites that may take a while to build up traffic. Once any of your sites grows too large you can always move it. Please be cautious though heavy interlinking between sites on the same i.p. address may get you dinged by search engines.
For the most part 6-10 dollars per month is what I consider great area to be in cost wise. Anything lower than 6 and I would get nervous. Anything higher than 10-15 per month and it better have a lot to offer that I can’t get anywhere else like bandwidth, space, etc. That’s a very basic rule of thumb from my own experience, but it all depends mainly on what your site needs are.
You need to know if there are any script limitations. Are there scripts like cgi, php, etc you want to use that your web host doesn’t allow? Of course most are going to work with php and cgi with no problem. Also find out about how many SQL databases you can get and if they offer it at all. Databases can be a very powerful tool that can save you tons of time and are usually necessary for forums.
Do research. Check out sites with reviews from actual customers. You need to see what your average joe says about the uptime and other factors of the web host you’re thinking about using. Remember, most people will complain more than take the time to praise, but a really good host will have a lot more praise then criticism.
A new thing is starting to come up. Certain search engines may penalize sites that are on a server with red flag sites like gambling, spam sites, adult, etc. Gambling and adult sites tend to spam a lot so search engines may be penalizing whole servers that house these sites. Make sure your web host will put you on a server free of these types of websites.
Always think ahead to save time and money having to movie to another web host. Always get as much bandwidth and web space you can get at an affordable price. Ask yourself if your site grows faster than you predicted what is the next level with the web host your using? How much is it going to cost to upgrade if necessary, and what do they offer? Some companies that offer reasonable rates and good plans only offer one plan, but they tend to increase their plan’s offerings every year or so. So keep that in mind as well when considering how much bandwidth and space your going to need in the coming year or so.
About the Author
Webmaster of Buyersmls.com Web Tips & Shopping
Web Package Hosting – Researching Different Alternatives
One of the best ways to find a good web host package is to listen to what others say about companies that provide web hosting. Whether you’re a business owner or an individual, you are likely looking for reliable web hosting at a competitive price. Finding the company that can best meet those needs can be a real challenge. But once you’ve found a company that does provide the service you expect with a price you can afford, you’ll realize that the time you spent doing research in an effort to find a good web host package was time well spent.
Obviously, online sources for web hosting are one of the most convenient ways to search for the service you want. Any search engine will offer plenty of results on how to find a good web host package. If you don’t consider yourself to be computer savvy, you might also want to talk to friends and colleagues who have experience with web hosting and web hosting packages.
For a good list of reviews of web hosting service providers, you might start with a site such as the Web Hosting Inspector site (www.webhostinginspector.com). By following the links to their reviews, you’ll find a list of web host service providers. The reviews on this website are broken into sections with ratings given for each. Even if this site doesn’t include a review of the company you are considering as a web host, you might try using their categories to create a rating system of your own. Comparing bandwidth, web page space, reliability, customer service and speed, along with any factors you personally consider to be important, will help you find a good web host package.
Remember that you are a potential client and any web hosting company should view your questions as important. Whether you know a lot about web hosting or you’re a novice with little idea of how the process works, a company should be able and willing to answer your questions promptly. If the company isn’t able to quickly communicate answers to questions, you should question their ability and willingness to provide reliable customer support once the company has your business. As you consider how to find a good web host package, remember your first impressions.
As you work through the process of finding a good web host package, you should also keep a log of your search. While it will probably be easy at first to remember that you’ve already looked at Company A and discarded them because their customer service seemed weak, or that Company B didn’t offer free set up as part of their web hosting package, it probably won’t take long for the names and your impressions to begin to run together. Keeping track of which company you were and were not excited about following up on should be an exercise requiring paper and pencil (at the very least). Tangible numbers are a good indication of which companies will and will not likely be good web host providers, but remember to include your first impressions of the company as well. Was their website easy to navigate? Did they answer questions? Do they provide other services that you might need in the future? All are good questions to ask as you consider how to find a good web host package.
About the Author
Brian Thorn is a professional writer for Webhostpacks. For more information and tips about hosting visit: web package hosting and cheap package hosting in the web.