Website Hosting

To be effective a website needs quality hosting. The server must be fast, reliable, secure and contain all the tools required. We have a server dedicated to client sites in California, with a very fast connection to the internet. By combining a fast US server we can offer performance and support at unbeatable prices. Click here for pricing and options.
 

Step 18 - The Facts About Domain Names

By now you should be familiar with the concept of domain names, the www.yourcompany.com that tells the world you've made it to the internet. Let's just touch on some basics though.

Once upon a time, when the internet was new, it was acceptable for a company to have a domain name or URL that looked something like this:

http://www.smallbusiness.com/dept8/energysaver/index.htm

Well, those days are gone forever. What this now tells visitors is that you haven't even made the basic investment in an internet presence to the point of having your own name. It's not very impressive.

There are also problems further down the track when you want to get top listings in the major search engines.

Today, the only option is to have your own domain such as:

http://www.energysaver.com

See the difference? (Of course this is a fictional URL)

The benefits of registering your own domain name include:

You clearly have your own identity out there in cyberspace and have made a visible commitment to an internet presence.

You 'own' the name for as long as you pay the registration. As you promote your URL you can do so with confidence that it will be there when the traffic starts. The name is also transferable if you change hosting companies - after all YOU own it.

You can setup mailboxes, mail forwarding, autoresponders and other tools all as addresses@yourcompany.com. We'll cover these in detail later but for now it should be clear that this further establishes you as being serious about your internet presence.

From here on in, domain names will play an increasingly important role in getting key rankings for keyword searches in the major search engines. Internet Explorer 5 for example has a search feature that gives priority to an existing domain name with the keyword BEFORE going into the search engines. So, if you were searching for 'energysaver' in IE5 the first site to pop up would be energysaver.com We work extensively with the major search engines and they too are changing their algorithms to place emphasis on keywords in the domain name. Some also give lower rankings to a page that is not on its own domain or limit the number of pages they will index from each domain.
So how do you decide exactly what domain names will be required? (Yes, you can have more than one!) Here's how we do it...

Step 19 - Selecting The Right Domain Names

At present there are three main types of domain names you can register and these vary by the last three letters after the 'dot'.

.com is the most common and signifies a company
.net is used for a network
.org is designed to be used by an organization
The reality is that you are free to register any or all of these as you wish. If you plan to have a highly successful website then in fact you should - or someone else will take the ones you miss - and the corresponding share of misguided traffic! At US$35 per year each the extra names shouldn't break the bank.
So for Energy Saver, the bare minimum should be:

www.energysaver.com
Ideally they should also secure:
www.energysaver.net
www.energysaver.org
www.energy-saver.com
www.energy-saver.net
www.energy-saver.org
All of these domain names will connect to the same website. This is done on our web hosting server.
Now let's look at keyword domain names. If Energy saving is what your business is about,  why not register www.save-energy.com as well. Now someone searching on 'save energy' in IE5 or the major engines may be sent straight to energy-saver.com website. Not a bad investment of $35 per year eh?

The strategy behind this is a little more involved but the main point now is to understand the basics. When it comes to this step, rest assured we'll discuss all the relevant options available. OK, now let's cover the hosting of the site...

Step 20 - Hosting The Website

A website is essentially a collection of text and graphics files located on a computer, the 'server' or 'host', that is connected to the internet.

The speed and performance of this server, and it's associated pipeline to the internet will determine the speed and performance of the website. This point is crucial. If the hosting selected is not capable of properly supporting your website then all the work in making fast loading pages and getting those search engine listings will be wasted.

We are based in USA with clients all over the globe, also in Asia. We offer hosting services to several countries within Asia but we don't have our hosting here. It's simply too slow. We host at the center, the hub! Well, the hub of the internet, the so-called 'internet backbone' is in the United States anyway.

Our web hosting server is located in San Bernardino, USA.. To get technical about why it is so fast, we use multiple DS-3 (T3) lines with diverse routes to the internet backbone. Our new BGP peering allows us to automatically re-route traffic away from 'Internet Hotspots.' This means when one part of the Internet slows down your site will not be caught in the bottleneck. Our redundancy, or backup line, is at full T3. This coupled with full daily backup, peering, and an average up-time of 99.9%, puts us at the cutting edge of web hosts.

We'll cover the various tools later but for now, suffice to say the server is complete with all options to run a fully featured website including all leading edge plug-ins, utilities, and software (Java, Javascript, C, C++, PHP, RealAudio/Video, Shockwave, and CGI to name a few). We also offer full support for our pre-configured scripts which include great counters, guestbooks, bulletin boards, form e-mailers, chat rooms, order forms, database software, and more.

Technical support and advice is provided 24 hours per day, every day. So if you are from Philippines or any other Asian country, simply contact your local representative in your country for any problems you might have. Get the advantage of USA connectivity for speed, and friendly, competent and cost effective support in the Philippines through our representative..

There are two standard hosting packages we offer seperately:

The 'budget package', at US$90 per year is ideal for most small to medium enterprises wanting a cost-effective web presence with their own domain name. Click here for full details.

The 'corporate package', at US$250 per year is nothing less than a complete solution for the enterprise that is serious about using the internet to its fullest capacity. Click here for full details. Now we've touched on hosting, let's go to phase 2 - organizing the information on your website

Step 21 - Hosting Tools - Email Utilities

We covered hosting earlier, but now let's run through some of the 'tools' available on our host server.

Let's start with the email utilities:

POP3 Mailboxes

These are separate mailboxes, each with a unique address, ****@yourdomain.com, and a unique password for each. This provides a professional image of your organization and allows staff or departments to handle their own email. We always install a 'dump' mailbox as well. This is a mailbox that will collect any mail sent to your domain with an invalid address. So if someone sends mail to desig@phils-online.com instead of design@phils-online.com, we are still able to receive it!

Email Forwarding

These are also addresses, ****@yourdomain.com, but instead of being individual mailboxes to clear, they simply re-direct email to an existing mailbox (or multiple mailboxes). In many cases for clients with multiple websites and mailboxes this is a simpler option. In any event, to the visitor they appear the same.

Autoresponders

An autoresponder is like a 'fax-on-demand' service but via email. An email address, ****@yourdomain.com is sent a blank email by the interested party and they receive a reply automatically containing the text message you have prepared. Ideal for company profiles, price lists or other standard detailed information. Our server also 'captures' the email addresses and stores these for your retrieval and subsequent follow-up. You can also configure this to send a series of responses out with a predefined interval of hours or days.

One other benefit of these email utilities is that as long you pay your domain registration fees they are yours, and so you can change ISPs or hosting freely without disruption to your internet business.

The second set of tools we use a lot are CGI and PHP scripts...

Step 22 - Hosting Tools - CGI Scripts

CGI or 'Common Gateway Interface' scripts are programs that run on our server to do more than just deliver text, images and multimedia files. In most cases they allow interactivity with the visitor, making your site more of a two-way experience.

A brief rundown on some of the ones we use follows:

CGI E-mail (also called form-mail)

This is an excellent script that allows a form to be created for visitors to fill in and submit. The preformatted contents are then sent to you by email. A copy can be returned to the sender in case some details need changing and after successfully submitting these, the visitor is then sent to a page confirming the contents have been received. Great for customer inquiries, subscription to your newsletter, whatever.


Shopping Cart

By using our shopping cart script you can produce a complete on-line storefront to allow visitors to browse through various pages, select products to add to their 'shopping cart', then complete the process with an itemised and totalled order form ready for payment by credit card. It takes a little time to get the whole storefront complete and finetuned but the end result is a completely automated site generating revenue around the clock. Ideally this should be used with the Secure Server option discussed a little later in this guide.

Counter

The counter script places the familiar counter digits on selected pages to display the number of visits the page has had. Generally we don't use this as these statistics are available to clients in the statistics log files and sharing this with visitors does not seem to serve any useful purpose. But for some cases this script can be useful.

Guestbook

A Guestbook allows visitors to sign in and leave their remarks for you and other visitors to read. Not applicable to all sites but ideal for those trying to build an online community.

Bulletin Board

Similar to the Guestbook but much larger and with more options, the building board script provides a complete bulletin board type message center that again is ideal for getting repeat visits from a selected audience.

Step 23 - Hosting Tools - Statistics and Log Files

Monitoring the traffic to your website is crucial in determining what promotional methods are working (and which are not!). Visitor patterns also provide a valuable insight into your site's performance. Our server is equipped with excellent software to make this task simple and the results easy to follow. Details can be viewed on-line.

Just some of the statistics available include:


Average Load Report:
The total hits for the top seconds, minutes, and hours.

Overview of URLs:
The overview of all URLs which have been accessed on your site.

Detailed List of URLs:
The detailed list of all URLs which have been accessed on your site.

Code 404 Not Found:
All files "not found" on your site. Useful for tracking broken links.

Overview of Domains and Hosts:
An overview of total transfers by client domain and hosts who have accessed your site.

Overview of Reverse Domains:
An overview of total transfers by reverse domain who have accessed your site. This list is alphabetical by domain extension.

Overview of Browser Types:
The list of browser types visitors used to view your site.

Overview of Referrers:
A list of the sites your visitors came from. In the case of search engines the keywords searched on are also returned and this is a very valuable insight into what your visitors are looking for.

Country List:
The list of countries your visitors are from.
The entire 'raw' log file is also available for download and analysis offline by some of the excellent log analysis software programs available.
Now let's touch on the use of a secure server..

Step 24 - Using A Secure Server

Despite a lot of effort by companies to encourage online shopping by credit card, the promised flood is still too often a trickle.

According to CommerceNet/Nielsen:

73% of net users have used the Web for shopping
53% use the net to reach a decision about a particular purchase
15% of net users have carried out a final Web transaction
So while the majority of web users are comfortable to research a product or company via the internet, only 15% reach for their credit cards?
The main concern of the buying public is still that of security - the fear of having their valuable and sensitive information such as credit card details stolen. These fears are greatly exagerated, there is more risk to the cardholder when the waiter at a restaurant disappears with your credit card to settle the bill, but nonetheless, this concern must be addressed.

A Secure Server allows sensitive information to be encrypted in the browser software and then decrypted at the server, preventing theft of the information in between. Our hosting packages come complete with Secure Server capability and this alone can increase sales by up to 300%. The only detraction is that pages using this feature are a little slower, so for this reason you would only use this where it is really required.

Now, back to working with your information again...

Step 25 - Securing Domain Names and Hosting

As soon as we have a green light to proceed we take action to register the domain names the client has selected if these are not already held by the client. If the client has these we need to ensure they 'point' to our servers.

Now, here is an important warning to stress.

When we register YOUR domain name, we register it in YOUR name so that YOU own it. Sounds pretty simple but you would be surprised how many unethical operators in the same situation register this in their own name. If the client later chooses to take his business elsewhere for reasons of cost or non-performance he then learns the name does not belong to him.

We administer your domain name by registering it, ensuring it is correctly set up and by paying the registration fees. However, should you choose to search the InterNIC database you will see YOUR name as the registrant, or owner.

At this stage we also bill you for your hosting and hosting tools, including the first year's rental in full.

From here we turn to the design process in more detail...

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