Web Hosting Fan

E-commerce is quickly becoming  a business standard, with virtually every kind of service imaginable available online. The internet gives business owners access to an unlimited customer base. Web site owners use a variety of tactics to market their business and become known, however the simplest yet seemingly most effective way to market a business is branding. Brands hold power over markets based on recognizable names and logos that people come to remember and trust. The best way to establish your brand online is to have an authoritative and memorable domain name. Since domain names are so important when building an e-commerce business, they have become somewhat of a commodity in the world of online trade. Many companies are willing to pay hundreds, thousands, even millions of dollars for a simple domain name! So how can you go about making a profit from this opportunity? Let us take a closer look.

Profiting In a Saturated Market

Most of the best domain names have already been taken, primarily because of  “squatter,” or people that purchase many domains in hopes of selling them for a lot of money in the future. It is important to note that trademark infringement is a huge problem in the domain name game, because companies can and do sue squatters for purchasing domains with their name as the primary focus. There are however more sensible alternatives to make money with domain names.

Generating Revenue with Your Domain

The most obvious way to make money with a domain is to sell products or services on your website.   Of course there are other ways to profit from your domain without having to do much work at all.  You can build websites with autoblogging programs, and then resell them for a small fee, or you can sell packages of premade websites. Alternatively you can make money with an advertising scheme like Google Adsense. This approach gives you the ability to make a substantial amount of money without having to access a particular product or service. All that is need to make money in this manner is good informative content and a little bit of marketing efforts.

Affiliate marketing is another way you could make money without having an actual product or service to sell.  With affiliate marketing you focus on selling someone else’s product, and you receive a commission for every sale or lead you bring the merchant. Many people make thousands of dollars each money with very little effort with affiliate marketing. You could also make money with your domain by parking it. When you park your domain you are basically putting it up for sale. Parking your domain requires no investment because there are many companies that are willing to let you use their server space to park your domain in exchange for a commission when the domain is sold.

Many companies make a substantial amount of income based on commissions from parked domain sales alone. Parking your domain is probably the easiest way to generate revenue with your domain, as it requires no investment and no effort whatsoever. However parking your domain is definitely not going to be the most profitable endeavor, and it is possible to park a domain indefinitely with no sale.

With the advent of the Internet, companies now have the opportunity to reach customers around the globe form the comfort of their own office. As time passes, more companies are realizing that not taking advantage of the internet is essentially limiting their full potential, costing them thousands if not millions of dollars every year. E-commerce business is very different from storefront business, as it requires very little investment. Of course with the decreased monetary investment comes an increased investment of time and brainpower. Anyone can open a website and cross their fingers waiting for it to thrive, but to be successful you will need to know what the 5 key aspects of building an e-commerce business are.

1. Finding the Niche

A niche is basically a topic or field that you will specialize in, for example “mobile phones” or “ sporting equipment.” If you already own a storefront business then you can skip this step, but if you are trying to start an e-commerce business from the ground up, this is going to be the most important decision you will need to make. The best way to stay involved with your online business is to pick a niche that you are genuinely interested in. Once you have a list of 5-10 topics you think you could focus on daily, it is time to do research. You’ll need to know how big the demand is for the product you are trying to sell. You’ll need to know how your customers will find you, will they use search engines or will they find you via local advertising?

2. Gaging the Competition

The key is to find a niche that has high demand and little competition. It is optimal to find a niche that is perfect for search engine optimization. There are many tools available that will help your research this information. Once you have found your competition, it is a good idea to learn as much about them as possible. Find out what their sites look like, what products they sell, and for what prices. This will give you something to aim towards.

3. Choosing a Web Host

Now that you have everything planned out, it is time to find a reliable web host to store your site’s information on one of their servers. The most important things to consider are adequate storage space, bandwidth and a good shopping cart function. You’ll also want to make sure the plan is backed by a money back guarantee and 24 hour customer support.

4. Build Your Website

Building a professional website is probably the most important aspect of building an e-commerce business. People trust professional looking websites more than small and simple websites.  There are many templates available online that will help you create a professional looking website from scratch with very little effort. It is also important to consider search engine optimization when building your website, as the search engines will give you a great deal of traffic if you do so. Search engine optimization is not easy however, and you may require the assistance of a professional SEO expert.

5. Marketing Your E-commerce Site

Once you have built your site and you are ready to start making sales, there is still one more step. This step is problem the most crucial of them all. You will need to market your business, for obvious reasons. Without effective marketing your website will sit there and you will make absolutely no money. To effectively market your website you will need more than just search engine optimization. You will need backlinks, blogs, social networking knowledge, video marketing and so much more. There is a plethora of knowledge found online that will help you do all of this. My suggestion to you would be to become a member of a search engine optimization forum, and take as many tips as you can form the experts there. If you want your business to thrive then you will need to do a lot of reading.

Even businesses can get into the holiday spirit.  One such merry web hosting provider is WebNet.  This web hosting company is getting itself and customers in a festive mood by offering some fantastic deals good through to the end of the year.

About WebNet

With beginnings in 2002, WebNet Hosting, LLC is a privately held web hosting and e-commerce provider located in Rockville, Maryland.  The web hosting provider has distinguished itself as a leader in the industry by providing rock-solid support and 24×7 non-stop services to all of its customers.

Among some of the best reasons to choose this company as one’s next e-commerce capable web host is its constant availability.  Even in the wee hours of the morning on a holiday, one can expect an actual human being to answer all incoming calls.  This type of commitment to complete service is one that sets WebNet in a class by itself.

WebNet controls a tier 3 data center with over 12,000 square footage.  This data center is open and secured 24×7 year-round.  The OC-48 fiber optic redundant connections employed by the hosting company ensure continuous operation for all of its clients.

WebNet Services

WebNet offers two different web hosting accounts for prospective customers to choose from.  Starting at just $7.95 a month, the company’s Standard option comes with 1,000 megabytes of disk space, 3,000 megabytes of monthly transfer allowance and is stocked with the standard hosting programs and options one expects from any regular web hosting account.  One step up and customers can build their online presence with the Business Builder for only $17.95 a month.  This hosting account option comes with 3,000 megabytes of disk space, 60,000 megabytes of monthly bandwidth and also includes a web site editor tool and Site Studio Web Design (over 600 templates to choose from).

Miva Merchant hosting is what WebNet is most famous for.  The provider gives customers three different Miva Merchant 5.5 accounts to choose from.  The E-Starter is equipped with 500 megabytes of storage, 5,000 megabytes of bandwidth and comes in at the low price of $24.95 a month.  The difference between this account and the next two higher Miva Merchant accounts is the allowed number of dedicated IP addresses (the E-Starter does not include this) and the allowed space and bandwidth.  The E-Customized costs $34.95 a month and the E-Semi-Dedicated will set one back $84.95 a month.

As with many web hosting providers, WebNet offers a lucrative reseller account option.  Each account can be purchased at just $10.95 per month and includes one Standard web hosting plan.  The solution provided can be fully branded and is set on private nameservers along with a reseller control panel.

Latest Bargains

From now until the end of the year, WebNet is offering the following fantastic holiday deals:

• Sign up for any of the company’s Miva Merchant Web Hosting plans and receive the first month free
• A waiver of the $99 set up fee that is normally included with any dedicated hosting package
• A free Miva Merchant 5.5 license (normally $995)
• A free upgrade to the latest version of Miva Merchant 5.5 with the purchase of any Miva Merchant hosting account
• A free Miva migration from previous web host to WebNet with a guarantee of uninterrupted up-time

Final Thoughts

WebNet is an industry leader when it comes to reliable hosting with dedicated support and services.  The hosting provider is clearly getting into the holiday spirit and passing this joy along to new customers.

Open-source software has really made a name for itself in recent times, now prevalent in the form of multimedia players, operating systems and web applications.  In fact, companies around the world are leveraging this type of software to maintain their day to day business operations.  Open-source programs can suite a variety of needs across a broad range of industries and market segments.  One area this software has truly settled into is e-commerce, in particularly, the shopping cart.

Open-source shopping cart software offers a cost effective alternative to traditional commercial solutions.  Perhaps the biggest draw to these programs is that they provide the online merchant with the ability to customize the software to satisfy the unique requirements of their business.  This is all made possible active communities that make templates, modules and various other components widely available in addition to their continuous efforts to enhance the project.

What to Look for

When shopping for any software, open-source or proprietary, it is important for merchants to thoroughly research and evaluate the product before sending it into deployment.  Because there is no single solution that works for every store, it is crucial to select a cart based on individual needs.   With that said, here some critical features you want to look for in an open-source product:

Product Capacity - An online store owner must be able to determine limitations for their product capacity.  For instance, if you have a catalog compromised of more than 500 products but the shopping cart only supports 200, you should know right then and there that the software cannot suit your requirements.  The good thing is that most open-source shopping carts offer support for an unlimited number of products.

System Performance – A lagging, sluggish online store is one of the fastest ways to send your customers surfing to the competition.  For this reason, you need to perform due diligence to make sure your shopping cart delivers an optimal performance.  A lot of this depends on server configuration, but the software itself should definitely be evaluated for performance before you make the final decision.

Community Support – An open-source shopping cart usually comes with no official form of technical support or customer service, which essentially means that there is no hotline to call up whenever you experience problems.  Therefore, you need to find a piece of software that is backed by a strong community of developers and users who solidly back the project.  While the quality of support can never be guaranteed, it is still a good idea to check online in the appropriate forums to access the atmosphere and measure how long it takes for users to generate a response.

Payment Gateway Compatibility – If you want to be able to accept and process credit and debit card payments, then you will need an open-source solution that supports third-party payment gateways.  Although this needs to be considered in your research, it should be comforting to know that many open-source shopping carts are compatible with the major payment gateway service providers.

Any online company owners knows just how important customer support is to the longevity of their business.  They also understand how difficult it can be to maintain a high level of customer satisfaction.  An efficient support system requires a lot of careful planning, especially if you want to ensure that the customers are taken care of without spending too much money.  Here are some innovative features that will help you accomplish both goals:

Support Tickets

The ticketing system has become one of the most commonly used support features on today’s market.  This is mainly because they tend to be very affordable.  With a ticketing system, your customers can open up a case where they submit their questions or concerns to the support department who in turn, handles the issue.  With reliable employees, a few individuals can take care of the communications without incurring too many problems.  Support ticket systems are easy to use and generally simple to integrate into an existing e-commerce site.

Live Chat

Live chat is a customer support feature that has become incredibly popular over the last couple of years.  Now from a cost perspective, it can prove to be a disadvantage compared to the support ticket system as it requires more human resources and usually a more advanced site design.  On the bright side, support via live chat has turned out to be a useful feature that customers absolutely love.  This is mainly because they are able to obtain immediate responses in real-time and receive near-instant feedback on their queries.  As a store owner, having this luxury also means that purchasing decisions can be made noticeably faster.  And since the average visitor usually only wants to pose one or two questions, the time your support agents spend occupied on the chat line is often no more than a few minutes.

Automatic Response

Similar to many areas of online business, the most affordable way to do almost anything involves automating the process and eliminating a huge portion of the costs associated with it.  Such automation features have recently become available for customer support, providing excellent opportunities for driving down costs without leaving the customer feeling as if they are being ignored.  Keep in mind that this often requires more advanced site development as well as tedious programming to create an application that is capable of accurately analyzing queries and promptly distributing an automated response.  However, this feature can make for a support system that enables your business to enjoy the best of both worlds.  For example, the customer is able to get a response almost instantly, while your company saves money on expenses in the support department.

Many online businesses find that the best way to approach these features is to integrate all three into their support system.  Because this can end up being a costly endeavor, you need to weigh your options to determine if integration is the right move for your needs.  Most importantly, you must remember that the customers enable your business to exist, and should always be given the attention that makes them feel as so.

One of the most inaccurate statements within the web creation world is that web design and web development are essentially the same thing.  In actuality, web design is one subsection of web development.  Web development encompasses many different activities that culminates in the creation of an online web site.

Web Design

According to Wikipedia, web design is “the skill of creating presentations of content (usually hypertext of hypermedia) that is delivered to an end-user through the World Wide Web”.  Web design tasks include animation creation and implementation, content creation for web pages, style sheet creation, and working within the HTML/XHTML/XML of web pages.

Good web design requires great planning.  Not only does a web designer actually create the pages that go into an online site but he or she also needs to plan out the web site prior to the actual creation.  This involves brainstorming the context, audience, purpose, content and compatibility issues.  Once these essential needs are fleshed out, the fun of web design can commence.

The simplest way to look at what exactly web design means is to think of the overall creation of a web site.  The planning and page creation are the end results of what a web designer must accomplish.

Web Development

Web development is a much broader term than web design and covers all the aspects of creating a web site.  E-commerce, web design, content creation, scripting and server configuration are all pieces of the larger web development puzzle.

A new web site about to be launched on the World Wide Web may entail not only informational pages but also product or service pages, a means for customers or clients to be able to purchase those goods, a merchant solution to process payments, support methods and even software or programs that allow online interaction with customers and clients.  Even more detailed web sites may include social networking and media widgets or animation and graphic-centric information.

All of the different needs and web technologies that can be part of the creation of a web site can be neatly placed under the umbrella of web development.  When a business desiring to place their web site on the internet looks for assistance in this matter, often a web development teamed is hired.  This team will have e-commerce experts, designers, server administrators, hosting companies or personnel, and may also include social media gurus and other technology-specific experts.

Conclusion

What it all comes down to is knowing the difference between a designer or a development team.  If a business already has a web site up and running on the internet and simply needs some minor modifications or additions made, hiring a web designer is the ticket.  However, if the business in question is not already on the internet and needs to create an entire web site, the business then needs to look for a web development team that may include a web designer.  The former is just one piece of the later.

Open source technology has been around for quite some time and has struggled over the years to place itself in the higher echelons of business and government.  The United States’ current President, Barack Obama, has been a vocal proponent of an open and transparent administration.  To further emphasize this, the President recently approved the use of the open source CMS (content management system) Drupal for the WhiteHouse.gov web site.

About Drupal

Drupal is a free open source CMS that allows easy publishing and managing of web sites.  There are tens of thousands of web sites online now that utilize the program and include site types such as community web portals, corporate web sites, resource directories and even social networking sites.

The program is designed to allow quick additions of modules that enable a web site to expand its functionality.  Some of these modules allow for newsletter publication, picture galleries, e-commerce and much more.

As Drupal is open source software, it is constantly being checked, debugged and new updates are constantly being released.  The advantage of this is ensuring that the safest and most secure edition is available to its users.

The word from Dries Buytaert

According to Dries Buytaert, creator and founder of Drupal, his software is well matched and up to the task of helping further the platform of an open and transparent government.  He goes on further to state “Drupal’s flexibility and modularity enables organizations to build sites quickly at lower cost than most other systems.”  Dries feels this move to use open source technology and software indicates that governments are realizing that open source does not present any added risks when compared to propriety software.

One important point Dries brings up is the ability for the Drupal-run WhiteHouse.gov web site to allow for open communication and participation.  This, by itself, is worth seeing the new site and checking out what one can accomplish with respect to open participation.

Not the only government site

Surprisingly, the WhiteHouse.gov is just the pinnacle of government offices using Drupal to publish their web sites.  The Department of Defense, the Department of Commerce, the General Service Administration and the Department of Education have all been using the Drupal CMS for some time.

Other large business, company and entity web sites currently running on Drupal include the New York Observer, Yahoo! Research, Christian Assemblies International and Sony Music.  The list of Drupal-run web sites continues to grow at a rapid pace.

Future looking open

Going on into the future, the hope is that with Drupal’s latest coup of the White House web site, other government agencies, big businesses and even government entities world-wide will see the awesome potential of open source software and technology.  Further, this may also show the world that open source technology is a huge step in the right direction – especially in the area of cutting costs.  Perhaps this recent Presidential approval will start a web site trend and we’ll begin to see more and more “big guys” realize the advantages of open source.

A quick Google search online for e-commerce solutions will garner a huge number of software solutions available for free or commercial use.  Among the free solutions available, and slowly losing its initial popularity, is osCommerce.  osCommerce is an extensive and quite possibly one of the most thorough out-of-the-box pieces of software you can find.  However, as all-encompassing as it may be, it is in severe need of a major overhaul to place it at the same level as its peers.

How it all began

osCommerce got its start in March of 2000.  Created by Harald Ponce de Leon and originally called “The Exchange Project”, osCommerce quickly began to grow in both initial popularity and capabilities.  The software is created with PHP and uses MySQL for its database core.  It can be installed on any server that utilizes these two pieces of programming.  For the past nine years, the program has been in the development stage.  Officially, as of March 2009, osCommerce released its production ready alpha product.  This release, Merchant V 3.0, includes a template system, an object-oriented backend and the ability to define the administration user name and password upon installation.  To date, the osCommerce site claims over 12,000 online stores currently using their product.

The current problems

While it is a very good and all-encompassing shopping cart program, osCommerce is not without its issues.  Installation of the program by a novice may prove to be a daunting task as a basic knowledge of MySQL as well as other web server technologies should be at the ready.  The default SSL option is initially and automatically set to “no” which is practically an open door to nefarious entities trying to gather secure information on customers.  Adding new shopping cart products is no simple task either – there are several options and features that need to be dealt with before adding in a new product, quite possibly the quickest way to creating a lot of confusion.  When you do have the program installed and your cart up and running with all of its products, adding any additional modules or templating takes quite a bit of work and may end up breaking the core of the program.  Not to mention the creators of the software do explicitly state that additions to the core are not always endorsed.

One of the best ways to avoid a lot of this hassle is to either have a seasoned osCommerce professional install the program for you or, if your web host has this option, have it installed by your hosting company.

Conclusion

If you are in need of a shopping cart program that is capable of being search engine optimized, fully featured and very robust, osCommerce is a good choice.  However, it still needs quite a bit of work in as far as installation and add-on capabilities before it can be considered a simple ecommerce program of choice.  OsCommerce is ideal for the knowledgeable and seasoned web developer, not for the novice nor the faint of heart.

When it comes to ecommerce solutions, the choices are either a software program you install into your web site or an online resource.  Installing your own software choice can lead to incompatibility issues, incorrect installation and much more.  If you choose to go with an online ecommerce solution, a great product to check out is 3dCart.  3DCart allows businesses to sell just about anything online, supports over 80 payment gateways and exceeds PCI (Payment Card Industry) standards.

Plans

3dCart gives its customers five different account plan to choose from.  At $19.99 per month, the Mini allows for 50 products, 1 gigabyte of bandwidth and gives customers a $25 credit to use for advertising on Google.  Stepping up one package will give you the Starter which allows for 100 products, 2 gigabytes of bandwidth and comes with a $50 Google ad credit, all for $35.99 per month.  At the top end of the scale is the Standard Plus package.  For $99.99 each month you are allowed an unlimited number of products, 15 gigabytes of bandwidth, a $75 Google ad credit and the account includes all available plug-ins that are offered by 3dCart.  All accounts are subject to a $99 setup fee.

Regardless of which plan you choose, all accounts come with UPS, FedEx, USPS and CA Post integration, built-in SEO tools, Google Checkout, Paypal and Amazon Payments and are all installed with an easy-to-use control panel.

A bonus is the available plug-ins that 3dCart offers.  You can choose from a live chat option, enhanced statistics and ROI (Return On Investment) tracking.

Store Administration

Upon initially logging into the store administration area, you are presented with a “Sales by Day” graph, an activity profile/sales history chart and information with regard to the amount of space used, database usage and bandwidth usage.

Menuing to the left side of the panel includes extensive order, product and customer information.  Access to marketing tools, reports, available plug-ins and even a menu section for your own personal shortcuts are all included in this left-hand menu as well.  Across the top of the admin area you’ll find a link to view your store, a file manager, customer relationship management (CRM), a statistics link and more.

Store Front

Each account includes a professionally designed web site including a home page, product pages and unlimited content pages.  Adding your own company logo and customizing the colors of the design are a breeze and you can opt to switch out the design of your store by simply browsing the free templates that 3dCart offers.  Optionally the company offers professional design help and offers its customers several design packages to meet your business’ budget.

Conclusion

3dCart offers a great online ecommerce deal and a nice range of solutions to choose from in both plans and design.  Want to try it out with no obligation?  No problem.  3DCart is currently offering a trail option for 30 days – no credit card needed and you are given instant access.  If after 30 days you are not convinced it’s the right product for you and your business, simply cancel and walk away.  Not a bad deal for a really easy to use and fantastic online product.

Determining the best hosting solution for your business can seem rather overwhelming when faced with the seemingly never-ending choices available on the web.  If you already have a hosted site, this can make the task a bit simpler.  But what if you are just now getting your business out there for all to see?  Going over exactly what your business site needs are can help make this less of a chore.

Space

The first thing to consider is how much web space your business will need.  Think about what you want to convey to the general surfing audience about your business.

If you plan on merely putting out an informational styled web site, you can figure about five pages in total – a home page, an about page, a news page, a contact page and possibly one miscellaneous page.  In this case, your space requirements will be minimal and you can choose a hosting company that offers around one to two megabytes minimum in web space storage.

However, if you will be needing a site that covers several aspects of your business, offers product information and purchasing options, will be disseminating a lot of information to the public, or will grow and expand over time, your best option is to choose a web hosting company that offers unlimited amounts of web space.

Bandwidth

The next thing to consider is how much bandwidth your business web site will need.  Bandwidth, or data transfer, is the amount of data that is transferred from your web site.  This encompasses page views, images, videos, documents and files.

If your biggest concern will be consumers visiting your web site to gather more information about your business, then you can easily work with a hosting company that imposes monthly transfer limits.  However, if you plan on allowing customers the ability to download files or documents or your business site will involve a lot of video embedding, check out the hosting companies that offer unlimited amounts of bandwidth.

E-commerce

If you plan on selling products, e-commerce is a big concern when determining which web host to choose.  Almost every hosting company on the web will offer some form of shopping cart and secured server access (SSL).  Be certain to choose one that includes this within the monthly price and that the e-commerce solution offered is simple to use.  Nothing can cause a headache quicker than when having to deal with the actual manual setup of shopping carts and connections to SSL.  Another item to watch for is hosting companies that allow you to choose from several different shopping carts.  Not every cart program is going to be suited to the type or amount of products your business offers.

Support

When looking at the hosting companies on the web, one important aspect of their services to keep in mind is their support.  Look for companies that have a “one-stop” type of support section.  This should be one easy to find link on their main page that leads you to a section that offers (at a minimum) contact options (e-mail and phone), FAQs, a knowledge base and some form of tutorials.  An even better setup would include a ticket support system, a live chat option and 24 hours a day, seven days a week support.  Even if you’re an old hand at web hosting, knowing you can access support easily and have an array of options to choose from will give you peace of mind.

Extras

Extras to check out would include the types and number of add-on programs available – bulletin boards, social media plug-ins, and blogging software to name a few.  If your web pages are going to be built with PHP, Perl or Ruby on Rails, be certain the hosting company you choose has their sites already equipped with the proper scripting language.  One very popular extra and beneficial to businesses on the web is advertising credits.  Many web hosting companies offer this within their packages.  Decide which places you would be most likely to need advertising (Google, Yahoo, etc.) and choose your hosting company accordingly.

Wrap up

While there are a few things to consider when looking for the perfect web hosting company, it doesn’t have to be a daunting task.  Simply write down your requirements as far as space, transfers, e-commerce, support and extras and you are quickly on your way to finding the hosting company that will fit your business needs beautifully.