Many business owners do not realize that maintaining website performance is every bit as important as making the website appear to be professional. In fact, many site owners make the mistake of overloading their site with too much information and thereby hindering the speed and functionality of their website. While having complex flash presentations, eye-catching media, and other entertaining features on your website is optimal, it should not sacrifice the performance of your website. After all, how many people will want to stay at your site if all of these features are taking an hour to load? In order to crate a well balanced website and monitor the server load of your website you’ll need a competent control panel, and you’ll need to know how to use it as well.

Database Management

Managing databases and managing your website might as well be interchangeable phrases, as the databases of your website basically comprise it’s existence. Without the right database management skills, you could find yourself staring at a cluttered unorganized mess of date. Using a control panel to maintain cleaned and up to date databases is a good way to improve the speed of your website.  Using database servers like MySQL will let you use several databases for multiple reasons, thereby balancing some of the load placed on the web server. Using a control panel like cPanel will let you manage all of your databases with ease.

Controlling File Transfer Protocol

Uploading files to the server can be a daunting task, especially when you have a lot of content for your site. To lessen the amount of time it takes to upload, it is best to become familiar with your control panels FTP module. You’ll also want to outsource some of the work eventually, especially if you have people producing content for you in large quantities. A good control panel will let you create new FTP accounts for each user, so they can upload the content straight to the website, saving you a lot of time and frustration. Each FTP account can be given limitations or permissions that allow certain users to handle certain tasks. For example, a writer would only be able to upload written content to the site.

Analyzing Traffic with Your Control Panel

Another way to boost productivity and manage the loaf placed on your website is to use the traffic analyzing utilities that are included with your control panel. Using these tools you can find a plethora of statistics that lend insight to the nature of your website’s traffic. This information can help you make decisions in regards to upgrading your web hosting plan, and judging when it is time to expand your server capabilities. The number one reason why website owners suffer from poor website performance is because they fail to upgrade when it is time to do so. Staying on top of your website’s traffic habits not only lets you monitor your servers capability, but you’ll also be able to see what traffic generating techniques work for you by analyzing daily and weekly traffic statistics.

Building a website by yourself is a very difficult task. So difficult in fact that it is rarely done. If you do decide to build the website without assistance, unless you have extensive experience in website design, and you’re an excellent author at the same time, then chances are your site will be mediocre at best. Cooperation and collaboration is standard in the website creation industry. There are very few people that can establish a professional website without at least seeking the knowledge of another person before hand.

When you work on a site building project with multiple users, having the ability to set restrictions and delegate website duties is imperative. You’ll need to be able to run the operation with precision and authority, in order to same yourself time and frustration. To do this you’ll need a good content management system. Selecting the right open source content management system be a difficult task in and of itself. To make the task easier on yourself, perform the following steps.

Assess Your Needs

The first step is to find out what kind of features you’ll need in a content management system. Will you be delegating work to authors? Will you be working with multiple programmers and designers? If so then you’ll definitely need a secure administrative interface that will give you the ability to designate certain tasks to each of your team members. Write down what kind of features that will be most essential and then you can begin the search.

Look For Compatibility

It is important to remember what kind of operating system you’re using and remember that not all content management systems are compatible with all operating systems. You’ll also need to remember what kind of operating system your sever operates on. It is also important to note which programming language your site uses. The most combination that you will find is PHP language and MySQL databases, being run on an Apache servers. If you don;t want to go through the hassle of finding a compatible content management system, then you may want to find a host that has these features, which most content management systems will be compatible with.

Compile a list of Suitable CMS

Now that you know exactly what you’re looking for it is time to compile a list that will narrow your options and make the final decision easier for you. Open a word processor  or pull out a sheet of paper and a pen and get ready to do some web searching. Finding the top content management systems will not be as hard as you would think. There are many review sites that have already compiled long lists of all of the top content management systems for you. All you have to do is eliminate the content management systems that are not compatible with the needs we assessed above.

Narrow Your Options

Now that you have a large list of CMS to choose from, all that is left to do is to narrow the list down to one CMS. One by one, check of each one as being compatible or not compatible. When you’re finished you should have a list of about 3-5 content management systems. Next visit each one of their websites and test their support team. The final decision will come down to reliability and cost efficiency.

One of the more popular reasons to have a web site is blogging.  Blogging allows web users the ability to report news, express commentaries on various subjects or simply write about their personal experiences.  Online companies and businesses are beginning to see the usability of blogs and not only are incorporating them into their web sites but also expanding and desiring to be able to produce multiple blogs.  This is where a product like B2Evolution steps in – a multi-blog program that is free and open sourced.

All user types

B2Evolution caters to several different levels of bloggers.  There are many types of bloggers – those that are new and those who have been at it for quite some time.  This program works for all.

For the absolute virgin in the world of blogging, B2Evolution allows users to simply type in what they wish to say into a form, click “post this,” and the new post is automatically placed on the web site.  No fuss, no muss.  All posts are arranged by date and category within themes that users can choose and customize.

B2Evolution works well for those who are old hats at blogging as well as IT professionals.  It allows for multiple blogs, full user management, internationalization, and more.  The program utilizes PHP  and MySQL and is stable in its latest release.

Features

B2Evolution comes stocked with many great features.

First and foremost, it is one of few blogging software programs freely available that allows for the creation of more than one blog.  Whether it be one or 1000 blogs, B2Evolution can handle it.  As such, multiple users and authors can be created to maintain and administer the program.  Users can be restricted to specific permissions such as read, write, moderate or fully customize one or more blogs.

Statistics are integrated into the program.  Activity graphs clearly indicate referrers, searches, keywords, user log-ins and many other bits of data.

Blogs can be sub-divided into categories and even sub-categories.  This allows users to be able to organize posts by subject or theme.  Posts can even be assigned across more than one category or more than one blog.

B2Evolution is also completely compliant with W3C standards – it is even used by W3C.  The program has an XHTML checker that allows for validation prior to posting included as well.

Extendable

The B2Evolution program can be extended with several hundred plug-ins that cover spam, advertising, widgets and more.  To ensure that no two web sites are exactly alike, there are over a hundred different themes to choose from.  B2Evolution also offers an AdSense plugin for blogs to generate income.

For language extendability, the program current offers language packs in German, French, Russian, Spanish, Finnish, Icelandic, Dutch, Portuguese, Turkish and Chinese.  If the language needed is not present, the company provides information on how to translate the program into one’s preferred language.

Final Thoughts

B2Evolution truly is as its web site touts – a multilingual, multi-user, multi-blog program that is easy to use and sure to be an online business favorite.

When looking for a content management system (CMS) to create and manage a web site, there are literally hundreds to choose from.  One that stands out from the crowd due to its ease of use and simple implementation is Wordpress.

Installation

The few items that should be checked prior to installation is whether or not PHP and MySQL are installed on the server where the web site resides and whether FTP access is enabled.  Wordpress relies on PHP and MySQL in order to work and the site must be accessible via FTP in order to upload files.  Once these items have been attended to, Wordpress can be downloaded and unzipped onto the user’s computer (not the web server at this point).  A database must be created on the web server as well as a user with the privileges set to access and utilize this newly created database.  Once the database has been created, the file named wp-config-sample.php needs to be renamed to wp-config.php then opened up and edited to reflect the details of the database previously created.  After the wp-config.php file is saved, the entire folder can then be uploaded to the web site at the root web location.

Configuring and adding

The installation of Wordpress is the hard part.  The easy and fun part is configuring and adding to the program.  There are a large number of plugins and themes available to make a web site one of a kind.  Plugins range from statistical gathering to comments to polls and much more.  If there is a need, guaranteed it has already been created as a plugin by someone.  At last count, there are over one thousand themes available at the Wordpress site and this number continuously grows.

The Wordpress site also has an extensive documentation area that covers installation, upgrading, file and plugin management and much more.  If a question can’t be answered within the documentation area, there is also a forums section overflowing with information from previously asked questions and people who are more than happy to help with wading through the ins and outs of Wordpress.

Showcasing

Once the Wordpress site is up, running and looking beautiful, Wordpress has a “Showcase” section on their web site.  This is a great way to show off a newly created site and gives peers a chance to review and rate different sites.  The Showcase area is also great for inspiration.  Some very beautiful and creative Wordpress sites are shown here.

Conclusion

Easy to install, simple and fun to add to and configure, great documentation and forum support, a way to show off new sites and free hosting – Wordpress is an excellent choice for managing web site content and building a beautiful new web site.

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.

If you have been thinking about launching a website lately, web hosting is the critical service you need to effectively launched.  The web hosting provider is the company that allows you to store your website files on their server.  Once your website is up and running, it can then be viewed by anyone in the world with an internet connection.  The good thing is that web hosting companies are abundant.  The bad – the overwhelming array of options can make finding the right service a nightmare.  So, how many types of web hosting are there?  Several, and here are a few you may run across.

Shared Hosting

Shared web hosting is what many refer to as “normal” hosting.  Providers maximize their resources by hosting multiple websites on one computer.  This means that one server may hold thousands of customers, while another may hold hundreds more.  In this arrangement, customers are required to share all the server’s resource, disk space, bandwidth and internet connection included.  Shared hosting is easy to find even though it often comes in several niche variations.  For example, you will find these services packaged around names such as Windows, Linux, ASP, PHP, MySQL or Joomla hosting.

Dedicated Hosting

Dedicated hosting often goes by the title “dedicated server.”  Though more expensive than its shared counterpart, the dedicated variety offers far more power.  As the name indicates, the server is dedicated to you, meaning there are no other customers to worry about. You can install your own software applications and completely customize the server to meet your specific needs.  A dedicated server gives you better performance and security because of the extra resources you have at your disposal.  You should also know that this type of hosting requires technical skills that exceed the typical personal computing.  Because of this, some customers need to outsource their server to a professional IT team.

Managed Hosting

You can look at managed hosting as the service that bridges that gap between shared and dedicated hosting.  You still have your own server, but instead of dealing with complex administrative tasks, the technical burdens are shifted to the provider.  With managed hosting, you can usually choose the type of services that work best for your situation.  Because the service provider has so much involvement, this type of hosting is often considerably more expensive than others.

VPS Hosting

Short for virtual private server, VPS refers to a virtualization technology that creates multiple servers from a single machine.  This type hosting entails many of the same aspects of a dedicated server but the cost is usually much less.  Most VPS packages allow you to install software with root access and provides the enhanced performance you don’t get with shared hosting.

Conclusion

Regardless of your plans, web hosting will go a long way in establishing your web presence.  It may all seem like a signifigant challenge when first setting out for service, but you will find that research is needed in order to land the most reliable host.