Web Design and Hosting

So you are looking for the best web hosting options. You casually slide on over to google or your favorite search engine, and type in “web hosting” and what do you see? As of this writing, something like:

Results 1 – 10 of about 780,000,000 for web hosting

Hmm. Ok, your on your lunch hour at work, thinking you can knock this out in an hour tops. However, you just realized that if you start now you might wade through those results in a mere… light year or 2.

At this point, most people take 1 of 2 options:

1) Stare blankly at the screen while their brain continues to melt down as they ponder how they will ever figure out which web hosting company to trust with their website and money or

2) Calmly and cool-ly type the words “web hosting review” into their favorite search engine’s cuddly little query form. If this is you, then smart move. Come to think of it (wait for the ah-ha moment…) that’s probably how you found this article. Pure genius.

Anyway, let’s boil it all down. Your decision needs to be driven by a few basic criteria:

How much storage space do you need?

Disk space has gotten so cheap that this is almost moot. For a personal web site, almost any basic package you buy will have more than most people ever need. Maybe even more than most small business websites need. Basically, space is cheap nowadays, but keep it in mind if your site will have vast numbers of articles or content, media files, or in some other way will use lots of space.

How much transfer space do you need?

Ditto. See above. Except, you do have to pay attention to disk transfer space if your site gets to the point of having incredible gobs of traffic each day. If so, and your hosting package only includes a limited amount of transfer space, you will be charged for the extra usage, or else your site will lock up or become unavailable to site visitors. If you do experience this problem, upgrade your account to get more transfer space – and then contact us via our Feedback Form and explain in detail how you managed to get all that traffic

How reliable is the web host?

This means: “what is their guarantee for up time?” And that means: “can they guarantee at least 99.9% up-time?” If not, move on. For a great discussion of web hosting uptime guarantees and what they really mean.

What features do you need?

Okay, this could get really long, but I will do my best to be brief. Which features you need is driven by what kind of website you are planning. Is it a personal site for friends or family or a professional web site? Will it be created with MS FrontPage? Will it be a forum or community site? Windows based or Linux? Do you require an Apache server? Will you be using SSI’s (server side includes)? Will your site contain, or be primarily, a blog? I think you get the idea now, so I will shut up about features. If you don’t know what these terms mean, don’t worry about it. Basic packages abound that will likely exceed your wildest dreams about the features you actually need.

How competitive is the pricing?

Now this is a good one. It is a buyer’s market people, so keep that in mind. Their are thousands of web hosting companies (maybe even millions, as in 780,000,000 ) Regardless of exactly how many, it is a-lot, and if you remember Economics 101, you will recall the law of supply and demand, which states roughly that “…the more saturated the market is for web hosting, the greater the features, disk space, guarantees, and technical support will be for a lower price than you can imagine…”

Web Hosting has become so affordable that you have no excuse not to launch that web site or blog you have dreamt about all of your life (or at least since the mid 90′s) with all kinds of professional features and capabilities, for a price that amounts to peanuts (or a mere pittance if you prefer.)

Once you have answered these questions, you will be much better armed to recognize the web host that has the most to offer you for the lowest price.

Now you see? That wasn’t so bad, and you probably have another 24 minutes or so on your lunch hour, so go get a sandwich, or better yet, get cracking on reading the web hosting reviews at 5pcom.com – And stop oozing brain all over your keyboard.

Your Designer Can Help

There are a number of design elements that can help to increase conversions on your website, all of which your designer will be able to help you with. Some of these include:

Above-the-fold content- content is hugely important for selling, but its position matters as well. By putting convincing copy right in front of visitors when they land on your website rather than forcing them to scroll down the page you can help to keep them on the page instead of leaving.

Images- although images are sometimes added to a website to simply add some colour, if you use images that add information or provide more details about the product or service that you are selling then this can help to boost conversions.

Stylistic elements- visitors often won’t read every word of your landing page, and you can use stylistic elements such as bold and italics to make the page more scannable and highlight the main sales points. Other elements such as bullet points and subheadings can also help to improve the conversions of visitors landing on your page.

Start Testing

The above are just a few of the ways that a designer can help you to boost your conversions when it comes to website design packages. But there are ways to take it even further through testing.

Multivariate testing and A/B split testing are two of the most common techniques for testing the effectiveness of a web page. These methods both allow you to try out different versions of a page and then use the findings to take your conversions to a whole new level.

Conversions Matter

Don’t just sit back and wait for the conversions to roll in once your website is up and running. Website design packages may be a convenient option, but you will only get the most from yours if you spend a bit of time working not only on bringing more visitors to the site but on converting them when they are there, and your designer can help you to get the most out of this.

What’s colocation hosting?

Colocation hosting wherein multiple customers locate network, server and storage gear and interconnects to a volley of telecommunications and various other network service provider thus minimizes the complexity and cost. Have a dedicated hosting right away and enjoy complete freedom.

Added features of dedicated hosting!

Data centers should be monitored 24-7. Your systems should be housed in a state-of-the-art data center, with redundant air cooling and filtering systems, designed to operate even in the event of a power failure. Data centers should be located and built to withstand natural disasters, and other emergencies. Don’t you want to safeguard your data centre too. Evaluate your business’s power, cooling and security requirements and design a solution that meets your need and scales to allow you to adapt in the future. Appropriate to businesses both large and small, co-location is a highly flexible, cost-effective and best practice solution to ensuring your business’ IT service uptime.

Be one among the world’s leading players or excel them with secure and well managed colocation. Colocation pricing queries can be dealt with our online professionals with just a click or a phone call. Have a single rack or a dedicated private suite, your servers and core systems need to be housed in a secure, well managed, and environmentally controlled environment. Sometimes the server is hosted with one and the other provides the Internet connectivity. Here, there are issues with cross-connection fees, which can complicate the matter. The host must be able to provide uninterrupted connectivity without any major hiccups.

Colocation hosting can offer reliable power with clean, uninterruptible power, through a combination of multiple power grids, generators, and best-of-breed maintenance practices. Colocation facilities manage their climate with two kinds of dedicated cooling systems, chillers and CRAC units. Chillers are systems of pipes which circulate chilled water throughout the server rooms. CRAC units (computer room air-conditioning units) are targets air conditioners which never shut off. Servers generate enough heat to overheat a several-thousand square foot room in only a few minutes; by continuously cycling, CRAC units prevent heat buildup in server rooms.

“Single rack to full private suite options

“Fully complemented value-added connectivity and managed service solutions

“Have high bandwidth on-net network connectivity to tier one carrier backbones for Internet access and private network connectivity

“Ensuring maximum security and uptime

Meet the requirements of your business! Get on to the online route and find a
Colocation Hosting provider for your business.

You may be a professional photographer starting an online business, or maybe you just want to share your snaps with some friends. Either way, with the internet now mainstream and used by almost everyone, it’s simple and convenient to present your photos online.

But what steps does one need to take to get one’s photos from camera to net?

First you will need a digital camera that interfaces to your home computer. Most modern day cameras offer this as a standard option, but some older cameras don’t. Once your photos are on your computer, you’ll need a place to store and publish them online.

You are probably wondering what to next? We’ll take a look and the different options and discuss the benefits and drawbacks of each one.

Traditional Web Hosting

If you already have web hosting and the right technical skills, you can use your current hosting space for your photo albums. There are several free open-source solutions like Gallery 2 and Jalbum that will do the job nicely, but before choosing this option, ensure your web hosting plan grants you enough disk storage space and bandwidth and that you are not violating their terms.

Digital photos tend to take up a lot of storage space and bandwidth which some web hosting companies do not look kindly upon. If your hosting plan doesn’t work out, don’t despair, for there are tons of online photo sharing companies that can help.

Photo Sharing Services

A photo sharing website is a website that will store your digital photos, enabling you to share your latest pictures with friends, customers or the public in general. Most photo sharing services have security features, allowing only your close friends access if that’s what you want and offer multiple ways of viewing collections such as thumbnail and slideshow view, the ability to “tag” individual photos, allowing them to be found more easily in search and free software.

Photo sharing services fall into two basic categories in terms of pricing: Free and paid.

Free photo sharing services
If you are on a tight budget or your collection is of a personal nature, a free photo sharing service might be a cheap and convenient solution. Free photo sharing sites are usually either advertising supported or offer paid services such as photo finishing in addition to general photo sharing.

Paid Photo Sharing Services

Paid services are typically subscription-based and dispense with advertising and selling you other products. You are paying for the service and they will go to great lengths to ensure it is top-notch. This option tends to suit serious photographers with large collections.

Comparing Different Options

When comparing photo sharing services, it helps, to try their trial versions first, to ensure you are happy with the user interface and features.

When making your choice consider what’s important to you. Sharing services tend to differ in the following areas.

File formats permitted for uploading Amount of storage space Gallery presentation styles Photo management systems The ability to add and search by tags or keywords Ability for users to leave comments Rating system – whether it be a star rating system (Amazon style) or a thumbs up/down rating, etc Notes/Annotations – The ability to overlay textual notes to areas of a photo Download options – Anyone can download, only “pro” members can download Friendly URLs Subscriptions – RSS Feeds, Web Interface, Email
Some Popular Choices

There are photo sharing services for all levels of photographers and graphics enthusiasts. Chances are you will not have to look far to find one that you like, but to get you started here are a few of the more popular ones.

Photobucket

Photobucket is an image and video hosting service featuring photo albums, built-in organizer to keep photos organized neatly into albums, built-in free photo editor, scrapbook builder, album themes and slideshow creator. Photobucket also features a built-in online photo gifts and prints store. The service allows private or public access and offers 1 GB of storage in their free plan, with the option to upgrade.

Flickr

Flickr allows you to organize images and videos into sets which may be grouped into collections which may be further grouped. Tagging of images is also supported allowing efficient searching of certain topics and the service provides an in-built image editor that can get rid of red eye, crop a photo or add fonts and effects. Flickr offers a limited free license that allows up to 100mb of storage and a paid pro option that offers unlimited storage and bandwidth.

Picasa Web Albums

Google offer a free software application called Picasa which allows you to organize and edit your digital photos. The software features automated file importing and tracking features and other features for organizing photo collections such as tags and collection. Basic photo editing functions are included as well as slideshow viewing, printing and image time-lines. Picasa allows you to easily publish your photos on their photo-sharing website, Picasa Web Albums. The service offers a free account that can store 1 GB of photos with paid upgrade options available.
SmugMug

Smugmug is a premium photo sharing website geared towards professional photographers. Offering a strikingly attractive user-friendly interface, there are three levels of membership (standard, power and pro), but no free account. There is a 14-day free trial period however that users can use to get a feel for it. Users can upload an unlimited number of photos with all account types. Power level membership adds video sharing, a unique domain name and further customization, while pro level users can also share high definition video and mark up their prints for sale, the photographer gets 80% of the markup over the base photo price.

Summary

On the internet today, there are more ways than ever to host your photos online. While storing them on your hosting account is one way, also consider one of the many free and premium photo-sharing services available.

There are several reasons why people choose website development for their company. They may do so as a way to reach a wider market for the services or products that they are offering. They may also use a website as a way to display the products that they offer or showcase past projects that they have worked on. It can also be an excellent way to tell potential customers as much as possible about your company and give them a feel for your corporate culture.

Many website development projects fall short of these goals. They may lack important elements that are needed to help potential customers get a good feel for what you are offering or what your basic philosophy is. As a result, the website can actually fail to generate the kind of income they have been hoping to achieve. Here are two areas that you may want to address in order to ensure that this does not happen to you.

Displaying your Logo

Displaying your logo clearly is critically important when developing a website. Customers often identify strongly with your logo and not being able to find it on your website may make them think they are dealing with another company. You want to make sure that the logo itself is well designed and that it relates directly to your company rather than being more generic in nature. Often, if your website development company also has a graphic designer working for them they may be able to help you develop a logo at the same time that your site is being developed.

The right font can make a huge difference

The style of writing that is used on a website is known as a font. There are literally thousands of fonts to choose from. Some are more traditional and have the look of hand calligraphy. Others are more modern and can have a clean, cutting-edge look to them. When choosing fonts there are a few things that you need to consider.

The first is how easy they are to read. Some fonts can be hard on the eyes and may cause headaches if there are large written sections that your clients need to read through. It is a good idea to consider several different fonts and choose the one that is easiest for you to read. You do not want your customers to stop reading before they have had a chance to get through the information you are trying to give them.

The next thing to consider is whether your chosen font fits your corporate image. This is part of branding as a whole. If you are in a cutting edge industry you may be able to get away with a font that is more modern looking or artistic. A company that is involved in a more traditional industry may want to show this by choosing a more traditional font style. You also need to consider the size of the type you are using and the color of the text as well.