| To run an online business website successfully it is | | | | website, email is a great marketing tool that you |
| essential to choose a good hosting provider. Before | | | | should not look lightly. How many POP3 email |
| you settle down your decision, you should analyze | | | | accounts is allowed? Will you able to get access to |
| the company from following important aspects: | | | | your email account via web? Also, check whether if |
| 1. Reliability and Speed | | | | they provide auto-responders and spam assassin |
| Some people put much thought into the bells and | | | | features. |
| whistles rather than the reliability of a web host. In | | | | 6. Control Panel |
| reality, this is a fatal error. Finding a provider with high | | | | Control Panel is the administer area where |
| uptime guarantee so that your website will be always | | | | webmaster manage the server and the website. If |
| available is much more important than selecting some | | | | you are have some common sense in web hosting |
| features that you may not use in the future. A poor | | | | industry, you will know that cPanel has become an |
| server will make your website down regularly. In | | | | industry standard for the administration and |
| addition, your website needs to fly, which is both | | | | management of websites. As a website owner or |
| good to search engines and your website visitors. If | | | | administrator, the most basic thing you expect in a |
| your website is loading slowly, visitors are not going | | | | web server control panel is the ease of use. cPanle is |
| to sit around waiting for it to load. Faster sites will | | | | the most intuitive interface and it is very easy to use |
| get crawled faster and thus gather more information | | | | even the most inexperienced of users will be able to |
| about your site. | | | | manage his website with any difficulties. Besides, it |
| 2. Operating System | | | | also provided you with extra features, such as |
| Do you need to use programming languages, such | | | | Fantastico, which allows you to install the most |
| as.ASP,.NET and Microsoft SQL to run your website? | | | | popular programs up and running in a very short time. |
| Then go for a Windows server. Windows server and | | | | 7. Domains Allowed |
| the corresponding software will charge you license | | | | If you have more than one site to host, it will save |
| fee and therefore it is a bit expensive. With a Linux | | | | you hosting cost if your hosting provider allows you |
| server, you will be provided with MySQL databases | | | | to host multiple domains on a single account. Due to |
| as well as PHP technology. Linux server is much more | | | | the extension of online business websites, there are |
| affordable since it is an open source technology and | | | | many companies willing to provide multiple domains |
| many online communities make their contributions. | | | | hosting to cater for their customers' requirements. |
| When talks about the selection of operating system, | | | | 8. Statistics |
| it is mainly determined by the languages and | | | | Do you need to track your website traffic? Are you |
| database that you would like to use in your website. | | | | hunting for powerful and reliable method to analyze |
| 3. Technical Support | | | | your website traffic? Good website hosting providers |
| Are you able to receive help when anything goes | | | | will consider what their customer have considered |
| wrong? Will the web host company play the blame | | | | and offer you with the top 3 powerful and |
| game or will they help you sort the problem out? | | | | well-known stats tools, Awstats, Webalizer, and |
| Check out the different contact methods that are | | | | Analog for you to make a success. |
| available for you to get help 24 hours a day. In case | | | | 9. Disk Space and Bandwidth |
| of emergency, will you able to find help via live-chat | | | | This couple of features is essential for the choice of |
| system so that you could solve the problem | | | | different hosting packages. While small ordinary |
| immediately? | | | | website will not use up too much disk space and |
| 4. FTP Accounts | | | | bandwidth, if you offer file download and enjoys |
| You need install FTP clients on your hosting account | | | | great popularity then you will need check whether |
| so that you can upload and download files to or from | | | | your hosting provider set limitation to the resource or |
| the server without hassle. Some provider may not | | | | not. |
| offer any FTP access to your server. In such case, it | | | | 10. E-commerce Features |
| is very difficult to manage and update your website | | | | If you are going to conduct online transactions on |
| regularly. Check out whether you will be provided | | | | your website, that is to say, people from all around |
| with FTP account as well as anonymous ftp accounts | | | | the world will able to buy your products or services, |
| so that you could assort FTP accounts to different | | | | then a SSL certificate encrypted on your website is |
| users if there are many people are developing a | | | | essential for you to gain trust from visitors. Different |
| single project. | | | | ecommerce shopping cart system will reduce your |
| 5. Email Accounts | | | | time and effort to set up an online store. |
| If you are going to doing business online with your | | | | |