We have all been hearing the hype about online
businessproponents declare that it's the way of the
future; detractors claim that it will never replace
brick-and-mortar business...which is reality?
The truth falls somewhere in the middle: Online business
will never replace brick-and-mortar, but an online presence
will be integral to the business model of any successful
business. Already, e-commerce revenues are in the billions,
and experiencing exponential growth. Any business that
wishes to be competitive in this new marketplaceincluding
your businesscannot ignore the power of e-commerce.
Many of you have taken that first step in putting your
business online: You have done your research, identified
your brand, and chosen and registered a domain name that
speaks to your brand. That was the easy part. If you haven't
yet registered your domain name, don't fret! You can easily
do it at:
http://www.virtualis.com/vr/lschmeck/domain.html
After domain registration, what follows next may be one of
the most important decisions you make for your
e-business...finding the right hosting company. This is as
important to the quality of your business as finding the
right partner, and many peopleeven experienced
webmasters find the experience daunting. I would like to
share my hosting experience with you-perhaps it will make
your decision-making process a little easier.
RELIABILITY
Reliability. Hosting isn't glamorous, but as you know, it is
the backbone of your web-based business. That is why I refer
to it as the "silent partner." A good hosting company is
dependable, with a steady "up-time" track record. After all,
what good is a web site if it's down? A good hosting company
should operate like the electric companyevery day you wake
up, it's there, working. However, even the most reliable
companies need to periodically take the system down for
maintenance. Your hosting company should inform its
customers in advance, and perform that maintenance at
off-peak hoursso as not to unduly burden your web
business.
The next things to look for I call the "Four S's:"
Service, Software, Support, and Space.
SERVICE
An extremely important (and often overlooked) factor is
Service. Unfortunately, many hosting companies end their
relationship with you the moment the server sale is made.
This leaves unanswered the crucial question, "Okay, I've got
a servernow what?" This is critical when you consider
that some companies are so controlling that web masters are
discouraged from customizing and/or managing sites for their
clients! Other hosting companies give you space on a
server, but nothing moreyou have to configure the server
and set up all the back-end functionality manually!
As you have probably done this before, I don't need to tell
you what a time-consuming and laborious task this is. My
best service experience has been with Virtualis. So much so
that I've spent the last 2 years with them! If you have
questions, they are on-call 24/7 to answer themthey even
have discussion boards where fellow customers can offer
advice and helpful tips. Good service means providing a
community of resources throughout the life of your
e-business.
SOFTWARE
In addition to Service, the ideal hosting solution also
provides easy-to-use web management tools. This is the
third "S:" Software. Although many companies offer some of
these features, my choice for the hosting company with the
best overall tool suite is Virtualis. They offer tools that
are easy enough for a novice to quickly understand, and
customizable enough for a web master to optimize. In my
experience, one of the incredibly useful tools is the
Virtualis Email Manager.
The email manager has saved me a lot of time from manual
configuration. You can quickly and easily set up email
accounts, set up and remove POPs, create auto-responders,
create aliases, and more. Virtualis has 21 tools in
allcertainly more than I can cover in this article! One of
the best features of the Virtualis hosting software suite is
that it is totally web-based. This allows for instant
accessibility, no matter where you arecertainly helpful if
you travel frequently or have customers covering a wide
geographical area.
SUPPORT
Even for experienced web developers, a primary consideration
is Support. Questions always arise as you develop sites and
add features and/or functionality. The ideal hosting
company will be there to assist you along the way, as well
as talk you through any rough spots. Since support issues
are rarely constrained to regular business hours, make sure
that your chosen hosting company offers support 24/7 (just
in case), and offers a variety of means to contact support,
such as telephone, email, and web-based access.
SPACE
Finally, "Space," refers to how much server room you will
need to store/manage your digital data. How much space you
need can be determined by how much content you will post,
how much data you will store, and how much traffic you are
expecting. Ideally, you should find a company like Virtualis
that offers both shared and dedicated serversthat way, you
can start small, and expand as your online business grows.
Shared servers are simply servers that are shared with other
businesses. Most small to medium-sized businesses prefer
shared hosting because it is cost-effective and can be
scaled to the amount of space that your business needs.
Virtualis offers shared "Virtual" servers that range from
the VS Mini, at 30 MB of space, all the way up to the VS
Meta, which has 300MB of disk space. Of course, if you
require more space, a dedicated server option is likely best
for you. Virtualis offers five different dedicated servers
that range in size from 4.2 gigs (the DEDA1) to the huge
DEDA5, which has 18 gigs of space.
I hope my experiences will aid you in your hosting selection
process. You need to look at reliability, service,
software, support, and space. That way, you can wisely
choose the "silent partner," who will deliver steady uptime,
sophisticated time-saving tools, and supreme customer
support. After much personal research, and after consulting
my good friend, Jim Daniels, I chose Virtualis. From getting
my domain name to finding the right hosting package for my
needs, my silent partner-Virtualis-made getting my business
online impossibly easy.
For more information on how Virtualis can be your silent
partner, go to.....
http://www.virtualis.com/vr/lschmeck/orderform.html
About the Author
Lisa Schmeckpeper of LRS Marketing
and published in their free newsletter, Website Success
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Copyright © 2000 [LRS Marketing].