Archive for July, 2010

Using Color in Your Web Site Design

Posted on July 27th, 2010 by admin  |  No Comments »

When creating a web site, many people think about color, but may not give it real consideration when it comes to the impact it has on a successful web page design. Color, however, is one of the most important things to think about in your web creation. The color scheme of your site will set the mood and will give viewers an indication or your identity and image the moment they land on the home page. It makes a huge first impression! Here are some things to think about when deciding on colors for your website.

Warm vs. Cool

Warm colors are generally vibrant and attention getting. Red can be passionate and can be an action motivator, and while orange is similar, it is more likely to stimulate the appetite. Yellow is another warm color, but when used in the right tone can create a feeling of hope and friendliness.

Cool colors, such as blue and green, tend to be more calming. Blue is the most calming color and can often signify sophistication and intelligence, and is often associated with the sky and the ocean. Green on the other hand can signify not only growth and health, but also money. And purple is mysterious and can be a symbol of royalty or spirituality and is often eye catching because it’s a combination of warm and cool in that it is made up of red and blue.

Choosing Your Color Scheme

Once you understand the difference between warm and cool and you decide what feelings you want to convey on your site you’re ready to choose your palette. It’s not necessary to choose all warm or all cool. Sometimes a combination will help draw attention to specific items on a page. Using a monochromatic scheme will create a feeling of harmony and can tie the different areas of your site together. Using contrasting colors can work, but be careful because the eye often has trouble when it tries to focus on contrasting colors at the same time. No matter what combination of colors you choose, be careful with strength and tone of each color. Test your site and get input from friends, family and associates. This will give you an idea of whether or not your color combination is a success!

Using Social Media for Website Promotion

Posted on July 12th, 2010 by admin  |  No Comments »

Website promotion is all about getting people to your website. There are a number of ways to do so, however realistically you want more than a one-time visit. You want those visitors to become your clients, so you need to do a little lead nurturing in order to make that happen.

One of the easiest ways to go about lead nurturing is to stay in contact with your potential clients. This has never been easier to do than it is now in the age of social media. By creating fan pages and specialized business accounts on the various social media you can stay in contact with your leads and make sure your company stays at the forefront of their mind for when they are ready to make the purchasing decision.

There are many social media to choose from and keeping up with all of them can be very difficult, however it is worth it. Facebook is a very important one and is probably the most valuable one for retail sales. Twitter is an exciting, fast-paced environment that suits certain fields well. LinkedIn is great for B2B marketing, as it allows you access to the connections of your connections. Biznik is a useful network for small business owners. While they are all different, each specializes in its own field and can offer distinct benefits to help your website promotion.

Virtual vs Dedicated vs Colo-Which Web Hosting Do I Need?

Posted on July 9th, 2010 by John Hasson  |  No Comments »

You know you need a web host, but you don’t know where to start. So you do a web search to research potential solutions and get a bit overwhelmed with all the jargon: UNIX, dedicated servers, POP3, CoLo… the list goes on.

Step back a bit. You don’t need to learn everything about web sites to choose a host. You do however need to know what a web host is, and the basic types of web hosting. This knowledge will lead you to know what type of hosting you need, and ultimately you can make a sound decision.

To begin, let’s define the term. Web hosting is a service that hosts web pages on servers that can be accessed through the Internet. There are three primary categories of web hosting providers that cater to the requirements of site owners; these include virtual web hosting, dedicated web hosting, and co-located hosting. There are various sources online that offer detailed information and reviews on these services, but there are several details you should pay most attention to. The points to consider before selecting a web hosting provider include the number of clients they service, years in business, customer service reputation, hardware specifications, and backup routines. With that out of the way, let’s jump in and explore the basic types of web hosting.

Dedicated hosting

A dedicated web server is basically like the name sounds it’s dedicated to your site only. Typically it is leased to a site owner. The hosting company is responsible for the maintenance, backing up, security, and power management. The site owner manages the software-related issues.

Dedicated hosting is useful for websites that need extra bandwidth and system resources because of the use of technologies such as e-commerce software, customized server applications, and heavy traffic. Such websites are often better served by a dedicated hosting provider rather than developing and running an in-house solution. Dedicated hosting is possible with Windows, Mac, and Linux servers. A dedicated server can cost upward of $100 / month.

Pros and cons: 24/7 tech support is available. Speed, dependability, and customizability of website are often enhanced. The response time of dedicated servers is fast as compared to shared servers where the activity of other sites affects server speeds. Reliability and customizability of websites are improved as dedicated hosting offers greater storage capacity and greater freedom in terms of hardware configurations and software installations; hard drives can be upgraded and bandwidths increased with growth.

Shared servers and CoLo hosting are cheaper alternatives to dedicated hosting. Moreover, as the server is not owned by the site owner, security of sensitive data can be an issue.

Virtual hosting

Virtual hosting, also called shared hosting, is a popular and cost-effective web hosting solution. The hosting provider leases the website hosting server, services, and bandwidth to more than one website. Small and medium-sized websites, which do not have high traffic and have limited bandwidth requirements, benefit from virtual hosting. A virtual hosting offer by a service provider usually includes features such as Internet connection, domain name registration, file storage, email account, and may also include website design assistance. The cost of virtual hosting is in the range of $5-40 per month. It can be more or less depending upon the package selected.

Pros and cons: Virtual hosting enables the establishment of an online presence with no expensive equipment purchases required on part of the site owners and therefore is the perfect solution for SMBs.

One of the limitations of virtual hosting is that sites compete for the provider’s service, this may result in slow server response times in periods of heavy traffic and make browsing inconvenient. Since websites hosted on a server may be grouped under a single IP address, there is a chance that a site owner may have to share an IP address with adult or scam sites. This can lead to debarring from search engine placements which will have an adverse effect on the traffic. As the software components are shared between websites, a site owner may not be able to personalize the website as per his business objectives and target audience.

While purchasing virtual hosting services, it is useful to have an idea of the total anticipated traffic during the day as well as the visits during the peak period. This helps in obtaining a package with sufficient bandwidth for immediate and near term needs. Also, the cost of an upgrade and changes to the package should be understood.

Co-location (Co-lo) hosting

In Co-location hosting, the server is owned by the site owner and it is leased at the co-lo facility, where it is installed along with other servers in the facility. A co-lo service enables site owners to make maximum use of network access points and the freedom to choose between telecom lines provided by the hosting company and other telecom lines. Co-location hosting enables site owners to utilize high bandwidth at a cost that is not significantly higher than that of a normal web hosting package. The site owner maintains the server while the hosting provider ensures smooth running by providing regular power supply and IT support.

Co-location hosting services can be standalone data centers or companies that operate by leasing server space from a co-location web hosting reseller. The cost of the server and the volume of rack space required by the servers of a site owner influence the cost of co-lo hosting. Servers that fit in with the dimensions of the racks can help to save costs; co-locating tower servers usually cost more. Additional services provided by the hosting provider and insurance are other factors that affect cost. The monthly cost of a co-lo service for a half-rack of server space can be up to $1000.

Pros and cons: The benefits of co-location hosting include temperature and humidity controlled environment for the servers; security from hacking, fire, and theft, provision of redundancy and backup. It enables the site owner to control the critical features of web hosting such as bandwidth allocation, routers, VPN, server space, and VLAN.

Site owners may not find it easy to locate a co-lo service that is situated close enough to facilitate easy and safe transfer of servers and at the same time provide the best connection speeds. Co-lo hosting is of greater advantage to those who have hosting experience and consequently are better placed to recover the costs involved.

Ultimately, it is the requirements of the site that dictate the choice of web hosting solution. Online stores and sites with heavy traffic are better off with dedicated hosting, personal blogs and small sites without ecommerce activity that do not have high bandwidth consumption can function with virtual hosting, and websites that require a high degree of customization and deal with sensitive data benefit from a co-lo hosting arrangement.

To determine what type of host you need, ask yourself what type of site you have, and it should all flow naturally from there.

Author: John Hasson
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Digital TV, HDTV, Satellite TV

Learn Why You Should Choose a Good Web Hosting Company

Posted on July 8th, 2010 by Kenny Tan  |  No Comments »

Getting to know what is web hosting could be a difficult thing to learn if you are a novice to internet world wide web and in this article i would like to share something that i know about web hosting and why you should look for a good web hosting company to avoid things you do not wish to happen in future.

Well, let’s talk about what a web hosting is?

Web hosting actually means a web server with an allocated disk space that you buy from a hosting company to allows you to upload your web pages onto the internet to have peoples visiting it all the time. You may noticed some of the web hosting service even includes a free domain name on the web hosting plans they are offering. Hence, before selecting your web hosting service provider the next step you will need to take full attention after you have decided what is your domain name going to be. Most of the time, peoples who are choosing a web hosting company for their websites related on several factors such as diskspace allocation, total allowable monthly bandwidth or transfer, support response rate, on-site live support, reliability of the web server, server uptime, all the necessary software and scripts with necessary modules that are installed on the server.

Below are some of the steps i would like to discuss when choosing a hosting service for your business online:

1. The Types of Web Hosting Services You Need To Know

In normal circumstances, there are two common types of web hosting services available on the market. First type of service is usually being offered on a shared hosting and the other type is more good for better control which is known as dedicated hosting. The difference between the 2 services are the amount of web space and monthly transfer you are getting for your web site.

2. Dedicated Hosting Service

The advantages when you have decided to have all your web sites hosted on a dedicated hosting server plan is that you get full control on the entire server which literally provides you a large amount of web space for you to store all your web sites database, files, images, and other information that is deem necessary for running a successful web site without interruption. Furthermore, hosting your web site on a dedicated hosting server provides more security other than on a shared hosting server because you are not sharing the server resources with other users on the same server, But the only downside is the cost of owning a dedicated server would be quite expensive and not a recommended solution if you are just starting and uploading your website for the first time.

3. Shared Hosting Service

This type of hosting service is the most commonly used on almost all new sites that have been chosen by those peoples who just started their own websites that do not need much requirements. It was offered in an affordable price range because you are sharing the server resources with other users and also having the same IP address with other users too. However, there are problems when using this type of web hosting which is resource limited. For instant, the shared server may goes down once in a while when someone on the server exceeded the limits that may caused your website to go off line since a shared server is very much loaded with plenty of websites. One thing to bear in mind, if any user on the same shared server with you does anything illegal, unethical or spamming then most probably the other websites that hosted on the same server are also thoroughly scrutinized. Most of the time, a shared hosting server may not be able to let you have a larger web space and resources for your websites, this is why big companies and those who have larger websites choose to use a dedicated server.

4. What to Look for when selecting a Web Hosting Company?

As you should be aware when choosing a web hosting company it is not the right way to look for low and cheap pricing just because you want to cut costs. Most of the time, a worst web hosting company will cause you more serious problems or even interruptions and you will eventually ended up wasting more of your precious time and pay a lot amount of money to get all the problems fixed up just of troubles they created for you.

Therefore, you must make sure you choose a reliable and web hosting company which has their professionalism on maintaining their servers. And don’t forget that this company should provides full guarantee to the most minimal rate or no downtime at all. Server downtime is crucial and it means all your web sites are not online, this could possibly cause all your potential customers cannot reach you. For example, If you have some current customers that are looking to buy products or services from you and when the time they reached your site, found out the site could not be found just because of the server downtime especially a lot of down time occurred which cannot be get back online on the shortest period, these customers will move away immediately from your site and what they have in their mind is that they might even think that you are not serious on doing business online.

5. A Web Hosting Company that Offers Back Ups

Observe and check that the hosting company you are going to choose should be backing up all the files regularly so that if you should ever lose any information or in the event of a server failure, your work is saved and can easily be restored. My advice, you should not completely rely on the backup that is done by the hosting provider, you should do a practice on yourself to do the backup more on a frequent basis onto your own backup storage, this is to ensure total safety on files recovery for your website contents in case something happened on your hosting provider backup storage system.

6. The Amount of Email Accounts Being Offered

Another important factor when choosing a web hosting company is the amount of email accounts the company allocated for you. Make sure you don’t need to pay extra penny just for for any additional email addresses in case you may need in the future. This should be unlimited on most of the hosting company offers.

7. Server Speed and Performance

It is very crucial that your web hosting company guarantee a fast connection on all their servers. If your page loaded extremely slow then most probably you will lose plenty of potential customers. Some Internet users are still using dial up to access the net and what if your web hosting provider is offering a problematic server which has slow in connection then your page may not even load at all. This could again causing you to lose our potential buyers to reach your site.

8. Customer Service and Live Support is Essential

Lastly, before choosing the right web hosting company you wish to go for hosting all your sites, one of the most important aspect is to make sure the web hosting company has a good, reliable and efficient customer service support. It is important that you have the professional support available whenever you need them and also observe how fast they are responded to you when you have problems to get the problems resolved promptly, quickly and efficiently either through support ticket system or online live support help.

In conclusion for today’s article, the professionalism on a web hosting company based on the response rate and the time on resolving any issues for your problems are the key to take your business towards the next success level forever.

Author: Kenny Tan
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Latest trends in mobile phone

Creating a Blog

Posted on July 8th, 2010 by admin  |  No Comments »

“Blog” is the more commonly known term for a web log. A web log is an online journal that is shared with internet users. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual who shares their opinions and commentary, among other things, to share with any number of online visitors. A blog can be about anything, literally, and can be created by virtually anyone.

How do you create a blog? It’s easy! And it’s usually free. Some of the most popular blog sites include WordPress.com, Blogger.com, and LiveJournal.com. All of these sites provide templates that you can choose from to create a semi-customized look for your blog. They are also incredibly easy to use, with click-to-publish functionality that makes publishing a blog posting as easy as sending an email. Visit some of these sites and look around to choose the one that suits your personality and needs the best.

Once you’ve selected your blog site provider and signed up, you can select the template, color scheme, and layout for your blog. You can decide whether to make it public or private and you can decide who can leave feedback or comments and how that should be formatted. Once you have it set up, test it out with some sample posts and ask your family and friends to give you their feedback, and make changes accordingly. Once you’re happy with the look and feel of your blog, go ahead and publish it!

There are many types of blogs, including personal, hobby, professional, corporate, job blogs, political and by genre, just to name a few. Whatever your interests and passions, you can create your own blog to rant, rave, review and share your ideas and opinions with others. The possibilities of blogs are endless, and the creation is so simple, there’s no reason not to have your own.