Web Hosting Packages - Domain Name Registration - Web Site Information

How do I set up a web hosting account?

2008-04-20T05:38:00Z

How do I set up a web hosting account?

The simple answer to this question is to let you web designer handle the web hosting setup. If you have a web designer building your web site, this is the person who is going to know best, what kind of hosting you're going to need. Your website designer will need your credit card information and billing address to purchase your hosting package for you. If the designer also hosts websites, your financial information will or should be kept confidential, otherwise, like me, shred any financial information you might have after the purchase is made.

What if I want to purchase the website hosting package myself?

If you set the hosting up by yourself, you need to know what variables you will be working with. Some examples are below:

Which web language will be used (ASP, .NET, PHP, and others)
How much storage d you need?
How much transfer or bandwidth will be needed?
How will I market the website?
Am I paying to much for hosting?
Do I want email or phone or both for technical support?
What is the reputation of my host?
Can I upload files online or can I use and FTP program (FTP = File Transfer Protocal).

If you don't know what you are doing or have had very little experience with it, you could end up with more problems then you want.

Hosting setup

The best thing to do is to use common sense and only purchase the options you know you will need. Generally if you need to purchase additional email accounts, traffic software, or secure certificates, (these are just examples of options available) you can always do it later and just add it to your account.

About domain names and purchasing them

2008-04-05T23:00:00Z

Introduction to domain names

In the case of a business domain, think of purchasing your domain name with either the businesses name in mind or a well know aspect of the business or a service you provide. Domain names are an important factor in search engine rankings, if your thoughts are along the lines of how your business will be found within the seach engine results of Google, Yahoo, and MSN, this needs to be well researched and well thought out.

Domain Name Registration

Domain name registration is the purchase of your websites identity, the who you are of the Internet. As mentioned above, it's important to choose a domain name that is relavent to your websites subject, so it should be both easy to remember if that's possible, and have a relationship to your business, product, or service. Registering your domain is easy using SarJen Web Hosting , just search your domain for availability on the home page, and purchase it. The catch to doing this, well, not really a catch but rather another choice to make, do you want to purchase a .com domain, a .net domain, a .org domain, or a host of others to choose from? See Common domain extentions defined below:

Common domain extentions defined

.com denotes the word 'commercial,' and it is an unrestricted global domain name extension. Many businesses prefer a .com domain name because it is a highly recognized symbol for having a business presence on the Internet. However, the number of available .com domain names is shrinking as more and more businesses go online.

.net represents the word 'network,' and is an unrestricted global domain name extension most commonly used by Internet service providers, Web-hosting companies, or other businesses that are directly involved in the infrastructure of the Internet. Additionally, some businesses choose domain names with a .net extension for their intranet web sites.

.org represents the word 'organization,' and is an unrestricted global domain name extension that is primarily used for non-commercial sites. However, many commercial entities register the .org extensions corresponding to their .com domain names in order to protect their brands.

.biz is a restricted-use global domain name extension used for business web sites. As a relatively new type of domain, .biz offers a company the opportunity to get the domain name it really wants and enhance its presence on the Web with a domain name that means business.

.info is an unrestricted domain name extension that creates an opportunity to reach a worldwide audience with information about your business and ideas. .info is growing in popularity, but still has many great names available.

.us is a restricted-use country code that may be used by any individual or organization with residence in the United States or its territories, including foreign organizations that do business in the US.

There are many more domain extentions such as .mobi, .asia, and more but the ones listed above are probably the most used. If you are going to register a .com domain name, you may want to think about registering multiple domains using a main domain name for the web site and point all other to that domain, that choice is yours and could be an intellegent move on your part.

What is a Web Host? Starting from scratch

2008-04-05T16:00:00Z

Lets start from scratch about web hosting and what it is. Essentially, web hosting or a web host is the foundation of your website. What do I mean by "foundation"? Well, setting aside that fact that you may or may not have had your website designed already, how is everyone going to see it?A web host very simply put is the window through which your visitor are looking to view your website. It allows your linked pages to show when clicked upon. In most cases your web hosting plan is purchases and operated remotley, there are occations where the web design company will also host your website.

Which comes first, hosting or the egg?

Once your idea for the website is conceived you should purchase your domain name as soon as possible. From personal experience I once had an idea for a website and thought about it a little to long. Within 2 hours it was already purchased by someone else, so within a 2 hour time frame from checking the domains availability to the point where I wanted to purchase it, it was gone. So the egg or the domain idea that is hatched should be purchased ASAP, just do it, domains are cheap enough these days!

Following your domain purchase should come the hosting plan purchase. Your designer is going to need a place to test the webaite that is being built for you, some designer will use thier own website for testing but regardless, your hosting needs to be in place before the design is complete.

Where to purchase hosting

Where should you purchase your hosting? Well I would love it if you purchase your domain and hosting from me at SarJen Web Hosting but that may or may not happen, so lets go this route. First, I'm not going to tell you who not to purchase hosting from, this would be wrong although it would prevent a lot of heart ache on your end. But I can tell you that not all hosting companies give you what they say they will give you, most often in the way of support. You can Google what you're looking for in the way if web hosting, check that hosts ratings out, visit forums and ask people who they use and whether they have had issues or not. Information is one of the best tools when purchasing a hosting plan.

What kind of hosting package do I need?

This is a good question because it takes into account the type of hosting package and extras you might need. Again, let's start at the beginning, when you're choosing a web hosting package, you should first think of the language your website will be developed in. If you are using a professional web developer, they use a particular language they are most familiar with such as PHP which uses Linux as its web server software or ASP, ASP.NET, and others that can be hosted on a Windows server software. So check with your developer about this or leave it to your web developer to purchase your hosting.

Next, you'll need to look at your bandwidth requirements for your website. There are essentially two parameters to look at and that is the storage and transfer, so lets define those. Storage, just like a hard drive is the amount of space you are given by the host for your website files and applications, the easiest way to explain transfer or bandwidth is to say that it is the amount of times that your website is downloaded to a visitors computer. Every time your web site is visited it spends some of your bandwidth, if you have 100 GB of transfer or bandwith that gives you plenty of visitor time with a website that may be 70KB in size as opposed to a website or application on a website that may be several MB.

What about all the extras in web hosting packages? You will get some free extras when you purchase hosting from SarJen Web Hosting , there are also extras you can purchase, in most cases I would wait until you know what you're going to do with the site before buying extra tools which you may not know much about.

I hope this has given some insight to web hosting, next we'll be talking about domains.