Aussie Wholesalers Newsletter - The Premier Australian Wholesaler Information Source for Australian Businesses
April 4, 2007 - Issue 15

In this issue:

1) "The 10 Most Important Things to Consider When Choosing a Web Host"
2) "***NEW*** - Exclusive Members Only Area - FREE Downloads & Much More!"
3) "Visit our Newsletter Archives"
4) "Essential Links & Resources"

1) The 10 Most Important Things to Consider When Choosing a Web Host

Choosing a quality, reliable web host for your site, is one of the most important decisions you will make - make the wrong decision & you could lose thousands of dollars (I know one company that lost over $20,000 due to poor web hosting), but make the right decision, & you will have a quality partner who can help provide you with the tools to make your business a success. Here's a few pointers, to help demystify the world of web hosting so you can choose the host that's right for you.

1. Super Reliable Servers With Daily Backups.
The first thing you need to consider is the uptime/reliability of the server - if the server your website is hosted on is down, then so is your site, which could cost you a lot of money. Some downtime is to be expected, but you should be looking for a host that can provide you with a 99.9% server uptime guarantee. Many hosts offer between 99% & 99.8% uptime, but there are plenty of quality hosts out there that have the hardware to provide at least a 99.9% uptime guarantee at no extra cost...so why settle for second best? They should also provide daily backups, so if their servers crash, then you haven't lost all your valuable website files!

2. 24/7 Technical Support
Most hosts offer this as standard these days, but it's probably a good idea to test their customer support area out before you sign-up. Send them an email over the weekend (with a genuine query), & see how long it takes for them to get back to you.

3. No Minimum Contracts
Some web hosts try to get you to sign-up for a 6 or 12 month period. You may be able to get your hosting a little bit cheaper by paying for 6 or 12 months of hosting, instead of 1 month at a time, but I can tell you from my own experience with hosting companies, it isn't worth it! You never know if you may decide you want to change hosts 2 months down the track - their server uptime may not be as good as they say it is; their customer support may not be very good; you may realise that the hosting account you signed up for doesn't have certain features you need. There are plenty of hosts that offer pay by the month hosting, so don't risk taking out a long term contract!

4. Set-Up Fees
Personally, set-up fees are something I don't like when looking for a web host. Technically it's to cover the cost of them setting up your account - something that I know from experience only takes a couple of minutes if done manually, but I suspect that many of the larger companies have software that does it automatically (I could be wrong, but some hosts have your account set-up in seconds - faster than any human could). I wouldn't rule out going with a host that charged a small set-up fee (no more than $10) if they met all other requirements, but once again, there are plenty of other very good hosts to choose from that don't.

5. Ample Bandwidth - Traffic to Your Site
Every time someone views your website, or downloads a file, bandwidth is used. The amount that is used depends on the size of the page or file that is being downloaded - pictures & graphics use more bandwidth than text as they are larger files, so a website with a large amount of pictures, will use more bandwidth. For most start-up websites, receiving no more than a few hundred visits a week, without large graphics files or downloads, about 1GB of bandwidth should be plenty. It's a good idea to keep a close eye on the amount of bandwidth your site is using though, so you know if you need to upgrade to a larger account - if you exceed your monthly bandwidth limit, your site may be shut down for the rest of the month, or you may be charged for each MB (1024MB = 1GB) of data transfer your site uses over the monthly allowance.

6. Ample Disk Space for Your Website
The disk space your website uses, is the amount of space your website files take up on your host's servers. 100MB of disk space will last many websites a lifetime, but if you have a larger site, or one that contains a large amount of picture/graphics files you may well need to look at something a bit bigger. If you don't know how big you are going to get, you can always start off with a smaller plan, then upgrade if you need to (though check with your web host on the cost of upgrading to a larger account first).

7. Email Accounts
Some websites can get away with just having one email account, but more often than not, you will need more - 1 for subscribers, 1 for sales, 1 for general questions etc. Most web hosts offer multiple email accounts, but not all do & some like to charge for each extra account, so check before you sign-up.

8. MySQL Databases
What on earth are MySQL databases you say? Well, that's what I thought when I first heard about them - I also thought, I just wanted to run a simple website...nothing fancy...so why would I need any? Basically MySQL databases are used to store data from your website provided by different scripts/software you may run on your site. They are used by classified ad software/scripts, many blogging applications, membership site scripts & much more. It's probably a wise decision to make sure your web host provides you with at least a couple of MySQL databases (without charging you extra) as part of your hosting plan.

9. Website Statistics
Website statistics are a very important part of any hosting package. They can tell you how many people visited on any one day, what country your visitors are from, how long people are staying on your site, what hours of the day you receive most traffic, what particular pages are most popular, & more. Some web hosts will try to charge you extra for a website statistics program, but most don't, so make sure you find one that includes it with the hosting.

10. Script Support - PHP, Perl, CGI etc. - & Fantastico (Over 50 Easy to Install Scripts)
Like the MySQL, I first thought, why do I need to worry about support for scripting languages for a basic website? ...but now I find I'm using them to run various, basic web applications. At the very least, you should look for support for PHP 4 & 5, Perl, CGI, FrontPage, audio/video, Cron & SSI. Fantastico, though not essential, is an awesome suite of free scripts that you can install at the click of a button on your website - classified ad scripts, guestbooks, forums, blogs, shopping carts, support ticket systems, mailing list management & much more.

Hopefully these pointers should enable you to choose the right host the first time - there is nothing more annoying, than being with a host for a few months, then having to change to another one....& waste time uploading all your website files again to your new host. When I first started designing websites, I was finding myself changing hosts every month or 2 - they either weren't as reliable as they said, had poor customer service, or didn't offer enough features. This happened 4 or 5 times, before I found one I was happy with (HostGator) - they have reliable servers, good customer service, & plenty of extra features. Click here to have a look for yourself at some of the great features they offer.

2) ***NEW*** - Exclusive Members Only Area - FREE Downloads & Much More!

Keep an eye on your inbox over the next few days for your email containing the login details for the new Aussie Wholesale Suppliers members only area. ALL subscribers will have access to this exclusive part of the site, not just people who have purchased the guide.

What's in the members area?

Free eBook & Software Downloads
Free Photo Hosting
eBay Misspelled Items Search Tool
Games
& much more!

More features/downloads will be added each week.

The password to the members area will be changed each month & emailed to all subscribers, so make sure you let us know if you have a new email address & add our email address (rachel@aussiewholesalesuppliers.com.au) to your address book so it doesn't get filtered as spam, otherwise you won't be able to access this exclusive area.

3) Visit our Newsletter Archives

Don't forget to visit our newsletter archives, jam-packed full of helpful articles from previous newsletters.

http://www.aussiewholesalesuppliers.com.au/newsletters/newsarchive.html

4) Essential Links & Resources

Copyright, Rachel Incoll, 2007

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