Tuesday, June 2, 2009

What You Need From A Web Host When You Are Starting An Internet Business

You have racked your brain. After lots of hard work your website is ready. Now your web site needs a home. While building and designing your web site it sits on your computer, on the hard drive. You can test it, tweak it and see it there, but nobody else can!

For it to be visible on the World Wide Web it needs to be on a computer that is connected in technically fast, secure and stable ways onto the internet. That kind of computer is called a server, and a company that provides this service is called a Host the service is called hosting.

Choose the wrong host and you are in trouble!

The hosting company owns many servers that serve up web pages to the search engines or to whoever types your domain name into the address bar of their browser program or clicks on the link for your domain name.

It is crucial that your server is reliable and fully functioning nearly 100% of the time. Technical support for the server and for you the user is the single most expensive item for the host company. If they save money there the server may perform poorly or even crash and the customers are left with poor service and support

For the sake of saving a few measly dollars many intelligent webmasters / business owners make the mistake of using a cheap host. They even feel smart about this until they get burnt!

Hosting Tips for Beginners To Internet Business

1. No technology is perfect. There are likely to small problems affecting performance in all hosts. But you need a very high uptime. Most hosting companies will claim 99% or 99.9% uptime some will claim 100%.

2. Sufficient room for your web site. Files take up memory space on your drive before they are copied to the server. They take up server space once you have transferred them- enough space for us is probably 2 MB

3. Decent bandwidth-remember you want thousands of people to see your site. Each time your site is seen the server has to work. Practically speaking the bandwidth is a measurement of how many people can see your web pages. Some hosts claim Unlimited Bandwidth but really this is nonsense, such a claim is hype. A real number may be 2 GB per month

4. You want a company with sound finances. Lots of hosts go out of business by offering free or cheap hosting. You want a stable viable company that will be around as long as you will. Changing hosts is no joke; this is something you want to get right the first time (like marriage!)

5. You may not think that it is important in the beginning but you need a hosting plan which will allow you to host more than one website. At the beginning one website seems as daunting as a marathon race but after you have created your first website you will probably start getting ideas for your second website. Your hosting plan must allow you to grow!

6. I have left the most important requirement for a Newbie till last! It is support. We are Newbies. We are intelligent and hardworking, not dummies or idiots but we require proper support. Every Host will claim that their support is great-how would you find them saying that their support is rubbish? But if you look at the web sites of host companies you find different types of support

I list here the kinds of support provided with my comments:

Knowledge base fancy words for a few pages of other peoples questions. This is usually useless

Ticket System a way for a company to spend less on telephone support and provide you with slow, half baked answers

Instant Chat-not much different from the ticket system. The customer support person is handling many requests at the same time, how good do you think that makes the answers you get?

Telephone Support-now we are talking! Sorry about the pun! There are two types of Telephone support-General Customer Support-often about Billing, general questions-non technical stuff and Technical Support.

My strongest recommendation is for you to choose a host who provide Telephone Technical Support. Some do this only in Office hours. Check what time zone they are in and that this fits your hours.

Very very few provide 24/7 Telephone Technical Support.

Now it could easily be that a host that provides good Newbie friendly customer support falls down in other ways Choosing a host is difficult but we got to do it! Just think about how difficult it is to find and choose a good home for your family. If you can do that you can find a good home for your web sites too!

Make sure you phone them and see how they treat you!

Notice that I used the plural,"web sites".

Congratulations on starting your internet business and publishing your first web site but nobody makes a living from one web site. A real solid business will have second and third and more income streams, although you have to start with one website and focus on it until it works. This makes your decision about web hosting even more important. Using these hosting tips will give you solid support and help not just in starting your internet business but for years to come.

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Is Real Estate Investing the Income Opportunity for You?

It seems that every time you turn your TV on there is some infomercial about creating your wealth in some real estate investing home study course. Why would you not? It seems like it's a great income opportunity and it seems easy enough? Is it really? Are these courses just in it for themselves or do they really help?

There are a couple of answers to that question. Yes, the techniques they teach work and have worked for many investors. Yes, they are in it for themselves as well. Real estate investing is no new way of making money. It's been around for many years, and as the years roll on and the market changes, there will continue to be new ways to profit off of the industry.

By selling these courses on TV, these companies are creating huge numbers of investors in their particular niche. Yes, the techniques work, but the market becomes oversaturated with these new investors using these same techniques. These companies know this. So to continue to generate income for themselves, they offer training and coaching programs that cost more money, of course.

When you need a tissue, you think of Kleenex. When you need to clean your ears out, you think of a Q-tip. There are other companies that sell those things, but these companies have the name recognition. These home study courses have great ideas and concepts, but they don't do a great job in showing you how to market yourself and get your name out there.

Now that you have educated yourself in your new real estate investing income opportunity, how do you get your name out? You can go to all of the local real estate offices and let them know that you're an investor. Register with your local chamber of commerce. Join or start a real estate investors club. Put ads up on the corners and in media materials. Those are all great ideas, and all of the successful investors are doing them, but what else can you do?

Wouldn't you like home sellers calling you instead of you calling them? Isn't the name of the game to have more properties to look at to have more to choose from? In order to do that, you need to have your own name recognition. You need to market your business on the internet. Duh, But how? Where do you start? What are the cost effective ways?

Here a few great ideas that the home study courses aren't teaching you to get your name out.
- Advertise on free classified websites
- Create a blog on what your doing and how it's working for you
- Type up press releases on what the market is doing and how you can profit
- Subscribe to an email blast to get your name out to millions.

These are just a few ways to help increase your name recognition and help make this income opportunity work for you. Getting your name out is all about the marketing. The more people that know you're out there, the more sales you will see. It really is a numbers game.

As always, do your research to see if the company is reputable. Don't always listen to the "nay sayers" because if a company is successful, there will always be "nay sayers." Lastly, don"t look for any income opportunity to be a get rich quick venture. You have to put in your work and stay consistent. A great saying is to "Stick and Stay and you'll Get Your Pay!"



Chris Clark has been marketing on the internet for 5 years now, and helping people make money doing the same thing. Find out how Chris can show you how to use your computer to make money at Online Marketing Made Easy.

Article Source: http://www.keywordarticles.org

Looking to Make A Good Real Estate Investment

If you are looking for low-priced commercial property for sale, Houston might not be your best bet. However, if you are looking to make a good real estate investment or buy premises that will really allow your business to grow and give you access to all of the clients you want, then you should definitely be looking at the commercial real estate Houston, Texas has to offer.

One of the things that has contributed sharply to the growth in the Houston property market is simply the fact that it has not slowed down as much as many other local property markets! The changes in subprime lending laws have resulted in a lot of Americans not having the money to purchase smaller properties, or spend as much as they like. However, Houston seems to have been relatively unaffected by a lot of these developments and property sales have not decreased significantly in either the residential or commercial sectors.

The Johnson Development Corporation specialize in many different types of commercial real estate. Houston, Texas has a lot of commercial real estate on offer, but some of these are better buys than others. Johnson Development only deal in commercial property that has high retail value, and is situated adjacent to large housing developments.

All of these properties are chosen on high traffic count and are prime spots for commercial retail. Houston is a massive consumer community and retail stores with high traffic really do well in high traffic areas.

Several large name retail outlets have already moved in to some of the commercial real estate Houston, Texas developers Johnson Development have built, and all of these enterprises are doing extremely well. The high traffic of this retail real estate is a veritable river of revenue, and many new businesses are enjoying unprecedented growth a few short months after opening in a new development.

A lot of the commercial real estate Houston, Texas has to offer has already been bought up, but new buyers need never fear as you will often find new developments changing hands several times in their first few years as ownership settles.

There are a lot of good bargains to be found as companies sell of real estate to focus on other investments, and commercial buyers interested in picking up an excellent investment should look out for these.

Regularly checking the property listings at Johnson Development will almost certainly lead to some excellent finds. A lot of new developments have not really been spotted by commercial interests from out of town, and many people have under estimated the Houston retail market.

There are developments where small retail premises can be bought for under $150,000, and these are all adjacent to well-populated housing developments situated in high income areas. If you are a retailer and you want to target a high-spending group, then some of the newer Houston neighborhoods are one place that you can really make a killing!

If you are buying simply for the sake of investing in commercial real estate, Houston Texas is definitely a great place to start for the first time investor. With low prices on fairly high revenue potential properties a careful investor can pick up a high income property for very little capital laid down. The rental from these properties will necessarily be low for the first year, but as soon as the retail potential of the premises becomes realized the rent potential will increase dramatically.

Buyers should not be put off with the recent slowing in housing sales in the area, because the number of new housing developments being built is a testament to the demand for new homes in Houston! Many people are relocating to this city and many investors are buying property in Houston for the same reason - stability.

While there seems to be an impending housing crisis just about everywhere else the property prices in and around Houston have suffered remarkably little from this. This shows great promise for long term property investors, as well as anyone who wants to ensure that their home appreciates significantly in value. This has great implications for anyone interested in investing in commercial real estate in Houston, Texas.



The Johnson Development Corp. is a Houston-based residential and commercial land development company that has over 40 years of experience in the real estate development business. For more information visit http://www.johnsondevelopment.com

Article Source: http://www.keywordarticles.org