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Web Hosting, Web Hosting UK, Dedicated Servers, Managed Hosting, Dedicated Server | CWCS
If you are running a large-scale website, which attracts visitors in the thousands rather than the hundreds, then it’s likely you’ll be juggling various tasks: keeping content fresh and lively; optimising the site for search engines; and, if you are trading online, ensuring you make a healthy profit.
Given these competing demands, the last thing you will want to worry about is the reliability of your hosting server. Ideally this server should just “work”, quietly dealing with file requests, traffic spikes, and online transactions with maximum efficiency, delivering a responsive, high-speed website. You should also be able to choose your operating system, Windows or Linux, whichever suits your company the best.
One way of ensuring server resilience and reliability is to opt for what’s called a “dedicated server”. In a dedicated server arrangement, a single server is devoted entirely to the hosting of your website. The main advantage of this setup is that all the server’s resources are leveraged to hosting your site, and your site only: memory, processor power, hard disk space. The site will therefore be well equipped to cope with resource-hungry events.
This contrasts with a shared hosting arrangement, in which numerous unrelated sites share the server’s resources on a quota basis. Whilst shared hosting is fine for a modest website with medium levels of traffic, a dedicated server would be more suitable for enterprise-level, mission-critical websites.
Here at CWCS we offer a range of dedicated server web hosting packages, comes with brilliant, dedicated technical support, and, on top of this you will be allocated your own account manager.
Websites can be remarkably simple, remarkably complicated, or somewhere awkward in-between. It’s also the case that the best websites are not necessarily the most sophisticated, or the sites with the most bells and whistles.
The most expensive also doesn’t always mean the best, as the popularity of some high-profile blogs, written on free software, will testify.
It’s possible in-fact to create a perfectly acceptable website with quite limited resources and time. This is especially true when your site is making use of a web hosting starter plan offering cheap web hosting.
Your basic, first-pass website need not be unattractive. With a little forethought and planning, you can produce a strong, simple, clear site using many of the freeware authoring tools, and free templates available on the internet. Alternative you could create a site using an open-source CMS, such as Joomla or Wordpress, both of which could run on a Linux web hosting package.
Systems such as these are also very light in terms of code, meaning they’ll run perfectly well, and at great speeds, on the cheapest of web hosting platforms without consuming too much in terms of bandwidth – saving you money on hosting costs.
Also bear in mind that a starter package here at CWCS benefits from the same 24/7 phone and email technical support as all our other packages. We are passionate about technical support and we strive to give our customers the best possible advice and guidance in all cases.
If your site is involved in online trading, or it represents a busy organisation, finding a web site hosting company and launching the site represent only the beginning. There is after all the crucial question of how to attract new and repeat visitors.
One way to maintain or increase your popularity is to optimise your site so that it gains a high ranking when users search for the site itself or content related to it. This optimisation is known as SEO or Search Engine Optimisation.
There are some basic SEO steps you can take for yourself, without necessarily investing in consultancy. Firstly, ensure that your site has a catchy, standout domain name. One reason, after all, why ‘Cbeebies’, ‘Amazon’ and ‘flickr’ are easy to find is that they have such distinctive domain names.
Next think hard the keywords potential visitors might enter to find the content your site specialises in. Put yourself in the users’ shoes. Then tactically distribute these keywords around the site.
Then make sure your page titles are clear, brief and capture the essence of the content they hold. It’s particularly helpful if keywords used in page titles match content in any given page.
Also bear in mind that lively, succinct, grammatically-correct prose can only help your case.
Here at CWCS, should you choose a web hosting package with us, with our excellent customer services department, we can guide you towards the best package upgrade; especially if you are struggling with increased traffic resulting from a successful SEO campaign.
Creating a retail presence on the internet can be a challenge. However, the whole process has matured during the past decade and has been made a lot smoother by a range of reasonably priced custom software, support from the web hosting industry, and a wealth useful advice in the public domain.
The first step in entering e-commerce is to acquire what’s called an “Internet Merchant Account”. This is a business account which enables you to receive credit and debit card payments online. A range of UK banks offer merchant account services, as well as some third party practitioners.
Once you have acquired your merchant account, you have a range of options regarding integration of e-commerce into your site. Whilst there are great software packages offering a ‘DIY’ approach, it is preferable in the first instance to outsource the job to a professional web design company which knows the e-commerce ropes.
It is moreover vital to have sufficient products in stock for any post-launch surge of interest. You want to avoid becoming a victim of your own success. Providing effective customer support is also essential.
Finally, your web site needs to be resilient, and able to withstand a potentially large increase in traffic. Here at CWCS, an award winning web site hosting company, we are experienced at knowing exactly when to advise clients to migrate to a more powerful hosting package, which would be capable of withstanding any sudden surges in traffic.
Having found a website hosting company and launched your site, you might want to consider adding online retail to your site, otherwise known as e-commerce.
There’s no doubting that e-commerce is almost impossible to ignore for any growing business. The figures tell there own story with the UK e-commerce market now valued at around £69 billion.
However, before leaping on the bandwagon there are some practical steps to consider.
First, to trade online beyond comprehensively, you will need what’s called a ‘Merchant Account’. This is a financial contract with a merchant acquiring bank that will let you accept debit and credit card payments. You can acquire one from a third party broker or direct from the banks themselves.
Next you will need to set up your website to handle e-commerce. There are a range of options, from simply using Paypal (which does not require a merchant account), to complex e-commerce software, which would include the vital ’shopping cart’. Many website designers are now geared up to integrating e-commerce in to their projects from the outset, so it is worth considering handing the whole process over to a professional designer.
Finally, a reliable, secure web hosting company, which can guarantee maximum uptime for your site, is essential. Here at CWCS, with our 99.99% operational guarantee, we can look after all your web hosting needs, and will be happy to assist you with any increase in traffic should you decide to branch out in to e-commerce.
Once you’ve found a suitable web hosting company and set up your site, you may want to add a discussion forum as one means of maintaining interest in, and activity on, your website.
Forums can bring real benefits to a website, especially a retailing e-commerce site, but there are some risks to bear in mind, and some key tasks required in order to keep the forum running smoothly.
The main advantage of a forum is that usage of your site is likely to be encouraged. Users are more likely to make use of the site if they know there’s an area where they can air their views, and even sound off if necessary. Busy and lively forums can trigger return visits.
A forum is also a signal to your audience that you are customer focused. Furthermore forums are valuable to businesses as a means of getting instant qualitative feedback on new products.
There are, however, some potential disadvantages:
*An underused forum can be off-putting to users. Better to have no forum at all than one that is hardly used.
* You may also get negative comment on a forum, and someone will need to be on point to handle these.
* Also, do ensure that all users sign up to “Terms and Conditions”, and that your forum is politely and regularly moderated. There’s plenty of guidance on “terms and conditions” available on the internet.
Here at CWCS we can advise on the best web hosting package for your forum needs.
Once you have found a website hosting company which suits you’re requirements and you’ve launched your site, you’d be forgiven for thinking it might be time to take a breather.
However, you could argue it’s at this point that the real work begins – the maintenance and upkeep of your site, and ensuring it stays fresh and lively.
One key routine task error checking. If new content has been added make sure there are no spelling errors and punctuation is all as it should be. Then there is link checking: make sure that you are linking to any sites or pages that no longer exist.
If you are running advertisements on the site, ensure that the adverts still link to valid sites. There is site maintenance software available which could help you with these tasks.
As well as error checking you need to find ways of keeping your site fresh. If you are running an e-commerce component, check your web stats to find what’s popular and ensure that this product gets the necessary prominence.
It’s also a good idea to have both News and Blog sections, and keep both up to date regularly, with lively, well researched, and factually correct, content. This is particularly the case if your site covers a niche market.
It’s important to have a web hosting company which can keep up with your business needs, and here at CWCS, as your site grows in popularity, we can always advise on the most suitable web hosting package for you or your business.
With the recent growth in virtualisation software, Virtual Dedicated Servers are an increasingly viable web hosting option.
Virtualisation is a means of creating a software based “computer within a computer”. This might sound a little baffling, but the more you think about it the more useful it becomes.
It’s easier to grasp if you imagine a scenario. Say you have a friend who is raving about the benefits of the Linux operating system when compared to Windows. Imagine having a chance to try out Linux on your own computer, independent of your Windows install, and being able to launch your Linux machine from your Windows desktop. This is virtualisation in action.
Developers have taken this a step further and introduced entire virtual servers “in software” within what you might call a “master server”.
These virtual servers behave in identical ways to physical, single machine, servers. Virtual dedicated servers can be rebooted, they can have whatever operating system is preferred and they can be configured to perform equally to a physical server, but without the higher cost overheads of that physical server.
A virtual server can come in very handy to a client looking for a dedicated hosting solution but at a more manageable price. Virtual Dedicated Server rental can cost around a third of the price of the full-blown physical server solution.
Here at CWCS we offer a robust range of Dedicated Virtual Server hosting packages, with excellent hard disk space, processor and RAM options.
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