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Web Hosting, Web Hosting UK, Dedicated Servers, Managed Hosting, Dedicated Server | CWCS
Once you have found a suitable web hosting company and launched your website, you will obviously want to ensure that your site is returned as a search result when people search for the site itself or its related content.
Site owners want their site to appear high up in the search results for the major search engines. It’s easier said than done to achieve this, and an industry has sprung up devoted to “Search engine optimisation”.
There are, however, some straightforward measures you can take for yourself.
First, ensure that your site has a distinctive, catchy name that does not resemble other popular sites to much.
Examples are “bebo”, “flickr”, and “reddit”. A unique site name increases the chances of sites like “bebo” appearing at the top of the results list for a search on the word “bebo”.
Next, make sure that each page on your site has a short, uncluttered title that precisely matches the page content. To a search engine the title is one of the most important parts of the page. However, don’t neglect page content – it should be kept up to date, ensuring your site is not “forgotten” by search engines. You should also create a site map to make navigation of your site as easy as possible.
Finally, it would be unfortunate if your site was findable on search engines, but only intermittently available to users. Here at CWCS site “downtime” is not an issue. We guarantee 99.9% operational guarantee with all our web hosting packages, and provide unrivalled technical support.
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.
In these increasingly perilous times, with cyber crime, other types of crime, even the unpredictable effects of climate change, all presenting a range of threats to your data, it’s more important than ever to have a sound backup strategy for your web site.
As well as the inevitable Plan A, you should have a Plan B, even a Plan C.
Plan A should be the backup service provide by your web hosting company, which should be included as part of your package. Make sure that this backup service is provided when negotiating your package.
Plan B is the backup system you set up as part of your own home or business. The first step is to decide what kind of backup you want to run. Let’s take the example of a business with a medium-sized website. You could acquire a brand name external hard drive and make a nightly copy of your web site from your web hosting company’s servers on to the external hard drive attached to your PC or laptop. You would most likely make that copy using an ftp programme.
Furthermore you could go the extra mile and have a Plan C. This could take the form of purchasing an online backup account, and running a nightly backup to the online company, which complements the backup to the external drive.
Here at CWCS we are confident and happy to be your Plan A for backup: we offer secure, regular backups of your site as part of all our web hosting packages.
Viral marketing is a largely web based or word-of-mouth form of product promotion, in which a marketing message is passed from user to user often exponentially.
There are potential benefits to your website, and your business, in a well-planned and run viral marketing campaign.
Web-based email companies have attracted large volumes of new users, in part, by appending a self-advertising message at the bottom of every email sent. This type of subtle marketing contrasts with more lively one-off set pieces, such as the web video promoting a guitar tuition site, which showed a young man strumming brilliantly in his bedroom, and attracted some 45 million views.
The main advantage of viral marketing is that it can be a low-cost way, effective, global form of promotion. Furthermore, it could the best type of PR you can get for your company.
Some tips: Make sure your message is wrapped up in a catchy, spontaneous package. A fun video, entertainment news story, or catch-phrase, are possibilities. There should also be something inclusive about your project: don’t restrict yourself to niche audiences.
If you use social networking sites, make your presence on them focussed and professional.
Finally, be prepared for a surge in hits on your website should your campaign be a big hit: make sure your web hosting package is up to it. Here at CWCS we might recommend, for instance, that you upgrade to a more high capacity web hosting package before embarking on your viral marketing campaign.
When shopping around for the best web hosting company, your top priority should be server resilience.
Server reliability is crucial because the 24/7 availability of your site depends on it. You really don’t want your site to be going down, as not only will you miss out on traffic but your customers might well see this as a reflection on you, not your website hosting company.
On server performance, the company should offer uptime percentages in the very high 90s, maintenance by qualified system administrators, a physically secure data centre, and a rock-solid backup system.
Reliable technical support is a further high priority. When something goes wrong, you need a polite, helpful, rapid response – ideally on a 24/7 basis.
A further priority should be flexibility. Your website may change and grow over the years, and you will need a web hosting service that is capable of “scaling up” with you. Make sure a full range of packages is on offer, reflecting different scales of website, from small 3-page information sites, to major e-commerce enterprises.
Finally, look for value for money: a web hosting company that charges fair rates and a professional, well-staffed service.
Here at CWCS we are fully confident of being able to meet your needs. We offer a 99.99% operational guarantee on our servers. We provide a full variety of hosting packages (both the Linux server and Windows server are supported), at reasonable rates, and are passionate about technical support, which is 24/7 by phone and email for all packages.
One of the decisions you’ll need to make when choosing a web hosting package is whether to go for a Windows Server or a Linux server.
Here are some of the advantages of going down the Linux route.
Linux is an open source operating system, essentially meaning it is free for the end-user. This means there are no licensing costs associated with a Linux server solution, though there are still ongoing web hosting and support costs.
As well as the cost advantage, the Linux hosting servers have a deserved reputation for stability: they rarely need a reboot, tending just to run and run, coping with multiple processes for days on end. One company recently reported “100 percent uptime” with Linux and that “management noticed the difference”.
Fans of Linux servers also stress that they have a strong security record, being integrally more resistant to the types of intrusion and virus problems that can afflict some Windows Servers.
Another reason for choosing a Linux server is related to the software packages it hosts, such as Apache web server and MySQL for databases. These programmes are, like Linux itself, open-source, again keeping costs down. They are also the stock in trade of web developers the world over, which means that your website will always be sure of strong development and support in the future.
Finally, if you choose a Linux server professional hosting package with CWCS, you will get the Joomla CMS and WordPress blogging packages installed as part of the deal.
Up until the year 2000, UNIX or Linux servers were dominant in the world of web hosting. But with Windows 2000 Server, followed by the 2003 version, and now Windows 2008 Server, Microsoft has begun to play catch-up.
A fierce debate rages between Linux server and Windows Server advocates. The conventional wisdom is that Linux wins out because it’s “open source” (the software is free), more secure and copes better with high traffic.
But sometimes passion can obscure facts. In reality, a well-maintained, professionally managed, Windows Server can be just as secure and reliable as any equally well-run, competing Linux setup. What’s more, there can be some advantages in going down the Windows route.
First there’s the familiarity of software on the server itself. It’s Windows, which is installed on 90% of the world’s desktops, so you will benefit from being able to navigate it quickly due to familiarity with the setup.
Then there are the web applications that can be built on a Windows web server. Windows Server supports a programming language called ASP.NET. In the right hands this language can form the entire framework for your website, from the site pages themselves, to customer databases, to “in-browser” software such as calendars, calculators, and even complex programmes like word processors.
Therefore, especially if you have a developer to hand who prefers to work in ASP.NET, the Windows Server route is one to consider.
At CWCS we provide a rich range of Windows Server packages at competitive prices.
Website security is a crucial aspect of web hosting. Whilst it’s tempting to leave everything up to your hosting company regarding security, it helps to know about the basics of website security yourself.
Examples of threats against websites range from “defacing” attacks, whereby hackers remotely break in to the web server and vandalise the sites it hosts, to viruses penetrating the web application software, (e.g. databases, discussion forums) which powers your site, and hackers breaking in to the “cache” of web pages on your server, then extracting private user information. These are just some of the nasty security risks that are out there.
The most effective way to counter such threats is with a firewall. A firewall is a piece of software, or hardware engineering, which monitors your internet ports and filters inbound and outbound traffic.
If the firewall is good at its job it will block the bad stuff, and allow through the good. In a web hosting environment you can see the vital role that a firewall plays. Whilst the firewall deals with intruders, antivirus software should also be installed to protect the web server applications.
Furthermore, you should ensure that your website is regularly and securely backed up, so it can be restored with a clean version in the event of any security breach.
As website hosting specialists, at CWCS we guarantee robust firewall and antivirus protection, along with regular backups of your site. Finally, you can do your own bit by changing your control panel password regularly, and keeping it private.
If you’re thinking of setting up a website for the first time, here are some tips to help you along the way.
First, you need a good domain name; this is the address you type into the search engine, starting with ‘www’. Ideally you want it to be short, memorable, and distinctive. It should be both pleasant to the eye and roll off the tongue. Having the right domain name will work wonders for word-of-mouth marketing.
Don’t be afraid of being abstract. Famously “Amazon” seems little to do with online retailing, but – it’s been a hit. Domain name coinage is one of those areas where the dreaded cliche “blue sky thinking” is actually vital. Examples of effective domain names like these are: flickr, digg, and Yahoo.
Your domain name should dovetail neatly with your company name. Yet avoid unintended consequences as in this domain name for a technology company: “ipanywhere”. You need a friend with a good eye to help you avoid such pitfalls.
Second, you need a good web hosting company. Hosting companies take the headaches out of managing your site within your own IT infrastructure. Look out for a high percentage of uptime, rock-solid security, fair pricing and stellar technical support.
At CWCS we provide a 99.99% operational guarantee for even our lowest priced website hosting packages, and our technical support is of the high quality.
Finally, make sure the web hosting company will provide you with statistics on usage of your site. Web statistics can be both underused and misunderstood, but, if interpreted correctly, are crucial for gauging the success of your site.
With all the investment that goes into the development of your business onto the internet, we sometimes forget the product. Some businesses have been surprised by the interest shown in certain internet friendly products from their range. Often cheaper and smaller items are bought in much larger numbers online than their larger counterparts. This is partly due to the lack of familiarity the customer has in internet buying, and also the lack of trust the customer has in the postal service. Since both can go wrong, it is not surprising they feel a need to “test” the service before they are comfortable spending large amounts.
Thanks to this, there is a growing trend to market smaller items differently than more expensive goods. There may well be a hook for larger items in a car showroom – say, offering car vacuum cleaners at a discounted price; but on the internet they may prove to be a much more successful seller. As traffic increases however you might find that your requirements may change considerably. The kind of requests for one part of your business may not require so much attention, or memory space, than a more dynamic sideline. This is when web hosting is the primary consideration.
It may be that a dedicated server can handle these two sides of your business better than a shared system. Some businesses have found that by treating these newer markets separately, you can maximise your business potential.
At CWCS we specialise in web hosting and can advise you as to what a dedicated server or colocation hosting can do for your enterprise.
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