Where do we host our Traffic Snowball?
So you have registered a variety of traffic grabbing domains and now you are ready to upload your web content to the Net. Here comes a very important choice - which company do I choose to host my website.

When it comes to web hosting companies we need to consider a number of issues.

First, let’s examine the types of services available.

Dial-Up Access
There are thousands of local dial-up access providers in the country, each of which also provides Web page hosting for businesses. I’ve learned that ISPs either specialize in dial-up access or Web page hosting, and it’s a rare ISP that ends up doing both well. Many dial-up access ISPs don’t really understand the needs of small businesses, and aren’t quick to improve service. After all, their bread-and-butter is dial-up access, and that’s where their focus and investment goes. A few large companies have separate divisions for Web site hosting which help them avoid some of these problems.

Developer’s Hosting
A second kind of service is becoming common. Web site developers commonly host the Web pages for the businesses which are their clients, often on a computer in the corner of their office. They often provide good service, since they are customer focused. The downsides may be: (1) price, (2) smaller connection to the Internet backbone, and (3)
dependence.

Web-Hosting Only
Increasingly you find companies which specialize in business Web site hosting. They allow no dial-up access (site owners gain access to their Web pages via FTP), which doesn’t allow bandwidth (speed of connection to the Internet) to be compromised by access customers frequenting chat rooms. They provide a wide variety of services to their customers. This is where the bargains are to be found.

Now lets look at the features that we should consider

Web Space
ISPs usually assign you a certain amount of space on their computer. 20 MB is usually plenty of space for the Web pages and graphics for most business Web sites. Some may advertise 300 or even 500 Mb - but do we really need this space? Is there any point in paying for storage space that we are not going to use? To determine how much space that is required you could check the size of the files on your own computer and then decide.

CGI-BIN Access
Business accounts need to be able to reference programs in a cgi-bin directory, which includes a cgi program which generates the e-mail message sent out by Web page forms. So long as a good forms-to-email program is available in the host’s main cgi-bin, that may be all you need.

Virtual Hosting
These days nearly every ISP offers what is called “virtual hosting” or a “virtual domain.” This allows you to have your own domain name such as www.yourcompany.com rather than use your ISP’s domain name with a subdirectory designating your site, such as www.isp.com/yourcompany/. You definitely want virtual hosting. Sometimes an ISP will offer something called a “vanity domain” such as yourcompany.isp.com - Don’t bother! Register a real domain name, and consider that an investment in marketing your company on the Web.

E-Mail Aliases
Once you have a virtual domain, ask your ISP how many e-mail addresses you are allowed. Many ISPs allow you to set up multiple “aliases” such as sales@yourcompany.com or info@yourcompany.com.

For the smaller business, you probably don’t need POP (Post Office Protocol) e-mail boxes on your Web hosting site. The POP e-mail box you have with your local access ISP is probably enough. But larger businesses may want to have multiple POP e-mail boxes at the Web hosting ISP.

Detailed Statistics
Also make sure that your Web host ISP provides some sort of statistical data on visitors to your Web pages. Counters are not considered professional, and don’t give nearly as much information. The information provided by detailed statistics is very important in analyzing our Marketing Strategies. You not only need to know the number of visitors but you need to know where they came from and at what point they left your website to go somewhere else. If we have this detailed information about our visitors then we can plan our advertising more effectively and discover what is working with the website and what needs to change.

As you will see shortly, web statistics are extremely important.

Some useful statistics include:
Unique Visitors
Top Referrers
Top Exit Pages

The number of Unique Visitors to your site is more important the the number of visitors or hits. If the same person visited your site three times in one day, that would register as three visits, but as one unique visit.

Top Referrers are simply the most common sources that referred people to your site. These include ISP Referrers, URLs, E-mail Referrers and Newsgroup Referrers.

Top Exit Pages are the most common pages from which people leave your website. It is important to find your most common exit pages, then determine why people are leaving. Then you can adjust your website accordingly to try and bring this figure down. Of course people must exit your site from somewhere. You want to make sure your visitors are getting a change to review your sales copy, and if they exit from there you may need to adjust your copy. Ultimately it would be nice if your most common exit page was your “Thank You For Your Order” page!

Other important statistics include:

Most Requested Pages
Least Requested Pages
Top Entry Pages (the most common pages where people entered your site)
Top Single Access Pages (the most common pages which people accessed, then left your site without visiting other pages)
Top Search Engines (most common search engines are sending your visitors)
Top Keywords (most common keywords people are entering into search engines to find your site)

Secure Server
If you plan to take credit card information over the Web, you’ll need to have SSL Security. If you plan to display databases on your Web site, be very careful to get an ISP whose operating system is compatible with the system you use to maintain the database.

Like much shopping, referral is often the safest when choosing a hosting company. Web-At-Work area specialist web hosting and domain registration company with a wide range of web hosting packages to suit all budgets.