Cheap Web Consulting

Here, I will share with you everything I have learned through the years about internet marketing and e-commerce.

I actually started this website back in 2005, but I would only use it sporadically, so finally I have decided to use it for good, and I set up a blog where I can share what I have learned about internet marketing.

I first got online back in 1994 when AOL was sending disks (not cds, but disks) to anyone who called their 1-800 number, and that is exactly what I did :)

As soon as I got my first AOL disk, I jumped to my Packard Bell Pentium I Pc, and loved the instant messaging that AOL used back then. Of course, AOL was only an online service company back then, and competed mainly with Prodigy - which today is non-existant (as far as I can tell).

After trying AOL, I asked myself, what else is there to try? So, I got my Packard Bell CDs, found CompuServe which I found really boring and ugly as I think it was mainly used by bored scientists, and also found a CD of a company called NETCOM. I run the CD, dialed up their number with my 14.4 modem, and got to a screen where I read "www" and as soon as I read that "www" I said to myself "This is for geeks" never knowing that was the World Wide Web which we now know simply as "The Web". :) Sad, funny, I don't know, but real...

A web Host is simply a pc where many websites (sometimes thousands of websites) are hosted, and of course, the web host service is provided by a web hosting company.

This web host is nothing else that a fast pc like the one you have at home; however, if you are like most people, every night you turn off your pc. So, imagine if you turned of the web host every night: nobody would have access to those websites hosted in that pc until you wake up the next morning, and remember to start up your pc again.

Also, web hosts are connected to the internet at real fast speeds, and not the regular speed that you get at home with your ADSL connection.

Besides speed, there is the issue of security. Most large web host companies have completely secured servers against hackers, data loss, and power outage. Having these types of security characteristics configured for your personal web server could cost you thousands of dollars monthly.

Also, the need of 24/7 support makes it very difficult for small one person companies to run a good web server.

So, there you have it, a web host is simply a powerful PC, called a server, where many websites are installed, and is routinely being monitored against hacks, fire, data loss by specially trained support people.

Through the years web hosting solutions have evolved to a point where it is really inexpensive to get space to host your site; however, this does not mean that you should host your site with a hosting company that offers low cost hosting. Low cost hosting mainly translate into poor customer service besides slow or wrongly configured servers that will throw errors around to customers when you most need your site to work.

This is why it is very important to know what to look for when shopping for hosting.

We will cover some basic characteristics that you need to find in any host choose:

Space This is simply how much space your website will use. Your hosting providing you will be renting you a space of their hard disk, so you can use it for your own website, and, of course, depending on the size of your data (text, pictures, videos, sound, databases, etc) you will need to calculate how much space you will need.

Notice that I said "calculate"; well, that is very hard, as you would need to check the properties tab of each of your files to be uploaded in order to know how much space they will occupy on the server. So, it is best to simply get an average number, and here is how:

Database: A small database will occupy at least 20MB of space
Pictures: Depending on the number of picture each one will take around 20KB of space, so 10 pictures will be 200KB, and five times that amount of pictures (50) will take about 1MB of space. Of course, I am mentioning here small 20KB that are easy to upload using your FTP client, and easy to download on any browser even at slow speeds. However, if your business depends on quality pictures (i.e. if you are a photographer) you will want to upload excellent large quality pictures that each can take up to 5MB of space. So, write down your numbers for this.
Text: Text occupies the least space in web hosts; however it is of most importance due to the need of search engines to find text in order to index your pages in their SERPs (Search Engine Ranking Pages) So, if you don't have text, SE (Search Engines) will simply ignore your site. And, of course, by this I mean that the more text you have the better chances you have of being visited by search engines, and eventually by real users. Pure non fancy text like the one you read here won't take more than 5MB even for 100 pages each of 500 words.
Video, and sound will really depend on the formatting, and anyway I recommend you avoid them unless you are a musician, or a DJ as downloading music or videos always slows down a site, and you don't want your visitors to be waiting five minutes just to hear music they might not enjoy.