Web Hosting Service: What Questions Should Be Asked

November 28th, 2009 by warren | Filed under Hosting.

The Internet Changes the Economics of Marketing
The stunning cost implications of electronic marketing in part fuel the Internet’s unprecedented growth. The Internet is not only cost-effective, it is downright cheap in comparison to other media. The Yankee Group lwww.yankeegroup.com) estimates that Internet direct marketing is 60 to 65% cheaper than traditional direct mail marketing.

A marketer can build and host a Web site and reach a worldwide audience at a cost that is far less than the cost of one national television commercial. Electronic communication has a whole different cost structure from traditional print, direct mail, telemarketing, or television media. There are no media placement costs associated with launching a corporate Web site or employing e-mail as a marketing medium. You may have to rent e-mail addresses, but you do not have to engage printers or mailhouses, or pay postage, when you disseminate e-mail.

There are no printing and mailing costs for electronic fulfillment. Even order taking is cheaper with the Internet, especially if electronic catalogs are used to replace traditional paper catalogs.

Web hosting by an outside resource is an option that may make sense for some companies. If you choose to have your e-commerce site hosted by an outside service, you will want to review the full capabilities of the hosting Internet Service Provider (ISP). Do not assume that every ISP can provide e-commerce hosting. ISPs typically offer the hardware, software, communications access, and service to host Web sites, but not all ISPs have experience with e-commerce b-to-b applications.

Here are some of the key questions you should ask of potential Web hosting services:

* How many b-to-b customers do you have? How many of them are involved in e-commerce?

* What do you provide in the way of security? (firewalls, encryption, authentication, etc.)

* How do you handle secure transactions? (SSL, CyberCash, etc.)

* What other e-commerce services can you provide? (packaged solutions, back-end connections, analysis of site traffic, etc.)

* What support do you provide in the following areas?

- Database connectivity
- Server disk space
- CGI scripting
- Java and JavaScript
- Authoring tools, such as FrontPage
- Support for multiple languages
- E-mail standards
What are your technical and service capabilities?

- Guaranteed uptime
- Technical support availability (days and hours)
- Number of Web servers and number of sites per server
- Access capabilities (Dial-up, 56K, 128K.T-1, T-3, ISDN, DSL)
- Data backup
- Site management

Use web hosting review sites in order to choose the best company. Web hosting review sites collect and assess information on the best web hosting providers in the market. This will save your time and possibly money.

Do not use free hosting if your web site has commercial goals.

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