If you are trying to build a website, it is important for you to know about the difference between web design and web development. Once you understand how the two processes work hand in hand, you can learn how to utilize both of these effectively to give you a solid and highly functional website which will help you promote your business.

When a web site is being created, it uses both design and development before the site becomes \”live\”. That is, before a web site becomes visible and accessible by potential customers. When you are working with a company that is building your web site, they should be able to explain the importance of each of these processes to you and show you how your site is coming together at all of the different stages of completion.

Web design involves the way the website looks. Each website has a different feel and should stand out and be memorable for your customers. You want to make sure that different design elements such as color, font size and style and the position of images and text all work together to create a website that looks professional.

You want to find a site design that your customers will want to look at. Often, customers may have problems looking at a website that is too busy and if you add too many things or put design elements in the wrong spot it can leave you with a website which looks cheap and amateurish. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing when it comes to the number of items on a web page. Experienced designers can help you pare down your page and make it look elegant and professional.

Once the look of the site has been determined, the web development process begins. Unlike web design, the development process involves the programming that allows the site to function. It is important because a badly programmed site can actually load improperly. It may also make it difficult to incorporate items such as a shopping cart to allow the selling of products directly to clients directly from the site.

This can mean that some images will not appear or it may not load at all. This can be devastating for a business that is relying on its website to sell products or services. If a website takes too long to load, customers with a slow Internet speed may take too long to load and possible customers may go elsewhere for their goods and services.

Working with an experienced web design and web development firm is important. Your website speaks for your company and is often the first contact that a potential client will have. You want to make sure that your website is professional and put together well. They can also give you guidance about how to make sure your website will appear high on any internet search and provide you with analytical tools that can help you decide which areas of your website are the most popular.

If you work with the company that is creating your website, you may be amazed at how much of an increase your customer base will experience. So many people are using the Internet to research and locate the companies they want to deal with that if you do not have a website you are missing out on a huge potential customer base.

Vancouver Web Design is a full service design firm that have both the technical expertise and experience needed to provide the solutions to convert audiences into your customers. Toronto Web Design Company: Acro Media First Canadian Place, 100 King Street West, Suite 5700, Toronto, ON M5X 1C7(416) 915-3136‎ – (877) 763-8844‎

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When your time is up it is up. With many webmasters many come to the realization that at some point its time to move or change web hosts. The web or host master may simply have come to the conclusion that its time for a wholesale change on upgrade to theirs site or sites. Sometimes it\’s a case of failing to locate important files, while others have messy file structures overall. Here a series and collection of tips will surely help new website owners to keep on track of and as well have ideas and procedures to avoid hosting failure and catastrophic failures of data.

First rule of the thumb is to save or create a backup of all essential file from your old web host. If you have a good practice and set of procedures to regularly creating backups, then it will lessen the files needed saved. However, there are some web hosts with different control panel. Backup all files manually to be sure that you gathered necessary files from the old web host. File structure, either ASCII or binary, might be different so you need to note the old server configuration before transferring. But be sure where you\’ve save it to remember the type of file to avoid host transfer failure. Another essential file is to save the server logs before changing your web host.

As a matter of course you will need and be required to remember what type of file did you transfer to avoid host transfer problem. Server logs that serve as a reference are also essential during webhost transfer. You may need to have a copy of your server log statistics because it can be entirely and sequentially different to your new providers. Try to use log analyzer on your computer as well because it also serves as reference during service provider transfer. Before the transfer, be sure that you already have a trusted FTP program and DNS from your new web host. Scripts installed on your new host that inform the server environment are also important. However, get a temporary URL from your new web host before changing your DNS. But is your host control by a domain, inform the new hosts to don\’t revise it until you tell them.

The copy of the original installation guide, as well as the script is all essential during Web host transfer, transfers, upgrades and updates. There are cases that new host won\’t work well, thus, another task for installing it again. You need to have a list of all server paths like Sendmail, Perl and home directory of your new server. However, if the scripts need special server programs, make sure that they are installed on correct location on the server. As courtesy to your customers and visitors, inform that you will upgrade to a new webhost. Provide an alternate email address where they can throw related concerns so you won\’t lose them during the transfer. You can have periodic updates during and after the service provider transfer. On this way, you can inform customers and visitors some not working areas on your site.

Before and during transfer, you must inform your customers and visitor about your planned hosting transfer. What you can do is to give an alternate email address so you will not lose their concerns during web host transfer. You have two options, first are to have periodic updates, and second are to transfer during least traffic. The first option lets you inform customers and visitors that there are some areas of site not working. The last option gives you enough time if you have huge site structure. Transfer first pages with custom errors, then, upload the most visited page. But be sure to transfer them in different days to avoid failure. Final step is to change DNS, it usually takes 1-2 days before it go in effect so you have enough time to enhance some part of your site. Do not throw the old host because you\’ll never know what might happen to the new host. In addition, try to check for remaining concerns on the old email account. Monitor the new host for two weeks or until traffic and email goes well. If you feel comfortable it and it works fine, then, cancel your old account and enjoy using the new one.

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With the increasing number of people now using the internet for shopping and the new high tech methods of accepting payments online and in traditional ‘brick and mortar’ stores, security has become an important issue for both businesses and consumers. The business community has recognized the need for quality security protocols and has implemented an effective security policy known as PCI Compliance. The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is a global security standard designed to protect businesses and consumers. The purpose is to protect personal and financial information from such threats as identity theft. When implementing PCI DSS, both the business and consumer benefit.

Below is a list of the benefits to a business when they implement PCI DSS:

1. If a company becomes PCI compliant and they have a breach in security, they will not be fined. The company will be given “safe harbor” status as long as they were PCI compliant at the time the security breach occurred. If a company is sued by consumers, the court will be more lenient on the company if it was PCI compliant. That is, if the company shows they had implemented all of the proper security measures.

2. By being PCI compliant, companies will give customers peace of mind knowing they are protected when they make a purchase. By protecting their customer’s personal data, customer buying confidence will be boosted. Maintaining customer trust creates loyal customers which improves sales. Customers will feel satisfied knowing that their cardholder data is safe when transmitted and stored. As well, the reputation of the company will be solid and the reputation of the brand will remain protected.

3. Businesses will be protected when they are PCI compliant as they will be able to build and maintain a secure business network. Their systems will be less prone to a successful attack and there will be continual security checks to make sure compliancy is maintained.

Becoming PCI compliant is a relatively quick and easy process, depending on the size of the business, their level of technology, and how many threats need to be minimized once the scan has been completed. It is recommended that a business enlist the services of a professional to help them become PCI compliant. An IT security expert can thoroughly assess a business security needs and implement an effective plan that will ensure that the business remains compliant in PCI.

Any company that stores or transmits cardholder account data is a potential target of criminals which is why any merchant or service provider that processes, transmits, and stores cardholder data must be PCI DSS compliant. PCI DSS protects cardholders and minimizes the risk to your business. PCI compliancy allows a business to simplify their security requirements, policies, and plans.

Well informed consumers will only shop at PCI compliant companies. They will know how to identify a company that is PCI compliant; therefore, it makes sense to become PCI compliant. The benefits of implementing PCI DSS far outweigh the personal and financial costs if a security breach occurs.

Operating online can be a risky endeavour without extensive knowledge about Internet security. Increase your awareness regarding IT management through researching on the uses of Sharepoint hosting and managed hosting Toronto.

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Bluehost will not just ring a bell to the ears of those who are conversant with web hosting services, but it is one of the oldest web hosts on the internet. They have been dynamic over the years while repositioning and adding more services to keep their existing customers and of course attract newer ones.

Bluehost hosting plan: Over the years Bluehost has been lowering the pricing of their hosting services considerably. In addition to being able offer budget web hosting, Bluehost hosting services are very easy to use. Cpanel, the control panel that comes with their hosting plan, is widely recognized as the best control panel in the web hosting industry. The price to pay for Bluehost hosting is $6.95 per month if you take the two year contract. If you want a yearly contract instead, you’ll have to add $1 per month to the price.

Performance and reliability: Bluehost has always offered their customers the best performance and reliability. Their uptime promise of 99.9 % is truly great and they are known to deliver what they promise. Our test accounts verify that Bluehost has excellent uptime performance. Bluehost offers solid performance both in terms of speed and reliability. Keeping their systems up to date with state of the art equipment guarantees excellent performance. When we first started hosting with Bluehost in 2005, they had some problems with uptime but those problems have long since been solved. Today Bluehost has become one of the best shared web hosting companies.

The features: Compared to their pricing, their features are splendid. Site administrators are bound to be really satisfied by the unique customizations level available for their host packages. With unlimited file transfer, unlimited space, unlimited domain, modifiable PHP (Custom PHP.INI,.htaccess) and Shell access/SSH, which is a darling for advanced users. It comes with a power backup service and very high rating protection mechanism for DDOS. To demonstrate the seriousness of their security concern, they require those who want to use the file transfer services to send their passport photographs and driver’s license to their headquarters.

Customer support: Bluehost has a toll-free telephone support as well as a live chat that make it easy for customers to contact Bluehost support. Bluehost has sometimes been criticized for not responding as quickly as they should. This may be true, although our questions have always been answered quickly and professionally. The truth is that there are web hosts with better customer support than Bluehost.

Concluding words: With their feature-rich and cheap web hosting, Bluehost offers a very attractive shared hosting service. They have received great reviews from all over the world. Hosting over 1,000,000 domains is a clear proof that Bluehost is a trusted hosting company. Although their customer service is not the greatest, we give Bluehost a big thumbs up.

For more information see our full Bluehost Review and also visit our list of best affordable web hosting.

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So, you are going to build a web site. Hosting is importan. You need to make sure your host is reliable. Top rated web hosting is not hard to find. A quick internet search will get you a ton of results and some good reviews. Hostgator, Bluehost, and Dreamhost are some of the most popular to get started with. Here are some tips:

1. Your website is where your business resides — it’s like the headquarters of an offline company. Hence, it is important to practice good design principles to make sure your site reaches out to the maximum number of visitors and sells to as many people as possible.

2. If they can’t navigate your site they will leave. — Eliminate all the possible confusion for the visitor. If they get frustrated they will simple leave your site and move on to the next one. Keep It Simple Stupid.

3. More pictures is definitely not better — You want them on your site to check out the information you have or the product you are trying to sell, NOT look at all the pretty pictures you uploaded. Cut it back to the most important, must have photos and they will be able to keep their eyes on the prize.

4. More and short is better when it comes to paragraphs — If a paragraph is too long, you should split it into separate paragraphs so that the text blocks will not be too big. This is important because a block of text that is too large will deter visitors from reading your content.

5. You are good if your site complies to web standards at w3.org and make sure they are cross-browser compatible. If your website looks great in Internet Explorer, but breaks horribly in Firefox and Opera, you will lose out on a lot of prospective visitors.

6. Try not to use scripting languages on your site unless it is absolutely necessary — Use scripting languages to handle or manipulate data, not to create visual effects on your website. Heavy scripts will slow down the loading time of your site and even crash some browsers. Also, scripts are not supported across all browsers, so some visitors might miss important information because of that.

Stick to some basic web design principles and you will be well on your way of creating a professional website.

Before you buy anything online, be sure to check Bill D. Sheers awesome free articles on Google web hosting and the many other affordable web hosting services.

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