Choosing the right hosting company
Every page of your website sits on a server computer. Normally, you rent access to a spot on a server from a hosting company: Godaddy, Rackspace, Media Template, Slicehost and Enginehosting are all hosting providers. However, picking the right host can be difficult.
Security, uptime, speed, and support are huge factors in deciding who to host your website with. To top things off, you need to decide on shared, virtual or dedicated hosting.
You might find yourself asking: what type of hosting do I need… shared, virtual, dedicated… what is the difference?
To keep things simple,
Shared hosting will include a server that has multiple websites on it. The available memory, bandwidth and processing power is shared with everyone and managed by the hosting company. This is prefect for websites with regular traffic.
Virtual hosting will include a server cut into multiple servers virtually. This gives you a set amount of memory, bandwidth and processing power that only you can use. These servers are great for customized websites that require special programs to run; or those with above average traffic.
Dedicated hosting is a server with only one owner, maybe you. This gives full control of every resource over to the owner. You get the total memory, bandwidth and processing power that server can put out. Expensive and beautiful, these are for large scale websites that require a technical team and experts.
However, once you pick the type of server you will need, you will be faced with picking a provider.
Who do you choose?
I personally use three hosting companies: Godaddy, Enginehosting, and Rackspace (Rackspace owns Slicehost).
Godaddy is large and a sales engine, they love to up-sale. But, they do offer decent hosting; or, the best hosing for the price you pay. I have tried many hosts and Godaddy has good enough shared hosting. The uptime and support are just fine.
Enginehosting is a bit more expensive but gets the job done right the first time. They manage everything themselves, so you will have to call or email them in if you want something done. I really like their support team and they don’t over stuff their shared servers like some do.
They also offer virtual and dedicated hosting you can trust.
Rackspace is where I go first for virtual hosting. I use their cloud servers or Slicehost for this. They are also, in my opinion, the best hosting company around; but, you will have to pay their prices.
They also offer dedicated hosting you can trust, amongst other things.
Using Facebook to help your business
Just recently Facebook grew to 500,000,000 users. However, many businesses are not sure how to take advantage of this free market and relationship building tool.
This is not surprising.
Frist, because of the sheer volume Facebook has; it’s simply a lot to take in. Second, because it is free; you’re not buying impressions, you’re joining a conversation.
The second issue here is what I want to touch on: the conversation.
Facebook is about starting a conversation. It’s about connections and relationships, not eyeballs (though for some it is). If you can understand this the rest is human nature.
Simply put: you must make your business social; and, for this to happen, your business needs a voice people will listen to and a personality they can connect with. Your business needs to be interesting.
Whether you’re interesting? That is up to you.
