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Blogs are becoming as increasingly popular as reading the happenings each morning in the daily news.  While it’s a fact that almost everyone has the ability to blog, there are several things you should know beforehand to be considered productive.  Prepared with the knowledge of your initial blogging needs, and equipped with a reliable and affordable blogging host is essential for success in the blogosphere.

Assessing Your Blogging Needs

When looking for a dependable, yet, affordable, blogging host the first thing you want to consider is whether or not the available package meets your individual blogging needs.  Assessing your initial needs requires you to have a basic understanding of how much space your blog will claim on the blog host server, and if the hosting package fits your blogging budget.

Depending upon the blogging platform of your preference, any required plug-ins installed to run your blog, plus the additional space needed for the initial blog scripts, estimated disk space usage is around 10MB.   While most free blogging hosts support such basic blogs, however, if you intend to install video features, then the resources required are typically more than a free host sustains. Additionally, installing popular platforms such as WordPress is as easy as allowing users to automatically install platforms effortlessly using cPanel.

Reputable Blogging Platforms

If you’re searching for a trustworthy and free blogging platform to get started, consider the following favorite among established bloggers:

• Google’s Blogger – A free, web-based easy-to-use platform allowing users to edit using Microsoft Word and Google Docs.  Virtually instant blog set-up.  Ideal platform for beginners.
• WordPress – A known favorite for being a free web-based blogging platform that’s loaded with features such as trendy themes and plug-ins.  WordPress is not recommended for users wishing to profit from affiliate marketing.
• Live Journal – A popular and versatile blog host offering free and paid packages, with over 18 million customers.
• Tumblr – Another free web-based platform, although ostly popular for micro-blogging allowing users to post frequent short posts similar to Twitter.  Ideal for individuals desiring to blog without the required time and effort as a full-fledged blog.
• Posterous – Yet another free web-based blogging platform, but with a different spin.  A single e-mail to Posterous allows you to set-up an account and blog your thoughts via e-mail; however, not to be confused with micro-blogging.

As in web hosting, you should demand and receive excellent customer service when troubleshooting an issue with your blog.  Although for the most part blogs are usually not as complicated to maintain as fully-featured websites, however, you should still expect to encounter technical difficulties at some point in your blogging experience.  Inquire if the blog host supports third party scripts, offers 24 hour customer service support and provide the appropriate contact information visible on the company’s home page.

Armed with the knowledge of your blogging needs and a reputable blog host, the sky is the limit in the blogosphere.

E-commerce hosting is perhaps one of the most popular types of hosting plans, and is specifically designed to accommodate the requirements of online business owners. Online shops have unique needs that must be met by robust hosting plans that include a plethora of necessary components. Perhaps the most important component of an e-commerce hosting plan, which sets it apart from other types of hosting, is the site builder application included within the control panel. E-commerce hosting plans are all-inclusive solutions that include shopping carts, payment processing capabilities, product catalog creators, and comprehensive site builders. Even the most experienced and novice webmaster can successfully build a professional web store with very little effort using the site building applications included with an e-commerce hosting plan.

Creative Convenience

In years past, one would have to have significant programming skills to create a professional looking website that would be successful in soliciting new clients and marketing products and services. However, with the advent of content management systems and template-based site builders, online business owners can now take every aspect of site creation into their own hands using drag-and-drop/ point-and-click interfaces that are specifically designed to be user-friendly. With this creative convenience it is possible to continuously establish new online storefronts, with each website taking only a couple of minutes to complete.

Portraying Professionalism

The templates included within an e-commerce hosting plan have been proven to increase conversion rates and portray professionalism. In fact, it is possible to build a website less than 5 minutes, make a couple of changes to the CSS/style sheet, and have a completely unique online storefront up and running by the end of the day. Perhaps even more important than the pricing and features of your products or services are the way they are marketed. The website can have the cheapest prices online and provide the best service, but to prospective customers this means nothing if the appearance does not portray professionalism. Online shoppers are especially skeptical and are very reluctant to spend their money on websites that look like they were created by amateurs. The site building tools within an e-commerce hosting plan give you the ability to create professional product catalogs and site navigation menus that are capable of impressing any customer.

Additional Site Building Methods

Aside from the included site builder applications within the e-commerce plan, there are also simple script installation utilities that allow you to easily install content management systems on your domain. These content management systems (i.e. – WordPress, Joomla!, and Drupal) are specifically designed to simplify the process of creating a website within a template-based system. After mastering the conventional site builder in your control panel, it may be beneficial to graduate to one of these more comprehensive solutions that can be enhanced and expanded upon using open source plug-ins. Content management systems like WordPress not only simplify site creation, they also enhance the capabilities of your site by adding widgets, sidebars, and other features to the site navigational menus. Content management systems also facilitate search engine optimization tasks like link building and pinging.

Transferring a website from one web hosting plan to another is a fairly easy process if done properly. However, there are several protocols and steps that need to be followed before the migration/transfer process can begin. Most people tend to overlook the most trivial steps, one of which is the process of transferring an existing domain name to the name servers/registry of the new hosting provider. Although this is not always necessary, some domain registrars or web hosts will require new customers to transfer their existing primary domain to their servers when purchasing a plan. The following paragraphs outline the process of transferring website to a new hosting provider.

What Does the Domain Transfer Process Entail?

The domain name transfer process is simply the transference of domain registrant records from one registrar or hosting provider to another. The transferring of a domain name does not affect any of the content currently located on the site or web server. After purchasing the new hosting plan many web hosting providers (some of which are also domain registrars) will require that ownership of the primary domain be transferred from the previous registrar to their servers. A DNS (domain name system) server is a web server that has name server software installed and is capable of communicating with the domain name system on a continual basis. Therefore, to ensure a problem free hosting transfer it is often necessary to transfer domain names.

What Are the Steps of Transferring a Domain Name?

Transferring a domain name from one domain registrar to another is as easy as completing a form within the backend interface of the current registrar’s control panel. Most domain registrar control panels include a domain manager that has a module specifically devoted to domain transfers, which usually bears the name “transfer domains” or a similar phrase. Although its usually simple to find, your hosting support staff may be able to provide assistance if you are unable to complete the process. After transferring domain ownership to the new registrar you’ll receive a confirmation e-mail to confirm the transfer. It is important to note that domain names younger than 60 days usually cannot be transferred. Therefore, if you are shopping for a new web host and your domain name is younger than 60 days, you’ll need to ensure that the new web host does not require domain name transfers.

How Much Does Domain Name Transfer Cost and How Long Will It Take?

The majority of domain registrars/hosting providers will allow you to transfer the domain name for free, while some will charge a nominal fee. Some hosting providers/registrars will offer free domain transfers if you choose to purchase a year’s registration for another domain with them. The domain transfer process usually takes about 3-10 days, with the average time being about a week. However, it is possible for the process to be completed within 24 to 48 hours in some cases. It is important to note that domain names that are currently involved in disputes cannot be transferred, or may take much longer to transfer, as the dispute must be settled before a transfer can occur.

The majority of novice webmasters allocate a very limited budget to their beginning endeavors online, as they are not yet confident in their ability to generate web traffic and bring in a residual income with their websites. In fact, many novice webmasters don’t even know how to build a website, have never owned a web hosting plan before, and are therefore understandably cautious about the amount of money they want to invest in web hosting. While more experienced webmasters may opt for hosting types such as dedicated hosting (which provides access to a server which is solely dedicated to the websites of a single webmaster), inexperienced webmasters usually opt for cheaper hosting types such as shared hosting. When trying to find the hosting type with the cheapest startup cost it is important to consider two types of hosting – shared hosting and VPS hosting.

The Startup Costs of Shared Hosting

Although shared web hosting provides the cheapest monthly costs, with prices starting at as low as two dollars per month, the start up cost of a shared hosting plan is usually much more. It is important to note that, the longer you pay in advance, the lower the monthly cost will be, and many shared web hosting providers will require you to pay at least one year up front. If you choose to only pay a year, it is very unlikely you’ll receive a price as low as two dollars per month, as the average price (when paid on a yearly basis) is about $5-$10 per month. Thus, the minimum startup costs associated with shared hosting are usually about $60-$120, plus any additional setup fees that may be charged by the hosting company.

The Startup Costs of VPS Hosting

Although the monthly cost of a VPS hosting plan varies widely at about $10-$200 per month, depending on the plan capabilities and hosting provider. However, the majority of VPS hosting providers do not require you to pay a year in advance, and instead will allow you to pay on a monthly basis. Thus, the startup cost for VPS hosting plan is no more than the cost of the first months hosting (which can be as cheap as $5-$7 in some cases). It is important to realize that you can also pay in advance of VPS hosting in order to receive a lower monthly cost, just as you can but shared hosting. It should also be noted that some VPS hosting providers do require payment for a year in advance, so it is important to shop around to find a VPS hosting plan with a low start up cost.

Conclusion

While shared hosting is ultimately cheaper than VPS hosting the long run, it is cheaper to purchase a monthly VPS hosting plan for $5-$10 per month if you are on a strict startup budget for your first web hosting endeavor. If you find that you would like to continue with your online endeavors, VPS hosting gives you the advantage of being able to cancel your plan without losing any of the money that you would have paid in advance.

Last time I talked about the downsides of using old hardware.  I do, however, recognize that sometimes it’s unavoidable because of budget constraints, especially for new businesses.  This time let’s talk about how to get your business’ servers up and running without breaking the bank.  For this post, we’re going to assume you are avoiding spending $2000 something like a new quad core Xeon by picking up some old $75 rack mountable Pentiums or old 32 bit Xeons.  I’m also going to assume that you understand that buying old hardware means you’re not going to have high end performance.

Start by dumping the old PSU.  The old PSU is likely a power hungry amp eater and it’s a component that is very susceptible to failure as it gets older.  Opt for an HE (high efficiency) power supply to cut your monthly recurring costs of operating the server.  You’re going to be looking in the $90-$120 price range for this upgrade, but it ought to cut your recurring power costs by as much as $150/year (depending on what you pay per kilowatt hour.)  This upgrade pays for itself in the first year in recurring costs alone.  And the added bonus is that with a new PSU in that server, you’re less likely to fall victim to a dead PSU.

The hard drive is another component that is likely to fail as it ages.  You have a few options for protecting yourself.  The most obvious would be simply replacing the component.  You can find reliable drives that work great in servers for under $40, and if you’re really going cheap, you can pick up a re certified drive for $20-$25.  Either option would be a small price to pay to make sure your data is on a newer drive than it was on.  It’s also not hard to pick up a cheap RAID card (or do software RAID for free) and a second old drive on Ebay.  Tossing that bad boy in RAID1 is a great way of protecting your data.  Finally, if none of that is really in the budget, perhaps buy just one spare drive for every few servers and leave it out of the machine, ready to be used for a cold swap if a drive fails. Make backups early and often and just be ready for downtime.

The third component to check out is how to max out your RAM, particularly if you’re going to be running newer software on it.  As the years go by, software gets more memory hungry (I’m a bit bitter about this and point to lazy programming, but that’s another blog entry for the future.)  Older motherboards should have no problem running 4gb-8gb memory (possibly up to 32gb or 64gb), although if you bought the system for $75, it’s likely that you have less than 2gb memory in it.  You’ll probably notice a performance increase by maxing out the memory.

Finally, it’s prudent to run some hardware diagnostic tests before you put the server into production.  Run a memtest and then use the HDD manufacturer’s recommended HDD test (will vary based on the HDD manufacturer, it’s a free download on their site.)  Leave the server up and running for 24 hours to make sure there aren’t any failures.  Use a service like Pingdom to notify you when your server goes down so you can react faster.

The key to avoiding the pitfalls with old hardware is to reduce recurring costs and to eliminate/reduce costs (both time and money) when the server does go down.  Follow those tips and you’ll be a lot better off for doing it!