Friday, June 23, 2006

Business Webhosting - Important Aspects To Consider To Get The Right Service

There are a number of business webhosting services over the internet. It is important to choose a business webhosting service that caters to your needs. Do you require a business webhosting that is a dedicated server, a managed server or a shared server? A business website could be very simple or complicated depending on the entity. The business could sell one product and may only require a simple e-commerce site or a very complex pay per click engine complete with statistics and payment features.

There are a number (around thousands) of business webhosting services you can find online. These business hosting sites offer a number of features some even unfamiliar to you such as Miva Scripting, co-location services, virtual private servers, redundant backbone connection and many others. You must define your aim. And ask why you need a business webhosting company? This way you will only look for the services that you truly need for your business webhosting. And you will not end up paying for the services that you do not actually need.

A business webhosting site can fetch as low as $40 - $50 a month to thousands of dollars. The price range will usually depend on the dedicated servers and bandwidth capacity. Choosing a business webhosting service is a major consideration. This is because a down site or down time usually mean your business is down too.

You must consider a number of factors before committing to a business webhosting service. One factor is a business webhosting service must offer a money back, no questions guarantee. Another is an uptime guarantee. You should also consider the types of backups they offer. A business webhosting service should have redundant backbone connections to the internet or connected to the internet by more than one major backbone providers. A business webhosting service must offer 24-7 technical, phone and email support. You should also check the background of the business webhosting service, how long they have been in business and do they have business references of sites that they host. Also, a webhosting vendor should also make it easy for you to upgrade/down services. And finally, know if the webhosting service requires monthly or annual payments.

Choosing the right business webhosting service is essential for your business to grow. Your webhosting service could spell the difference between success and failure in your business. That is why great care should be exercised in choosing it.

Business Credit Cards - Smart Choice For Your Small Business?

In an age of on-line payments and multinational business ventures, many small business owners are finding business credit cards to be a smart choice for simplifying payments, organizing expenses, and expanding the capability and autonomy of employees both locally and abroad. Before diving right in and applying for a small business credit card, however, every responsible business owner should ask himself or herself: is a small business credit card the right choice for my business?

There are several factors that can help determine this, but one of the simplest is how long the company has been in existence. Until a company has been around for at least two years, many banks and credit card companies may be reluctant to draw enough conclusions about the company's financial responsibility to approve a large line of credit. In cases such as these, whether a business credit card is approved or not will depend on the personal financial and credit history of whatever individual--from business partner to simple employee--actually puts in the application for the card. This may not be a problem in the case of a rock-solid personal finance history, but if there's any doubt, acquiring a good business credit card may be a trickier proposition.

Another thing to watch out for in the case of a startup small business is the question of personal financial liability. Since Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad in 1886, corporations have had the legal status of individuals, except insofar as business credit cards for startup companies are concerned. The first years of any business are the hardest, and in the case of company bankruptcy, any outstanding financial obligations based on a business credit card will be the original applicant's responsibility to meet. In the case of a large financial obligation, this can be a disaster for personal finance. Of course this is no argument against small business credit cards in all cases--far from it. However, any company interested in setting up a small business credit card would be wise to double-check its business plan and make sure that, in the rare event that the worst occurs, a "Plan B" for paying off the credit balance is firmly in place.

Even established small businesses would do well to examine their financial needs before taking the plunge with a business credit card. In the case of a business which involves a great deal of travel on the part of its employees, a large on-line business component, or a wide variety of expenses that require the business to deal with a number of different suppliers, a small business credit card is virtually essential. However, some small businesses are largely local, largely service-based, or have only a handful of employees authorized to make purchases. In cases like this, the reluctance of a few business credit card providers to allow disputes over billing errors or payments may actually complicate expense reporting and year-end inventories--sometimes a very real problem in the case of small businesses that have expanded far beyond their original business plan or intentions, resulting in a draconian system of purchaser agreements and expense accounts. So the decision to apply for a small business credit card should be made carefully, with defined uses for the card well in place, and a possible light restructuring of the business might even be warranted in order to ensure that payment responsibilities and individual employee purchasing requirements are well-defined in order to avoid possible later problems.

With all of these caveats, are business credit cards ever a good idea? Absolutely: these caveats represent only a few problems, nothing compared to the wealth of tools a good small business credit card can provide for a burgeoning small business. A good business credit card can--and usually does--simplify inventory management and tax reporting, allow employees a greater degree of autonomy on travel, make e-commerce easy, and, depending on "rewards" or travel mileage options, can even directly offset a large share of the expenses for some businesses. So yes, a small business credit card is, in the majority of cases, the smart choice for a small business. But as with all financial matters, care should be taken to determine when that smart choice should be made, or whether the business is structured to take full advantage of it.

Shared Webhosting - An Affordable Solution For Your Business

Shared webhosting is housing and serving files for a web site. For individuals or small to medium scale businesses that cannot afford to gain an extreme robust connection to the internet for their web site on their own. This is where the virtual or shared webhosting businesses come in. They provide the customers a way to outsource their Internet requirements in a more affordable way.

The shared webhosting service allows individuals and companies to share the cost of a fast Internet connection for serving files. This is the basic, entry-level fee-based hosting service available to the customer. Shared webhosting allows clients to host their website on a powerful server at a minimal monthly cost. Shared webhosting provides individual sites with connectivity and guaranteed uptime. Shared webhosting is designed to host small-scale e-commerce sites web pages. Shared webhosting is used by first-time webmasters because you can have a reliable Web presence without having advanced technical know-how. Shared webhosting is good for small-scale consumer because they are assured of transparent services, domain name for its website and set of email addresses.

Shared webhosting’s low cost makes it very attractive to the consumers. A minimal monthly fee for a shared webhosting service is preferable than a dial-up service. Most small-scale business and individuals choose shared webhosting because of its low price and it provides basic services. Another reason for shared webhosting popularity is its convenience. Site activation and set-up time in shared webhosting usually takes a few minutes after purchasing the services.

Shared webhosting services are usually bundled. With a minimal monthly fee, it offers multi-platform website solutions. Bundled services include: minimum amount of disk storage space for web pages, minimum amount of data transfer, email forwarding services with physical email boxes that allows you email aliases at your domain name, unlimited file transfer protocol (FTP) services. Shared webhosting alos provide access to Web statistics for you to gage the number of internet clients visiting your web site. This service usually includes raw statistical logs. Also, shared webhosting will include free 24X7 technical supports.

Other services in a shared webhosting are daily tape backup of web site, anonymous FTP server for you to provide public access via file transfer protocol format and CGI-BIN access to upload scripts that will add features to your website.

Shared webhosting is truly a great way to avail of fast internet connection for your website at a very minimal monthly cost.