Achieving financial freedom with Network Marketing on The Internet By Tasos Vasilopoulos Part 10 - Time for decisions - Choose a web hosting company Introduction This article makes part of a series of 20 articles. The subject of this series is the creation and promotion of a website as a cost-effective method to establish a profitable home based business on the Internet. In my previous article, “Achieving financial freedom with Network Marketing on The Internet – Part 9 - Create the pages that will contain the links”, I have guided you in creating the pages in your website that will contain the reciprocal links. In this article I will help you how to choose the right web hosting company. Choose a web hosting company. There are hundreds of companies on the Internet offering space in their servers for your web pages for less than $10 monthly. Most of them are good. They offer services to you like: · CGI-BIN, SSI, htaccess, Cronjobs · Web-Based Email (secure) · Member Operations Control Panel · Control Panel Web Users · PHP4 w/ Zend Optimizer, · Perl5, · Sendmail · FrontPage 98/2000/2002 Ext. · Webstats, Raw Log Files · Built in osCommerce (Shopping Cart) · Secure Socket Layer (Secure Server) · DNS Control (A record, Cnames, MX records) · MySQL Database · Flash, Shockwave, Midi, Mulitmedia Support · And others These are tools needed by webmasters who want to incorporate e-commerce, use databases in their websites and other advanced options. You must select a company that offers: o At least 1GB of space o At least 5GB of download size per month o The ability to use an FTP program to upload your pages o A control panel to administer your website o Full support for cgi and perl scripts o Statistics for the visitors of your web pages I have my websites hosted in Powweb http://www.powweb.com and in ICDSoft http://www.icdsoft.com. Both are good companies. They answer my questions in hours. I haven’t noticed even one whole day of download for the last three years. Also, have in mind that you can change your web hosting company whenever you want. Just find another one that suits your needs, pay for their services and make the changes needed in your DNS servers (see what does this mean in Appendix C of my ebook at http://www.netincome.gr/nm-ebook/ebook.htm or read the instructions that domain name registrars include in their pages). Of course you will loose the money paid to your previous web hosting company in case you make the change before the end of the period prepaid. Here we have to discuss the option to host your pages in a web hosting company that offers its services not for money, but in exchange of putting ads in your pages. There are companies that offer to give you also a domain name for free, apart from space in their web servers to host your pages. For example Geocities (http://www.geocities.com) gives you the possibility to get a domain of the kind www.geocities.com/your-domain-name, which is not as good as having your own domain name though. Also allow you to host your pages without paying any money at all. But in return they add a piece of code in every one of your pages. This code presents a window over the right side of your pages, which contains ads relevant or irrelevant to the content of them. They do not offer the possibility to upload your pages using an FTP program. They give you an “Easy upload” option, which is not so flexible and fast as an FTP program. Netfirms (http://www.netfirms.com) has a better offer to you. This company offers to host your domain name of the kind www.your-domain-name.com for free. And, of course, offers space for your pages. In exchange they add an advertising banner at the top of each one of your pages, which contains ads relevant or irrelevant to the content of them. They also give you the possibility to use an FTP program. But, they do not include full cgi script support or statistics for the visitors of your webpages. I wouldn’t suggest basing your home business in a web hosting company that offers domain name and web space for free, unless you really do not afford to spend $65 to start. In that case at least register your domain name for $10 and host your website at Netfirms. Then, when you will start making money from your home business, change your web hosting company. Also, you can find a web-hosting company that suits your needs at http://www.hostindex.com. Be careful not to pay for services that you do not need. You do not need e-commerce solutions. You do not need Frontpage Extensions, even if you do use FrontPage. Upload your webpages to the Internet When your will have completed the creation of all your web pages, then you are ready to upload them on the Internet. Be sure that all the links in all your pages are valid, that they point to an existing page. Search Engines hate broken links. Be sure that all your pages are linked properly from the menu, so that they can be fetched easily from the Search Engines and thus help in the calculation of the importance and the relevance of your home page. Be sure that you have optimized your home page and the other pages properly. Then, upload your pages using your FTP program. Detailed instructions are to be found in Appendix C of my ebook at http://www.netincome.gr/nm-ebook/ebook.htm or you can search the Internet for FTP programs and tutorials on them. And here you have reached the first target in your business plan. You have your personal website up and running on the Internet. Now, it’s time the world to learn about it. -------------------------------- Next article in the series “Achieving financial freedom with Network Marketing on The Internet” : Part 11 – Submit your website to Search Engines and Directories. --------------------------------