How to Choose a Church Web Hosting Provider

Posted by in Web Hosting on September 27, 2011

By Chris M Green

 

It is important to choose the right church web hosting provider to ensure that the site hums along without any glitches. There are many web hosts out there and every company offers great deals to all customers, whether they represent a holy place or not. Here are some factors to consider before finalizing a church web hosting provider:

1. This may seem like delicate issue, but you must try and locate a website host who shares the same faith and beliefs. Though this consideration can be misinterpreted, but it is nevertheless important because a web host who shares the same faith will know exactly what the church website needs.

2. A church needs to conduct online classes and maintain an online library. This can crunch hard drive space and memory. So, the web host must be equipped with the latest and speediest servers and should allow your visitors to download or stream data at a fast speed.

3. Your website should be able to accept donations and sell holy books. For that, you need ecommerce going on your website. Your web host should be able to provide you with a shopping cart and connect you with an affordable payment terminal.

4. The church website hosting provider’s regular services should be top of the line. He must feature 24/7 general and technical support lines that are manned by experts. He must guarantee 99.9% server uptime, unlimited space and unlimited bandwidth. If your church’s website goes down at a critical time, it can impact the church’s reputation. Though all web hosts are affordable, a church web hosting service must be very affordable because it helps a noble cause. Go ahead and ask for special discounts to save up on scarce church resources.

5. Everyone wants to visit a safe and secure site. You must ensure that your church website hosting provider provides you with SSL (Secured Socket layer) that encrypts data and secures important donor-volunteer-employee-beneficiary data from being stolen. There’s more security needed than just a SSL. Your web host must also equip you with powerful anti-hacking and anti-virus tools so that your website is safe from the other, evil side of the Internet.

6. The control panel must be easy to administer and you should be in a position to upload content, delete pages, and tweak content without having to study programming languages. Nowadays, most website hosts feature easy-to-use control panels and can plug in WordPress and many other widgets into your website in minutes.

7. You will have to correspond with all your members and therefore, your website host must provide you with email list management software that can help you communicate with 1000s of your subscribers. There must be separate list management modules for subscribers, buyers, donors, etc.

8. Finally, the website host must provide you with server space that can efficiently stream audio and video in a variety of formats like Flash, WMF, MP4, etc. All churches upload videos and audio clips of sermons and events and it is important that their streaming does not slow down the site.

These were the top factors that you must consider while hiring a church website hosting provider.

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How To Select The Best Domain Name

Posted by in Web Hosting on September 27, 2011

By Mary J. Thomson

Starting your own business and don’t know how? Well, the first and the foremost thing when considering to start an online business is – YOUR WEBSITE!!

No doubt, all the websites have a name like a URL. The website URL, as it is called, typically points to the physical location (of your website) on the web and is called the Domain name or simple Domain.

Selecting a good domain name for your website can be tricky. While sometimes the domain name you want may be taken already, you will see that just a small change in the domain name can give you a much better and SEO friendly name for your website. So, before you apply for a domain name, you will have to decide the best domain name for your website.

Here are some guidelines on “how to select the best Domain name”:

1. Choose a name with major keywords: Initially, choose a name which contains the major keywords of your website. For example, if your site concentrates on webhosting,then you should obviously choose a name which is in relation to the webhosting. This helps you to find your website in major search engines.

2. Short and appropriate: You can choose a name, a maximum of 67 characters but that doesn’t mean to use all the 67 characters. Choose a name which is short and appropriate. It should not be too long (not all the members bookmark the page) that users find it hard to remember and it shouldn’t be too short that nobody will know what your site is for (unless it is a famous brand).

3. Special characters: Try to avoid the special characters in the name, like hyphens. This is hard for the user to remember and there are chances that the user is redirected to another website.

4. Domain extensions: As we know, there are many Domain extensions: .com,.net,.in,.org, etc. Moreover, a domain extension can also be based on the country like, “co.uk”, “.jp”, etc. For example, if your website target’s only on Chinese then choose a website name with “.cn” extension. But, if it’s worldwide then you can choose any of the famous extensions like “.com”, “.in”, “.org”, etc.

5. Multiple Extensions: Register your domain name with various extensions, so as that others may not copy the name. For example, register the same name with “.net”, “.org”, “.in”, etc.

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How to Get More Web Design Business

Posted by in Web Development on September 27, 2011

By Heath J Howard

The ongoing struggle of most web designers is how to get more web design business. This is particularly true if you are a new web designer and just getting started. Below are four tips on where the business is and how you can get a piece of it.

1. Get Out Of Your Design Cave

The number one source of business for most freelance web designers is small local business. Small local businesses want others in their community to shop locally, so they often make a point to do the same themselves. You can use this to your advantage, since wherever you are, you are a local businessperson.

So, how do you network and meet the owners of small businesses? You go where they go. Join your local Chamber of Commerce or business association and start attending the meetings. Make sure you attend the meetings with business cards and the intention of actually meeting people, NOT selling to people. Volunteering and supporting local charities and community events is another great way to network and meet small business owners.

2. Create Your Online Portfolio

It is unlikely that anyone will buy a website from you without seeing examples of your work. Your portfolio is your resume to potential clients and your chance to put your best foot forward. Quality is essential for your web design portfolio; make sure it works perfectly in all the major browsers and resolutions. If a potential client’s first impression is a website with obvious problems, you will have a tough sell ahead of you.

3. Have a Set Referral Process

Referrals are the most powerful marketing tool at your disposal. We can see advertising for something over and over to no effect, but once someone you know and trust recommends the product, you are sold. If you treat your customers right, they will pay you with more than just money. They will pay you back many times over in new business. Make sure you actively pursue referrals, and not just expect them to roll in on their own. The key is to ask your clients to refer and offer incentives to them.

4. Utilize Social Networking

Remember that it is social networking, NOT social selling. Sure, your ultimate goal is to sell your services, but your potential clients are not on Facebook or Twitter to shop or be sold to — they are there to connect with people. Social networking sites are a goldmine for business leads, but they must be used correctly to connect to potential clients and share your expertise. Through freely sharing your knowledge, your connections will trust you more and be more likely to use your services.

Use social networking as bait to hook leads and pull them into your website. It is not for closing a sale. Follow the 80/20 rule, where 80% of your social content is pure quality information and 20% is pulling them in. Don’t ever try to outright sell something in a medium like Twitter. That is the quickest way to get written off, and consequently unfollowed or hidden.

Bringing in new business consistently is one of the keys to your web design business’s success. Venture out to meet real people who might need your services, maintain an online portfolio for potential clients to view, obtain referrals from satisfied clients, and leverage the potential of social networking to develop your customer base without coming off like the stereotypical used car salesman. These four tips will provide you a surefire way to bring in more clients.

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