Selling Your Products Online

So you have some great idea of something to sell online, but don’t know where to start. First, you need ecommerce web hosting. 

There are many web hosting providers out there who claim to have ecommerce tools for a small businesses to get started by selling their goods online. We’ll tell you what to look for when finding a web host for your new storefront.

Obviously you will need a domain name – which we’ve posted on how to choose the best domain name for your product or business.  After you have decided which domain to choose – you will need to find your hosting plan. We recommend a few hosts for this – you can read their reviews on sites by clicking the following links : IPowerWeb Review - BlueHost Review – HostMonster Review.

The hosts mentioned above all contain the following key components that you probably need in your ecommerce venture: A shared SSL certificate – this is so you can process payments online securely without having to foot the bill for a full SSL certificate which can cost you anywhere from $20 per year up to $200 per year depending on the encryption and other items.  The hosts above also include a shopping cart system – so you can click a few buttons and you’re shopping cart is setup. Ipowerweb has the easiest system which is the paypal shopping cart.  BlueHost and HostMonster each include – OS Commerce Cart, Agora Cart, Cube Cart, Zen Cart, and other cool tools. OS commerce is actually kind of tough to use, but once you learn it – it’s quite robust.  Beginners should stick with the paypal cart.

Other tools to look for when shopping for ecommerce web hosting: check reviews of providers and look around for uptime/reliability. If you’re selling a product – the last thing you want to happen is have the server crash and people trying to visit your site and not be able to give them what they came for. A host like those mentioned above should be in business at least 5 years and have reliable datacenters/servers that have limited downtime exposure. Good hosts have redundant connections and power supply by generator if there is a crash. Sometimes these backups fail, but it is rare.

After you have your website setup and a domain secured you will need a merchant account. You can find reviews of credit card merchant accounts on the web.  There are a few really great providers of merchant accounts on the web if you need one. Rates can be as low as 1.65%, but they are usually a little higher for internet transactions because the credit card isn’t present.  Retail rates are always the best while internet is higher risk for fraud transactions so they get you on the merchant rate.  If you find a quality merchant provider – you will want to make sure they include access to the authorize.net payment gateway to interface your shopping cart with.  This part gets tricky with internet security being a huge concern to people these days. It might be worth a little investment to have someone plug this all in for you properly so payments are getting processed properly. Also, these pages should be in some server-side scripting language so user’s can’t see the variables that are being used.

You can look online or in the yellow pages for quality web development firms in your area.

Thanks and Good Luck!

Choosing the Best Domain Name

When choosing a domain name you need to consider these points. 

1. Short and Sweet! – you need a domain name that people can remember. Otherwise, they probably won’t be able to find you again unless they find you through a search engine or bookmarked your site on the first go round which isn’t that common.

2. Keep the dashes and numbers to a minimum – people mess this up a lot. Where to put the dash and where to put the number – or worse – BOTH!  Again – if they can’t remember how to get back to the site you see them once and maybe never again.

3. It depends on how you plan to market the site… if you’re relying only on search - maybe the stuff above doesn’t matter so much. You should probably get one with keywords in the domain name and make sure it’s a good top level domain extension such as .com, .net, .org.  If you’re planning on marketing the site on billboards or TV then you need it to be SHORT and EASY to remember so #1 and #2 will be of great importance.

4. Which extension? It’s tempting to go with some .biz and .info when you’re searching for names because nearly all the good .com names are taken these days. Once in a while you will find a gem that has good value that nobody thought of. These days – domaining is bigger than it’s ever been. More people are getting into it because registrars and ad companies are making it easier to register and monetize domain names. Most of these big domaining guys use automated scripts though which don’t capture everything. So you search for that .com and don’t give up so easy – it takes time.

The extension may matter to search engines a little, but it’s more important for user memorability. If you have a .biz, .info, .ws, etc. Then your business gets big – some people will try to go to the .com version of the site naturally. So whoever owns that will be monetizing that traffic somehow. You lose out. 

5. Premium Domain Names - sometimes the best way to go is to find a domain you want and if there is no site – offer to buy it. Don’t overpay. There are many online appraisal services and a lot of documentation about past domain sales in the marketplace. .com versions always command the highest prices. Prices can range from hundreds to millions, but don’t be intimidated by price. Just because a guy says he’s asking $10,000 doesn’t mean he wouldn’t take less. Also, ask the seller how they are justifying the price.  Is there type in traffic, how many words is it, how many characters, is it a common name, does it describe the product, etc These are a few of the must know questions. Also when buying a domain name – you should check into the history by visiting archive.org – you might not want a name that was promoting viagra or some adult product if you’re looking for a family friendly domain. Remember – everything on the internet seems to live on the internet for quite sometime so you may have some challenges on a used domain. The highest value domains have been untouched for the most part… aside from a one page advertising scheme which is usually on topic of the domain.

Hope this help in your quest for the best domain names.

Thanks and good luck!

Which Web Hosting Plan?

Are you trying to decide which web hosting service plan to choose? There are so many different types and such different features on different platforms – we’ll help you figure it out!

PHP Web Hosting – This is usually for dynamically driven sites that use PHP functions/extensions and is commonly used with mysql hosting.  Almost any Linux/Unix based server will be able to serve PHP pages.

Linux Web Hosting – This is a server that is based on the operating system called Linux. There are different versions, but the most common is RedHat.  Plans based on this O/S are typically cheaper than those based on Windows because of licensing fees for software.  These are very popular for PHP/MYSQL hosting plans.

Windows Web Hosting – These are plans that are stored on a server with the Windows O/S. These servers are usually able to handle ASP web hosting plans.  Windows Servers are good, but can be slower than a standard linux/unix config.

FrontPage Web Hosting – Microsoft FrontPage Hosting can be on almost any server as long as the frontpage server extensions are installed. Hosts must pay a license fee to use the extensions to offer the full support for the program which enables users to create and upload a website with ease. Some newer hosts don’t offer the support because the program is almost phased out with another product to replace it. The extensions were cumbersome to hosts and made things run slower on the servers.  Frontpage web hosting is widely offered if you’re stuck on using the program.

Country Specific – is it important for you to find a Canada Web Hosting company or a UK web hosting company for one reason or another? There are many web hosts located in each, but you’ll need to be careful. Some are companies based in another country but their servers/datacenter are located in the U.S. which could pose a problem for you.

Reseller Web Hosting – This is where you plan to host other people’s websites. This could also be accomplished on a Multiple Domain Hosting plan, or a Virtual Private Server, and dedicated web servers. This enables someone to host sites for a fee and assign unique FTP/login information to limit access.  We recommend HostMonster if you’re looking for a good plan to accomplish this.

Free Host Plans – we’ve posted articles on how to find the best free host.  We recommend 20m.com or 150m.com for free hosting plans – both are stable and offer loads of free web space. 

Domain hosting – we recommend Godaddy if you’re just looking to park a site – they offer free email and DNS services and the domain will only cost you $9 or so with all the fees.

Good luck in finding your perfect web hosting service plan.