Small Buisness Web Sites


Keep all Software, CMS, Plugins Up To Date

February 21st, 2018 ernie Posted in Web Hosting No Comments »

Keep all Software, CMS, Plugins Up To DateWe have talked a lot about having great content on your sites. The content needs to be original and interesting or informative for readers. However there is another area that is equally important and that is, keep all software, CMS, plugins up to date. Why? There are multiple reasons why web designers and web site operators need to pay attention to. Security of your site is up to date and known vulnerabilities are dealt with. Website responsiveness is maximized. Functionality is also improved every time you upgrade. Let’s explore these issues in a little more detail.

Keep all Software, CMS, Plugins Up To Date

The writer recently updated this blog to use PHP7.1 from 5.4. The hosting provider had updated their servers to support multiple levels of PHP and was sending messages to indicate that website owners should take advantage of this upgrade. better processing speed, better security, and improved functionality were suggested.

The first test involved upgrading and trying to access my websites. A white screen was presented so obviously something was not working. After checking the error logs, it was obvious that an outdated plugin was to blame. Reverting back to an older version of PHP corrected the problem.

The next step involved finding new plugins with the same functionality which also supported the latest level of CMS(content management system) and PHP. Two plugins needed changing since there were no updates for the plugins I was currently using.

Once the new plugins were installed and configured, I was able to upgrade to PHP7.1 with no problems at all. All sites worked well and the new plugins had more functionality than the old ones did.

The site appeared to run much faster as well, although I have not fully tested this on all my sites. The final step was to test each site to ensure that they were working properly for desktop presentation as well as on mobile devices.

The moral of the story is to Keep all Software, CMS, Plugins Up To Date to ensure that security is not compromised and that your site runs smoothly.

For more posts about web hosting, click here.

AddThis Social Bookmark Button

Monitoring Website Response Time

November 21st, 2017 ernie Posted in Web Hosting No Comments »

Monitoring website response time is increasingly becoming more important if you want to keep people on your website. Clients expect an instant response.  Studies have shown that clients will give up quickly. They move to another site to find the information they are looking for. They do this after 3 to 10 seconds. There are a number of areas you can monitor and take action to improve your web sites response time.

Monitoring Website Response Time

Network Response – tough to anything about this one. There can be up to 20 different network elements including your own router and computer that can affect response time. Check often if you suspect a problem in this area and eliminate your own router or computer as the culprit.

Host Response Time – The server you have your content on should have the latest software.  Optimize it to serve content. Sharing impacts your site speed. Discuss the details with your service provider to determine if there are any limitations in this area.

Monitoring Website Response Time – Monitor the response of your web site. Look at details that could be impacting the time it takes for a page to load.

Managing Apps or Widgets – Every app and widget takes time to be processed and deliver a result. Review every widget and app. Make sure that your page is not being penalized by one of them. Evaluate your page load preparation time.

Manage Content – large image files, high quality images take a long time to load and send. Even your own device may find larger images difficult to process. It may take more time to present it on your local screen. Convert to smaller less detailed images. If you need high-quality images, give the reader the opportunity to load these files with a second click. This is one way to manage their expectations.

 

AddThis Social Bookmark Button

Monitoring Host Responsiveness

November 7th, 2017 ernie Posted in Web Hosting No Comments »

Web for Small BusinessIn today’s environment, consumers expect an instant response as they visit various web sites. Read posts, purchase various items, and browse web site looking for information. Monitoring host responsiveness can pay dividends if you speed up response time.

Studies have shown that many consumers will wait at most 10 seconds before they will move onto another website. Even 10 seconds seems to be a very long time.

In this environment, it is even more important to spend some time monitoring host responsiveness.  Response time can be impacted by a number of different factors. There are a number of areas that can be monitored and improved.

Monitoring Host Responsiveness

Apps and Widgets – all of the apps and widgets that have been installed on your server will take milliseconds of time. Some have more overhead than others. WordPress is a popular content system with many widgets that can be added. It is a good idea to conduct a study after every new widget or app is added to determine the impact that it may be having on load time.

Latest Operating System – will ensure that your server is running with the latest software which should be optimized for the server as well as the overall system.

Network Connectivity – Once the server has prepared the page to be sent, the data must travel through many routers and networks. As many as 20 network elements could be involved in order to be received by the client. Most web site managers have little control over the network. You can run tests from time to time. Evaluate how much time is consumed by the network in transmitting your content.

Complex pages with Images – The more complex the page and the larger the images etc. are, the longer it will take to compile the page and send it. Evaluate your content. Make sure that files and images are kept to as small a size as possible to limit total response time.

 

AddThis Social Bookmark Button

Optimize Website Load Speed

October 21st, 2016 ernie Posted in Web Hosting No Comments »

optimize-website-load-speedOne of the issues that most website managers forget all about is the size of images. When you are working to optimize website load speed, pay attention to the size of your images. Large images just take longer to load for a variety of reasons. The server must upload the image and process it. The transmission network between the server and your computer has to handle more data. Your computer must receive the data, process it and display it. The larger the image, the more the data that must be transferred. Readers are just not willing to wait, and will move on to another site if your page does not load quickly.

Optimize website load speed – Resize Images

Even if your website is ranked well, and on the first page of search engine results, users will move on if your webpage does not load quickly.

Take the time to go through your images. Resize any that are too large and take a long time to load. Content management systems, such as WordPress, make it easy to review all of your images in the media library. You can quickly assess those that are large in size and change them to smaller load size.

This is just one of the many common things SEO website managers can do to optimize their site and make them more attractive to your users and readers. Remember internet surfers are notoriously impatient.

 

AddThis Social Bookmark Button

Website crashes or becomes unresponsive

March 21st, 2015 ernie Posted in Web Hosting No Comments »

Website crashesIf the website will not respond or the Website crashes, there are lots of reasons that would cause this particular problem. It is not always a problem for the website itself, there are so many connections within the Internet that there could be a problem and they could be just about anywhere. For example, to reach any given website from your computer there could be as many as 23 connections over routers and modems through the Internet before it reaches our hosting site. Anyone of those could be the culprit that is slowing things down. Sometimes it is just heavy traffic on one of the routers or even on the server that your web site is hosted on that is causing the problem.

Once this traffic clears, your response time will be back to normal. Before reacting wait an hour or so and then retest. If it is still responding slower than normal, it is time to take some action. You will need to do some investigation to figure out where the delay is occurring in order to be able to do anything about it.

Website Crashes – These include

  • Your ISP has lost connection with the Internet
  • A portion of the Internet is down
  • A router on the path to your website is not responding
  • Your personal connection to the Internet could be lost
  • Your computer, tablet or phone may need to be rebooted.

These are the main reasons why a website may not respond in addition to denial of service attacks on the host. Give it sixty minutes, and then retry. Just be patient and try clicking the link a little later and see what happens. If it doesn’t work the second time then is a good idea to reach out to the website owner.

If you are the web site owner, any delay can cause you to lose traffic and customers. Always investigate any delays and take the appropriate action immediately if you want to maintain your revenue stream or customer base. Start with your host provider and ask a technician to load your web site in his or her browser.

If it loads quickly, chances are that it is not your web site, your host or your server that is causing the problem. It will be somewhere else and not your website providers issue. Run a check on your server to determine where the delays are creeping in.

For more details about web hosting, click here.

Save

AddThis Social Bookmark Button

Business Hosting for Web Sites

May 7th, 2014 ernie Posted in Web Hosting 1 Comment »

Business Hosting for Web SitesSmall Business Hosting for Web Sites is critical for any business since this is really part of your advertising budget. As with all advertising, it is very important to make sure that your advertising is as effective as it can possibly be. What does this mean in terms of designing your website? There are a lot of technical details that the experts must take into account. However, we will discuss a few of the more important elements that any business must consider when they set up their business web site for the first time.

Business Hosting for Web Sites – Domain Name & Hosting

Choosing a domain name is almost as important as choosing the name of your company. This name will be synonymous with your company and will be how it becomes known online as well as with your customers. It should be easy to remember so that customers do not even need to look it up when they want to return. Selecting a hosting company is important as well since you want a company that has a well-managed traffic system, is on top of servers that are under stress, and has a strong security program to deal with spam attacks.

Business Hosting for Web Sites – Function

What is the function of the web site? Is this pure advertising? Is it designed to be the go-to site for your customers to find information about your products and services? Can customers place orders from your web site and issue comments and even trouble tickets for whatever you are selling them? Deciding early about these questions will drive the overall design and provide you with a better set of expectations for timing and cost.

Business Hosting for Web Sites – Marketing

Another point to consider is that this web site is your marketing site. It is the online presence for your company and it should provide the information your customers need to learn about your products and services, draw them in and convert them to customers who purchase your products.

Business Hosting for Web Sites – Keep it Fresh

It is also important to continuously update your content and keep it fresh so that the search engines have something new to index and see your website as a dynamic site with changing content. Better indexing leads to more visits and more customers. In addition, your customers need to know that your site is up to date. It must have the most current information about your products and services. You may want to have someone assigned to keep your site up to date and current within your company based on a schedule that has been developed.

AddThis Social Bookmark Button

Small Business Web Page Hosting

October 19th, 2013 ernie Posted in Web Hosting No Comments »

Small Business Web Page HostingAfter talking to a number of small business owners, we have found that many of them would like to have a web site. They want one that they can control and do their own updates. One that does not have a huge expense associated with hosting service, web designer costs and so on. They are operating on a tight budget. They need a web page hosting solution that does not cost them a lot of money. It must be easy to update. They just do not have the time to develop the skills they need. Skills to arrange for hosting or to arrange to learn HTML or some other arcane language. But they want to be able to add their own updates. They want to post some of their own content without having to pay a web site manager a fee for doing this.

Small Business Web Page Hosting Solution

This is where our service can really help our customers. Clients can achieve these objectives. For a minimal fee on an annual basis, we can provide you with a location to host all of your content. We can set you up with a service that allows you to post your own content. If you are familiar with any of the traditional word processing engines such as Microsoft word for example you can use our service. It is very easy to use and post your own content including pictures and even short videos.

We will set you up with five pages that are generic in nature. Or we can customize to your business, and provide you with a login id and password. With some initial instruction you are ready to use your own web site to provide information to your customers. It is very easy and one of our customers has just done this and is ecstatic.  Click here to view his site.

If you would like more information about this service and pricing contact us using the contact page on this site.

Content Writing for a Business Web Page

Not everyone has the time or the desire to do even what we just described above. Some business owners feel that their time is better spent focusing on the core business and have someone preparing and uploading content to their website for them. They provide the general content which is then cleaned up and uploaded to their web hosting site. We can manage the site for you.

This package of services is a bit more expensive. But still much less than what larger web design companies are charging. Click here to view our services and let us know if there are any additional questions that you may have.

Your site can be up and running in less than 24 hours. If you already have your domain name, it can be pointed at our hosting service. Redirect of the IP addresses sometimes takes 24 hours to kick in. But then your customers will be able to view your products and services online.

Check out our services and let us know how we can help you get your business web page hosting service online!

AddThis Social Bookmark Button

Small Business Web Hosting Companies

September 29th, 2013 ernie Posted in Web Hosting 1 Comment »

small-business-web-hosting-companiesDo you run a small business and need an inexpensive hosting site to launch your business web site,? We can set you up with a five-page site and blogging platform that allows you to do your own updates at a very low price.  If you need us to help with updates and changes we are also available to provide assistance. This is our starter package for customers who are not sure of exactly what they wish to place on the web. Or perhaps just need a few pages of content. If you need more content, we would be pleased to discuss your needs. Check out our prices and services. Your costs will be kept to a minimum while you develop your strategy for an online presence. We focus on Small Business Web Hosting Companies and their needs.

Reduce Your Overall cost of being Online

Small businesses can save money by taking this approach and avoiding thousands in costs for hosting and web site maintenance while making their job easier and less costly.

WordPress blogs are very easy to use, maintain, and keep up to date. If you already have a domain name, your company’s website can be up and running in 24 hours. Just point your domain at the URL we provide and your website will be live. Once we set it up for you and initiate your first few pages we can continue adding content for you or the web owner can take over. WordPress is easy to use and is much like using MS Word for example with a few twists. we can help you get set up and started and then provide support to you as needed.

Small Business Web Hosting Companies – Confirm your Cost

Check out our rates as well for basic page and post creation. Our rates are very reasonable. Once a web page is created, business owners can also make their own adjustments and updates if desired. The choice is yours. We offer flexibility and inexpensive business web sites. This is one of the most inexpensive and easiest ways to build your own companies website.

Don’t let someone try to tell you that a web site is a complicated process and only the experts can do it for you charging thousands of dollars. It is much simpler than that unless you have a sophisticated eCommerce site in mind.  Most business owners just need something to establish their presence on the internet and bring customers to their main business. We can help you with this challenge and make it easy and inexpensive for you at the same time.

Call or email us today for more information! Our rates are surprisingly low for the value you receive.

AddThis Social Bookmark Button


?>


Web Content Development