Scripting languages are a type of programming language that controls a specific software application. One example is JavaScript, that controls slight behaviour of a Web browser. For example, JavaScript in a particular fashion is an event-driven scripting language, so in this way, upon an event taking place, JavaScript “springs into action”. One JavaScript code could wait for an event when the user tries to close the tab or browser, and a message box will appear upon the event happening. As such, JavaScript is a client-side scripting language.

What is a client-side scripting language?

Client-side scripting languages are like any form of scripting language but the browser in some form is the interpreter. As such, a server-side scripting language would be a different type of scripting language genre, but in this case the interpreter is a virtual machine inside a server. In this case, the server is a physical machine that has the virtual interpreter installed on it. Basically, a virtual interpreter reads the scripting code, and translates it to HTML code of that specific result, which the browser can understand, and the same pattern would happen with the browser (HTML code -> bytecode -> screen). In this case, the screen part is where the text is displayed on the users screen.

Why have scripting languages?

Unfortunately computers aren’t like humans, and as a result can’t understand human speech commands that we say. For example, in a command-line interface, if we wanted the computer to open a specific file, we couldn’t just say “open notepad.exe” - the computer would just respond and say “unknown command”. The reason there are scripting languages are for a computer to accomplish a specific task. There are many variety of scripting languages out there, and different scripting languages are for different tasks. For example, JavaScript is a client-side scripting language and mainly an event-driven scripting language, and hence, it usually waits for events to happen. JavaScript is commonly known to be used for pop-ups, and in use with web-forms for validation purposes. Another good purpose of JavaScript is that it is capable of changing images as the mouse moves over them. Much like desktop programming languages which are mostly event-driven as well.

There are other scripting languages that are used for general-purpose activities, for example creating dynamic Web pages to create interactivity to the visitor. In such a sense, we mean that, for example, a page could display two different things. If the user is using Firefox, some text with “You are using Firefox” would be displayed, conversely, if the user is using Internet Explorer, some text would display “You are using Internet Explorer” instead. This is one form of dynamic Web pages, but of course many scripting languages could do things at a much higher-level scale than just this. Another example is creating a text-based game, completely coded in a scripting language.

Just for your information, there is a distinct differentiation between scripting languages and good old HTML. HTML alone cannot create dynamic Web pages, as such some of the examples explained in the preceding sections. HTML was created for the building of Web pages, and as a result, it is a static language, and is the structuring of Web pages (and in some cases the styling of Web pages, too).

How do I learn a scripting language?

First of all you need to understand whatever scripting language you want to go for and what exactly it does. If you want to go for client-side scripting languages, JavaScript may be a good option. And in another criteria, for server-side scripting, PHP may be a good option, as a general-purpose scripting language. Nonetheless, whatever scripting language you go for, you need to look into what exactly it is, and understand the concepts of it first. If you want more information on PHP, you can pop on over to PHP’s official Website, PHP.net and JavaScript resources and tutorials can be found with a little searching with Google.com.

Good luck!

E-Commerce Shopping Cart Hosting

One of the main things which many people and businesses want to add to their websites these days are shops so that they are able to sell their products or services via the internet; this is because that many are discovering what a powerful selling tool the internet can be for them, thus meaning that they want to sell their products via the internet as well just face to face or through their retail store since it gives them an extra source of income. The number of online shops has started to grow over the last few years since adding one to your website has become much easier than it previously was since there are now methods which allow you to add a shop to your website yourself which mean that you don’t have to pay a website designer or developer to install the application for you.

By adding an online shop or e-commerce store to your website, you are giving yourself an extra source of income since it means that you are able to sell the products which you might otherwise sell through your retail store or face to face directly to be public, meaning that you are also able to grab yourself another audience which might otherwise not be aware of your brand and the products that you sell. By optimizing your website and online shop with the use of previous articles within this blog, you are able to make sure that visitors who are looking for a product or service which you happen to sell or provide find your website and online shop through the use of a keyword search on a search engine that your website happens to be listed; this means that you are able to get customers which you might not otherwise get if you were to not have an online shop, and were to sell only through your retail store if you have one, or just face to face if that is the sales method which you use.

When setting up an online shop for your website, the main decision that you will come across is choosing the application that you want to base your online shop on; although this decision might sound like a basic one, it can be a fairly hard one to make because there are many different shop applications that might meet your needs in some areas, but not in others - you might also have limitations that you will have to take into consideration when choosing a shop application, although most are designed to function in range of different environments.

The main items that you will take into consideration when choosing a shop application for your website will include how many products or services you are able to list within your chosen shop application, whether it is commercial or open source and how it compares to other shop applications that are available; these features are important to consider since you don’t want to keep on adding new products or services to your online shop and then find that you aren’t able to add any more since you have reached the limit in that area, you also want to check whether the application which you want to use is open source or commercial - and if it is commercial you should consider the cost of it, and finally you should always see how your chosen shop application compares to other both commercial and open source applications since you might want to purchase a commercial application since it meets the needs of you or your business but there might be an open source application which is just what you want and suits you or your business’s needs more.

You should also consider whether or not your chosen shop application makes SEO friendly URLs with the use of a URL rewriting program out of your product listings to ensure that search engines see your product pages as search engine friendly, thus increasing the amount of visitors that search engines deliver to your website; you should also consider whether or not your chosen application has a search facility to ensure that your customers can easily search through your products or services if you happen to have many listed - this also means that your visitors and customers will be able to find their way around your online shop hassle free.

SEO Friendliness

One major feature that you should consider within a shop application is how search engine friendly it is, since if your chosen shop application isn’t that search engine friendly then search engines might not take kindly to it thus giving up on indexing your shop at a certain point, or might end up lowering the score that they gave you after your first crawl; if you happen to choose a search engine friendly shop application then you will find that search engines will take more of a liking to your online shop, meaning that they will give you a higher score thus giving your website and online shop more visitors which might even mean that you receive more sales through your shop in turn increasing the amount of money which you are able to earn from your shop.

The most basic SEO function which most shop applications under take is the generating of search engine friendly URLs for categories and products which are keyword rich to ensure that they are related to the content of the page that they have been generated for - the page titles of the pages for categories and products are also keyword rich as well since it gives visitors an idea of what they are about to view without having to wait for the entire page to load; both of these basic SEO methods are favoured by search engines since they allow search engines to match your website to more keyword searches that are made through them, meaning that search engines are more likely to place your shop higher up in the search engine results for certain keyword searches that are made by people who are looking for a shop or website which happens to be along the same lines as yours.

You personally should also try and ensure that the descriptions for your products are as keyword rich as possible, since search engines will also favour this since as is the case with keyword rich title tags and URLs, because of the fact that they can then relate them with more keyword searches thus providing your website and shop with a higher rank in the results page as well as an increased search engines score; this means that ensuring that your new online shop is search engine friendly is something which you have to make sure of as well, meaning that you can’t rely on the built in functions of the shop systems that you have chosen to use.

Choosing the Application that You are Going to Use

Choosing a shop application which you are going to use for your website can be a hard decision to make, since there are many different factors that you should take into consideration based on your requirements within this type of application; you should always ensure that you make your final decision based on information that you have read on your chosen application - this is especially important if you are planning to purchase a commercial application since you might not be able to get a refund if you purchase the application but then realize that it isn’t what you want.

The main factor which you should consider when choosing a shop application is whether it will run within your hosting environment or not - this is especially important since you don’t want to purchase an application but then find that it won’t run within your hosting environment, in this case you will probably not be able to get your money back; this means that you should always start out by using open source shopping applications, since you are then able to gain the knowledge of the hosting environment in which your hosting account resides, meaning that you know what kind of specifications to look out for when you look to upgrade to a commercial shop application in the future - this also means that if you decide to use an application that isn’t compatible with your hosting environment, you won’t loose any money since you haven’t paid anything for the right to use the application since it is open source meaning that anyone is able to use it for free.

You should look around at the different applications that are available for you to use as a shop on your website, since some may meet your needs in certain areas whilst others do in the areas which aren’t covered by some shop applications; you should always look around at both commercial and open source applications, meaning that you shouldn’t dismiss open source applications if you have the money to spend on a commercial application, and shouldn’t dismiss commercial applications if you want to use an open source applications but do have the necessary funds to cover the cost of a commercial application.

Conclusion

In conclusion, with the use of SEO friendly shop application, you will be able to bring more visitors to your main website as well - but you can’t just rely on the application itself to be SEO friendly, since it is up to you to make sure that your product and category descriptions are keyword rich since it will give search engines something else to favour in your website.

You should also be aware of the many factors that you should take on board when considering a shop application that you want to use on your website - the most important factor being whether you want to pay for the application that you are going to use, or whether you just want to use a free one which you can easily setup; this is because you don’t want to purchase a shop application for your website but then find that it doesn’t suit your needs, or find an open source application which happens to meet your requirements more than the commercial application does - however, one thing to note in this situation would be that you will not be able to get a refund on the license that you have purchased for the commercial application that you were using.

You should also make sure that before you purchase any application, or before you try and install any shop application within your hosting space, that the application which you want to use is actually usable within your hosting environment - whether you’re on a shared, VPS or dedicated hosting package; this is because if you want to use a commercial application but find that it doesn’t work, you won’t be able to get your money back and you could cause yourself a lot of frustration if you don’t use the right type of package.

Optimizing Your Website for Search Engine Rankings

Optimizing your website for search engines is probably one of the most important tasks that you will carry put in order to increase your website’s visitor count, and to help you reach a wider audience; search engine optimization is one task which should be taken seriously and carried out professionally, since if it is done incorrectly then a search engine might even choose to lower the score that it has already given you - thus reducing the amount of traffic to your website which might be sourced from such a search engine, if done correctly then a search engine might increase the score that it gives you thus increasing the amount of traffic your website receives from the search engine concerned which might even help boost your turn over.

Search engine optimization has gradually grown to become its own industry in a sense, since there are many people who are setting up businesses whose sole service is SEO - there are also a number of experts in this area now who claim to be able to increase the amount of visitors which you receive to your website and increase your revenue, but at a cost; this expanse of the industry has only come in recent years since most people have only just started to take SEO seriously after realizing the benefits that it could bring to them and their website.

In most cases, if you want to make the most out of SEO, then you should leave such work to be done by professionals since time and commitment is required to achieve the best results - existing knowledge of how search engines and the internet in general work is also a big plus, which is not something everyone possesses; there are also many different areas of SEO which are required to achieve the best results which not everyone knows about, which means that if you pay a professional to do your SEO work for you, then you can be assured that the best results will be achieved. Most people consider SEO work to be the basic action of simply submitting your website to as many search engines as possible, not considering anything else such as their website’s search engine score and how keyword rich their content is; this is not the case since there are many different methods of SEO including:

• back linking - the method of building up links back to your website from other websites which host similar content to yours
• keyword optimization - the method of ensuring that your website’s content is full of keywords related to the subject concerned
• layout/design - in some cases the layout of your website and the structure of the code it is based on can affect its search engine score.

Once you have successfully optimized your website for search engines, you should start noticing the affects of your work within two weeks of completing the work concerned; this is because most search engines only crawl websites once a month, meaning that your changes will not be picked up until search engines come around to crawl your website again - however, they might crawl other websites on which you have advertised your website before meaning that they will start taking notice of changes related to your website before they get around to crawling yours in some cases.

Although the techniques listed above are complicated in terms of the time and effort required, one should not brand themselves as an ‘SEO professional’ since they have knowledge of basic SEO methods; you should only brand yourself as knowledgeable or as an ‘SEO professional’ once you have successfully completed many SEO projects to show off to others, as this will boost the confidence that they have in you. With the use of this article, you should learn the different techniques involved in optimizing your website to achieve the best results when it comes around to increasing your visitor count, and in some cases the revenue which you receive from your website; to ensure success with the SEO work you do, you should make sure that you have a lot of time on hand so that you are able to carry out the work effectively, and also because SEO work can take a while to do to achieve the best results - if you don’t have a lot of spare time then you should consider hiring a professional to do it for you.

Back Linking

Back linking is the SEO method of building up the number of links to pages within your website from external websites which are of the same subject as the page that is being linked to, or just your website in general; you should always try and get links back to your website placed on other websites which receive large volumes of traffic, since this is where you are able to make the most out of back linking - having links back to your website being placed on low traffic websites will not help you at all, it will only put your work to waste. When placing back links, you should try and place links back to content on your website which is related to the same subject as the page on which the link is going to be placed is, placing links to content which is not related to the subject of the page on which the link is placed is not going to help you out at all - any search engine will discount the link and in some cases might even lower your website’s search engine score; if you place links on pages which are related to the same subject as the content that you are wanting to link to, then people are more likely to click on your link and visit your website thus increasing your visitor count - search engines will also take more kindly to this and might even increase your score if they see fit.

For back linking to be effective, you need to build numerous links from external websites to your website, as the more back links you build up, the more visitors you will receive to your website through the use of them, and the higher the score search engines will give your website. You might be able to gain more back links to your website if you choose to exchange links with the webmasters of websites based on the same subject as yours is; this works in the way that the webmaster of the other website places a link to your website, and vice versa - this can be a lot easier than placing links in blog comments and forum signatures of other websites.

The most simple form of back linking is signing up to forums and other webmaster sites, and then adding a link to your website within your signature - this means that every time you respond to a thread or topic within the forum, a link back to your website will be added which means the more you respond on forums, the more back link you will build up. Another method back linking is commenting on blog posts related to the same subject as your website is; when posting comments on blogs, most forms allow you to enter your website address which will then be back linked to - in some cases you are also allowed to enter your websites link within the comments body, although this might result in your comment being deleted if it is not allowed.

If allowed, then you can post links back to your website on wiki articles which are related to the same subject as your website; this is because many people view wikis day in and day out meaning that you can gain a large number of visitors through them, and since they are high traffic sites and the link has been placed in the right subject area means that search engines will take a shine to your website and deliver you with more visitors. Other forms of back linking include traffic and banner exchanges; although these can also be classed as advertising mediums, they mean that banners and links for your website will get placed on other websites, and links and banner for others websites will get displayed on your website - not the most convenient method of back linking, but it still works in the same way. One thing to note with back linking is that you should always be careful as to where you place your links when building them up yourself; this is because some forums have rules and guidelines on signatures, and some wikis don’t like people editing articles just so that they can get more visitors to their website.

Keyword Optimization

Another important SEO technique is to ensure that the content of your website is full of keywords related to the subject that your website is based around - the more related keywords that you use in your content, the more people that search engines will refer to your website since they will pick up on the keywords and then relate to them when someone uses the search engine concerned to find something using similar keywords; by using keywords which are related to the subject of your website within your content, you are able to ensure that search engines will pair your website with searches by people who are using keywords which are the same or similar to those which you have used within your content.

Keyword rich content can also be more interesting for your website’s visitors to read; although this means that new visitors who are attracted might not be able to understand the keywords contained, it can help gain experienced visitors to your website, especially if your website is aimed at an audience who are interested in a fairly complicated subject. Search engines take more of a shine towards websites which use keyword rich content since it allows them to specifically pair the website concerned to advanced and specific searches which are being made by the general public; keyword optimization will also help search engines categorize your website more specifically, which will make it easier for people searching for it using search engines to find. For those who don’t know the meaning of ‘keyword’, a ‘keyword’ is a word which is strongly related to the subject which is being discussed, and is one which is most likely to be searched for frequently by people through the use of search engines; this means that you should always think carefully about choosing the right keywords that you want to use within your website’s content - you don’t want to be using keywords which can be classed as jargon since this will not bring your website many more visitors, but at the same time you don’t want to be using keywords which are too basic since then your website will end up with a lower SEO score and in turn will end up being a few pages in on the results pages for certain keyword searches.

You should always try and avoid using large words which you might class as keywords, but might not actually be related to the content or subject of your website in any way, which means that you might end up getting visitors to your website who have stumbled across content which is the opposite of what they want; the idea of SEO in general is to try and build up the amount of visitors which you receive to your website - if you use keywords which aren’t really related to your content then you will receive other visitors to your website, but you will in the main defeat the object of your SEO work since your visitors won’t end up returning. By optimizing the content in your website to contain keywords that are related to the content itself and the main subject of your website, you will be able to increase the amount of visitors that your website receives from search engines, since they will take more of a liking to your website and content; this means that if you run an online store or other money making venture within your website, you could ultimately increase the amount of sales you make and in turn, the amount of money which you make.

One thing to note with keyword optimization is that you should always be careful as to which keywords to use, as mentioned previously, you don’t want to end up using words which your visitors can’t understand because they are too complicated but at the same time you don’t want to be using simple words since they could make your content sound dull and boring.

Website Layout/Design

The design or layout of your website as well as the way in which it has been coded is also another factor that is able to affect your search engine score in the case of some search engines; for example if you use nested tables to structure your website then you will typically have a lower search engine score since some search engine bots give up crawling after they have reached a certain point in the code because it becomes unreadable for them, which generally means that it would be unreadable for a human viewing the same page as well. The use of certain tags within your website’s code is also another design and layout factor which can affect a search engine’s ability to crawl your content and your site’s search engine score; for example the use of lists within web page code enables search engines to crawl content more easily which means that out final score will be much higher than if you didn’t use lists - one thing to note is that list tags (ul) are usually much easier to style than other options available to you to create the same affect such as tables.

The title tag of a web page is also another place where you can easily increase your search engine ranking; this is because you can use this small place to enter keywords related to the content and subject of the website - search engines will take a liking to this because they will see that the content of the web page that they are crawling is related to the title of the page, and vice versa meaning that when your website is displayed in the results pages of keyword searches made by people on search engines, they will be able to see that your website is related to what they are looking for by just looking at the title of the page rather than having to read the description to ensure that it is exactly what they want before clicking the link.

You can also use meta tags with the ‘head‘ section of your web page to add a description of your page and keywords related to its contents for search engines to pick up on; these tags are used by search engines to categorize your website by another form so that their decision is not based purely on the actual contents of the page - this means that you should try and fill the tags which as many keywords as possible so that you can try and boost your ranking by as much as you can.

You should also consider the layout of your website when you are designing it based on how search engine friendly you decide to make it; as mentioned previously, if you use large amounts of nested tabled to display your content in, then it might not all be crawled by search engines since they do have a tendency to give up after a certain point - in this case you should consider more modern and search engine friendly methods such as ‘divs’ to display your content in, they are also much more flexible in terms of design and what you can do with them - one thing to note is that the actual design or ‘look’ of your website will have no bearing on the final score which search engines decide to give you. Keyword optimization is also another factor which plays a part in the actual optimization of a website through the layout of its code or actual design; this is because the actual content which needs to be keyword optimized is contained within the layout and code of the website which you have built.

If you are designing your website using a WYSIWYG editor, you should note that many come with special tools these days to help you with the search engine optimization of your website; if designing your website by hand then there are many tutorials available on the internet discussing how you can apply these practices more practically.

It is hoped that with the help of this article you have been able to optimize your website in terms of the keywords used, and have learnt how to make it search engine friendly in the way that you have built it; you should have also learnt as to where you should be placing back links to your website as well as how you do it effectively to ensure that you receive the maximum number of visitors that is possible through this method. In the next part we will be discussing how you can target search engines, and how you can submit your website to them and other directories on the internet to help build up the amount of visitors which you receive; this is because submitting your website to search engines seems to be a process which is more simple than it sounds, because many people without the knowledge seem to think that you have to pay to get your website listed, or do it in another way which is not the way in which you do it.

Getting Started with Web Hosting Business

Platform and Control Panel Choice

The platform on which you are going to base your first reseller hosting package or server is an important choice, since it can affect the final choice of prospective customers because of their needs; the control panel which you choose to provide your customers with can also affect your ability to gain customers - this is because some might be more familiar with one control panel which they have used in the past rather than the one that you have chosen to provide them with. In terms of the platform which you choose to base your web hosting packages on, you are limited to two options which are used by most of the main players within the website hosting industry - these are Windows and Linux; Windows is a commercial operating system which you can only use upon the purchase of a license from its manufacturer, Microsoft - Linux on the other hand is an open source operating system which requires no paid for license to allow you to run it, which means you are able to install it on as many computer as you want without the need to pay for any licenses what-so-ever. Platforms and operating systems you should check out include:

• Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and 2008 - http://www.microsoft.com/servers/default.mspx
• CentOS Linux - http://www.centos.org/
• Ubuntu Linux - http://www.ubuntu.org/

There are many different web hosting control panels out there on the market for you to choose from, although your final choice normally boils down to what your web host is able to provide you with since their prices are normally a lot cheaper than if you were to buy a license for a piece of control panel software direct from the supplier; this means that although there may be many different control panels for you to choose from, you are in a sense limited by your web host since they will most likely be unable to provide you with every control panel. When choosing a control panel on which you are going to base your web hosting packages, you should check out all features of the control panels which you are testing - this means that you should always check out the client and reseller panels as well as the administration panel to ensure that you get a good idea of how easy the control panel will be for your customers to use, as well as for the customers of customers to use in terms of resellers; you should also get other people who aren’t so computer ’savvy’ to test out the same control panels as you, since this ensures that the control panel which you choose to base your web hosting packages on is usable for all people. In most cases, the control panel which you choose to base your web hosting packages upon is chosen in relation to the operating system on which you want to base your web hosting packages, since some control panels are only able to work with one operating system whereas others come in multiple versions so that they can be run on most well known operating systems; for example cPanel has been designed for use on Linux distributions only, although a version for Microsoft Windows 2008 is currently in development, and Plesk is a control panel that has been designed for use on both Microsoft Windows and Linux website hosting platforms - this means that you can use the control panel for either operating system. There are many different web hosting control panels on the market, although the main ones which you should take a look at include:

• cPanel - http://www.cpanel.net/
• Parallels (Formally SWSoft) Plesk - http://www.parallels.com/en/products/plesk/
• LXAdmin - http://lxlabs.com/software/lxadmin-sse/

The actual choice of operating system on which you are going to base your web hosting packages can be affected by the skills which you have to administrate a server, in the case that you have opted to go for either a virtual private server or a dedicated server; this is because administering a server can be a complicated task at the best of times, which means that if you don’t have the necessary skills to administrate the server which you have purchased, you might not be able to provide your customers with good service, since it means that if a problem does occur with the server, you won’t be able to fix it. Although your web host might provide support for their virtual private server and dedicated server hosting packages, the support provided might not cover all issues - this might be because it is limited to upgrading third party software that is provided, and that the support staff are not obliged to fix any internal problems with the server; this means that you should try and get your server administration skills up to scratch before embarking on purchasing a hosting package which would provide you with a dedicated environment.

Billing Systems

One of the main components of a successful web hosting business is a web based billing and account management system, so that your customers are able to pay their web hosting bills online and so that you are able to manage and view your customers details as well as packages that they have purchased through a web interface with ease; this means that if you have a numerous amount of customers, you can easily manage them online and contact them quickly and easily as appropriate, if needs be.

Most web host billing systems are not just billing systems, for example some have help desk systems built into them, and as mentioned before, you can also use them to easily manage your customers - even if you happen to have millions of them; this means that you can have an all in one system where you can meet your customers needs in both the areas of support and management. A support help desk system within a billing system allows your customers to open ‘support tickets‘ which are then assigned a unique id so that you are able to manage them easily, and are able to refer to tickets quickly if a customer was to quote you the ticket’s unique id via some other method of communication, such as over the telephone. Most support ticket systems allow correspondence for any ticket via 2 methods - email and a web interface; most systems employ a technology known as ‘email piping‘ which collects the emails from a specified email inbox and them processes them to be displayed within the web interface which should be provided - ticket replies from staff members are emailed back to the email address of the person who opened the ticket and replies from the customer are piped through to the web interface, the web interface itself shows the correspondence between the two parties in order so that you can quickly read through the correspondence if you have the need to.

All good web host billing systems incorporate a large range of payment gateways, so that you can are able to use the payment gateway of your choice to receive payments from your customers for the web hosting services that they have purchased from you - this process is a lot quicker than having to process old fashioned types of payment such as personal cheque; when looking for billing systems, you might also discover API systems for third part fraud detection systems - these are in place to safe guard the security of both your business, and the potential victims - these systems normally mark certain orders as fraud if they are believed to be fraud.

If you are starting out in the web hosting market, then you should always consider buying a license for a piece of billing software that you are able to pay for on a monthly lease, since this means that you are not loosing any money on your billing system if your web hosting business was to fail for some reason or another - if funds do not allow for a monthly lease then you can easily consider a free alternative, although the features of these can be relatively limited when compared to those of their commercial counterparts. As is the case with control panels, you and others should always test both the client and administration side of any web host billing system before you purchase anything; this is because it will allow you to gain the feedback of others apart from yourself which you can then use to help you make your final decision about which web hosting billing system you are going to use for your new web hosting company. You should also consider the installation service for your chosen application which is most probably provided by the company from which you purchased the application; this is because you can ensure that a full and secure installation of the application concerned has been done, to give you peace of mind - it also means that you can have the application installed for you in the situation that you don’t have the necessary knowledge to carry out the task. Although there are many different web hosting billing systems, the main ones which one should have a look at include:

• WHMCS - http://www.whmcs.com/
• ModernBill - http://www.modernbill.com/
• PHPCoin - http://www.phpcoin.com/

Marketing Your Web Hosting Business

Once you have the basics of your new web hosting business laid out and operational, you need to start promoting it where possible so that you can start receiving new customer sign ups, which in turn will help boost your business’s income and customer base. There are many different ways in which you can market and promote your new business in the beginning - some of these options being ones which you have to pay for, and others which are free but require your hard work and will power to ensure that they produce the results that you want; an example of a paid for method which you could use to help promote and market your new web hosting business would be you buying an SEO package from either your web host or from another specialist to ensure that your business’s website gets listed and indexed by all the major search engines on the internet, an example of a free method would be you optimizing your own website so that search engines will give it a higher page rank, and in turn send more visitors to your website through the use of key word searches.

If you have the necessary funds to do so, then you can consider using certain PPC (pay per click) programs to help get adverts for your new business placed on participating publisher websites; most PPC programs deploy adverts on publisher websites based on keywords which you enter when creating the advert, as well as the category which the webmaster of the publishing site has decided to place their website in - this means that your advert will be targeted at people who are on websites most likely looking for web hosting, which ensures that the right people will be sent to your website and will hopefully in turn purchase a web hosting package off you. SEO can play a big roll in the amount of visitors which you receive to your website, this is because the more SEO friendly your website is, the higher the page rank search engines will give you. A higher page rank means in the terms of most search engines that your website will appear higher in the results for certain key word searches. Main different companies run PPC programs, although the main ones which are used by many include:

• Google Adwords - http://www.google.com/adwords/
• Yahoo Overture - http://www.overture.com/
• AdBrite - http://www.adbrite.com/

Basic SEO involves the editing of content on your website to ensure that it is as keyword rich as possible - the more common key words which you decide to use within your content, the more subjects and searches that search engines will link your website to; other basic SEO techniques including the building up of back links to your website from other websites of a similar subject - this will help since it will mean that people who are looking at web hosting related websites might actually be looking for web hosting - and when they see a link to your website, they will most likely click and if they like the look of your packages and prices, will buy their web hosting off you. In some cases you can also do link exchanging with websites of a similar subject to yours; this process involves the placing of a link to your website on that of another website, and then you will link back to the other website involved. Although you might be tempted to purchase a program or plan from another web host which claims to increase the amount of traffic to your website, you should always be cautious when looking at these plans and should never spend too much money on things such as this; this is because all these plans do in most cases is submit your website to other search engines which it might not already be in - although this may sound good at first, it might not give the increased amount in visitors which it claims to provide. If you don’t have the necessary knowledge for SEO, nor the funds to splash out on a special package then you could always hire a professional who might be able to do it for you at a cut rate.

Conclusion

In conclusion, with the use of the correct domain name you can help make your business’s name memorable for your customers; this in itself can help you out since it means that if your name is memorable, then it will be easier for your customers to refer their friends and colleagues who need web hosting to your business. You should also now know to consider the client side of a control panel when you are testing it and deciding whether to use as part of your web hosting business or not; by putting yourself in the customer’s shoes and getting the opinions of others on certain things can help produce the best results for your business, and can make your customers happier with the service which they are receiving.

Even though you might be putting yourself in the customer’s shoes, you should still consider how usable the administration side of an application or control panel is for you; this is because you will be using the administration panels day in and day out if your business is to be successful, and it is because of this that you should ensure that you can easily familiarize yourself with the applications and control panels which you will be using. Marketing your web hosting business is one of the most important tasks that you will ever carry out; this is because the amount of customer which you receive to your business will depend on how well you market your website, and whether you carry out a good level of SEO - this will mean making sure that your content is keyword rich, and that you have a large amount of back links so that people can find your business from other websites, and so that search engines give you a higher page rank.

When searching for a third party application of any type which you are wanting to use within your website, you will often come across applications which can be categorized fairly easy; these two categories are commercial and open source applications - commercial applications being ones which you have to purchase a license for so that you have proof of permission that allow you to use them, and open source applications being ones which are ‘free’ which means that you don’t have to purchase anything to be able to use them within your website. The choice of either an open source or commercial application can be a big one, since it can affect your ability to be able to accept any more visitors to your website, especially the part where you have chosen to use the third party application in the future; this is because some applications are only able to handle a certain amount of members or visitors that are able to use it, meaning that if this limit is crossed then the application in question will most likely be slow to use and might cause quite a bit of frustration for both you and your website visitors since the application will be more or less unusable - one further thing to add is that commercial applications can generally handle more visitors or members than their open source counterparts. Commercial applications generally come with guaranteed support, which makes them perfect for you if you are a webmaster who is in control of a website which has a fairly large user base, since in some situations you might require the expertise of someone who knows the application inside out, and who is more or less guaranteed able to help you solve the problem; open source applications on the other hand don’t come with any guaranteed or official support, which means that you will have to rely on the official documentation of the application concerned if you happen to run into a problem with it for some reason or another - in some cases there might be dedicated forums or message boards where you might be able to receive a good level of support and advice from experienced developers who have been using the application in question for a long time - however, both methods of support for open source applications are not guaranteed to help you solve your problem. Although open source applications are always available free of charge, it is recommended that you donate a small amount of money (if a donation scheme is being run for the application concerned) to the developers of the application, if you find it useful and good to use and that you don’t think that there are any major problems with it; this is because the developers of open source applications are normally giving up their free time to develop the application in question, and normally spend their own money where appropriate, but since the application is free, they never normally receive any money in return - only thanks from the community which chooses to use the application.

Scalability

Scalability is normally referred to as how many visitors or members a certain application is able to hold before it starts slowing up or before it becomes completely unusable; for example, commercial applications are more scalable than open source applications which means that they are able to cope with a large visitor or member demand and in most cases will never slow down or become completely unusable since they have built in mechanisms to help them cope if a sudden surge in demand. If you run a small website which doesn’t receive many visitors, and don’t expect the amount of visitors which you receive to rise by a large margin, then you should be fine with an open source application - this is because that although open source application aren’t as scalable as commercial ones, they are still scalable to a reasonable amount of visitors or members which should be above what you currently receive to your small website; commercial applications on the other hand are more tailored towards larger websites who receive thousands of visitors daily, which mean that they are highly scalable and able to cope with an increase in demand; this means that if you run a large website which receives thousands of visitors daily, then you should consider a commercial application since if your website was to experience a surge in demand then the third party application which you are using would be able to keep up with demand and wouldn’t slow down or become usable in any sense. In some cases, you might have originally chosen an open source application to use for your website, because at the time your website didn’t receive many visitors which means that you didn’t have the need for a commercial application since it wouldn’t have been any benefit to you - you might have then found that the amount of visitors to your website was starting to increase slightly, but over time the application which you had chosen to use wasn’t starting to slow down as it wasn’t able to keep up with the visitor demand; in this situation you would have to upgrade to a commercial application which was able to keep up with the demand of your website’s visitors, and wouldn’t slow down if there was a sudden surge in demand - if you were using an application such as a forum which contained large portions of content which couldn’t be manually ported over then you could utilize a third party migration tool that should be able to export and convert your database for use by the commercial application which you have chosen to use in place of the open source application that you were using to ensure that your visitors can still access the application concerned in times of high demand. One other thing about scalability is that you should always see how scalable the application which you have chosen to use is; this is because you might end up choosing a commercial application which isn’t scalable to the amount that you need it to be which might leave you at a dead end.

Support

If you are new to the web development world, and the idea of using third party applications to expand your website and the interactivity that your visitors are able to have with it, then you should always choose an open source application, since they are free and you can mess around with them and change them to your hearts content, although the amount of support available for them is relatively limited; on the other hand if you are an experienced person with a well established website who wants to expand it professionally, then you should consider a commercial application - this is because they are relatively scalable and normally come with official support which is provided by the company from which you purchased the application. Support is big thing for experienced web developers, since in some cases the source code of the application that they have purchased is encrypted, which means that they are unable to view and in turn change it for themselves; this means that if there is a problem with the code itself then they are unable to solve it since they don’t have access to the source of it so that they are able to change it for themselves - in this case they would have to source support from the company from which the application was purchased, and in turn notify them of the problem and receive the necessary support to ensure that they are able to solve the problem. On the other hand, if you are new the world of web development and like to solve problems yourself, then you should consider an open source application; this is because they are free and normally allow you access to their source code so that you can change the program to work the way that you want it to - this means that if there is a problem then you can easily solve it yourself, which is good since their is normally little to no support available for open source applications - the fact that there is more or less no support available for open source applications means that you should have a good amount of knowledge before deploying an open source application into a live environment where it is going to be used since you will need the necessary technical knowledge to fix the application if something was to go wrong with it. One thing to note is that the support available for commercial applications is only available at an extra cost in some cases; for example most commercial applications come with a years worth of unlimited free support via phone and email, but after that year you have to have a small amount to renew your right to have access to the support which is provided. On the other hand with support for open source applications, you should always ensure that the documentation for your chosen application is of high quality to ensure that you are able to familiarize yourself with the application without the need for trial and error; you should also check out the quality of the forum support which might be available for the applications which you are looking at before making a final decision.

Conclusion

In conclusion, your choice of whether to use either a commercial or open source third party application for your website is dependent on your need for support as well as on the size of your website, and whether or not you expect the amount of visitors that you receive to your website to increase or not; this means that if you are new to the world of web development, then you should consider an open source application that suits your needs appropriately, and if you are an experienced website developer who is running a well established website, you should consider a commercial third a party application which suits your needs appropriately. With the use of this article you should have learnt that if your website receives a large amount of visitors, or you plan on receiving a surge in the amount of visitors that you receive then you should consider a commercial application for your needs since they are a lot more scalable in terms of the amount of visitors or members that they are able to handle and process; you should have also learnt that if you run a small website that doesn’t receive many visitors, you should consider an open source application for you needs since they are free which means that you don’t have to fork out for something that most likely won’t be used much by either you or your website’s visitors. If you do choose to use a commercial application, then you should be prepared to pay at least $100 per year each year after you have purchased the application to ensure that you can still access the official support which is provided as well as to ensure that you are able to receive the necessary security updates to ensure that your install of the commercial application concerned is secure against hackers or any other malicious attackers. In terms of open source application support, you should be prepared to read the long documentation to ensure that you know your chosen application inside out; this then means that you should be able to customize the application to the way that you want it to be, and even fix any problems that you find with it if necessary - you should also check out the forum support that might be available for your chosen open source application to ensure that if the information that is provided in the documentation is not enough, you still have another source of support that is able to help you out in the case that you run into some sort of problem, you should also consider tutorials for the application concerned which might be able to set you in the right direction to fix a problem.

When you are setting up your a blog - whether it be your first or another one to add to your collection, one of the main factors that you will end up considering is the blog application which you are going to install within your web space to allow you to write the blog articles that you want others to be able to openly view and comment on if they wish; there are many smaller factors which can affect your decision in relation to the blog application which you choose to base either your blog or website - and in some cases, both - this article should help you in the decision making process since the main factors affecting your decision will be discussed in depth. Blogs are in most cases special websites where people write articles or posts on any subject, although some blogs are dedicated to specific subjects which means that the posts which they contain are normally much more specialized than those which are contained on other blogs which are located on the internet; blogs also let visitors and readers comment on the articles in most cases, this means that a reader can easily suggest an improvement for the article or post a comment arguing a point which had been made by the author or ‘blogger’ who wrote the post for their blog or for the blog that they work for, or post their articles on. You can also use blog software to build your website on, since a blog application will allow you to manage the content of your website with ease on the fly from any internet computer or location - this means that you can use the blog application which you choose to use in the same way as you would use a CMS system, you are also able to add add-ons to your blog application of choice in most cases which means that you can easily extend its features and usability; this also means that you can use the blog application which you choose to use to create a dynamic website to which you can allow your visitors to have more interactivity with - this means features such as the ability to comment on the individual pages with which you have populated your website with, this in turn means that your visitors can see each others comments and respond to each other with their own opinions without the need for a forum - which can help create a sense of community within your website. Other factors which can affect your choice of blog software can include the price of it if you choose to go with a commercial application, the required environment to ensure that the chosen application is able to function without any ill effects - if you are new to this area of web hosting/web design then you should also consider the type and amount of support which is available for your chosen application - this is because if you need help installing the application, then you might not be able to get the necessary helpful support if you choose to go with a lesser known application, but if you go with a better known application then you should be able to receive the support that you need to ensure that you are able to get your new blog started up successfully.

Administration Features

The first and main feature that you should consider when choosing a blog application to use is how far the administration settings in the administration panel of the application concerned stretch; these features include the WYSIWYG (What You See is What You Get) editor as well as other settings which let you configure how the application which your blog is based on manages certain things as well as how advanced other administration features of the application which you have chosen to use are. The WYSIWYG editor which should be supplied with your chosen blog application is what you use to write posts and articles which you will then post onto your blog for your visitors and readers to read - and if you have the facility enabled, your visitors and readers should be able to comment on your content; the WYSIWYG editor is an important administration feature of your chosen application since the features between the different editors can differ, and the more features that are available within a WYSIWYG editor the more content and wider range of content that you can add to your posts - for example some WYSIWYG editors allow you to add flash content and images to your posts which means that you can create multimedia posts and articles alongside your regular text based articles, this itself can help distinguish your blog or website amongst others which might be using the same application or design. Other administration features of any basic blog application should allow you to manage and install add-ons to your application, which means that with the use of add-ons you can easily expand the capabilities of your chosen application both in terms of the general front end which your users and visitors will see as well as the administration area which you will use to manage your blog as well as where you will be able to create new posts and articles from; with the use of add-ons you can also make your blog much more interactive and usable for the visitors and readers that you receive to your blog - this means that your existing visitors and readers are more likely to refer others to your website which in turn means that your visitor numbers will easily rise as time goes on. Some blogs contain administration features that can determine how you post your posts or articles that will then be displayed on the front page of your blog for your visitors and readers to view; for example, in most cases you can configure your chosen blog application to pull emails from a certain email account and them automatically post them to the blog as if they were articles - this means that if you’re not at a computer to write you’re article, you can easily use a portable device with email capabilities such as a mobile phone to email through what you want to post, it will then be automatically processed by your blog application and posted into your blog so that your visitors and readers can see it - this is perfect for you if you have a job such as a journalist who need to keep their blog or website updated regularly but doesn’t have constant internet access but always has some sort of mobile device with them.

Add-Ons

Add-ons can help extend the default capabilities, as well as give the ability to create new abilities for the blog application which you choose to use for either your blog or your website; this means that you should always make sure that the blog application which you choose to use has the ability to accept third party add-ons, and that it has a good repository of third party add-ons since you might want to take advantage of this feature, and because of this you want to make sure that there is a good selection of add-ons for you to choose from. The fact that add-ons are able to expand the capabilities, and in turn the possibilities of what you could use your install of your chosen blog application mean that you can use your install for a mass of activities, which means that you are able to create a highly interactive environment for your readers, or if you choose to use you chosen blog application as a CMS system, website for your visitors so that they are able to search and view content much more easily; this means that you might be able to increase the number of visitors which you receive to your website. However, add-ons don’t have to be about increasing the interactivity that readers or visitors can have with your blog or website, nor do they have to be about making the administration area much better for you as the webmaster, or increasing the look of your blog or website in general, as most people tend to think they are; for example, in most cases you are able to get add-ons for blog applications which are known as ‘SEO add-ons’ - these have the power to help increase your search engine ranking, and in turn increasing your visitor count since more people will be able to find your website through search engine keyword searches.

Commercial or Open Source

One main factor that can affect your choice of blog software is the fact of whether the pieces of software that you have been looking at are open source or commercial; commercial piece of blog software are ones which will cost you to have the ability to use them since you will have to buy a license in order for you to be allowed to use them, open source pieces of blog software on the other hand are completely free meaning that you can even download the source code for them so that you can construct your own add-ons based around their infrastructure so that the piece of blog software which you have chosen to use functions in the way that you want it to - this wouldn’t be possible with commercial blog applications since in most cases, you aren’t given access to their source code. In terms of support, you are normally given phone support with commercial applications, since you have paid them money and in turn will provide you with one to one professional support - in most cases this will only last a year meaning that you will have to renew your cover for it when you’re six months is up; there is no official support for open source blog applications since you are not paying anyone for the right to use it, meaning that there isn’t the money there to pay people to provide telephone support for the piece of blog software concerned - however, there are normally dedicated blogs which are normally able to provide you with a good level of support if you are new to the world of blog software, and have come across some sort of problem - whether it be not being able to install the application correctly or forgetting the administrator account’s password and not being able to reset by yourself for whatever reason. In most cases you will find that commercial pieces of blog software are much more secure than their open source counterparts - this is because you are paying for a license which means that there are paid developers who are there developing the product day in and day out, which means that if a security flaw is found in the application then it can be rectified by the paid developers more or less immediately; open source pieces of blog software on the other hand are usually much less secure than their commercial counterparts, this is because there is nothing to pay for a team of developers to develop the application day in and day out, which goes along with the idea that these applications are normally developed by a few developers within their spare time - this means that is a security flaw is found within a piece of open source blog software, then it isn’t going to be rectified immediately since the developers don’t have the time to stop their paid job to correct the problem concerned.