Serious Firewalls

Even though most web hosting providers employ firewalls by default, a lot of these firewalls are not properly configured and the restrictions can easily be circumvented by a knowledgeable hacker. If you want to ensure the security of your website(s), then you should inquire about he strength of the firewalls and it is important to have the capability to adjust firewalls to your specifications. If your web hosting company does not allow you to make changes to your site’s firewall, then you need to consider another service.

A good example of the need for firewall administration abilities, would be when a hacker is sending malicious traffic to your site form a certain IP. In this instance, it would be crucial to block this IP, and as a domain owner with a hosting account, you should have the right to do so.  The safest web hosting services offer IDS (Intrusion Detection Systems). Any breaches to your firewall can cause downtime and loss of business, therefore it is crucial to have the serious firewalls protecting your website a all times.

Protection from Distributed Denial of Service Attacks (DDoS)

Although a DDoS attack is a very basic and commonly used attack, it is also extremely difficult to prevent and treat. This simple yet effective attack can cause downtime in many websites by affecting the server functionality. This means that even users who are unrelated to the attack will suffer.  Therefore it is important to inquire about an Anti-DDoS feature before purchasing a web hosting plan.

Proper Data Encryption

If you plan on selling your services or products online, then data encryption is essential. All web hosting plans should include SSL encryption. SSL encryption will transform sensitive date from plain text into special code that make interception by a hacker very difficult. While most web hosting companies offer this feature by difficult. You may want find one that will give you the option to purchase a private certificate for added security benefits.

What Leads to a Disaster?

There are a number of instances and obstacles that can lead you straight into a disaster.  For example, you could sign up with an unreliable web hosting provider, select the wrong e-commerce solution, or choose a payment processing method that hinders or completely derails your online transactions.  This is the type of website that runs slow or offers horrible navigation, making its usability inconvenient and very undesirable.  It is an environment where consumers are not sure about making purchases or feel as if their most essential needs are not being satisfied.  While abandoned order pages and shopping carts are tell-tale signs of a disaster, turbulence may commence from the very moment a potential customer lands on your website.

If you want to avoid a disastrous situation with your e-commerce site, you need to make yourself aware of the following inadequacies:

Bad Web Hosting

It is important to know that an e-commerce site is only as efficient as the underlying platform.  When choosing a bad or inadequate hosting solution, you stand the chance of suffering from limited bandwidth, slow loading pages and worst of all, excessive downtime.

All of these instances can result in a loss of customers and ultimately, loss of sales.  An ideal e-commerce platform is one that leverages reliable, high-performance server hardware, redundant high-speed internet connections and the best security practices.

Ineffective Content

Having a website that clearly communicates to your audience is one of the essential keys to succeeding with an e-commerce venture.  You must be able to relay the unique value of your offerings beyond price in a manner that makes visitors want to stick around and make a purchase.  While you don’t want to come on too strong, using cleverly aggressive, action-orientated content can serve as the powerful persuasion you need to convert your visitors into long-term customers.  Play around with a few approaches to find out which processes work best for your business.

Poor Navigation and Usability

Almost every website owner is under the assumption that their sales flow and navigation is intuitive, transparent and user-friendly.  We are here to tell that this is not always the case.  In fact, even the most well designed websites need a little fine-tuning every now and then.  Does your site provide too much information or is it lacking in the content department?  Are there any elements that will distract your visitors from what they need to be focused on?  The answers to these questions and several more can tell you a lot about the navigation and usability aspects of your website.  If outstanding flaws are identified, diagnosis these issues and then optimize your site accordingly.

]]> http://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/2009/08/17/how-to-avoid-an-e-commerce-disaster/feed/ 1 http://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/2009/07/08/4-critical-factors-to-consider-before-choosing-a-cheap-host/ http://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/2009/07/08/4-critical-factors-to-consider-before-choosing-a-cheap-host/#comments Wed, 08 Jul 2009 17:52:07 +0000 CommunicateBetter http://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/?p=410 Even though cheap hosting has become more prevalent in recent times, there are many factors you need to consider before signing up for service.  Because you never know what is behind that unbelievably low price, here are four critical factors you should keep in mind:

Downtime

A web host could provide you with all the tools needed to create a professional, feature-rich website that garners the attention of your audience.  However, if your site is constantly unavailable, its beauty will not mean a thing to the users who cannot access it.  Realizing that excessive downtime is one of the easiest ways to kills your online popularity, it is critical to find a cheap host that is more committed to reliability than a low price.

Limited Bandwidth

Before entering any type of hosting arrangement, it is vital that you consider the monthly bandwidth allocated to your account.  It is a known fact that bandwidth is a key component needed to support website traffic and plays a huge role in its success.  If your site has a large number of visitors, it will obviously require more bandwidth.  The challenging part of it all is that you may experience traffic spikes when least expected and be left with a sudden shortage of resources.  This is definitely a situation you don’t want to find yourself in as it could once again lead to dreaded periods of downtime.  If traffic is of any importance, make sure your cheap hosting plan comes included with enough bandwidth to support your current and future traffic requirements.

Technical Expertise

The technical expertise of the hosting provider is one area that doesn’t get enough attention.  This doesn’t necessarily refer to the company’s infrastructure or hardware, but the people behind all the technology.  Web hosting providers must be technically inclined for the simple fact that many of their customers are not.  This expertise will be needed to provide you with support and encounter all the technical issues that might arise.  You may not know a thing about servers but there is no excuse for your web host, cheap service or not.

Level of Support

One of the biggest drawbacks of cheap hosting services has been the lack of support.  It seems as if some companies are cutting cost in various areas to provide affordable service and the critical department of support is often the one to suffer.  Support is very important and should come at no additional cost.  Even if you are only paying a couple of dollars per month, ensure that your plan comes with world-class support that makes you feel like a million dollar customer.

At the end of the day, it is not impossible to find a company that provides a cheap service yet works hard to keep up the reliability.  However, it may take you a little extra time so exercise a bit of patience and make your selection wisely.  After doing your research, it should be much easier to find a premium service that comes at a bargain price.

Intermedia CEO Serguei Sofinski explained that the company’s new offerings will help customers address two of the biggest problems faced by small to medium sized businesses today: excessive downtime and security issues.  Sofinski says the new solutions will allow its customers to effectively harvest the true value from their assets without the risk of loss productivity.

Here is a rundown on Intermedia’s new solutions:

Business Continuity

The Intermedia Business Continuity solution has been tailored to provide high availability by permitting customers with on-premise Exchange servers to use its servers to access their messages when the in-house servers go down.  Unlike standard dial-tone solutions, this offering is Exchange-based and allows complete access to user mailboxes.  This means that customers can enjoy 14 days of message history, contacts, calender appointments and more even if their server should fail.

ContentSync

A proprietary application developed by Intermedia, ContentSync is a software tool that synchronizes its Business Continuity Exchange servers with on-premise Exchange servers, providing customers with real-time access to their data in the event of a failure.  This solution doesn’t call for any software or hardware installations, configuration or management, making it possible for business customers to have the high availability that would normally be cost prohibitive at a more affordable price.

SpamStopper

SpamStopper is the second part of Intermedia’s Exchange solution.  This hosted service puts an emphasis on security with spam filtering, anti-virus and anti-phishing tools for small businesses with their own on-premise Exchange server.  Intermedia says that SpamStopper is able detect potentially harmful mail with an accuracy rating of greater than 99%.  The solution is also integrated with a feature called Zero-Hour Virus Outbreak Detection to protect networks from newly released strains of malware.  Thanks to SpamStopper, Intermedia customers can stay one step ahead of the unscrupulous coders writing infectious virus, worm and Trojan programs.

Price and Availability

Both of Intermedia’s new solutions have been made immediately available and can be easily incorporated into customers’ existing on-premise Exchange servers.  Business Continuity starts from $5 a month per user while the SpamStopper solution is available for $50.  The latter is a one-time fee for the first 50 users and an extra 50 cents a month for each additional user.

About Intermedia.NET

Intermedia.NET is a Microsoft Gold Certified partner that has been specializing in the hosting business for more than 10 years.  Its solutions are geared towards small to medium sized businesses looking for enterprise-class technology attached with low monthly fees, no up-front investment and industry-leading technical support.  Aside from Microsoft Exchange hosting, Intermedia provides a variety of traditional web hosting services designed for small and mid-sized companies.

What is Covered in the Guarantee?

In most cases, the uptime a web host refers to only covers the servers and not the network.  When it comes to network issues and general maintenance, downtime is something that can heavily outweigh the advertised uptime guarantee.  This is why some customers running mission-critical operations look for SLAs (service level agreements) that compensate you in one way or another if downtime exceeds the agreement.  Unfortunately, several of the leading hosting providers usually do not make such an offer available.  The situation becomes even more complex when considering the potential downtime you could experience during the course of a year.  When doing so, the near perfect 99% doesn’t look so attractive.

Let’s work with a few examples.  A 98% uptime means that over a 12-month period, your website could be down for 175 hours and 19 minutes, which translates to about a week.  99% isn’t much better as your site could be unavailable for approximately 87 hours and 39 minutes over a one year period.  This is still a lot of time for someone running a busy website.  Most providers try to uphold the 99.9% uptime guarantee because it translate into the most reliable.  This is far more respectable as it means that you will only endure about 8 hours and 46 minutes of downtime over a 12 month period.  Sadly, downtime usually exceeds this number by far.  Even worst, many customers are in a no-win situation, forced to suffer from unavailability without being compensated for the excessive downtime.

Recognizing a Respectable Uptime

The best way to approach the perplexing issue of uptime is to select a hosting provider with a good reputation in the industry.  Downtime is unavoidable but it is much better when dealing with a company that will not try to manipulate the numbers and do all they can to ensure the highest availability.  Look for a host that provides good support so if something does happen, you can get in touch and find out how and when the service will be restored.

As far as the uptime guarantee goes, it is something you should look into if you are truly concerned about the availability of your site.  Read the fine print, do some investigating and if possible, choose a company that bases their uptime percentage over a monthly period.  If the calculations are made over a year, you could have a difficult time getting accurate credits for any downtime incurred.  Most reputable hosting providers take various measures to ensure reliability but things do happen.  When they do, you want a host that provides a fair playing ground with a guarantee that has your best interests in mind.