Tag Archives: business

4 Ways to Make Money With Your Small Business Website

Posted on June 4, 2019 by Hosting

The post 4 Ways to Make Money With Your Small Business Website appeared first on HostGator Blog . You’ve finally got a website for your business , because you know it’s the key to getting found by new customers who start most of their searches online. But your website can do more than raise your visibility in search results. It can also provide another revenue stream for your business. Whether you sell physical goods in a brick-and-mortar location, provide in-person services to a local market, run a restaurant, or offer your freelance expertise online, there are ways you can make your website work harder for you. One or more of these options may be just right for your small business site. 1. Build an Online Store If you have a brick-and-mortar retail shop, selling your products online is an obvious choice to expand your market, but other businesses can benefit from having an online store, too. Own a coffee shop or bakery? You can offer your branded merch (t-shirts, mugs) online along with special coffee blends or cakes and gift baskets. And any type of business can offer gift certificates online. No physical products? No problem. If what you sell is expertise, consider putting some of it into e-books on topics that matter to your clientele, and sell them in your online shop. (We’ll talk more about expertise in a moment.) Setting up an online store is easier than you may think. Gator Website Builder’s eCommerce plan gives you the templates and drag-and-drop tools you need to set up shop online fast. The eCommerce plan supports HD video and audio so you can create compelling product videos, and you get tools to manage your inventory, calculate shipping and sales tax, and offer coupons to your customers. 2. Let Customers Book Appointments Online Worldwide access to global knowledge is great, but I think the real benefit of the internet is being able to book appointments without a phone conversation between two harried people who toss out days and times until one works. Setting up appointments online is easier for everyone—your receptionist can focus on other tasks, and your customers don’t get stuck on hold. Online booking also lets customers reserve a spot whenever they’re ready, instead of having to wait for office hours to make a call. When you make people wait, they sometimes forget—or find a competitor who lets them book online, so you lose out. You can add booking capability to your WordPress website with a plugin. One of the most popular is Booking Calendar , which lets you customize the fields customers will fill in, notifies you of new booking requests, and stores all your booking information in a single database so you don’t have to toggle back and forth to manage your client list and appointments. 3. Share Your Knowledge Online Once you’ve been running your business successfully for a while, you’ll probably have insights other people will pay to learn. Writing, design, and coaching businesses are a natural fit for online one-on-one entrepreneur mentorship programs and group courses aimed people in the same field who want to learn more about some aspect of the business. Other businesses can use this approach, too. Maybe you grew your landscaping business from zero to six figures in under two years. Other new landscapers will want your advice on marketing and customer retention. Does your HVAC repair company have the lowest employee-turnover rate and the best customer reviews in town? Other contractors will want to know how you retain top talent. There’s one big difference between selling this type of expertise online and setting up an online store or booking tool: You’ll need to reach a different audience from your regular customer base. That requires some research to see if there’s a demand for your knowledge, and to find out where your potential customers hang out online so you can start connecting with them. You’ll also need to establish yourself as an expert, with a blog, podcast, or videos that gives away some of your knowledge for free. You can set up a blog fast with the Gator Website Builder and its blogging templates. You’ll want to make sure your business website’s hosting plan can handle more traffic and load audio and video content fast. It may be time to upgrade to cloud hosting if you expect spikes in traffic when you open new course registrations, or if you need faster load times for your instructional videos and podcasts. Building up this type of revenue stream takes some time, but it can be lucrative if there’s enough demand and you put in the marketing work. And if your main line of business is seasonal, like landscaping or air-conditioner repair, an online sideline can help smooth out income peaks and valleys. 4. Add Ads and Affiliate Links to Your Small Business Website With a decent amount of traffic, your site can also generate revenue through affiliate links and ads. Affiliate marketing is big business, and just about anyone with a website can take part. Simply defined, affiliate marketing lets you earn commissions on sales of other people’s products that you promote on your site. Let’s say you own a cupcake shop, and your shop’s website has a popular blog that features tips on decorating cupcakes. You might sign up for the affiliate program offered by your favorite decorating tools company, include links to their products in your posts (along with an FTC-required disclosure that they’re affiliate links), and earn a commission on each sale that comes from your links. You can also run ads on your website. Google AdSense is the most popular option, because it’s easy to integrate with your site, it gives you control over which ads appear, and it tailors ads to your content and audience. It can take a while for your AdSense ads to bear fruit—you need to reach a $100 threshold before you receive your first payment. But as far as revenue streams go, it’s a low-effort, low-maintenance way to start monetizing your site. Want more ideas for making the most of your small business website? There’s always something new and useful on the HostGator blog . Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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What Is ASP.NET Hosting?

Posted on May 29, 2019 by Hosting

The post What Is ASP.NET Hosting? appeared first on HostGator Blog . One of the most important decisions every website owner must make is choosing the right type of web hosting services. And there are a lot of different types of hosting plans out there. Selecting the best web hosting solutions for your website depends on a number of different factors, including the programs you use to build and maintain your website. For a certain subset of website owners, that makes considering ASP.NET web hosting services an important part of the process of finding the best plan for you. Before we can provide a good explanation of what ASP.NET web hosting is and who it’s right for, we need to define what ASP.NET is. What Is ASP.NET? ASP.NET is an open source framework programmers can use to build dynamic websites, apps, games, and online services with the .NET platform. In ASP.NET, programmers build web forms that become the building blocks of the larger website or app they work to create. While ASP.NET is not as commonly used as PHP—the most ubiquitous of the programming languages used to build websites—it provides some distinct benefits for web designers that make it a strong choice for many websites. 10 Pros of Using ASP.NET ASP.NET isn’t for everybody, which is why it has a much smaller market share than PHP. But the pros of using ASP.NET to build your website or app are notable enough to make it well worth consideration. Here are ten top reasons to consider using ASP.NET. 1. It’s open source. As an open-source framework, any developer or programmer can make changes to the ASP.NET architecture to make it work the way they need. And often developers will share any updates or improvements they make with the larger community, so you can benefit from the work being done by a wide number of talented, skilled ASP.NET programmers. Any open source piece of software or program gets the benefit of all the great minds that use it. Every programmer that sees a way to make it more flexible, secure, or feature-rich can contribute to it. With over 60,000 active contributors, you can count on ASP.NET to just keep getting better. 2. It’s known for being high speed. ASP.NET makes it easier to build a site while using less code than other programming options. With less code to process, websites and apps load faster and more efficiently. ASP.NET packages also uses compiled code rather than interpreted code. Compiled code is translated into object code once, then executed. And every time after that, it loads faster. In contrast, interpreted code has to be read and interpreted every time a user accesses it, which slows things down. While you always have options for speeding up your website , no matter what you build it with, ASP.NET means you’re starting off with a website that will work and load that much faster than with other options you could choose. 3. It’s low cost. In addition to being open source, ASP.NET is also free. You can download the latest version of the software from the website for nothing. You can write ASP.NET code in any simple text editor, including free options like Microsoft’s Visual Studio application. In some cases, as with Visual Studio, the most useful text editors have a free basic plan you can use to start, and paid versions that provide more useful features for the common needs of big businesses, such as collaboration options. You may end up spending some money to get the full use of it you need, but businesses on a budget have the option of using ASP.NET for free. 4. It’s relatively easy to use. While PHP has a reputation for being easier to use, ASP.NET also has many features that make it intuitive for programmers or reduce the amount of work required to create a website or app. For one thing, programming with ASP.NET requires creating less code than most other options. That both means less time spent working on code for developers, and that your pages will load faster because it takes less time to process the code that’s there.   For another, it offers code behind mode, which separates the design and the code. This creates separate files for the design part of a page, and the code part of a page. That makes it easier to test things out and make changes as you go without messing anything up. Finally, ASP.NET allows for template-based page development and server-side caching, both of which mean you can make the design elements you build go further and easily re-use them for different parts of the website or application. While ASP.NET is primarily a resource for professional developers rather than beginners, they have a range of free resources available for those who want to learn the ropes. 5. It has a large developer community. Even though ASP.NET is relatively easy to use, many website owners will want to hire a professional developer to help with the particulars of building out a website or app. Luckily, the ASP.NET community is big enough that finding a skilled developer to hire who has experience in using the framework shouldn’t be a problem in most cases. And having a large community also means that, as an open source software, there are more smart minds working to improve upon ASP.NET on a regular basis. Many of the issues it had in the past have been fixed, and anything about it you don’t like today may well be taken care of in the months or years to come. 6. It requires less setup for Windows users. If your business already uses Windows products, then picking a Windows framework to build your website or app on will make the overall process easier on your team. Since it’s made by Windows, ASP.NET works seamlessly with other Windows applications. Getting your various products to play nice together and work in tandem will be simple. And you won’t have to worry about an update to ASP.NET or any of your other Windows applications screwing up compatibility. Windows will make sure that updated versions of its various products and applications still work well together, even as they all evolve over time. 7. It offers support for multiple languages. Programmers using ASP.NET have a couple of different programming languages they can choose from: C# and VB.net. C# in particular is a popular option with many developers because it’s powerful, flexible, and easy to learn.  It’s one of the most popular programming languages today and is known for being particularly well suited for building Microsoft applications, games, and mobile development. 8. It’s now compatible with all servers. Some articles on ASP.NET list one of the main disadvantages as being that it only works with Windows servers. In fact, several years ago Windows released the ASP.NET Core which made the program compatible with all types of servers—Linux, MacOS, and Windows. While it still may work best with a Windows server, since it was initially designed with that compatibility in mind, you can use ASP.NET no matter which type of web server you prefer. 9. It’s supported by Microsoft. Microsoft is one of the biggest and most powerful tech companies in the world. Any product that has their backing can count on regular maintenance, updates, and improvements. With some free products, there’s always the risk that their creators will stop supporting them and anyone dependent on them will have to start from scratch, but ASP.NET has the power of a company that’s not going anywhere behind it. 10. It’s got a great reputation for security. One of the main areas where most experts agree that the ASP.NET service beats PHP is for security. The program supports multi-factor authentication protocols that allow users to control who has access to the website or app they create with the framework. And ASP.NET includes built-in features that protect against common hacker protocols like cross-site scripting (XSS), SQL (structured query language) injection attacks, open redirect attacks, and cross-site request forgery (CSRF). Website security is an increasingly important issue for all website owners to consider, especially as hacks and high-profile data breaches become more common. Choosing ASP.NET is one of several steps you can take to make your website more secure. 5 Cons of Using ASP.NET That’s a long list of pros, which may have you wondering why so many people still choose PHP over ASP.NET. It’s not all positives, there are a few downsides to choosing ASP.NET as well. 1. It’s not compatible with fewer CMSes than PHP. One of the main reasons that some people prefer PHP is that it works with popular content management systems like WordPress. For people more comfortable using a CMS, which makes creating and updating a website easier if you don’t know how to code, ASP.NET puts a serious limitation in their path. With over a quarter of the entire internet running on WordPress, and content management systems like Drupal and Joomla powering much of the web as well, that makes PHP the natural choice for a majority of websites.   2. It has fewer templates and plugins. Because ASP.NET has fewer users, it also has fewer extras. With fewer people to develop useful features like templates and plugins, there just aren’t as many available to users of ASP.NET. These kinds of extras extend the functionality of a program and can make it easier for people to create the exact kind of website or app they want. While there are still definitely options you can take advantage of with ASP.NET, fewer choices means getting your website where you want it to be will be harder. 3. It’s potentially expensive if you’re not already using Windows. As we already mentioned, using ASP.NET is technically free. But using it tends to make the most sense for companies that already have access to a number of Windows products. One of the big benefits it offers is working seamlessly with all those other Windows solutions, so if you need something a Windows product offers while working on your website in ASP.NET, you’ll likely have to shell out for an additional product. Not everyone that uses ASP.NET will feel the need to spend money on other Windows solutions, but some will. If you end up deciding you need the additional functionality various Windows products provide, the cost can quickly add up. 4. It has a smaller community than PHP. While ASP.NET has a community that’s devoted, it’s much smaller than the community that uses PHP. That means fewer support resources and fewer developers working to make the framework better. It also means businesses will find it harder to find professional developers that are skilled in ASP.NET than PHP (although far from impossible). And you won’t have as many forums or user groups to turn to with questions. While that is an inconvenience, there is enough of a community out there that you may not feel a lack if you do choose to go with ASP.NET. But if having a supportive community is an important part of your decision when choosing what to build your website or app with, other options beat ASP.NET in this category. 5. It’s harder to learn than PHP. ASP.NET is relatively easy for developers to learn, but it has more of a learning curve than PHP. And because you can’t use intuitive content management systems like WordPress with it, it’s generally out of reach for many beginners that can’t afford to learn programming languages themselves or hire a professional when building out their website. For big businesses with a budget to put toward building a website or app, this is likely to be a non-issue since finding skilled ASP.NET programmers to hire won’t be too hard. But for smaller businesses and individuals building a more basic website, it’s a good reason to pick a simpler solution. What Is ASP.NET Hosting? Now that we’ve covered the basics of what ASP.NET itself is, we come back around to the main question at hand: what is ASP.NET web hosting ? ASP.NET hosting is any web hosting plan designed to be compatible with ASP.NET. In many cases, that means Windows hosting, but since ASP.NET is now compatible with other types of servers, it doesn’t have to mean that. Two main things define ASP.NET hosting services: 1. It promises compatibility with ASP.NET and all associated web applications. ASP.NET hosting solutions must provide seamless compatibility with ASP.NET itself. But you’ll also want to make sure your web hosting plan provides compatibility with other web applications you’re likely to use with ASP.NET, such as the Plesk Control Panel and any other Windows products you use.   2. It has an easy installation option. A good ASP.NET hosting plan will include simple one-click installation that lets you add ASP.NET to your web hosting platform within seconds. You have enough work to do building your website, game, or app—you don’t have time to spend on a complicated installation process. A good ASP.NET hosting option ensures you don’t have to spend any longer on this step than necessary. What to Look for in an ASP.NET Web Hosting Plan If you determine that using ASP.NET is the best option for your website, then an ASP.NET hosting plan is a smart choice. When researching your options, look for a web hosting plan that includes: A 99.9% Uptime Guarantee – Uptime is the amount of time your website is working and accessible to visitors. It’s one of the main differentiating factors between different web hosting companies. The best companies promise at least 99.9% uptime and back that claim up with a money-back guarantee. 24/7 Customer Support – The moment you have an issue with your website, you want to get it fixed. 24/7 customer support means you can reach someone right away and get the problem taken care of faster. Plenty of Bandwidth – Look for an ASP.NET hosting provider that offers plans at different levels, especially if your website or app will need a significant amount of bandwidth. If you need it, make sure you can get an enterprise-level plan compatible with ASP.NET. A Reputation for Security – Choosing ASP.NET to build your website is one smart step you can take for security, choosing the right web hosting provider is another. A web hosting provider that uses strong firewalls and offers security features like an SSL certificate that will provide an extra level of protection that keeps your website and its visitors safer. HostGator’s ASP.NET web hosting services offer everything on the list. We make it easy to add ASP.NET to your hosting account so you can get started faster. And we have one of the top reputations of any web hosting company in the industry. If you’re still not sure about the right web hosting provider or company for your ASP.NET website, our sales representatives and support team are available 24/7 to answer any questions you have. If you’re looking into a different service like dedicated server hosting , cloud hosting , or shared hosting plans, our experienced team can help you find the best package for your needs. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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What Is Windows Hosting?

Posted on May 28, 2019 by Hosting

The post What Is Windows Hosting? appeared first on HostGator Blog . When figuring out which web hosting plan is the right choice for your business, you have two main server options: Windows hosting and Linux hosting. If you don’t know anything about what they are and how they’re different, you could risk making the wrong decision out of the gate, and face trouble down the line getting your website working the way you’d like. To help you make the best decision for your business, we’ve put together this guide on what Windows hosting is, who it’s for, and what to look for in a Windows hosting provider. What Is Windows Hosting? Windows hosting is website hosting that uses a Windows operating system. Because the most common web hosting plan options operate on Linux, you can usually assume that anytime a web hosting company doesn’t specify a plan is Windows hosting, it’s Linux hosting. But for a certain subset of website owners, Windows server hosting is the better choice and it’s important to seek out a plan that provides the particular features that come with it. 3 Pros of Windows Hosting Windows hosting isn’t for everyone, but it offers some unique benefits for the businesses that it’s a good fit for. 1. It runs on the familiar Windows operating system (OS). Windows is the most popular operating system in the world. The current OS version alone has over 400 million users , and some estimates put the total user base at more than 1 billion. The Windows system is familiar, and using it is straightforward for millions of people around the world. That said, when it comes to web hosting, most website owners don’t access the web server’s operating system directly. With Linux hosting, you typically use the cPanel, and with Windows server hosting you have the option of the Plesk control panel . But for anyone who plans to use the server user interface directly, Windows hosting provides a much more intuitive user experience than the Linux user interface. 2. It provides compatibility with other Windows tools. For a lot of business, this is the main reason to choose Windows hosting. If your business depends on a number of other Windows tools, then choosing a web hosting platform that plays nice with the various other software products and solutions you depend on will make your life easier. If your website was built using ASP.NET web hosting , then you’ll need to use a Windows server.. Companies that use a Microsoft structured query language (SQL) server for their website and databases will also need to stick with Windows server hosting. Same thing goes if your business uses Microsoft Exchange for your company’s email server and Microsoft Sharepoint for your project management and team collaboration. Basically, the more your business depends on Windows programs, the more likely you are to need Windows server hosting. You can always trust that your web hosting platform will be compatible with all your other legacy programs. And notably, you can trust that whenever your OS and related programs have an update, you don’t have to worry about losing functionality of other programs that depend on them since everything comes from the same company.   Another point worth considering is that most businesses that use a number of Windows-based tools will already employ a lot of tech support professionals that are experts on using, maintaining, and updating Windows programs. The people that already know how to manage your Windows products will have no problem also using your Windows server hosting. 3. It comes with the easy-to-use Plesk control panel. Where Linux web hosting has the cPanel, Windows hosting has the Plesk control panel (although it should be noted that Plesk is also an option available with Linux hosting, just not as commonly used with it as cPanel).  While many users that are already familiar with the OS can directly use the Windows server hosting interface, those that want something a little more user friendly can count on the Plesk control panel to make it easier to make updates and changes to your website. Plesk provides an intuitive user interface that lets you create and manage multiple websites and domains, set up email accounts, and manage reseller accounts. Unlike cPanel, it’s more specifically focused on the needs of commercial website and app owners. It’s compatible with content management systems (CMS) like WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla. And Plesk offers a number of different extensions companies can use to add more functionality to the control panel, including many that increase the website’s security , improve website performance, or add new applications to the website. 3 Cons of Windows Hosting While the benefits of Windows server hosting are significant, there’s a reason that Linux is the default for web hosting solutions.. Windows hosting is great for what it does, but it has a few notable downsides as well. 1. It’s not as secure as Linux hosting. Websites that run on Windows have been the victims of ransomware attacks in recent years with more frequency than Linux ones have. For that reason, Linux hosting is widely considered to be the more secure option for websites. For business websites, security is an important consideration, especially if you sell products through the site and thus collect sensitive financial information from your customers. But even if you don’t have an eCommerce website, if hackers take your website down for hours or days, it’s bad for business and for your overall reputation. While Linux web hosting beats Windows hosting in the security category, which of the two you pick is just one of many factors that influence website security. Even going with Windows hosting, you can do a lot to keep your website protected from hackers by making sure the web hosting company you choose invests in basic precautions, adding additional security software or extensions to your website, keeping all the website software you use up to date, and being careful about the levels of access you provide different people working on the site. 2. It’s more expensive. Windows hosting does cost a bit more than Linux hosting, but the difference is fairly minimal. For instance, HostGator’s Linux-based plans start at $2.75 a month, and our Windows hosting plans start at $4.76. For both types of web hosting plans, the costs do go up as the website’s needs increase, but even for an enterprise-level plan, Windows hosting only costs $14.36 a month. For most of the businesses making a decision—especially for enterprise businesses that already depend on a number of Windows products and systems—those numbers should be manageable, even as Windows hosting costs more. 3. It can be less stable. Linux servers are known for being extremely reliable. They rarely need to be rebooted and can smoothly handle many functions at a time. Windows servers, in contrast, tend to have a little more trouble consistently handling a large number of apps and tasks at a time without interruption. As with any technology on the web, Windows servers have improved in this area over time and can be expected to continue to do so, but they’re generally not quite as consistent in their performance as Linux servers. That said, this is another area where choosing the right web provider can make a big difference. A Windows hosting company that includes a 99.9% uptime guarantee is promising they’ve taken all the precautions to keep their Windows servers working as consistently as possible. With the right attention to maintenance and preparation, a good web hosting provider can help overcome the difference in server reliability between Windows and Linux hosting. Who Should Use Windows Hosting? For most new businesses starting out on the web, getting a shared hosting or cloud hosting plan based on a Linux server makes the most sense because of its affordability and reliability. Where Windows hosting really makes the most sense is for businesses—mostly enterprise or other large businesses that have been around for awhile—that have built their website and other systems on Windows programs. If a lot of your business’s tech relies on Windows, then Windows server hosting is the natural choice. It will work seamlessly with all the other programs you use, and won’t require you to rebuild or work on anything from scratch. And the tech professionals your company relies on to keep all your systems working properly will already know how to work with the Windows hosting OS. In short, if Windows hosting is the right choice for your company, your IT team will likely have strong feelings on the subject. Make sure you bring them into the conversation and let their input determine your web hosting choice. What to Look for in a Windows Hosting Provider If you’ve determined you do need Windows server hosting, then it’s important to find the right web hosting company and plan for your needs. When researching your options, here are a few good features to look for. Software Compatibility Any Windows hosting plan should provide the proper compatibility you need for all your Windows-based programs and software, including: ASP Classic ASP.NET MSSQL (Microsoft SQL Server) MS Access (Microsoft Access) Visual Basic Development C# Remote Desktop Microsoft Exchange Microsoft SharePoint If your business is reliant on any of these though, it doesn’t hurt to double-check that the Windows web hosting plan you choose will work seamlessly with them. In addition, if you use a popular CMS , like WordPress, check that the web hosting plan is compatible with that as well. If you add website tools like Google Analytics and AWstats, or eCommerce software like Magento or Woocommerce for an online store , be sure to check those as well.. Often, web hosting companies will advertise compatibility with common software solutions on the website, but if you don’t find the information there, you can check with the sales team for more information. Stability While as previously mentioned, Windows hosting has a weaker reputation for stability than Linux, finding the right web hosting provider can make all the difference in ensuring your website works consistently. The thing to look for here is a promise of at least 99.9% uptime. That’s how often the company guarantees your website will be up and accessible to your visitors. Some companies, like HostGator, even back that promise up with a money-back guarantee, so you know they’re serious. Even if Windows servers aren’t quite as reliable as Linux ones, the right company that knows how to take proper care of them can help make up the difference. Security Every business has to prioritize website security. The stakes are too high not to. Windows hosting may have more vulnerabilities than Linux hosting, but by choosing a reputable provider with a strong reputation for security, you can avoid much of the risk. Look for a company that uses firewalls to protect their servers, and that provides SSL certificates as part of their offerings. And check if they provide additional security software or other options to help you further protect your website from hackers. Reputation Reviewing the different plans available from various web hosting companies and the promises they make is just one part of making an informed decision. Also look into their reputation in the larger industry. Check out websites with third-party reviews to gain an unbiased look at the company’s reputation and determine if it’s in line with what you’re looking for. Customer Service Even if you have a tech team full of Windows experts, you may occasionally need customer service help from your web hosting provider. Confirm that your web hosting choice offers 24/7 customer service. If your website ever fails, you need to be sure you can get it working again right away. And make sure they offer multiple ways to get in touch. You should be able to use the communication format of your choice, whether that’s phone, live chat , customer portal , or email. Find the Best Windows Hosting Plan for You If Windows hosting is the right choice for your company, make sure you find the particular Windows hosting plan and provider that offers what you need. HostGator’s Windows hosting solutions cover all the bases we’ve covered here, and you can choose between two levels based on whether you’re running a SMB business or have a larger enterprise company. Either way, you can count on the compatibility and features you need at a reasonable price. Whether you are looking to do Windows hosting, Virtual Private Server hosting , or dedicated server hosting , HostGator has got you covered. Contact our team of experts today to get started. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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What Is a Domain Name Registrar?

Posted on May 23, 2019 by Hosting

The post What Is a Domain Name Registrar? appeared first on HostGator Blog . Every website you visit online has a domain name, which means that every website owner went through the process of buying and registering that domain name. It’s one of the first necessary steps involved in starting a new website, along with getting web hosting and building out your site . And it’s a step that requires working with a domain registrar .   What Is a Domain Registrar? A domain registrar, sometimes called a DNS registrar (short for domain name server), is a business that sells domain names and handles the business of registering them. Domain names are the main address a website uses on the web—they’re the thing that usually starts with www and most often ends with .com. While technically, computers identify websites with a different sort of address—an IP address that’s a long string of numbers separated by periods (e.g. 111.111.111.111)—humans wouldn’t be much good at remembering and using that kind of address. So for us, websites also have an address made up of alphanumeric letters, that usually spell out a word or brand name. And there’s a specific type of process behind how people claim domain names. There are registries that manage the different top-level domain s. The registries are large, centralized databases with information about which domain names have been claimed and by who. But the registries don’t sell the names directly, they delegate that job to DNS registrars. Registrars must be accredited by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Then, each time they sell a domain to a customer, they’re expected to register it with the appropriate registry by updating a record with your information.   Domain Registration FAQs For the most part, this process happens behind the scenes for website owners. Part of the service a good domain name registrar provides is making the process of finding, buying , and managing a domain (or multiple) simple and intuitive. You don’t have to know how the sausage is made, but if you’re curious to learn more, we’ve got the answers to the most common questions about domain name registrars. What is the role of a domain name registrar? The domain name registrar handles the process of updating the registry when a customer purchases a new domain name. As part of that, they keep track of which domain names are available and typically provide customers with an intuitive search tool to find out what options they have. They handle the financial transaction with the customer, and provide the tools needed to maintain the domain name subscription over time. You can’t buy a domain name outright, you can only rent it for up to ten years at a time. DNS registrars usually provide the option of annual renewals or multi-year subscriptions, sometimes offering a discount for registering the name for a longer period of time upfront. Domain registrars will often provide a user account where you can keep up with your domain registration status, and features like automatic renewal or email reminders. What is a domain registrant? That’s you! Well, assuming that you, the person reading this, is planning to buy a domain name or already has one. Once you take the step of selecting and purchasing a domain name from a domain registrar, you become the domain registrant. And the title will continue to apply for as long as you keep up your domain subscription. In most contexts though, people are more likely to call a “domain registrant” a domain owner , or a website owner once their site is up. What is a domain registry? A domain registry is the database that includes all the information about a specific top-level domain (TLD). The term is also sometimes used to refer to the organization that manages the database, as well as the database itself.    Domain registries have relationships with domain registrars, who submit domain name registration requests and record updates to them on behalf of customers. One of the biggest examples of a domain registry is Verisign , which manages the databases for several of the most common TLDs, including .com, .net, .gov, and .edu. What is private domain name registration? Part of the domain registration process includes providing the registrant’s information to the database of domain owners. In addition to the domain registries, the WHOIS directory tracks information on every website domain that’s registered, who owns it, and their main contact information. That’s because someone needs to be able to identify website owners who use their site for illegal purposes. But in our age of high-profile data breaches and growing concern around internet privacy issues, not every website owner wants to put their name and contact information out on the open web. And it shouldn’t be a requirement for running a website. Thanks to the private domain name registration options now offered by many DNS registrants, it’s not. Domain registrars usually charge a little more in order to shield you from having your own name and information included in the directory. They provide enough contact information to the WHOIS to keep you on the right side of the law, typically an email address associated with the registrant’s company, and keep the rest of it private. What is a domain name server? We talked earlier about how computers don’t use domain names to recognize website addresses, they use IP addresses. Domain name servers are the technology that translates between the two. The domain name system is the protocol established to ensure machines exchange the right data for the average internet viewer to see the correct webpage when they type a domain name into their browser or click on a link. Domain name servers play an important role in that system, storing all the information required to connect a specific domain name address to the correct IP address. Each time a computer queries a domain name server for a particular domain name, it finds the appropriate IP address to serve up. How do I register a new domain name? Now that we’ve covered much of the back-end technical stuff, you’re probably wondering how this all translates into what you, a would-be website owner, need to do to get the domain name that you want for your site. Luckily, the process for you is pretty easy. Start by finding a domain registrant you want to work with (more on how to do that in a bit). Most of them make it easy to search for available names, see the different top-level domain options you can consider, and go through the purchasing process. Provide your name, contact, and payment information through a secure form on the registrar’s website, and you should be set! How do I find an available domain name? This part can be trickier. With billions of websites already out there, all of them with a unique domain name, a lot of your options are already taken. Finding an available domain name that’s easy to remember and describes what your website does can take some work and creativity. Expect to spend some time using your domain registrar’s domain name search tool . Try out different variations on the names you have in mind. Consider synonyms and creative spellings. While a .com is usually the easiest option for visitors to remember, consider if you’re willing to go with another top-level domain like .website or .biz. The TLDs that aren’t as common will have more domain name options available. What is a top-level domain? A top-level domain is the last part of the domain that follows a period, such as .com or .net. ICANN controls which TLDs are available, and used to be pretty strict about opening up new ones. Early on, most specialty TLDs related to a specific industry, type of website, or geographic location. For example, .com was for commercial businesses, .gov for government websites, and .org for nonprofit websites. But as the internet has grown, the need for more available domain names has caused ICANN to lift the restrictions on how many TLDs are available, and who can use different ones. As such, when you do a domain name search on your chosen registrar’s website, you’ll see an array of TLD options at different price points. If the name you want isn’t available as a .com, you may be able to get it for cheaper at a .us or .site TLD address. How does domain name transfer work? When you choose a domain registrar to purchase your domain name with, you don’t have to make a long-term commitment to working with them. You have the option of switching over to a different registrar down the line, although you have to wait at least 60 days, due to an ICANN policy designed to reduce domain hijacking. If you’re past that sixty day point, you can transfer your domain name to a new provider by unlocking your domain name at your current registrar, disabling any other privacy protections such as WHOIS domain name privacy, and obtaining a domain authorization code from your current registrar. Once that’s done, follow the domain transfer steps provided by the new registrar you’re switching to. For HostGator, you can start the domain name transfer process here .    What to Look for in a Domain Registrar Now that you know all the ins and outs of what a domain registrar is and how domain registration works, you’re probably ready to find a good domain registrar and get started. You have a lot of different options. Some companies only provide domain registration services. Others, like HostGator, offer domain registration along with other services like web hosting, so you can take care of multiple basic website needs all under one account. With so many options to choose from, you need to know what to look for. Here are some of the most important factors to consider. 1. Pricing Some of the cost of registering a new domain name is related to the name you choose. In particular, different top-level domains come at different prices. But you’ll also see some variety in what different companies charge. When considering the pricing of different domain registrars, there are a couple of important things to keep in mind, First, the prices advertised are generally for a one-year time period, but you should check to be sure. A domain name isn’t a one-time purchase, you have to plan on continuing to pay for as long as you keep your website. You want to make sure you’re comparing apples to apples, and not putting one company’s one-year price against the price another advertises for a longer period. Also, it’s fairly normal for companies to advertise an introductory price that you pay for year one that goes up in the second year. Don’t just consider what you’re paying right now, think about what you can afford on an ongoing basis. And as with most things, sometimes a cheaper price will mean you pay in other ways, as with weaker customer service or a worse customer experience. Don’t just jump at the first low price you see without researching the company to find out if they’re cheap for a reason. 2. Reputation While domain name management doesn’t involve that much interaction with the company, you still want to choose a domain registrar that will be easy to work with and reliable. Spend some time reading customer reviews and doing general research on the company. Are they well known as a legitimate domain registrar? Do they have a reputation for solid customer service? Do people find the registration and renewal processes intuitive? Your domain name is an important part of running your website and maintaining it over time. You can always transfer your domain later, but you’ll be better off picking the right DNS registrar from day one. 3. Extras Most domain name registrars provide services beyond just domain name registration. It’s very common for registrars to also be web hosting providers, and bundling the two services can increase your ease of use for managing each. Other good add-ons to look for are: Domain name privacy, which helps you avoid spam and any risk that comes with making your personal information more public. Auto-renewals, which allow you to put the renewal process on autopilot so you don’t have to worry about forgetting or doing any extra work to keep your domain name registration up to date. Email addresses that you can set up for yourself and people in your organization at the domain, making your communications look more official. A multi-year purchase option, so you can secure your domain name for longer without worrying about renewal. If any of these are features you know you want, find a domain registrar that provides them. Register Your Domain Today As you know by now, HostGator is a domain name registrar that provides an intuitive domain name search function and easy registration process.   We offer domain name privacy, automatic renewals, and the option to buy your domain for up to three years at a time. And on top of all that, we’re one of the most respected web hosting providers in the industry. If you want the convenience of managing your web hosting and domain name registration in one place, you can count on HostGator to be a reliable option for both. If you’re ready to move forward and buy a new domain name, get started searching . Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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Benefits of Magento Hosting

Posted on May 17, 2019 by Hosting

The post Benefits of Magento Hosting appeared first on HostGator Blog . Your eCommerce business is starting to come together. You have your business plan and an idea  of what the design of your eCommerce website will look like. But you still need to figure out the right eCommerce software and web hosting plan to get your eCommerce website working and ready for business. When considering your web hosting options, you may come across an option that addresses both needs in its focus: Magento hosting . What Is Magento? Before you can know if Magento hosting is right for you, you need to decide whether you’ll use Magento for your website. Magento is the third most popular eCommerce platform on the market (falling only behind WooCommerce and Shopify). It supplies the main functionality you need to run an eCommerce site, namely: A shopping cart Check out functionality Account creation and guest check out options Integration with payment processing apps to accept payment Ability to list your products and track availability Those are the basics you need, but Magento has a vast array of features that go beyond the basics. Between the core functionality of the platform itself and the extensions you can add to it , the software packs a lot of power into the framework it provides for your eCommerce store.   Why You Need eCommerce Software You know now that Magento is a type of eCommerce software, but maybe you’re wondering if you can get by without an eCommerce platform to begin with. eCommerce websites have unique needs that won’t be served by a web hosting plan or content management system alone. If you want to make sales through your website, then you need a way to list your products, track inventory, provide a secure checkout, and accept payments. If you think about the online stores you buy from the most often, they probably have additional eCommerce features like the ability to set up a wishlist, mark your favorites, set up subscriptions, or take advantage of coupons. For all of that, you need the right software. If you’re building an online store, consider eCommerce software a necessary part of the process. 12 Reasons to Use Magento for Your eCommerce Website Magento isn’t your only option, but it’s one of the most popular CMSes for eCommerce websites for a number of reasons. 1. Magento is free. Few things in life are free, and it’s even rarer for something with as much usefulness as Magento to be free. But the Magento core is freely available for anyone to use. You may incur some costs for extensions you add on, or for developers you hire to help you use Magento. But the platform itself won’t cost you a thing. 2. It’s open source. Magento is open source software which means that anyone with the skills to develop a new module or extension can do so. Magento boasts a community of over 300,000 developers. They have an active forum with thousands of contributors, all working to make Magento do as much as business owners need and want it to. One of the nice things about using an open source solution is that you can count on it to improve in quality and functionality over time as people work to make it better for the benefit of all users. 3. Magento’s advanced security is ideal for eCommerce. Website security is important for all website owners, but when you run an online store that regularly takes sensitive financial and personal information from customers, security takes on an extra level of necessity. In the eCommerce community, Magento is widely considered a strong choice for security. And while the core software provides security against hackers, you can make your Magento website more secure with any of the hundreds of security extensions available. In addition, Magento lets you control how much access you allow each person who updates your website to have. Security permissions help you limit the risk of an angry employee making malicious updates to your website, or someone accidentally breaking something on the site due to ignorance. 4. Magento supports huge eCommerce product catalogs and order volume It’s understandable to wonder just how much a free product can actually do, especially if you have big goals and expect to see significant traffic numbers or list a high number of products. Magento really can handle a lot. You can add up to 500,000 products to your store on one Magento site. And the platform can handle over 80,000 orders every hour (as long as your web hosting plan is also up to the task). Plus, Magento’s reporting dashboard shows you at-a-glance how those sales are translating to your bottom line: That means it should work for you in the early stages of building your business, and allow you tons of room to grow as your sales and customer numbers increase. 5. Magento’s flexible extensions make it easy to customize your online store. Magento is extremely customizable, especially when it comes to the changes you can make using the large library of extensions. You have a lot of power to make the backend of your website look the way you want it, as well as making the website itself intuitive for your visitors. And Magento has a lot of different features you can choose to incorporate if you so desire, such as using categories to better group your different products, allowing different payment options, and letting you manage orders through the platform. With Magento, you can configure your website to have the features you want it to, both on your end and the user end. 6. Magento’s shopping cart functionality is responsive. With over half of all web use now happening on mobile devices, it’s integral that all online stores make their website mobile friendly . Magento’s shopping cart functionality is fully responsive, which means it works just as well on tablets and smartphones as it does on desktop computers. The last thing you want is for half of your visitors to bounce because they find your website difficult to use on their particular device—or worse, bounce right before a sale because the checkout process is a pain on the small screen. Magento will help you avoid that fate. 7. Magento’s powerful product search helps customers quickly find what they need. Nothing else about your eCommerce site will matter if customers find using it more difficult than it’s worth. Your website has to provide an experience that’s intuitive and pleasant from the moment they first land on the site, to when they complete their purchase. Magento helps you realize that by letting you organize your products in user-friendly ways, so visitors can browse and filter results based on their particular preferences. You can enable features like auto-suggestion for search terms or display popular search term clouds that can further help customers find what they need. And you can load multiple high-resolution images for each product to help customers make a better decision. 8. Built-in features are designed to boost your conversion rate. Magento also has a number of options you can use to increase conversions and upsells. You can offer free shipping and discounts to incentivize sales. You can also add in areas for customers to add their own promo codes at checkout: You can enable one-click purchases (just like Amazon!) with their Instant Purchase feature: You can set up your website to display recently viewed products, so customers are more likely to go back and buy items they’d considered. You can have your website show related products , or items commonly bought together, to encourage customers to buy more products at once. Finally, you can make it easy for customers to share items they like on social or with friends. 9. Magento follows SEO best practices. The minds behind Magento knew the importance of search engine optimization (SEO) for a website and built a platform that made optimizing your pages for search simple. You can easily customize your URLs, fill in the relevant meta information on each page, and create an auto-generated sitemap to submit to the search engines. 10. Magento enables personalization. Personalization is an eCommerce tactic gaining steam and showing significant results. Magento’s core platform provides some personalization options, but you can go even further with tailoring the way customers experience your website with extensions that offer additional personalization features. With the Magento core, customers can create unique accounts so you can better track their behavior over time and show them products and ads based on past purchases or views. You can automate the process of serving up personalized recommendations for each visitor. With extensions, you can generate automated recommendation and reminder emails based on their past behavior and deliver personalized ads across other sites to help get past visitors back on your site. 11. Magento works with third-party applications. Magento helps power a lot of useful features and functionality on your own website, but what happens on your own website is only part of running an online store. You also need to think about marketing your store in various channels around the web to get customers to your website to begin with. Not to mention all the work you have to do to keep up with your business’s finances. Magento is compatible with a wide range of third-party applications that help with those parts, including email marketing software, Google analytics, accounting software products, and payment processing apps. Easy integration with the various apps you need to run your business make all the extra business tasks you have to take care of easier. 12. Magento tutorials abound online. Nothing is perfect, and one of the downsides of using Magento is that it has a learning curve. If you’re not a professional developer, or you don’t have the budget to hire one, learning the ropes of using Magento can take some time and work. But you can find a lot of useful information to help you get started online. Free tutorials are available on sites like TutorialsPoint . Or for a more thorough introduction, you can take one of the courses offered at Magento U for a fee. What is Magento Hosting? Magento hosting is a web hosting plan that provides compatibility with the eCommerce software Magento. While Magento is free and provides a lot of useful features for running an online store, one thing it notably doesn’t provide is web hosting. Magento hosting plans will often provide the additional important business features an eCommerce website needs such as an SSL certificate and compatibility with third-party solutions commonly used by businesses, such as email marketing and Google Analytics. While many web hosting plans that aren’t specifically Magento hosting may make it possible to use Magento, an application web hosting plan that provides specific functionality related to using Magento can often better meet the needs of eCommerce stores that depend on the shopping cart software. 5 Benefits of Magento Hosting When choosing the best web hosting option for your eCommerce store, you’ll benefit from prioritizing Magento compatibility upfront. There are five main reasons to specifically seek out an application hosting plan that works with Magento specifically. 1. Easy installation With a Magento hosting plan, you can trust that adding Magento to your web hosting account will be quick and easy. With HostGator’s Magento hosting, you can add the application in one click once you’re signed into your web hosting account. You can focus your time on building your website, rather than figuring out how to get your eCommerce software and web hosting service to work together. 2. Assured compatibility If you’ve already made the choice to power your eCommerce options with Magento—and especially if you’ve already put the work into using it in designing your website—you really don’t want to realize after you sign up for a web hosting plan that there are compatibility issues in getting Magento to work right with your plan. Save yourself the trouble of having to work to get the two programs to support each other, or worse, having to switch over to a new web hosting provider after you’re already eager to launch. Start with a plan you know will work seamlessly with Magento from the get go. 3. No performance issues One of the complaints you’ll occasionally see about Magento is that some sites face performance issues, such as slow loading times. In fact, the issue isn’t usually Magento when that occurs, it’s that the website owner went with a web hosting plan that wasn’t up to the task of running the Magento site. To avoid performance issues, find a Magento web hosting plan that provides the degree of power and bandwidth you need. 4. No hidden fees Some web hosting plans will advertise an upfront price, then hit you with unexpected fees when it comes time to add the apps you need to your account.  With Magento hosting, you not only know that your web hosting plan will be compatible with your Magento site, you can also trust that you won’t have to pay anything extra to use Magento with the plan you buy. 5. Proper security As we’ve already established, security is paramount when you’re running an online store. Choosing a secure web hosting provider like Magento is one step to making your eCommerce site secure. Finding a web hosting plan that also promises top-notch security is another. A good Magento hosting plan will have strong firewalls in place to protect your website from hackers and offer additional security features, like an SSL certificate and security software you can add to your website. Get Started with Magento Hosting Starting an eCommerce website is a big deal. If you make the right choices, it can put you on the path to big profits. Early on, two of the most important choices you can make are which eCommerce software to go with and which web hosting plan to choose. If you go with Magento, picking a Magento hosting plan to go along with your choice just makes sense.Get started with HostGator’s application hosting . Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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