Finding the Right Ecommerce Web Hosting Company
If you are an online business owner you’ve, most likely, jumped into the world of ecommerce. Ecommerce has sparked a revolution, these days as 4 out of 5 businesses have online stores. Ecommerce’s greatest strength is that products and the storefront can be found constantly, day and night, unlike a traditional physical store. But how does this effect customer care?
Pitfalls Of Ecommerce
Many individuals feel left in the dark with modern customer support, phone trees and automated phone lines make reaching a real person almost like a fairy tale. You know exactly what we’re talking about. Constant cut-backs in company budgets have forced a lot of companies to cut back on ecommerce phone support. This, in turn, leaves a lot of customers in the dark or up a creek without a paddle. Most of these efforts make customers feel like they’re being served by robots instead of people.
Live Chat Support
The world, in general, has grown into a “want it and want it now” mentality. A very good alternative to ecommerce phone support is live chat support. Live Chat Support has many advantages. for both the customer and the business. One of these is that the customer no longer needs to have “fun” with the phone tree or cope with the automated hot line woes. Most customers that had to handle these traditional ecommerce stumbling blocks give up and wind up not buying the product at all. Online support chat is cheaper than traditional phone systems and in many instances one person can transport on multiple chat support sessions at one time. It will help to promote sales and facilitate ecommerce growth.
Support Technicians
Support technicians can pitch customers on new and upcoming products from the company, while assisting them. This, coupled with almost instant problem-solving saves time, makes most customers rate the knowledge very high. As there are plenty of out of the box solutions for online chat support. Some of them are at no charge, making this an excellent tool for the current ecommerce business marketplace. With the right hosting account not only can you run your ecommerce website, but you can also install and manage a live chat application that you or your employees can use to provide your clients with great customer service.
Automatic Response Features
One additial key feature to look for in support is automatic responses. Good customer support chat software will automatically respond to an incoming chat. This alleviates the need for the support technician to always type in the welcome statement. If you find yourself struggling to make customer support work, consider online chat support. It’s cheaper than traditional phone lines and phone support.
Additionally , it has alot more positive reviews from the customer base. This, together with the fact that one technician can work with several customers at a time, makes customer care chat an excellent tool for your business.
So What About Ecommerce Web Hosting?
Well certain web hosts are going to provide better ecommerce web hosting solutions than other. The web hosting marketplace is huge, so there are many niches — such as, VPS hosting, cloud hosting, dedicated hosting, shared hosting, Windows hosting, Linux hosting, Php hosting, ASP.NET hosting, and on and on.
ECommerce Considerations When choosing a Host
Selecting the right web host for an ecommerce plan is a critical decision to make. Here’s a guide to follow when choosing:
- Type of Hosting Plan – There are a number of different hosting plans for an ecommerce site. As already mentioned above, the choices are VPS hosting, dedicated hosting, cloud hosting, Linux hosting, Windows hosting, shared hosting, PHP hosting and ASP.Net hosting.
- If you are starting on a tight budget, then the shared hosting option will be the cheapest option to begin with. Later on, as the business grows and develops, you can upgrade to another more appropriate hosting plan with the disk space, security, resources and features you need.
- Compatible Webpage Choices – For an ecommerce site to conduct business online, it must have two essential elements, a payment gateway and also a shopping cart. However, great care must be taken to ensure that these are compatible with other hosting services and products that are selected within the plan.
- Security Issues – As a result of taking payments from customers online, the issue of securing private information of customers becomes a security concern. The ecommerce site must make sure that all private information is protected and that an SSL certificate is installed to encrypt and protect private information displayed in business transactions.
- Other Options – Many ecommerce sites will provide digital downloads to customers as an enticement for them to purchase from the site. These digital products may be discount coupons, or other offers and therefore a need is created for these downloads to be protected.
The availability of ecommerce has been a considerable advantage to businesses and it provides worldwide access to stores that previously only had a local presence. Ecommerce stores are also open for business 24/7/365, so for a business owner to reap the full benefit of this exposure, he would want to ensure that his site is hosted with a good, reputable host. The above pointers should assist you in deciding on the right hosting company for your site.
Our Top Ecommerce Web Hosting Pick – ITX Design
So, which web hosts rate highest when it comes to ecommerce web hosting? Well, our top pick is ITX Design web hosting because we feel that it fits this niche perfectly with its shopping cart solutions, great MySQL database system, and sweet site builder. If you’re new to ecommerce web hosting please check ITX Design out…
Small Business Hosting and Your New Domain Name
The internet is the ultimate gateway to the world of sales and marketing. The nice thing is that small business folks are in possession of exactly the same ability to compete with their larger competitors like never before, simply by maintaining a powerful web presence and registering the perfect domain name.
Most online users might not realize it, however, access to the internet is gained and controlled primarily by search engines and public domains (web hosting). As a small business owner, once you’ve created a functioning and effective website, to be able to showcase to the public you have to make use of a domain name and proper web hosting. A keyword rich domain name is extremely important for traffic and conversions.
Good Small Business Website Name Extensions (Smart Small Business Hosting)
Most domain names are related to the business, its products, its services or perhaps to the purpose of the website. This is very intentional, as not only do you want your website name to be relevant to searched topics, but so do your visitors. Depending on the type of business you operate, specific keywords can help you in picking the perfect domain name. Before you decide to secure a domain name for your company, you should first give it some careful thought. You want something that’s memorable and relevant. Companies should consider a web site name that’s easy to spell, fresh and catchy and related to keyword research. You may find that most domains or ideas are already taken, however don’t get discouraged. There are several domain aftermarkets that you can use to purchase domains. They cost significantly more, however a great domain name goes a long way.
Your domain plays an important part in on-page search engine optimization, because the name used will tell the search engines what your site is about. In the eyes of Google especially, this shows relevance to the topic of your website, and for that this search engine will rank it higher, and it could even be granted a higher position in the search engine results pages. Many large websites have a single word domain name, this may not always be possible or practical but try keeping things simple for your customers so that they will easily remember the domain – that’s smart business.
Most companies should opt for a domain name that ends with the .com extension. The .com extension is the most respected, remembered and recognized domain extension for small business hosting or any web hosting for that matter. It is also said that the .com domain name helps to generate a great deal of traffic, as opposed to the other extensions that will actually kill traffic to the site. Another good reason to use the .com domain extension is the fact the people searching for a site online, are more likely to key the site name with a .com extension than they are to use any other domain extension. If you do not create your domain name by using the key word plus the .com extension, you will most likely be sending your competitor valuable traffic to his site. The usual advice that is given in the event you cannot get your preferred keyword in the domain name, because it is already chosen, is for you to choose another keyword that still relates to your business and also has a fair amount of searches. Then adding the .com extension that is available for it will put you in a favorable position to be found by your targeted customers.
Other domain extensions may include: .gov, .net, or .org. Of course, regardless of the extension, the website name should be used on all distributed company advertising material. Your website will be one of your business’s greatest assets.
Small Business Domain Marketing Strategies
Once you have your domain name, then you definitely must incorporate it into your marketing efforts. Your website is just as useful for passing along information as for the new traffic it generates, especially for lead generation techniques.
Your website design should also include an intelligent structure for example appropriate tags for good SEO and search engine optimization, other listed domain name(s), as well as keyword phrases identified by you and your SEO team. This takes work, but it’s worth it. To increase market saturation, you may want to advertise with search engines like Google, networking sites, or any related websites, perhaps Facebook or Twitter, depending on your niche.
You should also utilize your domain name inside your existing advertising material — business cards, letterhead, and flyers. Radio and television are other marketing mediums to drive traffic to the site and build brand awareness. Once your domain name has reputable and widely recognized exposure, online visitors will quickly begin pouring onto your site. A domain name is really a relatively small investment, especially when compared to other marketing techniques, but it is extremely important because by choosing the right domain name a business will pick up related, relevant searches from the search engines. This research and information is worth its weight in gold.
As with all of marketing, it’s about having your company’s name extremely visible (branding). Domain names are the quickest and easiest way to achieve online customers, if you do it correctly. You may also link multiple domain names to one website, which may increase name recognition, or serve multiple markets.
Small business hosting and domain names are of critical importance, it’s best to consult a professional SEO before making any decision about domain names and web hosting…seriously, it’s that important.
