As E-Commerce is very popular these days and almost every organization is moving to online business for their growth and success.

But those who are planning to move to this platform, don’t know various aspects of e-commerce portal and due to this, they are unable to take right decision of choosing a correct portal.

So, here this article may help you in this regard.

1. Choosing a platform

When choosing an e-commerce platform for online business, following factors need to be considered:

Own website or their portal

Next you need to decide, whether you wish to host your online store on your site or on e-commerce platform. If you chosen your site, you need to take care of everything from beginning to end, which is quite difficult as everyone is not technical expertise.

That’s why max companies used e-commerce platform for hosting their stores. But before selecting the one, go through all the features offered by e-commerce platform.

Options for Design

Some of the E-Commerce platforms offered pre-built themes to design your online store to give a good look. You can choose one of them or if you have some specific needs for your online business, then to meet some platforms offered designers or developers who can design your store accordingly.

What your business is selling

Before choosing a platform, first your product options must be defined, as what you are selling, determines which e-commerce platform can be used by you. All E-Commerce platforms does not support every kind of product. Some platforms built to handle only physical product, some to handle digital product and some both or one. Some platforms support unlimited products and some charge according to their qty.

So, before selecting the one, read its terms and conditions carefully, whether platform supports your product or not.
Tools for Integration

Many E-Commerce platforms offers tools meant for integration with various services such as marketing, finance, reporting, inventory and others. So, try to choose the platform which offers you those tools which you are already using.

Pricing and Features

Different E-Commerce platforms offered different features and thus their price also varies. So, choose the one which satisfy you in terms of features and fits in your budget.

Payment Gateways

Various payment gateways are available such as Strip, PayPal, Authorize but choose the platform which is using your ones.

Extra Fees

Read the terms and conditions carefully to know if platform is charging any additional fees in the name of setup fees, processing fees, themes fees etc.

2. Most popular e-commerce platform

There are various e-commerce platforms but the best ones are as follow:

1. Magento – Small businesses who are hosting storefronts so that their customers can be enterprised, for them, this is a good option. It offers community edition for free. For 100 SKU’s, pricing begins at $15 per month. Price for Enterprise edition is not in the list.
2. BigCommerce – This platform is meant for both small to big businesses. For supporting unlimited products, pricing starts at $34.95 per month.
3. Shopify – Shopify is a very popular and best ecommerce platform which permits their clients to have good storefronts. They provide various themes and apps integrated with famous services. For physical storage, it has POS. For unlimited products, it costs starts at $29 per month.
4. InfusionSoft – This is having an option of e-commerce and it is especially meant for automation of sales, automation of marketing and for customer relationship management. Its pricing starts at $299 per month.
5. Selz – It is an ecommerce platform which is recently introduced and allows you to have embeddable widgets and storefront, hosted on Selz. Like others, it does not charge on monthly basis. They only charge a commission of 5% + $0.25 for the transaction occurred.

3. Selection web hosting

After following the above steps, choose the web hosting provider who may host your online store properly on your site or at chosen e-commerce platform.

4. Good Domain name

After selecting a hosting provider, assign a good domain name to your online platform, by which people know you. And then start conducting online business with your customers.

When Charles Darwin gave the world the theory of ” survival of the fittest” he probably was not aware that it would hold true for a very very long time in this ever so changing world and today in the era where internet has become a necessity of life and using digital media a way of life, the theory still fits!

If you need your business (even a small one) to survive and flourish in these times of cut throat competition, you need to go online and get a website for it. That will put you on the rack of “fittest”. Having a website will push your profit margins and the potential of your business to extents you surely do want to achieve.

refer to any sorts of statistics and you will realize that more and more people are turning towards the internet to research and to shop, for anything at all. You have to agree, it is convenient to sit in the comforts of your home and choose what you need from an umpteen number of products available. Just pay and it will be at your door step! How is anybody suppose to resist that? That is the wonder of online world and if you have a website for your business, you are sure to reap benefits of this wonder, some of which are:

(1) Let the World know you are there!

Even if your business is a local one, you can reach a potential customer sitting right across the globe or in the city itself. He can learn a lot about your business from you website like:

• What do you sell
• what are your specialties
• where are you located
• who else uses your product and approves of it
• why to chose you
• How to reach you for further enquiries or your email

That sets the pace! If the person on that side of the monitor likes what he reads about, he is sure to enquire and can be converted in to a potential customer. Just like that he reach of your business goes beyond geographical boundaries and the world knows about your business!

(2) It strengthens your marketing tools arsenal!

If you are running a business you definitely have been advertising in some form be print media or TV or radio. You are aware of the costs involved and the efficiency of these tools. How about an advertisement that runs 24X7 and tells everything about your business in a such a cool fashion that it surely impresses the customers’ mind. It has audio clips & videos that express the sentiment of your products and deliver a feel of your business. That is what a website does precisely for you. It is your websites ad and literature which can be modified any time and speaks volumes. And for free!

(3) Educate and impress your customers!

Today, the customer is smart and wants to make informed decisions about where to put in his money. Also everybody wants to deal with a pro who knows what he is doing. By having your own website, you can tell the curious customer all about your product and everything related to it in a very well designed manner and help them with their research. In this way, you clearly convey that you know exactly what you are doing and you are good at it! The first impression is crucial and with a professionally designed website, you can never go wrong on that front.

(4) Develop Customer’s trust in your brand!

It is always easier to trust a product if you have a background or a name related to it. You can further strengthen your customers’ trust in your product by having a website about it which gives data, names, geographical locations and probably pictures of real people who run the business. It not only enhances the authenticity and credibility of your business but also attracts new ones and helps you to build your brand.

(5) Use the power of Referrals!

A referral simply means that if someone likes your product and is ready to suggest it to others with a positive feedback then he can do so by sharing the link of your website on a social media platform or on their own website. This is a very powerful method of sending the good word around about your business. An increased number of referrals will indicate increased popularity for your business.

No doubt, going online will be a brilliant idea for scripting the success story of your business.

Marketing your small business website online

Now that you have created a website, you need to market it in the right way to maximize its popularity and to benefit from it. Here are some tips for doing the same:

• Always try and get your website listed in the local online directories. Also, if you belong to any trade organization, get yourself listed on their website too.
• Tap the potential of social media. Create your pages on websites like facebook, twitter, Google+ and so on.
• The content of your website is what will draw customers to it and will make them come back. It has to be very impressive and informative. Also this will help you to get noticed by search engines. Keep it simple and relevant and keep updating it.
• You can even consider having your own online newsletter.
• The design of the website should be appealing, what looks good will sell good!

With all this you will be able to squeeze out maximum benefits from your website.

Cost Effective marketing

You might be on a shoe string budget for your website marketing. No worries. Here are some tips for online marketing without burning a huge hole in your pocket:

• Put something catchy on your website. It could be a line, a video , a post; anything that will catch the attention of the targeted customers and they will feel like sharing it with others. This will automatically mean, your web address is being shared!
• You can offer deals and discount coupons on your website. This is sure to attract attention.
• There are a plenty of free marketing tools available which can help with content management. Use them to plan and create a good website.
• Write quality blog posts to make people aware of your business, achievements, awards, new schemes, any event anything at all related to your business.

Conclusion

By now it is clear that having a website is an essential part of the growth of a small business. So go ahead and go online. Experience the Midas touch of world wide web and reap benefits!

Small Businesses Can Be a Big Deal for Resellers in the Cloud Space

Small Businesses are private corporations, sole proprietorships and partnerships. The term “Small Business” defines by different organizations in the context of no. of employees but generally it is mentioned, businesses ranging from less than 10 employees to thousand employees are mainly categorised as small to mid- sized companies otherwise they are termed as SMBs. According to the other methods, Small businesses can also be categorised as assets, sales, liabilities, purchases, net profit and others. These companies range from a very small store to e-commerce businesses.

In 2006, more than 18,000 small businesses possessing more than 500 employees constitute half of the total employees engaged in all the small businesses. SMBs want to lead themselves so they are focusing on the ways of cutting the costs and expansion of their capabilities. There are various ways and among this, one way is that they are moving their important functions to the cloud. Recently a study was conducted which predicted and showed the value $32 billion of the U.S. SMB Market in 2016 which is almost 20% growth rate occurred on year to year basis and also showed increase of 25% in the adoption of the total global cloud services.

Use of Web hosting is becoming very popular among the large size businesses and so are small businesses. The small size companies are also having their websites in order to improve their competitive position and to host them; they are also using the hosting services of various web hosting companies.

Usage of the cloud services and products of the infrastructure by SMBs is expected to become almost double for the next few years and the reason behind this that these SMBs become more user friendly with the concept of cloud and do not face in using the same. Now SMBs are looking for the cloud service companies as now they are moving several applications of business to the cloud. SMBs are the small size companies thus they operate more efficiently and focus on their main business, outsource functions of technology and in this context they prefer the established organizations.

Resellers are having a great opportunity; they can open the new stream of revenue and expand their relationship with the existing customers. VARs, MSPs, SIs wants to expand their portfolio to use the cloud services and for the same they are required to increase their revenue and improve their relationships with SMBs. Demand is rising very fast within the SMB market for the different kinds of cloud services;

• (IAAS) Infrastructure as a service- From the study, it is known that safety, IaaS server backup and services related to database is used by 40% of the SMBs. Those are in the need of a robust database find the web hosting solutions which are flexible via a reasonable and convenient way so as to store the large amount of data in offsite without considering the issue of maintenance of server. In the SMBs market, there are some rapidly growing sectors such as Security services, anti- malware, anti-spyware, anti- virus and e-mail safety solutions.
• (SAAS) Software as a service Apps- Social media platform used by no. of SMBs as a tool of marketing and access productivity apps such as Dropbox on the regular basis. SMB’s feel more comfortable with the cloud services, they started to embrace platforms of CRM such as Salesforce.com and other solutions related to business intelligence. These tools are accessed via laptops and desktops in the office and also on the mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones.

Cloud services are used by SMBs for increasing the capabilities of the communication and for consolidating the infrastructure for more efficiency and integration on one platform. E-mail and hosted private branch exchange (PBX) phone services are included in the applications but Unified Communications-as-a-Service solutions attract the market towards themselves. It delivers audio / video conferencing, telephone, messaging, presence technology, and email more over an IP network.

Many reasons are there for migration of business to new web hosting service provider. Cause differs from low disk space to miserable customer service or regular breakdowns of server. Selecting new web hosting service provider might appear overwhelming. On the reality check, it’s not so. This article delivers significant points in this perspective.

Choose new web hosting provider

Anybody has to consider different aspects while choosing new web hosting provider. These aspects include operating system, uptime, bandwidth, disk space requirements and customer service.

Type of operating system (OS)

It is better to implement same OS while migrating from one web hosting provider to another. Migration done will be hassle free. OS must not be changed, until and unless there is valid reason. If anybody is planning to take option for new OS, then user must check the OS is being provided by new hosting service provider.

Database such as MySQL or Access is required by website. Both Linux and Windows are compatible to MySQL and Access is congenial with Windows only. When anybody migrates to new OS these points are to be considered.

Disk space and Bandwidth

Bandwidth and disk space are very important features provided by new web hosting provider because speed is affected by former and data storage space is affected by latter. Analyze whether higher bandwidth and disk space is offered at same cost by new service provider. User has to execute analysis related to cost-benefit. It will help to make sensible decision.

Uptime

When user’s website is down then customers will get disturbed and site’s credibility will be impaired. Web host will end up by losing hundreds and thousands. New service will provide 100% uptime, likely less. Claims are to be verified surely.

When scheduled maintenance is executed check further during peak hours or non-peak hours. At peak hours, business will like to lose significant revenue and traffic.

Customer service

While choosing new web hosting provider good customer service is important. Check whether customer service is available always or not, means seven days a week. They must use phone calls, live chat or SMS. Faster communication is possible by these options. User has to visit website of web hosting provider to check credibility.

Factors after zeroing on a web hosting provider

Make Back-up of website

Switching t
o new web hosting provider includes ensuring safe website from many hazards such as file loss including HTML files, applications, images, scripts, plugins and so on. User should make secure files by making backup in a separate machine. One can download all files by using FTP.

Configure email

Ensure to recheck email configuration after migration of website to new web hosting provider. No task leads to email service failure.

DNS propagation and changes

Transfer of new web hosting provider is not complete until updation of DNS and submitted to new service provider. Until, new service provider assign temporary IP address. By this IP address, user can check functionality of website. Anybody has to ensure for domain name change as per requirement. This is necessary for communication for domain registrar. They advise the procedure to change. Task will be easy for user by inbuilt tools of domain registrar.

Internal links should be checked

After completion of transfer process, internal links should be checked using link checking tools. All links has to work same as before transition. Additionally, always check log files and errors and troubleshoot many issues.

Test new website

It is important to recheck the improper working of website in detail. Especially, check features of web pages includes forms, plugins, apps etc.

Cancel old account

Subsequent to closing all processes involved in transition, user needs to close account by former web hosting provider. It is more important to maintain live account backup option till accurate transition will happen.

To convey message on web pages, requesting visitors must have patience during site downtime because of transition. It will provide impression of cause for concerned trouble and will enhance site credibility.

You have so many options when it wants to make online presence by website.Shared hosting is conventional solution which is mostly used for SMBs. In shared hosting many websites reside on one web server connected to the Internet. SiteGeek provides unbiased review and rating for web hosting providers.

iPage Rank No. 1 in offering best shared hosting solution so you can transfer domain with some easy steps.

When customer transfer domain to iPage, Domain.com automatically adds one year time. New customers and existing clients can save up to 60% on each migration of domain.

For transferring domain names customers have to check following points:-

• Domains must be registered for at least 60 days and in unlocked status
• Transfers will succeed only if the Admin Contact information is up-to-date
• You must obtain an authorization code to transfer to Domain.com
• Transfers will take between 5 and 7 days under normal circumstances
• Domains must be valid and already registered with another registrar

Insight Of Linux Hosting

Linux is an open-source system, affordable to operate and less expensive than Windows. It offers several benefits such as it crashes less because it is more stable, scalable and offers high speed. Linux offers support to different kinds of software’s, applications and programming languages including Perl, PostgreSQL and MySQL except some technologies of Microsoft such as ASP, Access, MS SQL as for them Windows hosting server is required.

Linux Web Hosting is reliable, safe and efficient. It offers you with several options to fulfil need of web hosting. PHP is a famous programming language and it is compatible with Linux web hosting. It is also good for programmers who are freshers; not having experience, as Linux hosting allows them to test new things. Most important, it is quite affordable because it does not include overhead expenses because proprietary software is not installed in same. Next, you are not required to run Linux on your PC for hosting your website. It offers one more advantage; it can be used to run your website without considering operating system you choose to run on your computer.

With the advantages, some disadvantages are also there; Linux is not compatible with coding conversions and windows applications and thus from hosting point of view, it is not considered good for those websites which are designed for windows based applications.

2) Linux Systems Commercial and popular uptake

These days, setup of Linux is applied everywhere, used in each domain from embedded systems to powerful mainframe computers and has acquired their place in installation and fitting of server using LAMP application stack. Its use has been growing in business desktop and home desktop. Linux usage is also becoming very popular in netbook market along with devices shipping with Linux installed which can be customized.

Linux has entered in mobile device market with Android. Android is one of latest and most used operating system in tablets, smartphones and latest wearable technology. Valve also support Linux leads to Linux gaming. The distribution of Linux is also becoming very popular in different local and national level of governments, for instance Brazil’s federal government is very famous as it supports Linux a lot. Russian Military has created their own Linux distribution and leads to fruition of G.Host project. Even high schools running in Kerala make compulsory to run Linux on their computers. In Spain, Linux distributions are developed by some regions and are extensively used in formal and teaching establishments such as Guadalinex in Andalusia and gnuLinEx in Extremadura and in official institutions also. Caixa Mágica, a personal Linux dispersion of Portugal is used by country can be used within Magalhães Netbook and e-escola which is a political authority programme. Germany and France also took some action for moving towards to Linux and accepting same. China is also using it as one of their most prominent operating system for their Loongson processor family so as to be technologically independent.

3) Best Linux hosting suppliers

Many of companies offered Linux hosting services but best ones among them are only few:

Bluehost- BlueHost is a reliable and one of the top most company offering Linux hosting solutions since 1996. Its servers are dedicated for MySQL and PHP applications, such as Joomla, WordPress etc. It is independent and technology oriented and having their own redundant servers.

Hostgator- Since starting, Hostgator is known as the most reliable web hosting provider. They offer most flexible web hosting packages, various supporting options and great uptime record. Basic features of web hosting, user friendly tools for building the website and notable domain capabilities offered by the company.

GoDaddy- GoDaddy also comes under the list of the top web hosting companies. It offers great Linux web hosting solutions. Various web hosting features through different plans with good level of customer and technology support is offered.

1) Rapidly changing domain names creates a cover for cybercriminals

As we have seen in last few years, inspite of having a good security system, Cybercrime has increased a lot. Many of the websites has been hacked, login details of users are stolen, confidential and personal data is misused and others. And when research is done to find reasons behind this, our researchers have found that domain names are rapidly changing on Web which results in weakens effectiveness of security controls and leads to creation of a cover for cybercriminals.

2) Weakens the effectiveness of security controls

Effectiveness of security controls is getting weaker and researchers done research on this also to know the main causes behind this. Researchers have analysed 660 million hostnames at Blue Coat, a security vendor and came to know that out of this, only 470 million hostnames existed and that also for even less than a day. Result is that only 71% of the hostnames existed.

To catch web threats, Companies who are using products of Blue Coat requested for various domain names for a period of 90 days. Most of domain names which are throwaway belonged to Yahoo, Amazon, Google i.e. legitimate businesses and to blogging platforms, Web optimization companies and webhosting services.

Domain names are frequently changing for years, but one thing which is very interesting found, by the researcher, Tim van der Horst of Blue Coat, about numbers, is scale.

Blue Coat also found that out of top 50 parent domains by whom short-lived hostnames are generated, out of 5 only 1 was malicious.

But if we compare the no. of hostnames which are generated by legitimate businesses to the amount of criminal activity, then it was found that latter is very small as compared to former one. And out of total no. of domain names which were examined on just one day, it was found that only 0.43 % largest malicious parent domains were generated.

3) Role of Domain Generation Algorithms (DGAs)

DGAs played a significant role in weaken the effectiveness of security controls. In the several families of malware, domain generation algorithms (DGAs)were used, results in the no .of the malicious hostnames. Command-and-control servers exact and real location was hided by the fake names and this task performed by DGAs very well as they create the fake names in large no. Nevertheless, if someone consider the usage of real malicious hostnames, then their small number is also significant.

4) Criminals use the sites for

Sites are used by the criminals for drive and this is done by downloads and by hosting the kits which are exploited. Malware is downloaded by the kits to the victims computers and via phishing attack lured to the location. And to prevent the interaction between command-and-control servers and compromised computers, short-term hostnames are used.

As domain names are rapidly changing, thus correlation between all the attacks and detection was avoided. And companies could not rely only on the blacklists to avoid the malicious hostnames, they required systems also meant for prevention or intrusion detection and anti-virus softwares which must be updated from time to time.

5) Granular policy control and other threat mitigation actions

Granular policy control, in order to create this, risk value on domain names must be assigned by the technology on the basis of several factors such as on the popularity of the website, links to other sites, on the same IP address number of other sites hosted and on the basis of those sites ratings. With this, there must be a transient hostnames baseline also which is either malicious or secure.

According to Blue Coat, alerts and other threat mitigation actions are caused by a potential compromise which was constituted by detecting an anomaly from that baseline.

Here this article brings you some major differences between unmanaged hosting and managed hosting. Hope these differences helps you to understand which hosting is right choice for your business. But before this, let’s see concept of unmanaged hosting and managed hosting.

Unmanaged Hosting

As name suggests, this kind of hosting is not managed by others for you. From starting to end, everything needs to be take care by you. Here, a web hosting provider rent you a server and entire responsibility of handling of server and keep your site up, falls on you, whether you have technical expertise or not.

Managed Hosting

It is simply reverse of above. Here, a provider takes the complete responsibility of managing your server. Their team of professionals monitored your server for 24 *7 and 365 days to keep your site up and perform well. Their customer support is readily available to support you anytime of the day.

Now here presents some basic differences which assist you to make right choice for your business.

1. Security

Managed hosting handle issues related to security well. Providers offers tools by which viruses are scan, spams are filter, security audits run, software firewalls are configured and OS updates offered and in unmanaged hosting, you have to take care of all this.

2. Backups

In managed hosting, providers offers proper back up of data, as this is detrimental for you but in unmanaged hosting, all depends on you.

3. Monitoring of Server

In managed hosting, System admin monitor your servers for 24*7 to make network available for your clients all the time but in unmanaged hosting, you need some technical expertise to handle this, as a common man don’t understand servers and their handling session.

4. Storage and Database management

In managed hosting, system admin manage storage needs of your site so that space is properly utilised and scaled thereby saving some money, and database admin design database as per your need and manage the same. But on the other hand, in unmanaged, you need to manage both on your own basis or hire these professionals.

5. Time is precious

As time is very precious for small as well as for large business owners, so if they spend the same to focus on strategies and ways for growing their business, their time will be better utilized. And instead of this, if they spend their time on looking and handling servers for all day, they will be in a big trouble. So, it’s better if we used services of managed hosting, as this part will be handled by their professionals in a proper manner and saves us time.

6. Cost-Effective

Managed hosting is more expensive then unmanaged hosting. As its services include many things, so obviously, it will be more costly to you but if you cannot afford, then opt for fully managed hosting solution. Providers offer various plans in managed hosting, so before selecting the one, go through their features, support, price and other relevant factors, surely you choose the right plan.

7. Meets your specific business needs

In Managed hosting plan, experts offers you solutions by which your specific business needs can be meet in the best possible way and in your budget too. But unfortunately, in unmanaged hosting, no experts are available, its only you.

Conclusion

I hope you understand the differences between these two kinds of hosting. It is clearly defined, managed hosting is better in almost each and every way than unmanaged hosting. So, now surely you can make the right choice for your business.