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Net Presence
(net prez'ns) n. the state or fact of playing a
significant role in enhancing the Internet. More than simply connecting
to the Internet, establishing a net.presence is accomplished through
activities such as publishing quality information of interest to others,
establishing appropriate links between your information and other
relevant items on the net, and participating in a constructive role
in on-line forums such as Internet newsgroups.
How would you like to increase your business without spending a lot of
money? Establish a net presence with a web site created and built by
the staff at Parker Information Resources.
Sell Or Tell?
Can the Web evolve into a viable forum for selling products and services?
Or will it act primarily as an information resource? "I'm confident this
will become another place where business happens," says Steve Painter,
electronic commerce marketing manager for Digital Equipment Corp. in
Marlboro, Mass. "In the last two years, we've watched the typically upward
slope curve for selling electronically go almost vertical."
What works on the Web, and what doesn't?
"People come to the Internet for information, so companies that post a lot
about their products are going to succeed," says Bill Parker, a Houston
consultancy that helps companies establish a Web presence.
Speed Feed
The need for high information content, while true of all online selling,
is intensified on the Web because of hypertext links that allow users to
access related topics through graphical browsers like Mosaic, Netscape, and
Internet Explorer--and enable
"tie-in" sales. An online listing of a tax preparation software program,
for example, could contain links that would allow the user to order books
on tax-free investments or general financial planning.
In public appearances, Microsoft Corp. chairman and CEO Bill Gates likes
to screen futuristic videos in which computers are harnessed to assist all
kinds of everyday activities. But for his next speech, Gates might
consider the car-buying experience of Cory Van Arsdale, a Microsoft staff
attorney who recently purchased a new Volvo 850. Every phase of the
sale--excepting Van Arsdale's test drive--was handled on the Internet's
World Wide Web.
'Cool Thing To Do'
As they would be with any new technology, companies considering selling on
the Web should be wary of the hype, experts say. "A lot of people are
putting up Web sites just because they can; it's the cool thing to do,"
says Lynn Bolger, VP of corporate media at ad agency Foote Cone &Belding
(FCB) in New York. "At many sites the execution isn't very good, especially
with fancy graphics that take forever to download. In the long run,
the Web has to save the customer money and add value."
The Web is becoming very crowded very fast. That's because companies
recognize that "the potential market is huge, given the installed base
of computers," says Bolger of FCB. "But there are a lot of channels on
that frequency called the Internet."
That said, a company's Web site had better be well-planned and
well-executed. Because changing channels on the Web is almost as easy for
potential customers as clicking the TV
remote. Stay tuned.
The staff at Parker Information Resources will design an attractive and
attention-grabbing Web Site, place it on the World Wide Web and index it
so folks looking for your products or services can find you. Every day
around the world, companies like yours are establishing a presence on the
Web. For small one-man organizations to multinational corporations,
businesses can benefit from exposure on this rapidly emerging medium.
Services of A Good Webhost
Here are some services offered by most hosting services. Comparison
shop to find the best deals. Many hosts lean towards Microsoft
technology although some of the biggest and most stable websites
are hosted on Unix and Sun Sparc Stations. Unix is preferred. However most of the
new website owners do host on an NT/2000/2003 environment.
<> SSAhost.Com (this is the one we use)
SSAhost.Com offers web hosting plans to fit virtually all
business needs on the web. Starting at $10.00 per month you get:
Free web hosting or paid -- which should I choose?
When looking for a web hosting solution the first choice the user often
has to make is whether to choose one of the varieties of free hosting
available, or to pay a web hosting company. There are several factors
that may weigh your decision one way or another -- let's look at some of
them.
The biggest advantage of free web hosting is that it's, well, free.
There, choice made, now what? Not so fast -- not only is that the biggest
advantage, it is also just about the only advantage, and you may find
that the disadvantages of free web hosting will make it a bad choice.
What are these disadvantages? Firstly, let's look at the domain name,
the name by which your web site is found. By choosing a free web host,
your name may be, for example "www.geocities.com/yourname". This would
be fine for some users, for instance if all that was needed was a page
for a small club, but for most companies seeking to establish a Web
presence the ability to be able to use a domain name in the style of
"yourname.com" is essential.
Free web hosting will also limit the amount of hard disk space you will
be able to use. Again, not necessarily a problem for a small site, but
for the user that needs more space, maybe for a large number of pages,
or pages with high graphics content, the amount of space available may
not be sufficient.
Also restricted will be the amount of bandwidth, or transfer, that your
visitors will be able to use. It's no use trying to run a business on
the Web if all your customers see towards the end of the month is a page
saying that "This site has exceeded its bandwidth allowance, please try
again next month". That is not something that would inspire your
customers to have faith in your products.
You may find that some of the more sophisticated services, such as Perl,
CGI or PHP that are being used more and more nowadays on the Internet
are not available if you choose to use a free service. You may also find
that shopping carts are not available, or that the service is not set up
to allow the secure use of credit card transactions to make purchases.
Finally, advertising revenue. A free web hosting service is paid for by
the advertisements and pop-ups which appear on the pages hosted by them.
Not only will you have no control over which advertisements appear on
your site, but also you will receive no revenue from them.
So, think carefully before you opt for a free service. For an individual
or small group, the cost factor may outweigh the disadvantages above. A
company will probably find that the choice of free hosting will put
limits on their growth that are unacceptable.
What is web hosting?
Web hosting is the act of housing, maintaining and serving files for a
website. The role of a web hosting company is to provide 24/7 connection
to the Internet by maintaining a network of complicated, high-end and
expensive servers. Today, there are probably hundreds or even thousands
of web hosting packages to choose from, so always make a comparison of
the features, rates and quality of service to get the best value for
your money.
Do I need web hosting?
If you want to have a website which can be accessed by an online user
from any computer around the world with an Internet connection, then you
need web hosting. It takes a complicated and expensive network of
servers to host any website so the expense of subscribing to a web
hosting company is definitely worth it. Take the time to check and
compare the top 10 web hosting companies to see which one suits your
needs best.
How do I compare web hosting packages?
When choosing the best web hosting provider to go with, make a
comparison of the monthly fee, reliability, features, quality of
customer support and the ease of use of the control panel. Today, there
are hundreds of web hosting companies in operation so comparing these
aspects of the web hosting package is a must. Our top 10 comparison
chart was created so it is easy for you to compare and choose the best
web hosting provider.
What is disk space?
In the web hosting industry, disk space refers to the physical space
that a website occupies on the server -- which holds all the files that
your site is composed of. Every web hosting package has a maximum limit
for the amount of disk space that you can use. For example if you have a
site with a lot of images or videos you will need a lot more disk space,
so this is something which should be considered.
What is bandwidth?
Simply put, bandwidth is the amount of traffic which your website is
allowed to handle. Bandwidth is typically measured in Gigabytes. For
example, one normal-sized letter in a web page will take up one byte. A
typical photo can take up about one kilobyte and videos or other
multimedia files can take millions of bytes. Make sure that your web
hosting provider can support the traffic and the amount of data passing
through your network.
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