Tools for a Hosting Company - Website Bulder

Rodney Ringler is President of Advantage1 Web Services, Inc., which owns a network of Web Hosting Informational Websites including Web Hosting Providers - HostChart, Reseller Hosting Providers - ResellerConnection, Budget Web Hosting - FoundHost.com, ResellerForums.com, and HostingKnowledge.net. Rodney has over 15 years industry experience from programming to internet marketing. Thanks to him for this article.

In today's very competitive world of web hosting it is hard for a hosting company to set itself apart from the competition. Prices, storage and bandwidth have become such a commodity that adding additional features is about the only way. One feature that is becoming popular is offering your customers a Website Builder tool. These tools allow a user to build a professional looking website in minutes without writing any code or having to be a technical person. They are great packages to attract the novice or beginner to your hosting company. Many find their web hosting company through the website designers they use. Now a hosting company can offer a website builder tool that bypasses the website designer and allows the web host to provide it all.

These packages vary in functionality and costs but they all provide the same basics. A user selects from a set of pre-built templates. The template is the graphic design or "look" of the website. The user then enters company information like name, logo, address, and email. Next you select which subpages you want and enter text and images for them. And finally, for the advanced packages, you select additional pre-built functionality to include such as a photo album, blog, forum, of shopping cart. That's it and you have a professional looking website. The user then has a control panel to log into to make changes, add pages, etc.

Some people love these packages and some people hate them. It really depends on your programming ability and goals. If you want a website that's easy to build and you doesn't need a lot of customization then these packages are great. If you are a programmer and want specific functionality or design then you will find these products very confining.

For this article we researched 4 products, SwSoft's SiteBuilder, SiteGalore, SiteReptile, and RV StieBuilder. In general, by size, costs, and features, SiteGalore is the largest, then SiteBuilder, followed by SiteReptile and RV SiteBuilder. We were disappointed with the response and website from SiteGalore. They did not offer prices or a demo on their website. They require a form to be filled out to request each of these, which we did, and have still not heard back after 3 days. All of the other sites have prices and demos right on their website. So, even though, SiteGalore is the largest we do not recommend them. We have found that value propostion means a lot in a business relationship. If you are one small customer to a large company then what kind of attention will they give you? If a site cannot be responsive when they are trying to sell you their product don't expect it when you need support.

Below is a table we have built comparing the costs and functionality of the 4 products. We recommend Swsoft's SiteBuilder first for it's overall features and low cost. If you need cPanel integration then SiteReptile is your best choice. RV sitebuilder is a new product and is still lacking some key functionality.

SwSoft's SiteBuilder
Price - $19.90/month($199 onetime fee) 100 websites
Control Panel - Plesk
Templates - 300+ templates
Pre-Built Functionality - photo gallery, e-shop, PayPal, blogs, voting

SiteGalore
Prices - Not online. No reply after 2 days
Control Panel - None
Templates - 900+ designs, 15,000+ templates, flash intros
Pre-Built Functionailty - photo album, blog, online shop, customized forms

SiteReptile
Price - $9.95/month($159 onetime fee) 100 websites, your brand
Control Panel - cPanel, Plesk, Ensim, DirectAdmin
Templates - 100+ templates
Pre-Built Functionality - news, polling, photo album

RV SiteBuilder
Price - $6/month unlimited, your brand
Control Panel - cPanel
Templates - 50+ templates
Pre-Built Functionality - page effects, guestbook

There are many more products on the market and this just 4 of them. We tried to pick 2 large ones, a medium one, and a small startup. All of these products will add functionality to attract the beginner website builder to your hosting plans. This will be well worth the monthly or one time license fee that they charge. The fees are relatively low compared to the functionality added to your company. We recommend all personal web hosting and budget web hosting companies add a website builder tool to their business.

Website Builder Makes Websites Designed Professionally

Special thanks to Mark Gerrard, the development manager of the Freestart Website Builder Platform. Below this you can see how the website builder makes websites designed professionally.

Operating your business requires the right amount of finesse, rapport with customers and the unshakable faith that you will succeed.

You’re a business owner and you’re always looking for new avenues of growth. You’ve been mulling over the idea of having a website ever since you went to your business development conference and they informed you that having a website will boost your sales and give you another outlet for your products or services.

You’ve performed your research; however, you’re more confused than ever. There seems to be so many different ways that a website can be designed, the computer languages it takes, uploading, downloading, FTP; so many names and so confusing.

As a result of so many businesses confused about what a website can do, an informal survey of prospective and current website owners was conducted. These are its findings:

1. Inexpensive Website Building
2. Professional Design
3. Have Access to Changes From Any PC
4. Customer Service With Real ‘live’ Human Beings
5. High Uptime (99%)
6. Network Status Availability
7. Common Control Panel

Inexpensive website building doesn’t mean that you won’t pay to get the job done right the first time. What it means is that you’re not going to spend $50,000 on a 2 page website. You expect and deserve value for your money.

Along with an inexpensive website, a professionally designed website or a website that looks professionally designed is also important. You don’t want an outdated design style because this will drive away prospective customers.

In order not to drive away potential customers, you also require the ability to provide changes to your website wherever you are that has Internet connection. For example, you’re on vacation and your Uncle calls you to tell you that something on your website isn’t spelled correctly and can affect sales. So you log on from your hotel and within 15 minutes the problem is solved. Can you imagine if you had to wait until you arrived home? By that time, your stress level would have increased and you would need another vacation!

Another area that tends to stress new and old website business owners is the ability to speak with a real person when it comes to customer service. Customer service and real human contact is important to forge real business bonds. This allows transparency of operations for the website company and provides another element of trust for the customer.

A website business couldn’t be successful unless the computers that are storing those files (hosting) are functioning 99% of the time. If those computers are down, that means that potential customers may not be able to reach your website and will look at another to get what they want.

Another important aspect is network status availability. This is related to high uptime. What network status availability means to you, the website business owner is that the network that connects those computers that ‘host’ your files is also functioning. For example, the computers may be fine, however if the network has issues, then those computers won’t be able to communicate with Internet users, thus resulting in potentially lost business.

Controlling your website and its content from one central area is also important. Usually, this is called a ‘control panel.’ This allows you to re-set passwords, see website statistics (number of visitors etc) and can help you manage the content of your website. This tool should be relatively straightforward and self-explanatory. It may take you some time to understand, however shouldn’t require a Ph.D. in computer science to operate.

These 7 steps can help guide you to having a successfully built website. Take a look at what your requirements are and don’t hesitate to ask whether these 7 items will be delivered. In order to eliminate the doubt, hesitation and lack of trust that can be associated with business transactions and website building, the website owner needs to be reassured that what they’re paying for, they’re getting.

With a successful website builder, your business can attain another level of success.

Using Easy and Affordable Online Website Builder

Jay Peterson www.TicTacWebsites.com is the easiest do-it-yourself website builder on the web. No programming or design skill required.

Over the years, the internet has proven to be an effective solution that transforms the way we do business. It doesn’t matter if you are selling a product or a service. The Internet can help you in reaching markets that had otherwise been unreachable in the past.

Before, many businesses especially start ups as well as small to mid size businesses, having a website that includes the usual E-commerce capabilities is just not in their budget.

Constructing merchant accounts and secure servers can get quite costly. Building a website may also mean encountering errors and severe time consumptions. Which is why, you must hire or use an online website builder. But what is an online website builder? Is there any affordable online website builder out there?

Well, an online website builder is an organization or software that can help you build your own web sites. It is also true that you can find a lot of online website builders, which offers affordable prices for guiding you in building your own website.

An affordable online website builder can guide you step-by-step through every aspect of setting up your own web site. One good thing about an affordable online website builder is that it guides your imagination and creativity without making you expenses higher.

It may sound impossible, but you may find an affordable online website builder that can help you create your own web site within minutes. It can also help you create professionally designed web sites that can astound your potential customers or web surfers.

An online website builder can also help you in controlling how each page is laid out and what elements on it look like. An online website builder can provide its users with options about color scheme, page layout, kinds of pages you want. They can give you with different codes that will help you make your web pages snappier or more captivating.

You can also use an online website builder without any time-consuming classes. With the help of an affordable online website builder you can create a website even if you don’t have any knowledge about HTML. You can create websites without programming skills and web site designing skills.

An online website builder can provide you with graphic design and website building solutions to improve the capabilities of your sites. You pick the look you want and the features you want; pick some pictures, write some text, and that's it.

If you are building an e commerce website, an online website builder can also help you automate billing, invoice handling, accounting, and report generation tools to make your web sites easier to manage and handle sales.

An online website builder usually has options that can help you in expanding your web site and present a business-like appearance to your potential clients.

These affordable online website builder options usually include shopping cart, ecommerce, secure server certificates, business email, and subscriber management.

It’s a good thing that the Internet offers easy ways of finding an affordable online website builder. All you have to do is to use a reliable online search engine and put the word “web site builder”, then presto, you’ll have a wide list of online website builders. With all these, what can you ask for? Go ahead and build yourself a website.

The Benefits and Uses of Olive Oil

First of all I want to thanks to Laura Ng and Anne Ahira for this article. I hope you enjoy this, and I hope it is useful too.

Why use olive oil?

Olive oil is high in monounsaturated fatty acids (mainly oleic acid), which, unlike saturated fat, do not adversely affect the levels of blood cholesterol and may even help reduce a bit. For those who suffer from constipation, take more frequently as olive oil that helps lubricate the intestine and eliminate waste from our body, and its cure constipation.

Olive oil also provides natural antioxidants (called polyphenols), which helps reduce the risk of heart disease and cancer.

Why olive oil catergorises in different types?

The flavor of olive oil varies, depending on the source, the variety of olive, soil conditions, climate, etc. Some of the major sources are from Spain, Italy, France, Greece, Portugal, Turkey, Tunisia, Morocco, and California. Some olive oils are of a single variety of oils, but others, like most Italian oils are blends of oils from different types of olives in different countries.

What is the difference between "Virgin", "extra virgin", "fine" and "refined" olive oil?

The oil produced from the first pressing of olives mature is often the purest form, which is called virgin. Extra virgin olive oil simply means the first pressing is particularly low in acid - less than 1%. Virgin olive oil can be as much as 4% of acid. Fine or olive oil is a mixture of extra virgin and virgin olive oil, with an acidity of no more than 3%.

To squeeze more oil from the olives mature, modern methods of extraction pressure, heat and chemical solvents are applied. These refined oils can be mixed with virgin oil to replace some of the flavors lost in processing, and sold as pure olive oil or olive oil.

In some countries, they both may also face the light of olive oil, which is lower in calories, but that has been so thinly as filtered to eliminate most of its color and fragrance (and flavor). He has a point higher than the smoke of other types of olive oil, although it is well suited for frying at high temperatures.

For the best qualities, we must go to the "virgin" or "extra virgin", since olive oil has a fruity taste and rich, not turn rancid as quickly and are more easily digestible for petroleum refining.

For nutritional values, which are the same. However, the extra virgin oil, which is low in the level of acidity contains more antioxidants.

Where is the olive oil used?

Compared with other vegetable oils, olive oil only has enough flavor to replace butter and margarine for a healthier choice. Due to its pure state, the extra virgin oil is often used as a garnish in salads or as a dip for bread.

Kitchen light or olive oil is suitable for deep frying. It may seem expensive to use for frying foods, but the fact that oil is four to five times more resistant to heat the vegetable oil mean that can be recycled for frying foods many more times before the oil starts to break.

Does Olive oil loses its nutritional value when heated?

Olive oil, when heated to high temperatures, will make their alcohols and esters to evaporate. Esters are forming olive oil delicate flavor and fragrance. So the heat only change the flavor of olive oil, but not their nutritional content. We recommend using a cheaper, such as olive oil and refined oil for frying light, and then add one more flavorful olive oil after cooking.

Will the food be any lower in nutrition if cooked in olive oil?

Heating food decompose its nutritional value. High heat, as frying is worse than moderate heat and steam, which is worse than eating raw vegetables. It is not the cooking oil itself, but the high heat of frying.

Most nutritionists recommend lightly steamed vegetables or eating them raw. A touch of a tasty olive oil added to the table added flavor and healthy antioxidants. This is what "Mediterranean diet" is about, which has been shown to help prevent heart disease and have other health benefits.

Storing olive oil?

Keep away from heat, ie the stove, to prevent ageing of the oil. Best keep a large container in a dark, cool cupboard and pour a small amount into a dispenser for everyday use. The container can be made of plastic, stainless steel or glass tinted.

Alternatively, you can store the oil in the refrigerator or freezer, which will greatly extend their useful life. Do not worry about the wax crystallized in the oil when cold. All you have to do is heat the oil back to room temperature to which it is based.