by: Rodney Ringler
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.
About The Author
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.
3 Options For Hosting Multiple Websites
by: John Lenaghan
The prices of domain name registration and web hosting have dropped to the point that it's possible to own multiple websites without going broke. If you plan to operate multiple websites, here is some information on the different options available to you.
The first thing to consider when setting up multiple websites is whether or not to host them all with the same web hosting company. Many web hosts offer packages that let you set up multiple sites on a single account and almost all will let you set up multiple accounts, one for each site.
If you are happy with the hosting company you're using for your existing website(s), one advantage of using them for another site is the fact that you know they offer good service and support.
They might also offer discounts for multiple sites, so your costs might be lower if you stay with them again.
On the other hand, if you choose a different host you'll be able to compare the quality of another company with whomever you're currently using. If you ever run into problems with them, you'll have an alternative. It's wise not to "put all your eggs in one basket" as the saying goes.
Another advantage of using a different host is that you'll get a different IP address for each of your sites. If your sites are related to one another and you want to link them together, having different IP addresses can sometimes help your site rank higher in the search engines.
Links from other sites are one of the most important factors in getting your site ranked highly. If those links come from sites on the same IP address, it is a signal to the search engines that they are quite likely all owned by the same person, and they may discount the value of those links.
If you do choose to host all your sites with one company, there are essentially 3 choices - separate accounts for each site, a reseller account where they are all hosted or a dedicated server, again where they are all hosted.
Separate accounts are self-explanatory, so let's look at reseller accounts. As a reseller, you are basically acting as an agent for the hosting company - a middleman between them and the end user.
The idea is that you can set up your own company offering web hosting that is ultimately hosted by the company. You don't have to resell this hosting however - you can use the hosting services for your own websites, essentially "reselling" the hosting to yourself.
A reseller account is nice because all your websites are "under one roof" and you have a single point of contact for any technical problems.
Hosting on a dedicated server gives you complete control of the computer that is the web server. You can install any software you want, any operating system you want and you can allocate resources like memory and hard disk space however you want to divide it up between your sites.
The disadvantage of a dedicated server is that you are responsible for maintaining the server and sometimes even for the technical side of things. If you aren't familiar with the technical side of running a web server, you may need to choose a managed dedicated server, where the hosting company looks after these issues.
Dedicated server are, of course, more expensive than the other options, so unless your websites are well established, with a lot of traffic, they may not fit within your budget.
About The Author
John Lenaghan writes about web hosting and other related topics for the Hosting Report website. For more information, visit http://www.hostingreport.org
The prices of domain name registration and web hosting have dropped to the point that it's possible to own multiple websites without going broke. If you plan to operate multiple websites, here is some information on the different options available to you.
The first thing to consider when setting up multiple websites is whether or not to host them all with the same web hosting company. Many web hosts offer packages that let you set up multiple sites on a single account and almost all will let you set up multiple accounts, one for each site.
If you are happy with the hosting company you're using for your existing website(s), one advantage of using them for another site is the fact that you know they offer good service and support.
They might also offer discounts for multiple sites, so your costs might be lower if you stay with them again.
On the other hand, if you choose a different host you'll be able to compare the quality of another company with whomever you're currently using. If you ever run into problems with them, you'll have an alternative. It's wise not to "put all your eggs in one basket" as the saying goes.
Another advantage of using a different host is that you'll get a different IP address for each of your sites. If your sites are related to one another and you want to link them together, having different IP addresses can sometimes help your site rank higher in the search engines.
Links from other sites are one of the most important factors in getting your site ranked highly. If those links come from sites on the same IP address, it is a signal to the search engines that they are quite likely all owned by the same person, and they may discount the value of those links.
If you do choose to host all your sites with one company, there are essentially 3 choices - separate accounts for each site, a reseller account where they are all hosted or a dedicated server, again where they are all hosted.
Separate accounts are self-explanatory, so let's look at reseller accounts. As a reseller, you are basically acting as an agent for the hosting company - a middleman between them and the end user.
The idea is that you can set up your own company offering web hosting that is ultimately hosted by the company. You don't have to resell this hosting however - you can use the hosting services for your own websites, essentially "reselling" the hosting to yourself.
A reseller account is nice because all your websites are "under one roof" and you have a single point of contact for any technical problems.
Hosting on a dedicated server gives you complete control of the computer that is the web server. You can install any software you want, any operating system you want and you can allocate resources like memory and hard disk space however you want to divide it up between your sites.
The disadvantage of a dedicated server is that you are responsible for maintaining the server and sometimes even for the technical side of things. If you aren't familiar with the technical side of running a web server, you may need to choose a managed dedicated server, where the hosting company looks after these issues.
Dedicated server are, of course, more expensive than the other options, so unless your websites are well established, with a lot of traffic, they may not fit within your budget.
About The Author
John Lenaghan writes about web hosting and other related topics for the Hosting Report website. For more information, visit http://www.hostingreport.org
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