If you have a website that is involved in eCommerce,a website makes an important aspect of your business.An eCommerce website requires maximum level of security.In addition to that,it is useful to have the complete access to the server on which your website is hosted.There are various web hosting solutions offered by web hosting providers but very few offer Low Cost Dedicated Servers that are reliable enough.

For some Dedicated Server hosting is not so well known concept.Usually most users when wish to start an online venture,the host sets up the account on a Shared Server.Such servers does not offer the maximum level of security and access to the server.In this type of web hosting,the server resources are shared between various users hosted on the same server.Such servers face greater security threats.Hence when you intend to start an eCommerce website,it is recommended to host your website on a Dedicated Server.With a dedicated server you get higher security and access to the server.You have the complete rights for making any changes to the server.The server is not shared with any other user,that means there is much lesser threats to your website.

There are several advantages of hosting your website/s on a Dedicated Server.Below are some  major points of having your website hosted on a Dedicated Server.

a) Server Security: A Dedicated Server adds majorly to the security of your website and your website data.Since yours is the only account set up on the server, unlike shared servers, the chances of mistakes made by webmasters gets majorly reduced.

b) Storage: A Dedicated Server is entirely leased by a single customer,therefore there is huge storage space for your eCommerce website,web pages,images and videos.Some Web Hosting service providers offer customization of dedicated server,hence you may ask for additional hard disk drive on your server just in case you run out of storage space.

c) Data Transfer: With a dedicated server you get more bandwidth for data transfer.The websites hosted on a dedicated server responds quicker than the ones hosted on other hosting types.So no matter how much traffic your website incur,the website would still get loaded faster and without any hassle.

d) Web Hosting Control Panel: When you have your own server, you have more opportunities to control its tasks and utilities.With a control panel,the server management becomes fairly simple.You can create,delete,modify etc accounts using the control panel.Different control panels are offered by different web hosts to manage Linux Web Servers as well as Windows Dedicated Servers.

Its not that Dedicated Server has advantages only, there are few disadvantages as well.The only disadvantageous factor is the cost for the server.Since the dedicated server is entirely leased by you,the web host does not have the chance to create any other account/s on the server, therefore,these servers as sold at more costs than the other hosting solutions.One can find many hosts who offer Low Cost Reliable Dedicated Servers.

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Most of the users do have a feeling that why spend on hosting a website on the servers offered by Web Hosting service provider and instead opt. to host it yourself on a home computer.Actually,there are many benefits of choosing a Reliable web hosting company to host your website instead of hosting your own personal,business or ecommerce website. To name a few, technical support, data backups, flexibility to upgrade,website security,data security etc. are advantages of hosting a website on a Web server offered by a Web Hosting provider.
Technical support for your website is the key factor associated with Web Hosting. A Web Hosting company has well qualified dedicated network and server administrators that has expertise in handling server related issues and queries.Most of the reputed web hosting service providers offer 24×7 support,which is not possible if your website is hosted on your own at your home computer.
The Web servers offered by web hosting providers are connected to the Internet 24×7,which is  utmost important for your website to be accessible to visitors over the Internet.Whereas, it would not be possible for a home computer to be online 24×7.If due to some reason a self hosted website has some issue or there is an hardware failure,the website for sure would be inaccessible,resulting in loss of revenue and customer as well. Therefore,it is very important that your website is hosted on good quality,reliable servers offered by a Web Host.
When you choose a hosting company you can rely on technical support which is reliable and available 24 hours 365 days.Most of the reputed Web Hosting providers operate even on Social Holidays and weekends,hence you can ask for technical support even on those days.
In addition, the support staff of the host, include people with expertise in various niche, therefore you can be rest assured,no matter what problem you have regarding your website.You need not be stuck trying to figure out functionalities on your own.
When you choose a hosting company you can avail the benefits of backups.Depending on the host, you are not required to purchase a backup server nor will you have to worry about recovering files. If you don’t run your own backups and the files of your site are deleted then you may be looking at long periods of downtime while you rebuild your site from scratch. Whereas if your website is hosted with a reliable web hosting server, you may restore the back up at anypoint of time and save the downtime.
Flexibility is one of the most useful advantage of hosting a web site with a hosting company. When you want to integrate new features or upgrade to a higher server,it can be done in few minutes from the time you raise the request.When you choose a web hosting provider,it is important that you make sure that they offer flexible upgrade options. Flexibility is very important but it is not offered by every provider. Most users face this issue when resources allocated by the host starts falling short and there is a need to upgrade to a higher and better server.So one must make sure that your short listed web hosting company offers flexibility in upgrading the package.
Security is the most important factor  when it comes to Website hosting.If you have a web site that involves online transactions,it is important that there are enough security measures taken inorder to safeguard yours as well as your customers banking details.A reputed web host offers servers that are applied with ample security measures and online attack protection systems.Inorder to further strengthen your website,you may ask the web hosting provider to provide an SSL certificate for your domain.

In addition to the above mentioned benefits, there are various types of Web Hosting services that are available to users such as Dedicated Server Hosting,Virtual Private Server (VPS) Hosting,Reseller Website Hosting and Shared Web Hosting.You can choose any out of these as per your website requirements.You may also contact the hosting provider to help you choose an appropriate package based on your requirements.
These benefits of hosting a website with a Web Hosting provider instead of hosting it on your own can help you get rid of some major drawbacks of hosting a website on your own.
Remember to check out that the web host offers Reliable hardware,24×7 technical support,back-up service and prompt response to your issues.

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If you are planning to make your store live on the Internet,it is necessary to host your website with a Web Hosting provider who offers support for E-commerce websites.With an ecommerce website, you can create your own custom store and sell products or services online.

Starting an ecommerce business is pretty simple.There is no high cost involved to start such a website.A well designed user friendly ecommerce website can generate revenue in no time.But,due to the ever growing competition over the Internet, having your website optimized is most essential.Below are few steps that can help to set-up a successful ecommerce website.

Choosing A Correct Niche
Finding and choosing the appropriate niche is the first steps towards setting up an eCommerce website.If you already have a business which involves selling products or services and you wish to lauch the same business online, Or if you are setting up a new online business, it is important that you get your website designed from a professional web developer.It is recommended to decide a niche of your personal interest. For example if you own or have interest in Computer Peripherals,Computer Games and accessories,you can start with selling them online using an eCommerce website.It is better to choose a niche that is most liked by you or you have a hobby of those things.This helps you add an extra effort when working on it which would take a leap ahead of your competitor.

Research About The Niche
Once you have jotted down few ideas of your interested niche,you must explore each of them a little deeper.You must carry out a research about how many people would be interested in your products or services? Where would be your targeted customers,with this it means from which geographic location you expect the customers to purchase your services? Get an average of the total search made by users about your products and services. It is better to decide the geo location of the targeted audience prior to the launch of your ecommerce website.

Analyse Your Competitors
It is very important to know your competitors.A thorough research about your competitors is very important.Ample time needs to be spent on studying your competitors website.Factors such as prices,services,products etc. needs to be closely monitored.You need to understand the steps that your competitor has taken to get better position than your website.

Decide a Proper Business Plan
Every thing has a goal, therefore before your website goes live, it is important that you have a well formulated business plan in place.Include the site Theme,Goals,Business Strategies and the Steps would be taking in future to lead your business to success.Prepare a chart that would describe your expenditure,sales,profits and other factors.This would prove helpful when you wish to make some tweaky changes to your strategy.Try to build a strategy that can boost your sales.

Website Creation
Now,once all the above mentioned points are in place, it is time to register a domain name that is most suitable or relevant to your niche. If your products are designed to target customers from across the globe, it is recommended to have a domain name with an extension “.com”, whereas if you are tergeting customers from The UK or India, you should get a domain registered with an extension .co.uk or .co.in respectively. Relevant keywords of your niche must be chosen when registering a domain name.
It is very important to create a good design to make a unique first impression.A well described product line is always appreciated by visitors and the search engines.

Shopping Cart
There are various shopping cart softwares offered by webhosting service providers.You may also opt to use a third party cart of your choice, but first you must get it confirmed from the Web Hosting service provider. You may take advice of the web host to choose an appropriate shopping cart for your products.

Gaining Exposure
Once you are done with registering a domain and ready with your ecommerce website, it is time to go online.In addition to all the above mentioned factors it is important that you choose an appropriate web hosting service provider.
Now arrives the most crucial part of promoting your website and gaining exposure.In short promoting your website over the Internet and the local market.

Please refer the following links to know more about online promotion techniques:
SEO and SEM effective for Boosting the Productivity.
Link Building : One of the Most Important factor of SEO.

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Today more and more people are becoming aware of the hazards of insufficient online security measures. Its time to become smart and start taking online security seriously. The first step towards this is to have a padlock icon and the prefix ‘https’ in the address bar, to ensure the safety of your online information. It is a common trend these days that visitors tend to go back if your website isn’t secured by an SSL certificate.

An SSL Certificate, also abbreviated as Secure Socket Layer, is a digital certificate which authenticates the identity of a Website. It also encrypts the information before sending it to the server. An SSL Certificate acts as an online digital passport that contains the credentials of the online business. When an Internet user tries to send confidential information over the internet to the server, the users browser accesses the server’s digital certificate and establishes a secure connection.

Below is the information that is contained in the SSL Certificate:

a) Name of the owner of the SSL Certificate

b) Serial Number and the Expiry date of the Certificate

c) Copy of the certificate owners public key

d) Digital Signature of the Certificate issuing authority

Working of an SSL Certificate:

An SSL certificate is useful to have safe, secure and easy online shopping experience. It is important that the website in which you enter your confidential details such as the credit card information, personal data and your E-mail address is secured from intrusions and attacks. This necessity is fulfilled by an SSL Certificate. It ensures a safe connection between the browser and the Web Server. With the use of an SSL certificate, the information shared between the two is first and only then sent across. The process of encryption takes place in the background and does not interfere with the users activity, this is known as the SSL Handshake process. The easily visible indicator of a secure website is the ‘padlock’ icon and the ‘https://’ in the prefix of the domain name URL.

Incase, a user sends personal or confidential information over an insecure channel, the built in security of the browser triggers a warning to the user and notifies him/er that the website isn’t secure and the information can be intercepted by any third person. If a user on your website who has made up the mind of purchasing any of your product sees such a windows popping up, s/he is bound to leave the site immediately and your sales would get affected.

There are various SSL Certificates available in the market. You may choose any of them based on the requirement of your website. Most of the Web Hosting service providers offer the service of SSL Certificates. Below are the options of SSL Certificates.

A) Wild Card SSL Certificate : You secure unlimited servers with one SSL Certificate, it means you can secure unlimited number of sub domains with a single SSL Certificate. It offers strong 256 bit encryption, a Site Seal and a Web Seal.

B) Extended Validation Certificates: This type of SSL Certificate is proven to offer top most level of security and online assurance.

C) Multiple Domain Certificates: It provides the most flexible class of SSL Certificates by securing multiple domain names with one certificate.

Different web hosting service providers offer SSL Certificates at different prices. You get a Dedicated IP address with the Certificate.

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Hosting an E-commerce website is fairly simple. There are multiple benefits of choosing an eCommerce web hosting solution offered by web hosting providers. They offer robust, reliable, relatively inexpensive hosting packages. Along with the web hosting package you can avail a combination of different shopping cart technologies, integration of payment gateways, easy installation scripts and most importantly the anytime support.

It might be confusing for some people to choose an appropriate web hosting service provider due to the lack of basic knowledge of web hosting. You may go through the following link to understand the basics of hosting.

While choosing a eCommerce web hosting service provider, it is important to check for certain aspects. It’s a common trend that we avoid to choose a host that makes us do most of the stuff by ourselves. We usually want things that are pre-existing and easily available. Hence, while choosing an eCommerce host, you must check if they offer easy installations (one click installation is more preferred). They should offer a wizard that can take you through the installation process, else it can prove to be a frustrating task.

They must offer choice of eCommerce templates, preferably customizable templates are of preference. A reputed web hosting provider would never say, that they do not offer or allow customized templates.

They must allow you to build a catalog of your own. You should be enabled to export or import your pre-existing data as it would be a hard time for you if you have to manually keep typing the content each time you switch hosts.

Your task does not end here. Once, you are done with building your store, the crucial task of marketing follows. Some hosting providers offer these services as well. It is important that the hosting provider offers an SSL (Secure Socket Layer) certificate as well for online security.

PayPal, GoogleCheckout, 2Checkout, Moneybookers etc are some of the most secure online payment gateways. You can integrate any of these with your website. A web hosting provider should provider multiple payment gateways.

It is necessary that the web hosting provider offers service, post sales support alongwith web hosting. Today, newer eCommerce technologies are being introduced, the web host must be competent enough to meet those requirements and offer.

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