When a business begins to grow, the next logical step is to set up a professional website. Whether you are looking for an international market or are trying to connect with your clients or customers, a professional website can ensure that your business is seen by the right people. Here are nine tips to consider when choosing a company to host your business’ website.

Choosing Your Domain Name

Since your website is part of your marketing strategy, you will want to keep your business in the minds of your potential customers. To do this, make sure that your domain name matches either your business or the product that you are selling. If not, your customers may go to your competition simply because they don’t remember your URL.

Deciding on a SEO Friendly Domain Name

More people will find your website if you have a high ranking in a popular search engine like Google or Yahoo. One way to achieve this is by including your main keyword in your domain name. There is no need to stuff your domain with as many keywords as you can. For proper search engine optimization, it is only necessary to include your main keyword.

Buying Multiple Domain Names

Snatching up domain names that are similar to your own can prevent competitors from benefiting from your branding efforts. It will also bring in additional traffic from people who type keywords in the address bar instead of using a search engine. Another trick to boost traffic is to buy common misspellings of your website address. This way, people who make a typing error will still be able to find your website. If you decide to buy multiple domain names, each webpage should automatically redirect users to your main URL.

Using Local Web Hosting

Search engines match their results to the geographical location of their users. For this reason, it’s important to match your web hosting to the location of your business’ clientele. By doing this, you are more likely to attract people who will be interested in your business.

Buying Enough Space

When you are looking for web hosting, you will have to decide on how much space your website will need. The amount of space you should buy depends on the size of your website and the number of images that you will have on it. It also doesn’t hurt to have extra space to expand your website if needed.

Choosing Cluster Servers

If your site gets a lot of traffic, consider using cluster servers to get more reliable service. This will balance the load placed on the servers when a large amount of people visit your website at the same time. If high availability is important to you and your business, then cluster servers is an option to look into.

Choosing a Dedicated Server

A dedicated server is another option for websites that get a lot of traffic. In this case, you will rent a server dedicated to your website alone. It costs much more than to share hosting with a number of other websites, but it will ensure that your site will be able to handle the amount of traffic that it receives.

Benefits of a Virtual Server

If you are looking for the reliability of a dedicated server, but need something that is more affordable, a virtual server may be right for you. By choosing a virtual server, you will be sharing it with other websites. The difference however, is that the traffic from these websites will not affect the performance of your own. This is a cost effective way to host a website while eliminating the problems of a shared server.

Understanding Your Email Needs

It is important to consider your email needs when choosing where to host your website. Some businesses may only need a few email accounts while others will need many more. There are two things to consider in choosing your email hosting: the security provided and the reliability of your clients’ email accounts. Most companies will offer the most basic email hosting package at no additional charge. If your needs are more complicated, email hosting and storage may be an additional cost to factor into your budget.

Finding the right place to host your website is pivotal in marketing your business online. It can be the deciding factor in whether your website attracts potential customers or just becomes another site collecting dust on the internet. Making sure you have the right web hosting is as easy as knowing your email needs and the amount of traffic your website is likely to receive. With these nine tips, you will be well on your way to setting up a website for your small business.

Dropbox is an online file hosting service created by Dropbox Inc., a company founded by entrepreneurs Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi in 2007. Registration for the service is free, and it allows its users to securely back up and share files across several computers.

In order to use the Dropbox service, you need to download the Dropbox client from Dropbox.com. The Dropbox client is cross-platform, meaning a version exists for each of the major operating systems (Microsoft Windows, Mac and Linux). Dropbox’s pricing model is based on the amount of storage space that a user signs up for; the “basic plan” with 2GB storage space is free, while 100GB and 50GB accounts attract monthly charges of $19.99 and $9.99 respectively.

Installing the Dropbox client creates a “My Dropbox” folder on a user’s computer. Any files saved in this folder are automatically backed up in Dropbox’s servers and synced with similar files stored on other computers associated with the Dropbox account. If changes are made to files in the Dropbox folder when the computer is offline, Dropbox will automatically sync the files when the computer gets connected to the internet. This makes Dropbox ideal for file sharing and collaboration between users working on the same files.

By installing the Dropbox iPhone app, a user can view, download, or edit files saved in his Dropbox account and add new files from his iPhone. This is also possible on other mobile phones by logging into the mobile-optimized version of Dropbox.com. According to the company’s official blog, they are currently working on an Android app.

Dropbox employs an efficient version control mechanism which allows the user to view past versions of a file and to ascertain what changes were made, when they were made and by whom. By default, the version history is only available for a period of 30 days. However, those on any of the two paid packages can add a feature named “Pack-rat” that stores their version history indefinitely at no extra cost.

Perhaps Dropbox’s strongest point is its easy-to-use website and desktop user interface. For example, the desktop user interface on Windows is based on a shell extension of Explorer, which allows you to back up a file by simply saving it in the Dropbox folder. A Dropbox icon is also created in the system tray on the Windows taskbar that, when clicked, gives access to the recently changed files, the Dropbox website and the Dropbox folder, and information on available storage space.

Dropbox is keen on keeping its users’ files secure. Transfers between users’ computers and the Dropbox servers are handled using a cryptographic protocol called SSL (secure sockets layer), and files stored in Dropbox’s servers are encrypted using one of the most secure encryption modes, AES-256.

Dropbox is undoubtedly one of the most user-friendly and efficient online backup services currently available. Try it out by registering for the free 2GB package at Dropbox.com.