For online storefront, you need something better than a cheap web hosting or budget web hosting. You’ll need a plan that offers 24×7 support, and dedicated IP address for SSL installation. The plan should also provide you with high-quality, shopping cart enabled, and secured server environment for conducting secure business tractions online.

Ecommerce web hosting substantially improves your ability to reach customers with online catalogues, personalized profile, and decreased overall cost of doing business. It is an ultimate vehicle for reaching a broader group of customers, and increase your revenue without spending huge amount of investment. Ecommerce web hosting not only reach distant customers, but also improve communications with customers and increased exposure of your products and services. Even if occasional customer dispute occurs, as an ecommerce host you’ll be able to access records of transactions and payments, avoiding the problem of misplaced paper records.

To establish an ecommerce website, you’ll need to do some research and setup following accounts and services.

• The first thing you’ll need is to setup a website. If you’re comfortable building your own website, you’ll need to pick a shopping cart for your website. There are a number of freely and commercially available shopping carts that you can choose from. Picking the right operating platform (Linux vs. Widnows) is another choice you’ll have to make. If you’re not comfortable building your own website, any ecommerce web design company can help you design one with search engine optimization.
• Once you’ve built a website, you’ll need to create a merchant account. Merchant account allows you to accept credit cards. Be sure to apply for one that includes MOTO (Mail Order Telephone Order), which will allow Internet transactions. A retail merchant account cannot be used for Internet transactions, unless you add MOTO service.
• You’ll also need to apply for a payment gateway service which will perform online credit card processing for your online store. Before getting your payment gateway service, you’ll need to make sure that the gateway is supported by the shopping cart you’re using. Most common payment gateway services include Authorize.net and Verisign Payflow. Many merchant providers provide packaged bundle that includes merchant account and payment gateway service.
• Once you are ready to accept credit cards online, you’ll need to secure your website by installing SSL certificate. SSL is a protocol developed by Netscape for transmitting private documents via the Internet, which uses a cryptographic system to encrypt data. Without SSL, your merchant provider will not grant you permission to use your merchant account online, and your users will turn away from purchasing products from your website. With ecommerce web hosting plan, you’ll need a dedicated IP address which allows you to install your own certificate on a shared server. To purchase SSL certificate, you’ll need to generate a CSR (Certificate Signing Request) from the web server with Linux openssl (via ssh) or control panel.
• The next step is adding your products, and setting up shipping methods. Your shopping cart will provide you with administrative control panel that you can use to easily add additional products and services, as well as setting up UPS, FedEX, USPS and other shipping methods.

Starting an online business is no different than starting a bricks-and-mortar business. Before you begin setting up your business, you’ll need to put together a solid business plan that includes all the bells and whistles of your business objects including competitor analysis and marketing plans. No one will visit your site if your online store is not advertised or promoted on media. To get it exposed to search engines, it’s a good idea to build your website search engine friendly from the ground up, and also place pay-per-click marketing campaign during initial debut and until your site is ranked well on some of the major search engines. To learn more about search engine optimization, please visit SEO page of our website.

This article is written by Scott Seong, President and CEO of Edula, Inc. If you
have questions or comments about this article, please forward them to feedback@edula.com.

If you’re new to development of a website, don’t feel left out. The proliferation of the web has only been since 1993 when a web browser was invented. Although it may seem somewhat complex to setup a website, it isn’t too bad if you understand the core facts about domain names and web hosting. This guide is developed to introduce you to the world wide web, and describe the functions of web hosting, and technology involved in developing a website.

What is World Wide Web?

The World Wide Web, also known as www, web and w3, is one of the core service provided by the Internet. The world wide web started as a networked information project at CERN, and University of Illinois graduate Tim Berners-Lee, developed a web browser in 1993 which proliferated use of the web. The World Wide Web is comprised of mesh of hyperlinks that connects one website to another, and provides a means to access information available on the Internet at the convenience of point-and-click.

What is Web Hosting?

Web hosting is referred to as providing storage space for websites, and deliver thoses contents stored on the server when requested by the Internet users. A web hosting providers, also known as the web host, is also responsible for providing databases, email services, and other value-added services for publishing a website. No website can exist without a web host.

Steps to Creating a Website

Now that we have basic understanding of world wide web and web hosting, we need to talk about Internet address. Think about mailman delivering a mail to your mailbox, and giving direction to your friend to find your house. You have a globally unique home address that anyone in the world can find you. Similarly, to allow anyone in the world to visit your website (or send email to you), you must have a globally unique internet address. An Internet address is composed of numbers that the computers can understand, but they are hard for humans to remember. To make Internet addresses human friendly, domain names come into play. The domain names and Internet addresses are administered by Internet Assigned Numbers Authority.

Step 1. Register a domain name

Domain name is a human readable Internet address. To setup a website or create an email address, you’ll need a domain name. You may use someone else’s domain name to create a website or create an email address, but what happens if the company or a friend providing you with a domain name vanishes. It takes time (and money if you own business) to advertise your website to the world, so why not start with your own domain name.

Domain name is comprised of at least two parts: top level domain (TLD) and second level domain (SLD). TLD is the names that ends with .COM, .NET, .ORG, .INFO, .BIZ, and etc. Each TLD is designed for a specific purpose, so choose the one that is right for you. If you’re looking to build a business website, the .COM domain name is the right choice; and for non-profit organization, family or hobby website, the .ORG domain name will work.

The domain name that you can register from a registrar, is the second level domain (SLD) name followed by TLD. The domain names starts from right to left separated by a dot, so TLD is the rightmost name, SLD is the one before that, and third level domain name is the one before SLD, also known as subdomain name. To register a domain name, you’ll have to pick a name that suits your purpose. A domain name can consist of alphabet, numbers, and – (dash). The name cannot start with a dash. The topwebhosts.org is the domain name we used to publish our web hosting website. You may choose to find one that meets your personal or business needs. You can register a domain name online at our domain names web page.

Step 2. Find a reliable web hosting company

A web host provides you with storage space for your website, and also allows you to create email accounts using your domain name. Your web host delivers web contents to your visitors, and also provides email services. Since your website needs to be up 24×7 and you need uninterrupted email services, it is important that you find a reliable web host. We’ve published an article that will help you find a right web host.

Step 3. Build your website

The next step is building your web pages. There are many ways to develop web pages. If you’re just starting out, HTML Editors such as Frontpage or Dreamweaver will work. If you’re comfortable with HTML, you may choose to compose the web pages directly using HTML on any text editor. An alternate way to build a website is using the pre-built applications such as content management system (CMS), blog, bulletin board, or shopping cart. There are many freely available applications that you can use to build your website. Examples of such applications include Joomla, php-nuke, WordPress blog, phpBB and osCommerce.

To learn about setting up an ecommerce website, please refer ecommerce setup article.

This article is written by Scott Seong, President and CEO of Edula, Inc. If you
have questions or comments about this article, please forward them to feedback@edula.com.