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Money Back Guarantee - I put
this first, because if you are unhappy with your hosting site, you'll want
assurances that you'll get your money back.
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24/7 Customer Technical
Support – This is critical. Find out if they mean “there’s voicemail or
email 24-hours-a-day” or if they mean, “we will answer the phone and help
you 24-hours-a-day”
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Control Panel
- The Control
Panel where you control all aspects of your account, such as managing
email accounts, reading statistics, and configuring autoresponders. Make
sure your hosting company has a centralized control panel for your
management needs.
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Website Statistics
– From a
marketing perspective, it’s important to know who is visiting your site
and what pages they read. Your hosting company should keep track of all of
this information for you, and present it in an easy to read format. Make
sure your statistics are updated on a daily basis, and that you can
configure the display to show you by day, by week, by month or by year.
You can learn more about how to read and interpret your statistics here:
http://www.passionforbusiness.com/articles.htm
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CGI - CGI stands for the
"Common Gateway Interface" and is a protocol through which web pages
interact with scripts on a server. Your hosting company should allow you
to install and run CGI scripts your account. They may also offer you some
pre-installed CGI scripts for free as part of your hosting package, such
as a message board or email forms.
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POP Email Accounts - A POP
(Post Office Protocol) Email Account is an email account hosted on your
site. Your hosting company should allow you to have more than one POP
account, so that you can set up email addresses for all your needs. For
example, clients requesting information about a workshop can send email to
workshop@mydomain.com, while clients can send their homework to homework@mydomain.com.
Also make sure your hosting company support email forwarding.
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Autoresponders -
Autoresponders allow a visitor to send an email to a specific email
address and automatically receive a reply. For example, if you have a FAQ,
people can send an email to faq@mydomain.com and automatically receive the
FAQ list in their email inbox.
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SSL Secure Server - SSL
stands for "Secure Socket Layer". This is a protocol that allows for
encrypted transmissions on the web, and is especially useful if you are
collecting private information from visitors, such as credit card
information.
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Shopping Cart - If you plan
on having a catalog on the web, like selling your ebooks or audio tapes, a
shopping cart is a must. It lets people browse through your “store” and
pick the items that they plan to purchase. When they are done, they
proceed to the checkout where they can review their order and pay by
credit card. If your hosting company does not offer a shopping cart
system, there are plenty of stand-alone shopping cart systems you can use
with your website.
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Password Protected Areas – If
you want to create a "members only" or "students only" section of your
site, you will need to make sure that your hosting company supports
password protected areas (folders or sub-webs).
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FrontPage Extensions -
Microsoft FrontPage is a web development tool that’s easy to use. In order
for this package to be completely functional, it requires that there be
special software installed on the server called “FrontPage Extensions.”
Beware the hosting company who wants to charge you for using FrontPage
Extensions; most hosting companies offer them for free.
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Mailing List Software - Keep
your users informed by offering to put them on the mailing list. Make sure
your hosting company supports double-opt-in mailing lists, where the
person signs up and receives a confirmation email that instructs them how
to officially sign up for your mailing list.
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Streaming Media – If you’d
like to add multimedia streaming to your site, you’ll need to find out if
your hosting company supports the use of streaming media such as RealAudio
or Windows Media files. Some hosting companies will charge you extra for
this service.
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