Why Have Reseller Hosting When You Don’t Resell Anything?

Many web hosting companies offer a variety of plans from basic shared hosting right on up to dedicated servers and even cloud computing services. One plan you may have noticed is something called “reseller hosting.” Just what is reseller hosting and what is it that you need to resell to use it?

It may interest you to know that there are a lot of website owners that have reseller hosting plans and never resell anything. Why? Because reseller accounts make it easier to manage our many websites. I’ll explain why that is in a moment.

First, let’s have a look at the hosting world and why the plans are set up the way they are. I’ll use HostGator plans as an example, since I’m a current customer and affiliate of theirs.

Entry level web hosting is designed to be easily affordable by anyone who wants to set up their own website or run a blog, such as WordPress, on their own domain. Small businesses are big users of these accounts because they don’t have the traffic or sophisticated web designs that demand high performance dedicated hosting servers. A small store, an independent computer tech, an insurance sales person and a restaurant can all make good use of basic web hosting.

What makes these plans attractive is that they are really inexpensive. HostGator’s “Hatchling” plan starts at $3.96 a month. It’s designed for a single domain, which is all most businesses ever need. You might think that a plan this cheap would be really limiting. In fact, you get unlimited disk space and unlimited bandwidth. You also get a shared SSL certificate for secure transactions.

Note the term shared. The way they can offer this at such a low price is that this is shared hosting. By that I mean that you are on a server with a lot of other clients. It’s true that the server has limitations and the hosting company is offering unlimited disk space and bandwidth. It works out anyway because most small businesses don’t need more than a tiny amount of storage, processing or bandwidth. They just don’t like the idea of buying a constrained plan.

In a way, this operates something like cloud hosting in that you are sharing resources with many other users but have the perception that you have all the resources to yourself. You never really bump into other clients because your files are segregated and the server handles resource allocation automatically. If someone does start hogging the server beyond normal expectations, they’ll be asked to move on up to a private server so they don’t bog everybody else down.

The way you control your web hosting service is through a browser-based control panel. The most popular one is called cPanel. Once you get oriented to it, it’s very easy to use. You can set up your email accounts, upload and download files, install preloaded applications such as WordPress, Joomla or Drupal, view website statistics and error logs, and pretty much anything else you need to do.

Now, here’s where reseller hosting comes in. Say you have more than one domain. Do you need to buy a separate hosting plan for each domain? No, you can move up to the “Baby” hosting plan that lets you host unlimited domains on one account. This works, but you only have one control panel to run everything. It sure would be nice to have a separate cPanel for each domain.

That’s what reseller hosting gives you. You get another manager called WHM or Web Host Manager. This is like a super cPanel. It lets you create separate hosting accounts for each domain. That takes a matter of minutes when you get on the procedure. From then on, you can use the cPanel that is dedicated to a particular domain.

It’s called a reseller account because it is intended for web designers or companies that want to offer web hosting services themselves. Some designers have found they can make a tidy income by designing “brochure” sites for small businesses in their town that have no idea how to do it themselves. You charge so much for the site design and then so much a month to host it and update the files as needed. In some cases, you may want to let the client modify their own files. That’s why you need a separate cPanel for each account. It keeps one client from wreaking havoc on another client’s files.

As someone who owns and operates a couple of dozen small commercial websites of my own, I’ve found that it works best to treat them as separate entities with their own hosting accounts. The reseller account lets me have a separate cPanel for each domain while keeping the cost within reason. You can have as many domains and accounts on one reseller account as you like. The limitations are disk space and bandwidth. HostGator’s “Aluminum” account gives you 50 GB storage and 500 GB bandwidth. This is plenty for dozens of small sites. If you need more, then just upgrade for more resources. If you need more than 200 GB storage and 1,400 GB bandwidth, it’s time to move on up to a virtual private server or dedicated server.

So, which type of hosting works best for your business? Is the basic hosting package all you really need for now or do you want the kind of control you have with a reseller account? Learn more about all the hosting packages available from HostGator and choose what works best in your case.

Managed Web Application Hosting

You’d like to make good use of popular web applications for your own business needs, but the idea of running your own hosting, downloading the software and keeping it updated and trying to make everything work is more than you really want to deal with. That’s especially true if you don’t have an in-house IT department. Are you out of luck?

Not at all. What you may want to consider is managed web applications. The idea behind managed services is that someone with the right expertise and resources takes over the burden of hardware and software operations so you don’t have to worry about it. In effect, they act as your IT department. It’s an idea very much akin to the cloud. Somewhere, out there, it’s all being handled and all you have to do is pay as you go.

Managed Web Applications are a specialty of myhosting.com. This is a web hosting company that offers all the usual hosting services plus some others that you may not be able to find elsewhere. One such group of services are managed Web applications for business.

What type of applications are available? WordPress is a popular application for high performance blogs. It’s an open source content management system that lets you create unique blog designs and even entire websites. A wealth of plug-ins add features that would be costly for you to develop yourself.

A competing content management system is Joomla. It is widely used for website creation and even corporate Intranets. Like WordPress, Joomla is open source, which ensures extensive worldwide support.

Have you heard of Moodle? It’s an acronym for Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment. Moodle is open source software designed for education. It can be called a course management system, learning management system or virtual learning environment. If you have a need for in-house training or want to offer online courses, Moodle can be the framework that makes it possible. Moodle lets you interact with tutors and other students, participate in online discussions and access resources such as libraries and digital reading rooms.

How about a bundle of applications? myhosting.com offers a Community Hosting Bundle that includes Mediawiki, Wordpress, Joomla and phpBB, an Internet forum or message board application.

What you get with Managed Web Applications is an all-in-one package that includes the hosting with your applications all set up and ready to run. No worrying about how to download and configure software. That’s taken care of for you. You simply signup and your application is ready to go.

Upgrades are handled automatically, too. You know how easy it is to get out of date with patches and upgrades. Procrastination alone almost guarantees that you’ll never keep up with the changes. With a managed solution, you don’t have to. Updates are automatic, although you can decide when it’s appropriate to apply them.

Support is another big advantage of Managed Web Applications. Sure, you can get a lot of open source software free. Then buy your hosting and make them work together... if you can. If not, who is going to help you? You have large communities of users on forums and you can spend endless hours getting exactly the help you need. With a managed solution, help is as close as the phone, email or chat anytime you wish.

Are you interested in expanding your use of Web applications but don’t have the resources to get set up and running in-house? Take a close look at the cost effectiveness and simplicity of Fully Managed Web Applications from myhosting.com.

UK Domains and Web Hosting

Network Solutions, one of the largest domain registrars and web hosting services companies in the world, now offers a complete array of services especially for users in the United Kingdom. These include not just .co.uk domain names, but web hosting, e-commerce email hosting, SSL security certificates and custom design and marketing services. It’s everything you need to be successful whether you are targeting visitors from the UK or operating a worldwide enterprise.

While .uk is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) assigned to the United Kingdom, you can’t register .uk domains the way you register a .com or .net. Instead, you need to register one of the approved second-level domains. The most popular of these is .co.uk which is intended for commercial use but available for general registration. Of course, you are free to use the more general .com, .net and .org domains.

By the way, you can also register a .eu domain if you would rather be identified with the European Union. Unlike the unrestricted availability of the .co.uk domain, as a registrant you must be located within the EU to register a .eu domain name.

Once you have a domain name, you’ll want hosting to put that name to use. Most users want web hosting, but it is possible to skip the website and just have email hosting for a very low cost. You pay by the number of mailboxes you want. Then you have a choice of whether to pickup your email using the email program on your computer that downloads the messages, or to keep everything in the cloud and access your messages from anywhere using webmail. Spam and virus protection are included.

Network Solutions UK also offers a business email service to host your domain name. It works like the personal email solution, but includes more storage and the ability to sync email, contacts, calendars and tasks so you can work remotely and the ability to share calendars and collaborate on group projects.

Web hosting comes in a range of sizes to accommodate every user from those just starting out to major enterprises. The most popular packages are shared hosting, where you and a number of other clients share the same server. Of course, your files are kept separate in your own account. It’s the sharing of computing resources that keeps this service low cost.

For most hosting needs, shared hosting is the way to go. You get a lot for your money. Most plans are general hosting packages that include buckets of monthly bandwidth and disk storage. There are also specialized hosting options that include Hosting for WordPress that is designed specifically for bloggers and SharePoint hosting that is specifically designed to work with Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) collaboration for small businesses.

You can generally add e-commerce capability to any general hosting package. Network Solutions UK has gone a step further by creating specialized CommerceSpace packages for online stores. You get customizable storefront templates that you can edit online or using web design software such as Dreamweaver or FrontPage. You have the ability to accept PayPal and Google Check payments and can add a merchant account to accept credit cards. The packages are priced by the maximum number of products from 25 to 100,000. A domain name is included with an annual purchase.

A step up from shared hosting is VPS or Virtual Private Server hosting. Intended for more demanding uses, these virtual servers give you root access to install whatever software you want, including different operating systems. You have a guaranteed amount of RAM and ample amounts of storage and bandwidth. VPS has become popular because it offers the flexibility of a dedicated server at a lower cost through virtualization than shared physical computing resources.

One additional type of hosting you should consider is mobile website hosting. More and more traffic and commerce is moving to smartphones. How does your website work on the small screen of a mobile phone? Not so well? You may benefit from a mobile-specific website with a .mobi extension. The advantage of a mobile site is that it is optimized for mobile screens and loads much faster than a full website. The user interface features the familiar icon appearance.

Are you interested in hosting to support your UK business, or are you conducting business internationally and want to focus on UK customers? If so, learn more about UK Domains and Web Hosting from Network Solutions.

Note: Map of the United Kingdom courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

WordPress Hosting Made Cheap and Easy

Many serious bloggers and website builders choose WordPress as their software platform. It has the advantages of being versatile and supported by an extensive community of developers for themes and plugins. As a beginner, you can simply use the online version of WordPress to get your feet wet. Eventually, though, you’ll want the flexibility and expansion that comes form hosting WordPress yourself.

Now comes an important decision. Do you want to host WordPress the easy way or the hard way? The hard way is to download the software files and do an installation on your own server or a hosting service you are using now. This is the route IT professionals will go. But what if you are more of a content creator than an IT type? You may be better off just ordering web hosting designed specifically for WordPress.

One good option for those who don’t otherwise have or need a web hosting account is HostGator WordPress Hosting. It starts at under $4 a month and is 100% WordPress compatible. In addition to the low cost, what’s really valuable is the 1-Click WordPress QuickInstall feature. HostGator has built-in an installer specifically for WordPress. You click the button and in less than a minute, you have WordPress installed on your account.

Want to see how quick and easy this is? Watch the WordPress QuickInstall Demo video and see for yourself. From start to finish an actual installation and configuration ready to use takes place in about 3 minutes right before your eyes.

The nice thing about HostGator is that even the least expensive plans give you full blown web hosting and not some hobbled set of resources that you’ll soon outgrow. You get your choice of installing WordPress at the root of your account so that all it does is support your blog, or you can install WordPress in a folder so that it is just part of what you are hosting on the account.

Will you run out of space or get so popular that a flood of fans will crash the site? Not with HostGator. Their WordPress hosting offers unlimited disk space and bandwidth. Go ahead, become and social media phenomenon and enjoy the rewards of your success. Your site comes with a 99.9% uptime guarantee and 24/7/365 tech support just in case you need help.

HostGator offers 100% WordPress compatible hosting. It easily exceeds WordPress minimum requirements and sports the latest versions of Apache, MySQL and PHP. You’ll be installing the newest stable WordPress version when you click that QuickInstall button. You’ll also have peace of mind knowing that PHP runs as suPHP for increased WordPress security.

Oh, you already have WordPress installed somewhere else or you want to move from the WordPress.com free hosting site? Signup for HostGator and they’ll transfer your current WordPress site for free.

If you are serious about getting into WordPress or are already a user and want to move for better quality hosting or a better price, then you should take a few minutes and watch the video to see how easy it is. Then check out the hosting plans and see how much you can get at such a low cost with HostGator WordPress Hosting. You may also be interested in registering a domain name or in the many other hosting services that are such a great deal from HostGator.