Web Hosting - who to choose?
You can skip ahead to : * summary of features Dear Reader, Before we dive into the detail: can we agree on your requirements for a "web host" or "ISP" to host your web site? How about this:
A internet connected computer to serve html pages to web browsers.  Hu? True, but not useful.  It's like saying the Atlantic ocean is a large pool of water.  Perhaps a more workable definition for a web host would be: a company (or individual) with the technical know-how and resources to make your web site available to all web browsers on the internet - 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. In fact, when your web site (and email) becomes a real contributor to your business, you also need the assurance that the web hosting company will be around at least as long as your own business.  They should be able to help you with guidance, advice and practical tips on how to improve the efficiency of your internet presence too. While we are writing this whish list: you will also be needing the same people to handle your email for you - in other words, to send your email out to other internet users and to receive your email until you are ready to download it.  You want your email protected against spam and virus attacks.  You also want some level of control over what email you choose to receive and the power to dump junk before it clutters your inbox. As a computer user you know that things go wrong.  Sometimes spectacularly wrong - at the worst possible time.  All computer systems will fail sooner or later - so you also want a web host that will communicate with you about the operational status of their systems and have the necessary technology and recovery plans in place to resolve problems as quickly as humanly possible.  Your ideal web host should know when something is wrong (and be working to fix it) long before you do. There is a considerable amount of competition in the web hosting industry, and this keeps prices down.  You can run a business on the internet for less than the price of a couple good hamburgers at a steakhouse.  You will see "web hosting companies" who promise to host your web site for a few cents or even for free.  Use your common sense, and critically review the FACTS.  If it is all hype and warm-fuzzy consultant speak with the key selling point being a ridiculously cheap rental, then tread lightly dear reader: there is a snake in that grass.  There is no such thing as a free lunch. At Cozahost we are not cheap - we are affordable.  Our clients choose us because we offer value for money, solid reliability and top notch service.  They choose us because we have a sustainable, common sense approach to our business and theirs. Now that we are in agreement about what we are discussing, let's have a quick look at  why you need a web site, what services you need and how your site can increase your profits, and finally we will cover Cozahost's web hosting service.

 

why an internet site is important to South African business
As South Africans we might be tempted to think that internet sites are more effective in the first world than here in "dark" Africa. In 1998 this might have been a pretty accurate way of looking at the  internet, but a lot has changed: There were 5.1 million internet users in South Africa in 2006 - (10.3% of the population) The number of African internet users grew by 879.8% during the 2000 - 2007 period 70% of South African internet users say they will shop online in the future Although we are still far behind the developed world where up to 70% of the population has internet access, a large percentage of the economically active people in South Africa do have internet access: a sizable and very important market.  Perhaps even more significant is that these internet users can (and do) influence the purchase decisions of their unconnected friends and contacts - because they are often asked to "research" companies / goods using the web. As a "brick-and-mortar" business (ie not purely internet based), a web site still plays a vital role because: Potential customers do company and product research on the internet. When asked to decide between two competing companies with roughly the same product and price, the customer will most likely pick Company A where lots of quality information is available on their web site - above Company B where he has to wait till Monday to get detail and quality information, or where the sales person is not knowledgeable or persuasive enough. Your customers look for you on the internet Internet users use search engines to find products, services and companies several million times per day.  Most of these people are in search of a solution to a problem.  Not having a web site is the equivalent of hiding.  Not a good strategy for a business.   Quality information sells It is either impractical or very expensive (or both) to provide your potential customers with the product (or service) information they want when you use traditional mass media like print, radio or TV.  With a web site you can identify what your customer's interests are and lead him directly to the right page with heaps of quality information.  Educate your potential customer on why your product or service is the best. Build a relationship with your market Your web site allows you to build a trust relationship with your customers - if you supply good quality (honest) information on your product or industry.  You can do this by using discussion forums on your web site, email newsletters, how-to-guides, evaluation guides, surveys, ratings, etc.  As an honest provider of quality information (of direct help to your potential customer) you automatically build customer loyalty - which supports the long term growth of your business. There is no more cost effective way to reach your market - bar none. Compared to the investment in running a web site, all other forms of marketing is vastly over priced.  Not paper flyers, radio or TV ads, classified ads in the paper - nothing - is as cost effective as an efficient web site to drive sales and retain customers.  A business can only survive if it markets effectively  - and for this a well designed web site just cannot be beat.  That is a fact.
it's a big world out there!
It seems a bit obvious to point out, but the Internet is a global medium with hundreds of millions of daily users. Unfortunately this does not mean that there are hundreds of millions of people out there just waiting for you to publish a site so that they can buy from you!  :-)
What it does mean is that there is almost no niche market (or community) on earth that cannot be reached with a internet site: no matter if you are selling carved African masks, online counseling, or non-profit community services like, genealogy, your local church or pizza ... your potential customers are on the internet. To unlock this potential, you need a well designed, efficient web site and the tools and skills to market effectively on the internet and a web hosting company with the experience to help you.  (See our free Internet Marketing Course later on this page).  If you do not have the technical savvy or time to invest in creating a well designed website business platform, contact us to see what we can do for you. If you are new to building web sites or you do not have the inclination to hire a designer or learn how to build web sites yourself, you can use a content management system like DotNetNuke - a sophisticated software package that enables complete beginners to build and publish their own web sites in minutes.  (DotNetNuke is included in the Cozahost web hosting service, but requires an MS SQL database at an additional charge.) To sum up: There is a large and growing base of internet users in South Africa, and hundreds of millions of users in the rest of the world.  If you could reach only a few thousand of them with your site - that would be nice wouldn't it? ;-)
is good enough, good enough?
Most entrepreneurs and businesses have the same knee-jerk reaction when sales drop:  They either reduce prices and or they tinker with their product.  Surely prettier or cheaper mouse traps will catch more mice? Few realize that even if you can build a car that runs on water for only R 100 - your business may still not survive. You have to SELL your product to survive in business. No matter how good your product is: you must SELL. We obsess about making our products better and cheaper - as if that drives sales.  The sad news is that it doesn't. Look around you and you will see hundreds of products and companies selling junk - and making a profit at it! Understandably most of us know little about marketing on the internet or elsewhere.  The good news is that it is considerably easier to market your product on the internet - provided you have the necessary tools and you know the tricks of the trade. The internet allows you to draw potential customers: by using targeted information, you can present each one of your potential customers with exactly the information they are looking for your "sales pitch" can be perfect every time. No other medium can help you do this. On the internet, you don't have to be a marketing genius, because you can use: Tools to identify other internet sites are willing and eager to send customers to you Tools to ensure customers looking for your solution will find you on search engines Special information guides to tailor your site to a razor-sharp selling machine Email tools to directly and personally contact existing and new customers to close the sale and follow up on potentials. DotNetNuke to build and maintain your web site quickly You won't get a top performing web site for "free" - because you have to do the work and spend the time (or hire someone to do it).  You are intelligent enough to know that there is no such thing as a free lunch and we certainly will not insult your intelligence by telling you that there is.  We can however help you to dine at a table you may have thought is completely out of your reach financially, knowledge and time-wise. :-)
email: essential features
Email is the communication medium of choice for most internet users - because it's simple to use, fast and direct.  Along with the cell phone it is THE business tool of this century. You can expect to receive the majority of enquiries and orders on your site via email, so it is very important that you organize your business in such a way that you can quickly and efficiently deal with the email correspondence.  Using email addresses supplied by your ISP (eg another@mweb.co.za) means that you are permanently tied to that ISP, and, to make matters worse, every time someone sends you email, YOU are advertising your ISP's business instead of your own! Since you should have your own domain name to compliment your site - you should therefore also have the ability to set up multiple email addresses @your-own-domain-name, as and when you need them. For instance, we recommend that you have at least the following email addresses to compliment your site: webmaster@your-domain-name To handle general questions, comments and technical issues about your site. sales@your-domain-name To quickly and accurately respond to sales enquiries and orders info@your-domain-name To answer general questions about your company or product
key requirements for your web server
Do you get irritated when you look for information on the internet and you have to wait ages for a page to download - only to find that you have to watch some arbitrary animation before you enter the actual site? Or, as frustrating, struggle through a internet site so loaded with glossy graphics that you can hardly get to the information you need? The point is: most people use the internet to find information - not to be entertained or to be impressed with the talents of some graphic artist's animations or graphics!  (See the common mistakes in web design...) Bottom line: in order to be successful online, your site should: Load within seconds rather than minutes! Present your visitors with useful information Be dynamic: collect and distribute information on the fly Optimize your web site for search engine placement These goals are often effectively met by using server-side scripting (ASP, ASP.NET PHP, PERL, etc).  These server-based programming languages allows you to: Subscribe (or unsubscribe) visitors to your newsletter Publish discussion forums, guest books, members-only areas, etc Use web forms to take orders, handle enquiries, etc Easily update and publish information such as product catalogues and prices - preferably directly from your accounting system or office software Finally, your web server must make it easy for you to update your site as often as you need to by allowing you to: Publish directly from within your HTML editor (like Microsoft FrontPage) Upload files with FTP Use detailed statistics to determine how effective your marketing strategies are and make changes where necessary:
web hosting special tricks
Two very useful tricks your ISP can help you with are: Catch all web requests This trick ensures that a visitor never gets an "Page not found" error (because of broken or outdated links when you move or delete pages on your site).  Instead of an error message, the visitor is sent to your home page - thereby keeping a potential customer on your site. This trick alone can help you keep hundreds of visitors per month that would otherwise have been lost. Prioritize traffic Make sure your ISP prioritize traffic so that your HTML (text) arrives as quickly as possible at the end user.  If you have a site with lots of graphics - your page will seem faster because the visitor can read your copy while the graphics download in the background.  Much better than having the user click-away in frustration if your page does not load in a reasonable amount of time.
full control over your web, ftp and email servers
It is a fact that sometimes you need things done NOW.  Not 30 minutes from now, not 5 minutes from now, but RIGHT NOW. There is no ISP in the world that can help you immediately every time.  The delay may be only a few minutes, but the point is that there will always be a delay. This is why we enable our clients with full control over all their servers.  They can do exactly what we can with an easy to use web based control panel.  Set up a new email address, create a new FTP account, add a new domain name, delete a file on the server, change passwords, etc. etc.  Instant service.  You can do it yourself - right now.  You don't have to wait for even one minute to create that new email account for a new staff member.  Or to delete that large attachment you are struggling to download via email.  Or remove FTP access for the guy you just fired. In a way we place the remote control in the hands of our clients.  Some people don't know how to change the channels, but after we show them, they no longer have to call us to switch channels - they can do it themselves. If you are thinking that it sounds to complicated, then you have not seen how easy the control panel is to use, and, besides, just the fact that you have access to the control panel does not mean that you are on your own.  We will come change the channel for you as many times as you need - for as long as you need us to.  But at least now you have the choice. :-)
did you say:  "Making money online"?
Indeed we did. :-) Not only is it preferable that your web site pays for itself many times over, it is also feasible and totally practical. You should be more ambitious though: Very few people will achieve astronomical success like Google, Amazon and the like, but anybody is able to make a profit on the internet provided that: You educate yourself on the do's and don'ts of internet marketing You put in the work, effort and thought You sell a product or service people want Given these parameters, you may not "get rich quick", but setting a very realistic goal to generate 10, 20 or 30 times more profit from your web site than it costs to run is perfectly attainable. The question is therefore not whether or not the internet and web sites "work". They do. Whether or not you will make money with your web site depends on the effort you put in and every bit of "unfair advantage" your web hosting company can give you. In the end, as it is in all life's endeavors,  it is up to you. :-)  All we can (and will) do is to make sure that you have everything you need to succeed.
Cozahost web hosting
Below you will find the highlights of the Cozahost service.  You will find that it contains everything you need to be successful online; other than our moral and technical support - which we don't brag about. ;-) There are no hidden costs and no contracts to tie you down. Everything is backed by an unconditional life time guarantee.

Prices Trusting your web site to Cozahost guarantees you professional service and personal attention. We quote the subscription fees excluding VAT (for South African residents) as registered companies can re-claim the tax from SARS.  Come to think of it, your entire invoice fee may be tax deductible! :-) Once-off setup fee = R 175.00, which includes: registration of your co.za or .com domain name setup of user ids and passwords setup of email setup of web server and stats remainder of month's rental Monthly rental = R 138.00 (per debit order or automatic credit card debit) No contracts required. Optional services: 50Mb additional web hosting disk space : R 25.00 per month SQL server 2000 access: R 45.00 per month Your free bonus (see sidebar), is our way to say Thank You! for trusting us with your internet business. :-)	August Bonus Gift: Self learning and planning web marketing manual A 370 page ebook with step by step chapters and exercises to dramatically boost profits from your web marketing efforts! The manual include chapters on: Developing a web traffic plan Registering at search engines Using events and online communities to pull in prospects Identifying your target audience Using classified ads Competitive intelligence And more.... In this 370 page ebook you will find real and practical strategies to market your business on the internet. If you don't know where to start or can't imagine how to use the internet to grow your business - then this book is a must read.
Internet access	Value added services
If you want fast, reliable and affordable internet access, we can provide you with a direct connection to the largest and fastest internet backbone on the continent.  Analog (modem) :  R 49.00 pm 2GB ADSL:  R 149.00 pm 3GB ADSL: R 185.00 pm More ADSL information Fax to email service: R 29.95 pm	Our philosophy is that we would like to have you as a life-time client, so our services are designed to grow with your business: Additional disk space, bandwidth and email accounts are available as your web site grows. Up to 10 additional web site domain names are hosted free of charge  Participate in our reseller program to gain extra income or host your other web sites.
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or please contact us if you have questions or need advice.