Tips - How To - FAQ

Yes I sell what I call "1 page layouts". These are simply 2 documents, an index.html and a style.css. All images to complete the style are also included. All styles on the site are also sold as "1 page layouts". If you do not see them already in the gallery section. Ask and they will be made available.

Any web template can be converted to an Avactis Store Style. Check first to see when you would fit into my work schedule for that custom job. If I have a lot of people waiting you might want to use someone else :)

Unfortunately I no longer have the time to do custom websites from scratch. My suggestion would be to contact Avactis and see who they might recommend.

First you need a web domain. Before you select a domain name I suggest you read SEO Tips. It is a somewhat long read but thought and planning will benefit your business in the long run.

Then you need to select a registrar (a company that registers domain names).

Alert:

When you run a search on a domain name to see if it's registered, be prepared to buy it on the spot if it's available.

If you don't want to pay more than you should for a domain name then check somewhere other than Network Solutions.

You see, if you check a domain's availability with Network Solutions, the registrar will put it on "reserve" (which effectively means that it registers the domain).

Then, the only place you can register the domain name is with Network Solutions -- at its chosen price.

This practice has been called Domain Tasting, and there have been rumours of it going on for a number of years. I always assumed it was an urban myth, but Network Solutions happily admits to it.

In my opinion about the best around is GoDaddy.

I have used them for years after a couple of domains got dropped by mistake with a 2 other well known companies. I was indeed fortunate to recover those domain names because of silly errors.

GoDaddy give you complete control over your own domain. It is well worth the time to learn to manage this part of your business.

You DO NOT NEED nor do you probably want any of the other services they would like to sell you.

What every business needs is a fast reliable host.

Here are some tips on looking for a host. You need to understand every 13 year old with a little internet savvy is in the hosting business. How does you the consumer know if you are with a fly by night or a real company with a reliable server?

The reality is you probably won't.
A further reality is any 13 year old can make a pretty dynamic website and pitch on why you should use his service.
He might offer you a great deal for $1 a year. Do keep in mind cheap is exactly that CHEAP. Cheap does not define good or good service.

Personally I have gone through 4 or 5 hosts before I landed with my own hosting company.
I am lucky. Three years ago I ended up with a server and group of technicians that totally manages my hosting company. I can not afford to have my sites offline and no one to fix them.

I use Alertra Website Monitoring Service - to receive instant notification via phone call, e-mail, SMS or AOL instant message anytime your site goes down!

For those last 3 years my hosting company has about 99.99% uptime. The only downtime seems to be when the system must be rebooted and that make take less than a minute or 2.

In reality not that much.

This website with all of the databases I run and the shopping cart installed I have yet to reach 24 MB used out of 150 allotted.

My largest website with well over 300 pages many databases and scripts only uses 312MB and the bandwidth for that site runs around 5800 MB a month, for 9,000 unique visitors a month.

My advice on buying web space is start small and upgrade your package as needed. Why pay $19.95 a month when you can just as well on $4.95? Why do most business over buy what they need? They have no idea what they need in the first place. They have no frame of reference. That is why I posted my examples above.

This website has an allocation of 150 MB web space with 1000 MB of bandwidth for $45 a year. No matter how much business it does it is likely not to need to upgrade its package. If it does that upgrade would probably not cost more than another $10 a year.

My store style test site right now is running 4 Avactis Shopping Carts for testing purposes. It uses just under 30 MB of space used. The bandwidth use on that site is only 45 MB for a half month.

Hopefully this gives you some idea of what you want to do next.

The skinny on hosting packages.

Most web hosts way oversell. They know the average small business is not going to use 100MB of space with 1,000MB of bandwidth in a million years. So they offer an astronomical amount of space and bandwidth knowing this fact full well. Then they will essentially pack the server with what they think they can fit according to what they think you will really use. Its kind of like the airlines overselling a flight just in case someone does not show up to fly.

What is the downside of this little practice?
Instead of 100 people on a server that is using 10% of what they are paying for they have say 1000 people using their 10% with a result of a severely loaded server that now runs at half its speed.

Why would hosting companies do this?

Look at the simple math ... if you have 100 people with space to fill a server if they were running full capacity for $5 a month. The host is making $500 a month. If the host adds another 1000 customers because he banks on them not using all of their space either he adds an extra $5000 to his business coffers.

I do not happen to think this practice is ethical but unfortunately this is the standard mode of operation for most hosting companies.

It is not one I follow.

You need an ftp (File Transfer Protocol) client to upload your information to your server.

I have used 2 recently that are great. One is FREE and the other you pay about $40 for a license. The free software is FileZilla ... it has a GNU General Public License meaning it is FREE. It was very fast and did everything I asked of it.

The second is 3D FTP. I like it a little better. Both seem to have about the same speed even though 3D FTP boasts multi-thread which is suppose to be much faster. I did not find that to be the case. That being said I so far liked the 3D FTP interface a little better. Perhaps because it was a little closer to the WSFTP Pro that I used for years.

WSFTP Pro unfortunately for the past few years has totally gone to pot. Their tech service is about none, their forum is NO HELP AT ALL. And the software has become slower than a dead snail not to mention being dropped offline so many times it was exasperating.

You can use your browser as an FTP client but I have never used that and do not recommend it as being that great or safe.

You need to know how to create and install a database on your server.
If you have chosen wisely your server will have an admin (we have CPanel) that allows you to do this quite easily. Once your database is created and installed, your files are uploaded to your server you simply point your browser to the install.php on your server and the program pretty much does the rest for you.

Avactis documentation on this matter is very clear.

It is the easiest software I have ever installed.

The developers have been very good at trying to solve the problems business people would encounter while installing the cart.

If you have followed the suggestions on this site you are no doubt capable of installing this program in less than 15 minutes.

If you prefer not to bother yourself Avactis and this site offers an install service.