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6 Reasons Why Your Business Needs a Professional Website

April 30, 2016 by Leave a Comment

prowebsite

In today’s world, owning and operating a professional website is a necessity for any business. Here’s why:

  1. Establish credibility. Having a website is crucial to credibility. Many potential customers and clients will be hesitant to trust a business that does not have an online presence, or that has a very unprofessional online presence.
  2. Customer service. An increasing number of people now turn to the internet to find important information about the businesses they patronize. Having an online presence will help your customers get the information they need, keeping them happy as well as giving your customer service team a lighter load.
  3. Round-the-clock accessibility. Web sites are available 24/7. If you don’t have one, you can rest assured that any potential customer or client who is searching for information during non-business hours will end up finding a competitor who does operate a website.
  4. Reach new audiences. A website can help you reach people outside your normal sphere of contacts.
  5. Showcase what makes you special. Web sites are highly customizable and can host nearly any type of content. Therefore, they provide an excellent platform to show your customers and clients what makes you so special.
  6. Market efficiently. Following with the preceding point: a website is hands-down one of the most cost-effective ways of getting your name out there.

Let us help you make your website the best it can be! Having reliable hosting service for your website is non-compromisable.  A website that consistently crashes or goes down due to serving issues is going to appear very unprofessional and could very well cost you customers and clients. RFE Hosting understands this, which is why we are dedicated to offering the best technology and the most outstanding customer service. Let’s obtain success together! Contact RFE Hosting today for more information on the multiple server options that we offer. We look forward to hearing from you!

Filed Under: revive, SEO, Web Design, Web Hosting Tagged With: , , , , ,

Free Website Security e-Book

April 28, 2016 by Leave a Comment

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Fill out the form below to receive your Free Website Security e-Book.




Filed Under: Web Hosting

4 Tips to Finding the Perfect Web Hosting

March 24, 2016 by Leave a Comment

WebHostingFinding the perfect web host is like finding the right neighborhood for your website. With so many options out there, it can be hard to find the perfect one. Here are a few tips to help you find the right match for your domain.

Your Server Must Be Reliable

Nothing is more frustrating for viewers than going to visit a website and finding it down because the server it’s information is stored on is not working. These moments when your viewers are frustrated lead to a bad experience with your brand, and if it’s a business website, may result in the loss of sales or (worse!) losing leads to a competitor.

You need your website to be up 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. While nothing is perfect and it’s logical to expect some issues throughout the year, you can expect that your website’s servers are up and running 99% of the time. Anything lower should be considered unacceptable.

How Much Traffic Will Your Website Get?

Every website is different and appeals to a different type of viewer. Is yours an online retail store? Is your website giving information on a popular (or not as popular) subject? Is this a set of forums or a login situation where your visitors might check your website many times a day?

Many people opt for “shared hosting“, giving most websites plenty of space for visitors to come check out their goods or information. It’s the ideal option for ‘newbies’ to the website world and those that are operating an online presence for a small business. What does ‘ideal’ mean? Most shared hosting experiences can accommodate somewhere between 30,000 and 40,000 unique visitors to a normal WordPress based website a month.

If you find that your website is very busy (Congratulations!), you can always upgrade your domain to VPS hosting, or even dedicated hosting to allow for a better experience of website browsing for many more visitors.

The Domain Game

When it comes to the web, keywords are key and one of the easiest ways to help your website show in the right internet searches is with the right domain name. It’s a good thing they are so cheap! It’s not uncommon for small businesses to purchase many domains that all point to the same website.

It’s for this reason that it’s important to find hosting that allows for multiple ‘Addon’ domains. This allows you to support many different websites with many different domains all under the same hosting account. It’s not uncommon to find hosting companies that allow for up to 20 or 25 domains, so be sure that check on the number you are allotted before you commit to hosting from a particular company.

Get Ready for Fees

It’s very common for most hosting companies to offer low rates at sign up. This initial price is to encourage you to start service with them for a certain amount of time. However, when it’s time to renew, the price usually goes up. While the price difference isn’t normally drastic (less than $10 or so), it can really add up over time so it’s important to read all of the fine print before handing over your credit card information and transferring all of your domains.

 

Filed Under: Blog Guides, revive, Web Hosting Tagged With: , , ,

What is managed web hosting?

January 6, 2016 by Leave a Comment

What does managed web hosting mean to us?

Managed Web Hosting

This question is asked by newcomers and professionals, often. The questionable nature of Managed Web Hosting has more to do with hosting providers delivering additional managed services, than it has to do with an unclear definition.

Simply put, managed web hosting is when the web host (RFE Hosting) takes care of the day to day operations of the server so that you don’t have to. It used to be that managed web hosting was a term specifically applied to dedicated hosting. This is still the most prevalent use of managed hosting but you can find managed services these days applied to other hosting solutions such as co-location, cloud hosting or VPS.

Typically built into Managed Hosting are services such as hardware and software setup and configuration, maintenance, hardware replacement, technical support, patching, updating and monitoring. Also available, usually at an extra cost, are advanced services like malware vulnerability scans, DDoS attack mitigation, data backups, load balancing, firewalls, intrusion detection and more.
Each Managed Hosting provider is unique, so what services come standard can vary.

Our Managed Web Hosting Services are as follows:

Managed Shared Web Hosting

Shared Web hosting for you or your business – Starting from $6.95

We know that finding a inexpensive, quality web host is not a easy task so we’ve put all the information you need in one place to help you make your decision. At RFE Hosting, we pride ourselves in our commitment to our customers and want to make sure they have all the details they need before making that big decision.

 Basic Web HostingStandard Web HostingProfessional Web Hosting
Start HereStart HereStart Here
Monthly
$8.95/mo
$3.47/mo*
$12.95/mo
$6.47/mo*
$19.95/mo
$9.97/mo*
Domain15Unlimited
Cloud Storage5 GB20 GBUnlimited
Email Accounts525Unlimited
MySQL Databases25Unlimited
Premium BandwidthUnlimitedUnlimitedUnlimited
LiteSpeedIncludedIncludedIncluded
Free SSL Certificates
PatchmanOptionalOptionalOptional
Start HereStart HereStart Here

Managed VPS Hosting Plans

Affordable VPS Hosting Services for you or your business – Starting from $35

RFE Hosting’s Managed VPS Hosting packages are a cost effective substitute for shared/reseller hosting as well as Dedicated Servers with one major difference; VPS Hosting (Virtual Private Servers) give you the flexibility and power of a dedicated server, without its high price. VPS’s are excellent for high resource web applications that demand more than a shared environment can empower. Learn More…

 RFE VPS1RFE VPS2RFE VPS3RFE VPS4RFE VPS5RFE VPS6RFE VPS7
Monthly Price$45$55$65$80$95$115$140
Order NowOrder NowOrder NowOrder NowOrder NowOrder NowOrder Now
Quarterly Price
(Save 5%)		$120
$114.00		$150
$142.50		$180
$171		$225
$213.75		$270
$256.50		$330
$313.50		$405
$384.75
Yearly Price
(Save 10%)		$480
$432		$600
$540		$720
$648		$900
$810		$1080
$972		$1320
$1188		$1620
$1458
RAM1280MB2.5GB3.25GB4GB5GB6.5GB8.25GB
RAID-10 Disk Space30GB80GB95GB115GB135GB165GB190GB
Premium Bandwidth3000GB7000GB9000GB11000GB13000GB15000GB17000GB
Fully Managed*
Built-in DDoS Protection
Free Private SSL
Contact us for more info.
LocationsWest Coast (Seattle, WA)
East Coast (Baltimore, MD)
Central (Dallas, TX)
Order NowOrder NowOrder NowOrder NowOrder NowOrder NowOrder Now

Managed SSD VPS Hosting Plans

Affordable Managed SSD VPS Hosting Services for you or your business – Starting from $45

RFE Hosting’s Managed SSD VPS packages are based on cutting edge pure SSD drives. There are no short cuts here with SSD caching as these SSD VPS”s are the real deal. Enterprise grade hardware with nothing but the best SSD drives for optimal performance. You can start with a small SSD VPS and upgrade as needed with no IP change or data migration so things are kept easy and affordable for you.

Our managed SSD VPS packages are affordable and a cost-effective solution for those who want the benefits of a managed VPS and the super-fast speed of SSD drives. Our SSD VPS packages have all the advantages of VPS hosting packages with the additional performance of solid state drives. Learn More…

 RFE MVPS-1RFE MVPS-2RFE MVPS-3RFE MVPS-4
Monthly Price$70$100$120$145
Order NowOrder NowOrder NowOrder Now
Yearly Price
(Save 10%)		$840
$756		$1,200
$1,080		$1,440
$1,296		$1,740
$1,566
CPU Processor2 Cores2 Cores4 Cores4 Cores
Guaranteed RAM2GB4GB6GB8GB
RAID-10 SSD Storage50GB100GB150GB200GB
Premium Bandwidth2TB3TB4TB5TB
Fully Managed*
Built-in DDoS Protection
Free Private SSL
Contact us for more info.
Locations
Order NowOrder NowOrder NowOrder Now

Managed Dedicated Server Packages

RFE Hosting’s Managed Dedicated Servers are all custom built, secured, and optimized out of the box. The following configurations are baseline package options and can all be customized to meet your specific needs. Contact our Sales Department at sales@rfehosting.com to get pricing on a wide variety of upgrade options available. All Managed Dedicated Servers are Linux based, bundled with the cPanel control panel, and housed at our Central US (TX) datacenter. With all Managed Dedicated Servers you can rely on industry leading uptime at an affordable price.

We also offer custom configurations including SSD, both hardware and software RAID configurations, and multiple drive layouts. Contact us today at sales@rfehosting.com to obtain a custom quote.

RFE MD-1RFE MD-2RFE MD-3RFE MD-4
ORDER NOWORDER NOWORDER NOWORDER NOW
i7-6700
(4x3.4GHz 8MB) CPU		Xeon E3-1270v5
(4x3.6GHz 8MB) - CPU		2x Xeon E5-2430v2
(12x2.5GHz 15MB) - CPU		2x Xeon E5-2430v2
(12x2.5GHz 15MB) - CPU
8GB DDR4 RAM, Max 64GB8GB DDR4 RAM, Max 64GB8GB DDR4 RAM, Max 96GB16GB DDR4 RAM, Max 192GB
6.000 GB Data Transfer6.000 GB Data Transfer8.000 GB Data Transfer12.000 GB Data Transfer
256GB SSD + 1TB SATA Storage256GB SSD + 1TB SATA Storage256GB SSD + 1TB SATA Storage256GB SSD + 1TB SATA Storage
Max 2 Drives - no HW RAIDMax 4 Drives - HW RAID OPTIONALMax 4 Drives - HW RAID OPTIONALMax 4 Drives - HW RAID OPTIONAL
cPanel & WHM Control PanelcPanel & WHM Control PanelcPanel & WHM Control PanelcPanel & WHM Control Panel
Central (TX) Datacenter LocationCentral (TX) Datacenter LocationCentral (TX) Datacenter LocationCentral (TX) Datacenter Location
$223.75/mo$298.75/mo$411.25/mo$473.75/mo
ORDER NOWORDER NOWORDER NOWORDER NOW
Filed Under: Web Hosting

WordPress.com or WordPress.org? Which One’s Right for You?

June 2, 2014 by Leave a Comment

When you first start looking at building your own blog, you are going to be inundated by the different options that are out there. After considering all your options, hopefully you’ll come to your senses and realize that WordPress is your best option.

As a reward for all this deliberating you are now presented with one more decision. Do you choose .org or .com? And we’re not talking about your domain name. You, along with many others, might be surprised to find out that there are actually two different kinds of WordPress.

WordPress.com is a version of WordPress that is hosted by Automattic, the development team behind WordPress. WordPress.org is often referred to the self-hosted version of WordPress. The two are very similar but there are a few differences that you need to be aware of before you finally get down to work on your blog.

WordPress.com

WordPress.com is the safest way to go, as there are a lot of mechanisms in place to make sure that you don’t accidentally break it or prevent it from working the way it was intended to.

This means that it is nearly impossible for a beginner to render their site unusable. It also means that you are unable to really make use of some of the more advanced, and fun, features of WordPress. I’ll get to those below, but let’s take a closer look at what WordPress.com has to offer first.

The biggest selling feature of WordPress.com is the fact that everything is free and easy to use. You can head over there right now, sign up for a free account, and be blogging before you know it. You won’t even need to invest in a domain name if you don’t want to. Without any expense, you are able to have a website of your own at a domain like yourname.wordpress.com.

That’s right: you don’t even have to purchase a domain name to get started. However, going from a yourname.wordpress.com domain to yourname.com in the future is going to hurt your search engine rankings. This is something that you might want to consider before going the totally free route.

In the event that you are even remotely serious about creating a blog, you’re best to start off with your own domain. You can have your own domain name at WordPress.com for an extra $12 per year plus the cost of the domain itself.

On November 29, 2011 WordPress announced WordAds. Only WordPress.com hosted sites with custom domains and “moderate to high traffic and appropriate content” are eligible to apply for the WordAds program. WordAds appears to be a viable monetizing option for WordPress hosted sites that have established audiences. This does not appear to be an option for new WordPress.com sites.

The barrier to entry is extremely low here so it can be very appealing to the less technically inclined. For hobbyists or people interested in just kicking the tires, WordPress.com is a good starting point. However, if you are at all serious about moving forward with your blog, you’re going to quickly run into the limitations of WordPress.com.

WordPress.org

WordPress.org is the version of WordPress that you have to host yourself. This means that if you use wordpress.org, you have to go out and find a web hosting company to host your blog. This may result in you having to paying for services before you even hit Publish on your fist post.

The good thing is that some hosting companies may give you a short grace period to try out their service before you get your first bill. Then, after you get going, you’ll be looking at a cost of anywhere from a $7 to $13 per month for a shared host.

You’ll also have to buy your own domain to use with your blog—you won’t even have the option not to. Again, some hosts will give you one domain for free when you signup. This also means that you can add additional domains for just the cost of the domain, since you already have the host.

After you have decided on a shared host of your choice, you are going to have to install WordPress in your hosting account. Don’t fret: most shared hosts worth using will have a “one-click install” for WordPress, so it’s not too complicated to get WordPress installed. In the event that you do have any problems, most good shared hosts will help you out.

Once this has been completed, you will have free rein to do whatever you wish with your shiny new WordPress installation. This also means that you get access to two of the best features of WordPress that I alluded to above: plugins and custom themes.

Themes are what control the look and feel of your blog, colours, layouts, fonts, etc. Yes, it’s true that you are able to pick a theme while using WordPress.com but there is a limited selection and you are not able to do much customization to the theme itself. If you know your way around CSS, you can pay an additional $30 per year to have the ability to modify the CSS.

Even if you get to the CSS of your WordPress.com site, you still have a limited selection of themes to choose from. At least with WordPress.org, you have the choice of using the same out-of-the-box free themes as on WordPress.com or to pay a bit extra for a premium or custom theme.

But the killer feature of WordPress.org has got to be the ability to add plugins, which are not available with WordPress.com. Plugins are add-ons that expand the core functionality of WordPress. As an example, if you want to be able to scan your entire site to make sure there are no broken links, there is a plugin for that. There are countless other plugins for WordPress that will:

  • compress images
  • enhance SEO
  • create contact forms
  • lightbox images
  • and much, much more!

Initially, having FTP access to your blog might not matter to you, but as you grow into your blog, you might want to have the ability to modify and move files around on your web host’s server. This is something that you get with a self-hosted site running WordPress, that you can’t ever get with a WordPress.com blog.

Probably the most important feature of using WordPress.org is you get to make money with your blog. You’re free to use anything from Adsense to affiliate promotions. You’ll even have the option of creating and selling your own products through your site. And if the need arises, you can turn a WordPress.org site into a full-blown ecommerce solution.

That said, it’s not all roses with a self-hosted blog. There are two major things missing with WordPress.org that you get with WordPress.com: backups and protection from extreme traffic spikes.

There aren’t many safety nets with a self-hosted site, so make sure you back it up often. WordPress.com takes care of this for you. A good web host usually performs regular backups, but most will tell you that they don’t guarantee anything. So whatever you do, make sure that you perform your own WordPress backups frequently.

In the event that your blog does get popular overnight, it could buckle under the added traffic. Don’t worry: the stability of your site can be beefed up through the use of a good caching plugin, like W3 total cache. Also, it isn’t too difficult to upgrade your hosting at some point in the future when your site starts getting massive traffic. This would be a good problem to have!

Wrapping it up

I have to admit that after being so accustomed to the flexibility of WordPress.org, I would have a hard time being happy with a WordPress.com blog. If you have any aspirations of taking your blog past the hobby stage, you should just start out with a self-hosted site.

It is possible to move a WordPress.com hosted site to a self-hosted site later on. However, presuming that you might consider starting with a WordPress.com site and moving to a self-hosted site later on, you’re best to just start out with a self-hosted site.

That said, if you are comfortable living within the limitations of WordPress.com, and you want to never have to deal with the technical details of a blog, then a WordPress.com hosted blog might be all that you need.

WordPress.com is great if you are looking to keep an online journal or for small clubs and the like. Due to the fact that you are reading this site, I expect you’re interested in making a business out of your blog. On that note, at some point in the future you will end up with a WordPress.org website. Save yourself the fuss and the hassle of trying to transition your site later on. You’ll be happy you did.

The initially-free option of WordPress.com could actually result in higher costs down the road. After you start piling on extra fees for a custom domain, ad removal, extra storage space (you only get 3GBs to start), plus the ability to use custom CSS in your blog design, you really aren’t saving much, if any, money on WordPress.com, and you have to deal with its limitations.

Finally, and this is a big “finally”, you don’t own a WordPress.com website. After you’ve spent all that time to build a blog and an audience, do you really want to wake up one morning and find out that WordPress.com didn’t like your site so they deleted it? There isn’t a strong chance of this happening, but you should be aware that it could.

Credit: ProBlogger, Matt Hooper

Filed Under: Blog Guides, Web Hosting, WordPress Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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