In my opinion, a website is a necessity for every business. You must bring your business online in order to market your business 24/7 and with no boundaries. You can convey your message, update or change information via website without a cost.

Some of my friends asked me: what is the easy way to build a website? I said: you can build a website instantly with easy website builder. You don’t need technical knowledge and most of website builders are using WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) website editor, it is as easy as Microsoft Word. There are only 3 steps to build a website with easy website builder:

1. Customize your web layout: choose a theme, upload your own graphic, logo, title, and subtitle.
2. Create web pages and add the contents
3. Publish to your server with just a click

Where can you get the easy website builder?

Some web hosting companies provides built-in easy website builder. Please do check the quality of their website builder and whether it includes e-commerce and payment system linked to the third party. Some are just too plain and simple. Inmotion Business Class Hosting provides premium easy website builder which includes e-commerce and credit card payment system linked to the third party such as paypal and more.  Inmotion Premium Easy Website Builder is provided free for the first domain and if you want to add for another domain, just add $ 1 monthly per domain. I like the variety of their color themes: business, art, beauty, electronic, personal, fashion, holiday and many more. The benefits of using built-in easy website builder from Inmotion Business Class Web Hosting:

• A smooth transition if they upgrade to a newer version of software. You have no worries and you don’t need to pay more.
• Support all the year if you encounter any problems.

Buy easy website builder software to be installed to your server. Site builder software which includes e-commerce cost more, $150 to $300 for one time payment. You shall enquire the support after sales. The usually provide the support for 2 or 3 months after sales.  You shall ask whether you can upgrade and pay only a fraction of the price or full price if there is a newer version of the software.

You may find easy website builder as learning resources for moms and those who are willing to build a website on their own. The benefits of easy website builder are:

• You can change the theme and web layout as often as you like without a cost, no hiring a web designer
• You have full control of your website.

You can view my online store,  Kidzpuzzle built using Inmotion Premium Easy Website Builder. It is important that you choose SEO friendly website builder so you can key in the keywords of your choice.

Choose the reliable web hosting is critical for your online business. You have to find it right as it is the foundation of your online business. Imagine if you have to move your website from one hosting to another, it means that you have to rebuild again and what if you have hundreds of products. I would recommend business class web hosting, not cheap, personal or free web hosting.  The word “business class web hosting “doesn’t mean expensive, you can find the affordable one such as
Business Class Hosting – Starting at Just $6.95 – InMotion Hosting.

Based on my experiences, I outline the checklist below to select the right web hosting:

1. One Package Solution: domain name registration, web hosting and web mail. Look for their free value added services such as easy site builder built in their system and choices of  free open source software with script installer.
2. Unlimited Disk Space. You need to build a blog apart from website. Blog will take a quite bigger disk space.
3. The Package Details. If you have doubt, ask questions before you buy their package.
4. Read Customers’ Testimonials.  If they have won several awards, it is likely that they’re reliable. You can also check Independent Web Hosting Review.
5. The Reliability of The Support.  Most of the web hosting companies provide 24/7 but this is not always true. Sometimes, their support is only during their office hours. If you receive the reply within one day, it means that their support is good.  There are enough staffs to attend the customers’ enquiries.
6. Money Back Guarantee or Free Trial. Reliable web hosting will provide you with free trial or money back guarantee if you decide to terminate their services within 30 days. Please note that there will be a small fraction of administration cost to cover domain name registration and administration.
7. Speed of the Website. Check the website of your web hosting at different times for few days. If you find the upload of their site is very slow, it means that their speed is not reliable in your region.
8. Expansion for your Business. Find the web hosting that offer multiple domains and sub domains and the possibility to upgrade to higher level with more domains by adding a small fraction of cost.
9. Regular Maintenance such as twice a month. Look for the web hosting that provides maintenance without causing your website to shut down.

All the criterias above are met by Inmotion Web Hosting who received Top Business Host Award 2009 and other awards.  I have engaged their services more than 6 months and I have no problems. Here are the advantages that I get from Inmotion Web Hosting:

• I  get my first domain name registration for free.
• I have my own control panel to create sub domain for free, to install free open source software with just a click, to create unlimited e-mail accounts with unlimited disk space, to change the passwords etc.
• The support is reliable. I receive prompt reply, mostly less than 6 hours. If I’m not satisfied with their reply, I can always report to the manager which email is at the bottom of the reply email.
• It is really easy to build a website using their easy site builder with over 500  specific themes. I can customize the web page by uploading my own picture, logo, title, and subtitle.
• No downtime on my website and blog during their scheduled maintenance.

I’m a learning mama who runs online business, Kidzpuzzle. I have seen the trend that stay at home or work at home moms who start their home based online business think of free hosting blog as their website such as Blogspot.com or WordPress.com. You can’t own your website and you have to use their domain extension blogspot.com or wordpress.com. You choose a good domain name for your online business such as: Kiddies Store.blogspot.com or Green Baby.wordpress.com. You may not know that other people watch what you are doing and steal this domain name for their business. They use the same domain name and go for paid hosting: Kiddies store.com and Green baby.com. By the time you are ready to move your website to paid hosting, you can’t use the same domain name. Other people already use your domain name as their business. Remember that your domain name reflects your business. What if you have spent time for branding your products, you create labels and packaging bearing your business name. Please do register your business before you brand your products. My advice for moms who wish to run home based online business is register your business domain name and host your online business with a Reliable but Affordable Business Class Web Hosting. Your website will be listed in search engine earlier than your competitors. It takes time to climb the rank in search engine. The earlier you start, the higher rank your website will be in search engine.  I hope this sharing will benefit as learning resources for stay at home or work at home moms who wish to run home based online business.

When I started blogging, I used free hosting and user-friendly Blogspot. But they have  limitations. There’re 2 columns only. I couldn’t create sub-categories and more pages. When I decided to market my blog, I learn to blog the right way and took up Internet Business Coaching.  I came to know that WordPress is the best solution for a blog website. WordPress software comes FREE because it is an open source project so people are free to use it. They always upgrade their version. Here’s the excerpt from WordPress: “WorPress is state-of-the-art publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time.”

 Please don’t confuse that there are WordPress.com and WordPress.org.

WordPress.com: If you use free hosting for your blog, you can get it from WordPress.com.  Your domain will carry their name too, http://yourdomain.wordpress.com. Using free WordPress-based blog from WordPress.com is less flexible than if you install and host the blog by using a paid web hosting.

WordPress.org: If you choose to host the blog by using a paid web hosting, you use software from WordPress.org and you can have your own domain name, http://yourdomain.com or http://www.yourdomain.com.  It is advisable to choose a web hosting company that provides you with script installer such as Fantastico to install open source software with just a click in their control panel. Otherwise, you have to figure out how to install the software into your domain name by following the guide from WorPress. My Business Class Web Hosting is one of the web hosting company that provides Fantastico installer in their control panel to install open source software to my domain name with just a click. I chose Business Class Web Hosting because they provide unlimited disk space for my blog and host multiple domains and sub domains. They always have the latest version of the open source software and the choices are plenty, not just WordPress. Upon installation, I can customize my blog and have the complete control of themes, plugins and widgets. Now, I see unlimited possibilities building my blog using WordPress.org.

Is it easy to build a website with open source project software like WordPress? I say “NO” though documentation is provided by WordPress. I can ask a help from my web hosting provider but they offer limited support because the software is from the third party. So, where can I get a help? I get a help from Internet Business Coaching, because they have expertise and knew exactly how to build a blog website using WordPress. I would prefer to take an online course than offline course. Online course is much cheaper than offline course because all materials are delivered via internet and there is continuity. They guided me everything about building a blog using WordPress. I can ask questions by email if I don’t understand how to make it work. It accelerates my learning and I couldn’t believe myself that my blog layout was ready within one week.

Domain or Sub domain  – You can install a blog within your domain, it is called sub domain. I have an online store, http://www.kidzpuzzle.com and my blog for kidzpuzzle is located at http://blog.kidzpuzzle.com. The advantage is I don’t need to register for a new domain and it means free (no additional charge). My Business Class Web Hosting provides hosting of multiple domains but additional domain name has to be registered and it cost $7.95 yearly per domain for .com.

Stop Searching ! If you have been searching high and low for the right web hosting package, the answer is only Business Class Hosting – Starting at Just $6.95 – InMotion Hosting , which received Top Business Host Award 2009. Please don’t go for cheap or personal web hosting as Business Class Hosting is supported with Max Speed Zone Technologythat makes your website and email upload fast. If you have streaming/interactive application in your website, max speed zone will make upload faster. Your website will be 99.9% up-time and they schedule regular maintenance twice a month without causing downtime on your website. The technical support is superb, I normally receive reply within 4 hours after the ticket submission. The The good thing about InMotion Hosting Business Class is they provide choices between Web Site Builder and Fantastico Installer.

Web Site Builder. For non-IT person like me, building a website and e-commerce using web site builder is really easy. I can list one item under multiple categories. Choose over 500 themes, add the contents and with just one click, you can publish the website in a short period. You can upload your own picture and logo to personalise your website.

Fantastico Installer. With Fantastico installer, you can download your choice of GNU General Public License free software  to your domain straight away.  You can build a blog, a website or an e-commerce. You don’t need to figure out how to download.

Please view my website, http://www.kidzpuzzle.com which is built using Web Site Builder from In Motion Business Class Hosting.