Wednesday, July 22, 2009
HostMonster vs. HostGator Web Hosting
Click Here for HostGator
Click Here for HostMonster
HostMonster and HostGator are web hosting companies that are very similar to each other. They both offer unlimited space and broadband at competitive prices. Host Monster is as low as $5.96, but with a 36 month contract. HostGator provides a similar hosting plan for 12.95/month with no contract. Both companies allow for unlimited domains. With Host Gator, domain registrations are $15 each per year, while HostMonster charges $10 each per year, with the first one included in the hosting package. Both companies come with a free site bulder, making it easy to design your own web pages. This can save you a lot of money as hiring a web site designer can be expensive. Host Gator advertises that their site building program is easy enough for a child to use and contains over 4500 templates to chose from. Both companies also include FrontPage hosting for easy upload. Both HostMonster and HostGator have multiple features for blogging and for selling products on-line. Also, both HostMonster and HostGator include Wordpress which is a popular program for creating blogs. However, Hostmonster includes b2evolution as an additional option. HostGator also offers reseller web hosting plans for those looking to start a hosting company.
When it comes to e-commerce, HostGator seems like the better deal as they offer three programs, including ZenCart, CubeCart, and Os Commerse. In addition, one of their main selling features is that a free toll-free number is included with the plan. This also can save you a lot of money over time. HostMonster uses Os Commerce and Agora to meet your marketing needs. They both only operate for Linux and have a money back guarantee.
Click Here for HostGator
Click Here for HostMonster
It is important to consider all the features when shopping for a web hosting company and to choose one that best fits your personal web designing needs.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Charge.com Review
Charge.com offers cheap merchant account services for all types of businesses. Large and small. It doesn't matter if you're selling glock pistols or fitness equipment...these guys can handle the type of merchant service you're looking for.
Charge.com reviews on the web all say they are one of the best merchant services you can find.
At charge.com - there is no application fee and there is no setup fee. Free check by phone setup is also included. There is no programming fee, a free shopping cart, and they will set you up to accept american express and to accept discover card free of charge. You can get an instant approval and you'll get instant access to the charge.com 24X7 tech support! This is almost unheard of for merchant providers. 24x7 businesses will benefit from this - especially those on the web since the internet never sleeps!
The retail rate starts at 1.26% and the internet rate starts at 1.79% which is very low. Not all merchants will qualify for this rate. These are the base rates- it will depend on the volume and type of business. The transaction fee is as low as $0.15/trans.
Charge.com is the top merchant provider to accept credit cards online. Get your account today!
Monday, July 6, 2009
Accept Credit Cards on Website
How to Accept Credit Cards on a Website
There are a couple of tools you will need to accept credit cards on your website. These ecommerce tools include:
- A merchant account
- A payment gateway
- Some type of shopping cart or order form
- SSL certificate
- Product or service to sell!
Let's explore what each of these does to enable credit card processing online.
Merchant Account - This is the account that actually drops the money charged from the customer into your bank account. These credit card merchant accounts are easy to signup for online with a few bits of your business or personal information. The cost is very minimal to startup and usually a very low monthly fee. The main cost is based on the per transaction.
Payment Gateway - A payment gateway is the software system that interfaces your website. It takes the data from your order form and processes it through to your merchant account. This is done securely if integrated properly with a SSL certificate. One of the most popular payment gateways is Authorize.net which we'll review here soon.
Shopping Cart - You need some type of system for customers to add products to a cart or order page for them to "checkout" with. There are many different types of shopping carts and order processing systems. These can include hundreds of products or a single product/service website. Yahoo shopping carts are some of the most popular, but GoDaddy shopping carts are the best available.
SSL Certificate - This is installed on the web server by your web host. They start in cost at around $12.99/year if you order a GoDaddy SSL Certificate. The prices go up from there depending on the level of encryption - we recommend at least 128-bit encryption. SSL certificates are what encrypts the data that gets transfered from your website to your payment gateway.
Product or Service - if you're selling something like windows web hosting - you will need a single order form system. If you're selling a product like camping equipment or digital cameras you will need a multiple product shopping cart system.