Joomla is one of the most popular Content Management Systems. These systems, often called CMS, help you create a website from scratch, and organize its work without involving specialists. Joomla CMS has many important features that make it one of the leaders in the market. For instance, convenient admin interface helps you add and reorganize content with only a couple of clicks.

Try Joomla for E-Commerce

The studies show that ever more users choose Joomla for eCommerce. Indeed, creating an online shop on it is a good way to start your business. Also, this doesn’t require really much resources. Joomla has many options that will help you create an efficient eCommerce project. However, if you choose this platform, your main tool on the way to successful online business is the special VirtueMart extension.

With VirtueMart your project will turn into real pleasure. Once you install the plugin, you will be able to create and markup all website pages, add your goods, prices, comparison tools, promo banners, etc. All-in-all, VirtueMart extension has any instrument you may need for an online shop. Try it to make sure!

How to Make a Joomla E-Commerce Site?

So, how can you create an eCommerce website powered by Joomla? There are several key steps you need to make for this. Here we’ve prepared the list of 5 stages of creating an eCommerce website with Joomla and VirtueMart:

1. Download Joomla software

For this, go to their official page, and choose the package you need. We suggest you to try the latest version, which is, for the time being, Joomla! 3.0.1. Thereafter, upload the .zip file you’ve just got to your hosting. For this go to cPanel, and use its File Manager to upload the software package. Finally, use the same cPanel File Manager to unpack the archive under public_html.

2. Create a new database

This is required to store all information about your future website. To create a database, go to cPanel home page again, and find the MySQL Database Wizard. In it you’ll have to create a new database and a user to admin it. This is quite easy — just follow the wizard’s instructions, and remember the username and password you choose

3. Install Joomla!

Now it’s quite easy. Just type the address of your website in the browser, and you’ll be suggested to install Joomla software. Follow the tips, and configure Joomla. A couple of moments, and voilá! After several minutes you already have your own site! Ain’t it magic?

4. Choose a template

Now you can choose design for your website. For this you’ll need to login to admin page at www.yourdomain.com/administrator. As soon as it’s done, go to Extensions > Extension Manager. Then, upload and install the template you have chosen previously. And don’t forget that you can easily find interesting and free eCommerce templates for Joomla.

5. Install VirtueMart

Now you can finally install the extension that will add all necessary eCommerce functions to your website. You can install VirtueMart using the same Extensions Manager. Thereafter, start configuring your website. And this is where sky is the limit. Use your imagination, add the tools you need, build and design pages, add more extensions, and start it!

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So, as you see, you don’t need to be a superman to start an eCommerce project. However, this is only the beginning. Developing your online business and competing with other eCommerce projects is much harder. So, get ready to fight for your place under the Sun. And may the Force be with your eCommerce website!

Are you a blogger? Then, you obviously want your blog to be more popular. Nowadays using social networks to promote your blog is a real must. Especially if you create some unique content for a narrow target group. The advantages of Social Media Management (or just SMM) are evident. You get new customers, your blog is recognized better, and, finally, you can use social media to contact your readers better.

Best SMM Tips for Your Blog

So, what’s the the most important thing about SMM? First of all, you have to use it wisely. Don’t just post some news or other info — ask your readers about different things. This will help you understand what requires special attention in your blog. Also, using social networks is good for chatting. It’s extremely important for a blogger to be closer to the readers, and social media is a great tool for it.

Another important thing that you’ll need at your blog are social sharing buttons. They are, actually, a auto-promotion tool. You install them once, and they work for your blog again and again. These social buttons let the readers share your posts on a social network page. This works perfect for promotion, especially if you have really interesting and unique content.

All about Social Sharing Buttons for WordPress

If you have a blog powered by WordPress platform, here we have a plenty of good news for you! This CMS allows to install and use a lot of social network tools including sharing buttons. Moreover, you can add special widgets that will broadcast your social media posts to your blog. Long story short, WordPress is a bottomless well of social media opportunities.

So, how can you add social sharing buttons to your WordPress blog? There are several ways to do it, but we’ll offer you the easiest one. You can opt for special plugins that help you manage this issue very fast. These plugins are easy to install, and allow to add links to the most popular social networks. For instance, you can try Social Share Buttons, Slick Social Share Buttons, or some other WordPress plugins.

Most plugins of this kind are free and easy to use. You will only have to choose the buttons you need, and their allocation near every blog post. It’ll be specially nice if you’ll choose a plugin that has share counters. That will both motivate users to share your posts, and help you understand, what topics are more interesting for your readers.

More Ideas for Successful SMM

Well, the situation with social media buttons is quite clear. You add them, and they just work. However, what can you do to make Facebook&Co work even better? First of all, create your official pages at the most popular social platforms. We advise you to start with Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus. Also, if your blog topic is related to business or employment, try LinkedIn.

Is that not enough for you? Well, there are more interesting tools. For instance, sidebar social media widgets. They are installed as regular plugins, and help you make more use of blog sidebars. These widgets show your latest social media activity. With these plugins, you can attract people not only to read your blog, but also get extra info from your social network accounts.

Nowadays you have a lot of opportunities to create a great web page. However, one of the cheapest and easiest of them is using a CMS. CMSs or Content Management Systems, are special software installed to your web server to provide fast and easy creation and management of a website. These platforms are easy to operate and help to create your own site from nothing.

Use WordPress for Your Website

One of the most popular CMSs is WordPress. Though it was originally created as a blog platform, today it’s changed a lot. Now you can create almost any type of website using WordPress: eCommerce, photo gallery, blog, news portal, etc. The convenience and popularity of this platform are well reasoned by its user-friendly interface and lots of functions.

If you want to use WordPress with your website, it won’t require much efforts. You just need to install special software on your budget web hosting, and choose a good theme. Then, everything depends only on your fantasy. So, don’t hesitate, and try to create your own website using WordPress CMS!

Best WordPress Websites List

Do you want some examples of successful web projects powered by WordPress? Specially for you we have selected several extremely interesting websites that work with this platform. So, meet them:

• http://business.blogs.cnn.com/. Probably, everyone have heard about CNN. Well, their nice business blog also uses WordPress. Isn’t it a proof that WordPress is really good and reliable?
• http://ebayinkblog.com/. A beautiful blog about eBay and its innovations. A good example of how a featured blog should look like.
• http://www.creativedepart.com/. This great art blog shows you, how creative some WordPress themes can be. Great design of this site also helps users to percept content better.
• http://www.jefffinley.org/. A good example of a portfolio website powered by WordPress. It uses many important instruments showing the multifunctional possibilities of WordPress.



• http://www.egyptsharmtrips.com/. Have you ever traveled to Egypt? If no, maybe you could try the services of this amazing website. It looks stylish and functional, a good example of WordPress usage, indeed.
• http://www.colazionedamichy.it/. A fantastic example of uniting different website functions. This is a portfolio, blog and gallery website — all in one, and with smart design.
• http://www.altimea.com/. Creative studios also use WordPress. Here is a really good example from France. Fantastic design, animations and set of functions.
• http://typographica.org/. A nice blog and review website about typography. Stylish design is united with nice animations and great unique content. A really good WordPress website.
• http://www.archer-group.com/. This is a topnotch website of an analytics and design agency. It uses a lot of WordPress features — both common and uncommon.
• http://www.creativespaces.net.au/. WordPress powers a lot of useful websites. This one helps artists and designers, so the unity of creative design and good functions makes this site really successful.

How to Improve Your WordPress Website?

So, now you’ve seen our examples of great WordPress websites. Probably, you’ve noticed all of them are very different. They have different functions, target groups, designs. So, perhaps, our best advice for you is “Try to make your site as unique as possible”. Thanks God, WordPress lets you do it really well.

Order an exciting WordPress theme, or create your own one. Make your website interactive and informative. Don’t overload your users with content — give it in portions. These are several points that were followed by the web designers that created the sites from our list. To sum it all up, be creative, and people will strive for you and your project!

Good Web Hosting Packages

The market of IT has been developing at crazy speed over last several years. Now you can find a lot of cheap and attractive hosting offers, so it’s getting even harder to choose the best option. Three most popular types of web hosting you can find on the web are Shared Hosting, VPS Hosting and Dedicated Hosting. Let’s take a closer look at Dedicated offers that give you top-class solutions for managing your web project.

Don’t you still know what is Dedicated Hosting? No problem! This is an option, which lets you get a whole server for rent. This means you will be able to control everything controllable. Apart from great server management opportunities, you’ll also get a lot of disk space, incredible channel capacity and many other interesting features!

On average dedicated servers cost more than VPS or Shared Hosting packages. However, the amount and quality of services you get for this price can’t be compared to those of Shared and VPS options. If you browse the web, you will find a lot of Dedicated Server offers, and many of them are really cheap, so with Dedicated Hosting you can save money as well. Are you already excited? No wonder!

Dedicated Server Types

There are many ways to classify Dedicated Servers. Different options fit different requirements better or worse, so this info is very important. First of all, you’ll have to decide, which operational system will be better for your project. The most common offers you’ll find in the market are Linux and Windows. Any choice will determine many aspects of your future project, so be careful with this option.

Another important choice you’ll have to make is about database type. If you are planning to purchase a Dedicated Server, you project is already quite big, or you’re planning to make it big in the nearest future. Serious projects have to deal with databases for the site to function faster and more efficiently. So, the most common types of databases are MySQL and MS SQL for Linux and Windows, respectively.

Next step is choosing the type of your Dedicated Hosting management. Different web host companies offer you Managed and Unmanaged Dedicated Servers. The former let you delegate technical management of the server to hosting provider’s experts. The latter will give you the power to make fine adjustments that help your web site work the fastest possible. The choice is yours!

How to Choose Dedicated Hosting?

When you have defined the most important options you want to see in your dedicated server, start looking for offers. For instance, you can make a list of companies that offer packages of your type. With this list you can choose the best option depending on what you need. For instance, if you need a budget offer, choose the cheapest packages, look for info about reliability of respective companies, check discounts, and voila! You get the best offer!

Cheap Dedicated Servers – Is It Safe?

Many people always get suspicious when they see an extremely cheap offer. Well, with Dedicated Servers two options are possible. You can find cheap dedicated hosting powered by old servers, or provided by a company with bad reputation. However, you can also come across promotional offers of new companies that provide good hosting, and just try to attract more attention to their new brand.

The best way to check if a certain cheap Dedicated Server is really worth purchasing, is to browse the web. On specialized budget web hosting sites or forums you can find a lot of info and reviews of different hosting providers. Just read this info, and make your choice! This will take some time, but as a result you’ll get the best offer meeting all your requirements. Ain’t is amazing?

Cheap hosting became super popular in the web market as it offers affordable services for small and medium-sized businesses and projects. Naturally, all people want to save money and to get high quality services at the same time.

But is it really possible and maybe cheap hosting can do more harm than good to your online project?

If you are newcomer in the online business, cheap hosting will be good start for you and will help you to explore the inside of the web hosting services.

Reliability and Cost

In fact, the reliability of web provider is much more important than cost of the hosting plan. As there are a lot of fly-by-night cheap hosting companies, you should be careful when choosing a provider for your future website.

As some companies use outdated servers that have regular crashes, you may have permanent downtime and can lose many visitors. Some cheap host can be very slow that will have negative impact on your site’s reputation.

There are some companies that economize on customer support or don’t have it at all. So, choose only those providers which guarantee high quality customer support that you can contact any time.

Naturally, cheap cost can’t imply five star quality service, but it is possible to find cheap hosting provider which will offer you necessary resources and support on a level.

How To Choose Reliable Cheap Hosting Company

There are several aspects that you should take into account when choosing cheap hosting provider. As we’ve discussed above, your task is to choose a host with 100% uptime guarantee. Although in most cases this index can be decreased, you can choose reliable hosting provider promising 99.8%.

Choose the host allowing you to upgrade if you need more disk space and bandwidth. You should also take into consideration the cost of upgrading.

Be careful when provider will offer you additional services and tools as you can overpay or refuse important features.

It wouldn’t be out of place to read independent review in the internet or to contact customer support to see how fast it react on your questions and requests.

Conclusion

As there are a lot of fly-by-night companies in the hosting market, it became more difficult to choose trustworthy hosting company. But it is really possible to get cheap hosting plan that will meet your needs. Sure, you shouldn’t expect large amount of bandwidth and disk space, but if you have small or medium-sized business, this amount will be quite enough for your web site.

There are many different types of hosting plans offered in the web market today. And choosing the suitable provider depends on what type of website you want to have: ecommerce site, blog or hobby.

The most common hosting plans are: shared hosting, VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting and dedicated hosting.

Below we are going to talk about the most affordable type of web hosting – shared hosting, particularly about cheap hosting services.

Cheap Hosting – When to Use?

Shared hosting is considered to be one of the cheapest services in the web market. This kind of hosting implies that your web site is located on the same server with many other different sites. On the one hand it is very comfortable with relation to the cost as you pay strictly for resources you need and you havn’t to lease the whole server. But, on the other hand, sharing resources among multitude of sites increases the risk of downtime.

So, cheap hosting is good only for small and medium size projects as it can provide access only to basic server resources. Cheap hosting shouldn’t be used if you are going to build and to maintain large network of sites. Cheap hosting doesn’t represent the best solution for web developers, programmers and service providers that want to build their own client base.

What Do You Get With Cheap Hosting?

As we’ve mentioned above, cheap hosting doesn’t imply providing a large amount of resources, but it doesn’t mean that this is not to the clients advantage as many customers need a little amount of disk space and bandwidth and don’t want to lease the whole server. So, thanks to the cheap hosting many people have opportunity to make themselves known in the internet with spending only few dollars a month.

Cheap hosting gives all resources and tools for small and medium-sized projects. Cheap hosting plan includes system administration and server maintenance. Such plan can also provide important programming features as ASP, PHP, MySQL as well as multiple e-mail address capability. Moreover, with cheap hosting you can get your own domain name. Sure, it won’t be domain name of the first rate, so, many hosting companies allow to buy better domain name somewhere else.

Cheap hosting companies make money by recommending additional software and various add-ons to their clients. In order not to overpay or, on the contrary, no to refuse necessary features, you should determine your needs and establish your requirements. It won’t be out of place to use special free tools for uptime tracking as Pingdom and Uptime Robot.

Today more and more businesses and companies decide that they need to create their own website which will help to attract more clients. Sure, why use antiquated methods while there are unlimited possibilities to present your business in the cyberspace where millions of potential clients are surfing every minute.

So, you definitely need a web site for your business, but you don’t know whether cheap hosting won’t present any risk for development of your site.

Cheap hosting name has appeared several years ago when most companies were offering nothing more than minimal space on FTP-enabled web server. This gave possibility to upload a small amount of documents and images, but not much else. Hosting companies were handling the databases and scripting applications powering the site.

Cheap hosting services of today are far more improved, offering considerable amount of disk space and bandwidth as well as administrative tools and comfortable features. So, nowadays it won’t cost an arm and a leg to set up your business online.

What Can You Get With Cheap Hosting?

Many of hosting companies offer great packages with special incentives and additional services. Many providers offer great amount of disk space and bandwidth, comprehensive web building applications, free domain names and support for different programming languages. Normally, cheap hosting package should include multiple accounts, e-commerce tools, spam filtering applications and security features.

So, it will be easy to find the hosting plan with control panel and operating system of your choice. Moreover, reliable cheap hosting provider will ensure the speed and performance needed for your site development.

Be Careful While Choosing a Host

So, now you know that even cheap hosting can provide you with enough of possibilities to set up your business online. But it doesn’t mean that all cheap hosts are offering reliable services. There are companies selling services which aren’t worth even low price. They have very limited set of features, very slow servers and non-existing customer support.

There is a multitude of cheap web hosting companies and the best way to find trustworthy host is extensive research. It is very useful to read the reviews and comments about one or another company. Consumer feedback is important as it get you ready for what to expect in terms of service and prices. Thus, you will find out what cheap hosting companies are offering service which perfectly suits your personal requirements.

Nowadays among the abundance of discount and sales, in the world where everything costs $9.99 people get adjusted to buy products and services at a low price as none wants to overpay.

But when it comes to a critical business such as web hosting, you should be very cautious as cheap hosting price should arouse much more suspicion. Many providers offer low cost as they want to attract more clients, but how paradoxically it wouldn’t sound, many clients is the main reason why cheap hosting can’t ensure high quality service.

Moreover, there are a lot of fly-by-night cheap hosting providers that can disappear with your money after a month of service.

How Cheap Hosting Companies Are Arranged?

Web hosting companies buy servers and internet connectivity in order to resell these resources to businesses and individuals who need them for websites and other web-based activities. Usually, this is realized by leasing more powerful computers called dedicated servers.

You don’t get the entire computer, but you receive resources such as disk space and bandwidth as well as the features included in the hosting plan. The main goal here is to structure this plan in such a way that it is affordable for a customer that, in its turn, will help to maximize profits based on the
available resources.

As the internet and hosting industry don’t have real limits, new web hosts emerge every day. This helps to heat up the competition and to keep prices relatively stable. But there are companies that want to grab a significant part of cheap hosting market, so, they begin to offer the lowest price in the web industry. Naturally, lowest price attracts more clients, but let’s consider the reverse of the medal.

Very Low Price Means Unreliable Service

Really quality service can’t be too cheap as it requires expenses for IT team and leasing the servers. But cheap hosting providers who offer unbelievable low price have decided to choose another way. First of all, they economize on the customer support. Such companies may have not professional support, small team of professionals that just don’t has time to deal with all technical problem arousing or they may not have technical specialists at all.

Another problem of cheap hosting is overloaded server that is shared between multiple websites. If your site is located on the overloaded server, you should expect slow pages loading or regular downtime.

The most dangerous issue is reselling the server’s resources. In order to triple their profits, some companies can resell the resources as a lot of clients don’t use all the resources provided to them. This can lead to real catastrophe as if at least 100 sites begin to use the resources implied by the hosting plan or want to upgrade, the server won’t sustain such level of load and will break.

Cheap web hosting is very affordable nowadays and, naturally, it is very popular thanks to its low price and good services provided.

But why to pay for these services if there are also free hosting plans which won’t cost you a penny?

Let’s look closer at this issue and let’s consider all advantages and disadvantages of both types of web hosting.

Advantages of Free Hosting

Sure, the fist and main advantage of cheap hosting is that you don’t have to pay for the service. There are a lot of firms which bundle free plans besides their premium solutions. For some businesses and individuals this kind of hosting is good enough, but only for very small businesses and for individuals who expect to have low level of traffic.

So, this is suitable solution for those who create web site to declare about personal endeavors or hobbies. Free hosting plan will also help to understand the inside of web service that will can make you decide to switch over the paid hosting.

Disadvantages of Free Hosting

It is obviously that disadvantages of free hosting overweight its advantages. First of all let’s talk about very limited resources you receive. You will get a very small amount of disk space to store you files and pictures. Most free host don’t even want to quote a determined amount of storage, so you may won’t be able to load even average-sized video file.

You can be limited on certain number of pages, images and overall design of the site. Moreover, free hosting doesn’t imply uptime guaranteed and technical support. Although some providers promise to resolve technical problems, you can wait for response for weeks.

As the service is free, any company won’t promise to provide support within determined period of time. It should be observed that free hosting implies obligatory the advertising placed on your web pages that can also scare away the visitors.

Cheap Hosting – Perfect Solution

Cheap hosting is ideal solution for small and medium-sized businesses as well as for individuals who want to have higher level of traffic. If taking into account the quality of service in comparison with free hosting, even $10 per month is just price for this king of hosting. As you pay money for hosting, your provider is responsible for ensuring support and making your site work effectively.

You can choose a hosting package that exactly suits your needs: disk space you need, bandwidth, settings and applications. Of course there are limitations, but you will be much less restricted and will have better control over your website.

Nowadays everybody has get adjusted to different kinds of discounts and sales, that’s why cheap hosting became so popular, especially among small businesses and those who creates web pages for personal needs.

But in spite of the cheap price this kind of hosting isn’t always attractive, as it can include additional expenses that don’t imply high quality service.

So, you should be really careful before choosing one or another web hosting company.

Poor Site Performance

Unfortunately, there are a lot of companies which runs their service on cheap and outdated hardware, making it impossible to provide customer with sufficient resources and good performance. This problem usually takes place if provider overloads its server with too many websites that can result in slow server response and downtime of your site.

Today web has become very fast and visitors don’t like to wait for the pages loading. So, instead of waiting for your site loading, they rather will find another site with faster response.

Excessive Downtime

One of the basic problems of cheap hosting is downtime that is the result of using outdated hardware, overloaded servers and lack of the infrastructure and specialists to maintain and monitor the server’s work. It is obvious that cheap services increase the risk of downtime, thus having negative impact on your business development. So, if you don’t choose reliable hosting company, you can loose traffic and your potential clients.

Spam

Cheap hosting represents an ideal environment for spammers allowing them to save money as they have place to set their annoying and dangerous advertising. Usually spammers run hundreds of sites, thus, generating small sum of money from each of the sites.

While individual amount isn’t considerable, general earning form all those sites are really huge. It doesn’t mean that hosting next to spammers will influence you directly, but this can cause serious problems for the hosting provider which houses hundreds of such sites.

It should be noted that cheap hosted sites has the same IP address. So, it can present a great problem when the entire IP address is banned and penalized by search engine machines.

Conclusion

Today cheap hosting doesn’t present the best possible solution in the web industry, it has a lot of minuses, but these minuses are caused by the appearance of many unreliable hosting providers, so-called fly-by-night companies. But, if you address to the reputable web hosting provider, it will offer you really high quality service at a cheap price.