Edge Briefing
Website Hosting & Domain Name
Annual web hosting. What is it and what are you paying for? It is perhaps the question we’re asked the most often.
Website Hosting is what makes your website accessible via the World Wide Web. An Edge website hosting account provides space on a server in our data centre and Internet connectivity and ensures secure connectivity and website back up.
We operate a number of shared hosting platforms and dedicated servers. The technical specifications of our platforms are available on request.
Each Hosting Package has an annual fee that covers the space used on our web server and bandwidth used during the operation of your website and your email service. The Hosting Fee does not include technical support or updates to your website.
Our E-Mail service is provided via your Website Hosting account. A range of services are offered to suit your requirements and include POP3 mailboxes, webmail and E-Mail forwarding. Our POP3 service can be accessed via desktop software including Outlook, Thunderbird and Entourage. Most PDAs and mobile phones can also receive email through our system including iPhones and Windows Mobile devices. An advanced Webmail system allows you to access your E-Mail while on the road from any computer with Internet access. The system is also compatible with Exchange Server.
An optional Anti-Spam service can be provided at small additional cost and this can be controlled through your Webmail control panel.
Domain Name Management
We can register and renew any domain names you require. In most cases you would have one domain name that you advertise for your website, sometimes a variation for a Blog or campaign website and sometimes a number of different domain extensions and variations of your company name eg. mycompany.com, mycompany.co.uk, my-company.com etc. to ensure that you have control of them, even if they are not used to publish a website.
Domain Names are usually registered for a period of two years and they must be renewed before they expire if you wish to keep them. We will advise you of upcoming renewals up to 60 days in advance to ensure there is no downtime with your website.
We offer Domain Portfolio Management for clients that require a large number of domains for their operations such as large hotel chains. This service takes the time and hassle of managing your domains allowing you to concentrate on more valuable business tasks.
Hosting and Domain Costs
- Website Hosting £195 plus VAT per annum
- Email Hosting £95 plus VAT per annum (included in Website package)
- .com Domain Registration £45 for a period of 2 years
- .co.uk Domain Registration £25 for a period of 2 years
Site Hosting Review
As clients renew their hosting package for a new year we suggest having a look at the basic services on your site. The following aspects of a hosting package are important for all website developments we undertake and we suggest that on an annual basis, at the very least, you should:-
- Complete a review of the descriptions and title tags for all of the top level pages (up to a maximum of ten) on your website;
- Set up or review your Google Account
- Set up or review your Google Local entry
- Set up or review your Google Analytics
- Upload a Google Site Map
In plain English, there is little point in any web site being developed if it is not going to be found. A bit like printing 10,000 leaflets and leaving them in a back office! You need to be sure that your site has everything in place to allow it to be found by the search engines.
Our standard Search Engine Strategy is to develop your web site in accordance with current best practice with regard to inclusion and placing of meta titles and descriptions and optimising website copy.
The keywords and phrases would be supplied separately by you and we will undertake to edit these for best results and for the business’s approval. All main sections of your site should have separate Page Titles, Page Descriptions and Keywords and Phrases.
The creation of Google Accounts with Google Local, Analytics and Site Map are all done with a view to increasing your website’s reach. A search engine site map will be created to ensure that the engines above are finding the content in the easiest format possible and Google Analytics will be embedded into your website for visitor analysis.
If we are simply hosting your site (not designing it) we will need access to your site from your web developers to make any changes to the site.
We will submit your web site to major search engines and search listing providers which are known to allow no cost submission.
We can also outline the costs of a paid submissions campaign for the major search engines should this be required.
Cost
The Additional cost at time of Hosting Renewal is only £255 plus VAT for the rewriting.
Normal charge is £450 plus VAT