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Why  Webhosting?

Why Webhosting?

Hosting or web hosting refers to the process of maintaining and serving files for several websites. Put in simple terms; website hosting refers to the computer and the network on which your site is hosted. To explicate it in simpler terms, if you own article-on-bitsimba.com and visitors type in article-on-bitsimba.com into a browser, through a system of complex commands and whistles, they have made a request to the network that is hosting your website. The computer then sends them all the site files required and bam! Visitors can see your site. Therefore, your host serves as your site’s home, and you have to pay rent and maintenance fees

Deciding if you need a host can be harrowing, however, you know that you need a hosting service if:

1. If you own a website or even an obscure blog or an e-commerce business or any site that transacts business online, then yes, yes, yes! YOU NEED A HOST! Website hosting is important because it is your online identity’s lifeline. A site that is down all the time translates to no business, which results in lost customers.  A great logo is nice, but hosting in 2016 can make all the difference
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2. If you experience downtime in your business, web hosting is imperative. Downtime refers to situations where your site is inaccessible to online visitors. If it lasts for more than a few seconds, your business could potentially suffer significant losses. Reliable hosts ensure that downtimes are as few as possible which allows users to access information make purchases or leave comments.

3. If you have emails linked to your site or your site’s development calls for a large email capacity. Web hosting includes and maintains e-mail accounts that are linked to your site or blog. The hosting helps to organize all your emails, as well as separate them from comments and correspondence, allowing you to focus on other aspects of the business.

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4. If you experience a surge of traffic daily, and your site crashes faster than any of your relationships. If you are running a business that attracts much traffic, your site can temporarily be down, and if a drive fails, it can take hours to bring it up and running. Dedicated web hosting or cloud hosting manages such traffic, making your site accessible at all times.

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5. You experience long loading periods. There is nothing as annoying as a website that takes too long to load or a matatu driver in Nairobi. Inconsistent loading times are attributed to the site’s host. During peak usage hours, the situation can become worse, which can cause reduced sales or even low search engine ranking.

6. If you lack support or know nothing about how web sites run, technical assistance is imperative because it allows you to handle issues related to the site such as crashes or unmanaged traffic. Most web hosting companies offer technical support that is very responsive and useful for any business.

7. If you handle a lot of data security such as confidential information such as where brother Ocholla lives, you want to isolate your data from other users of the same server to minimize unauthorized access and hacking attempts.

8. If your site is as dull as wood and you, need a customized site. With VPS or Dedicated server hosting, site owners enjoy the flexibility of customizing your site as you see fit. The benefits also extend to customized firewall configurations and customized apps to better the user experience, which enhances your site.

9. If you require large amounts of virtual storage space, web hosting is a no brainer. Having the right servers and bandwidth can improve your business. Reliable hosts offer better bandwidth, which results in uptime.

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10. If you can afford it- every problem that you can encounter online can be solved by a reliable host. If you require backup restored, or need passwords updated, web hosting services can take care of all that, for a small price.

So, if you are responsible for your work, web hosting is all about taking responsibility and ownership for your work or business especially if it is a business that people rely on daily. Rather than losing out on clients, invest in a web hosting service.

Photo credit:
(1) Cloud – Big Data in Cloud-Center – Serverraum via photopin (license)
(2) E-Mails @ Computer via photopin (license)
(3) Keyboard via photopin (license)
(4) James Sanderson of How to start a blog online via photopin (license)
(5) Notebook / Macbook via photopin (license)

How to start a successful blog in Kenya

How to start a successful blog in Kenya

So, when you first start blogging, you probably think that the experience will be the easiest task you will ever execute in your life. After all, you only need to do is sit down on a chair, rifle a string of ‘personal’ or deathly witty anecdotes with your trusty friend the keyboard. Sounds easy enough right? Blogging is not easy. It requires persistence, consistency and a level of creativity that can attract traffic and audiences to your page. Any idiot can start a blog, but the real test lies in creating a successful blog that sizzles and excites. The task of getting followers and readers can be incredibly daunting and tasking, which is why most blogs fail within the first few months.

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So, how do you start a successful blog in Kenya?

Tip no. 1: Content is king

The idea is simple: you must deliver value in your posts. If you write what you know, and work genuinely in an attempt to express yourself and help people, sooner or later, audiences will start to discover your awesomeness. However, sometimes nobody cares what you have to say, and that is the reality. In such instances, conduct your research to find out what people really want; then start from there.

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Tip no. 2 SEO is crucial

Search Engine Optimization refers to the steps taken to affect your blog’s or site’s visibility on a search engine. It is also known as organic or earned results because you do not have to pay to obtain results on search engines such as Google. If people cannot find your blog, you might as well stick to putting down your thoughts in your diary. SEO utilizes tools that tell you which keywords to target so that you can squeeze them all in your titles and your posts, which results in high keyword density. However, keywords are only a fraction of the work. The best way to ensure your blog’s success is to link yourself with bonafide bloggers in your niche, who will then start reverting traffic to your site

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Tip no. 3. Nobody cares about your life

Not anymore. In the beginning, there was an influx of personal blogs that shared personal experiences with readers. The thing is, this strategy has been overdone, and it is quite frankly a little irritating. Unless you are positive that your life is exciting, enough to keep audiences loyal, you need to switch up your strategy. If you are posting articles that people care about, you can do all the wrong things, and your blog will still grow. Listen! Don’t publish what you want to say (about your boring life), post what people want to read.

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Tip no. 4. Images are everything

Blogs are a way to pass the time, and people look to them for entertainment and humor. An easy way to keep audiences coming back is to post GIFs, images, photo posts or infographics to make your blog appealing. After a hard day at work, nobody really wants to read a long, uninteresting post with no images. The sad thing is, humans are unbelievably fickle, but the good news is, humans love pictures! Moreover, there is an endless supply of resources and GIF generators to make your job easy.

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Bearing these tips in mind, you must realize that success will not be realized immediately. However, you will well be on your way if you remember to be creatively useful on whatever topic that you choose to post.


Photo Credits:
(1) Reflecting On Words via photopin (license)
(2) The 3 Keys to Creating Viral Content via photopin (license)
(3) Google SEO Magnifying Glass via photopin (license)
(4) Home, sweet home via photopin (license)
(5) Mercatus Launch Event via photopin (license)
(6) How to Develop Traffic Sources for Your Site via photopin (license)

How to get hosting for under Ksh 1500

How to get hosting for under Ksh 1500

Everybody starts from somewhere. Big corporations were once startups tucked away in a garage. The butterfly was once a caterpillar. With an SME or a small blog, the hosting demands are different from the other big players in the market. In the beginning, the most important thing is the creation and realization of a scalable, efficient and profitable business model.

At the start, people try out so many things. It is a period of learning. However, the learning ought to be relatively inexpensive so as not to deplete the resources setup to grow the business. When all is said and done, there should be no compromise on quality. A good web host ought to be reliable. Another thing, there shouldn’t be hidden costs.

On the part of reliability, an online store ought to be up when the customer desires. It does not make sense to have a website that is down and inaccessible more times than it is up. To the customer (end user) it is frustrating. They will normally look down on your brand after seeing your website producing a 404 Error.

Bitsimba offers a starter package for Ksh 1500. It is a good way to start. The package is incomparable in the market. SSD technology is the new thing in the computing world. Bitsimba is setup with the latest hardware. All this is a bid to provide bumped up site performance on a budget spending.

With the starter package, you will get 10 GB SSD. This is the amount of space to store your website files, databases, emails and more. It is important to know that SSD technology is 300 times faster than other hard-disk technologies. This means your access will be speedily. The allocated bandwidth is 500 GB. This is the amount of data transfer back and forth from the server. Uptime is simply a measure of the times the website is accessible to the Internet. A guarantee of 99.9% up-time is given. Moreover, if you don’t have the website already, there is a free site builder with more than a thousand templates to choose from.

It is a perfect bundle for a startup or a new blogger. It allows small kittens to compete favorably in the same space as other big cats. All for Ksh 1500.

Backups are made ever so often. At Bitsimba, regular backups are done for internal purposes mostly, however you can always request the latest backup if you need it.

Bitsimba rids you of the hustle of hosting so that you can concentrate on the core of the business. For startups and new blogs, the main point of focus is on creating value to the customer. This could take the form of creating new content or building a product. It also involves marketing and making known to potential users, customers or consumers of your offering.

The customer service at Bitsimba is always willing to answer queries that may be related to the topic of web hosting. Your questions about technical issues are most welcome.

 


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How to Start Hosting your Website

How to Start Hosting your Website

In the digital age, almost everyone is online. Therefore, hosting comes in handy. Whether it is for fun or for business, the online space provides enough benefits, for example publicity, marketing, building relationships with customers, etc. It goes without saying that everyone should create an online garden and tend to it. It goes beyond personal or corporate branding.

 

The benefits of hosting your website are immense. If you’re a small business, it gives you a chance to play with the big boys. It brings you to the same latitude. It is no miracle that a small business could garner more sales than their big-brand competitors by capitalizing on the digital front.

 

“So how do I start hosting my website?” you may ask. It is not rocket science or neurosurgery. Most of the work has been done for you. The following are 5 simple steps that can help you:

 

1. Decide on the type of hosting
The market normally has various types of hosting. At www.bitsimba.com you’ll find 3 packages on offer: shared hosting, virtual servers, and dedicated servers. For a low budget of Ksh 1500, you’ll get 10 GB SSD Storage, 500 GB and a 99.99% Uptime – Guarantee. You will also be presented with a free Site Builder With 1000+ Templates.

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2. Get a domain name
A domain name is like your address on the internet. It is the name that you type on top of your browser’s address bar. An example of a domain name is mydomain.com or mydomain.co.ke. There are free and paid domain names. Paid domain names are preferred. You can buy a prefect domain name of your choice from www.bitsimba.com from Ksh 950 per year. You can get free domain names through www.dot.tk or www.freenom.com

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3. Create your website/ Modify a template or CMS
If you’re a techie, you can start from scratch and build you website. However, there is no need to redesign the wheel. With Bitsimba’s starter package, you’ll get free Site Builder With 1000+ Templates which you can easily drag and drop to create a marvelous website. On the other hand, Content Management Systems such as WordPress can be installed at the click of a button.

 

4. If working offline, upload your files
If by chance you had created your website from your offline desktop, you’ll need to upload your files to your server. You can use Filezilla FTP Client to push all your files to your server. FTP is an abbreviation for File Transfer protocol. It’s a technology for bulk transfer of files from one machine (client) to another (server) or vice versa.

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5. Celebrate: You’re online
Woohoo!!! You can now celebrate that your website can be accessed 🙂

You can try to access the domain name that is pointed to your files. It is a good time to share with your friends of your footprints in the online arena.

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The above is a simple guide. Moreover, Bitsimba’s technical team is always ready and more than willing to help you on hosting your website.


Photo credits:
(1) www.elbpresse.de via photopin (license)
(2) Neparno 10 via photopin (license)
(3) Serge Kij via photopin (license)
(4) m_travels via photopin (license)
(5) JLS Photography – Alaska via photopin (license)