Article Written By :Robert Schonhoff
Date : 10/7/2011
When making the decision to have a web presence, one of your concerns will be finding a hosting company to host your website. Hosting companies offer either a Linux Platform; a Microsoft Platform; or both. How do you know which one is the best to use? Most designers, like Digital Vision, design websites that can be coded and browsed for either hosting platform. However, if your website design requires a database driven content managed system, an e-commerce site or a website requiring users to login, picking your designer will determine the hosting platform you will require.
Some websites, while to the viewer look the same, behind the scenes they could be coded completely different from each other. While you might not care as long as the web looks the way you expect, how it was coded is extremely important where picking a designer is concerned. No doubt you are familiar with the ongoing debate of MAC Vs PC users? A similar debate exists among web designers, especially where custom application design is a requirement.
PHP vs. ASP vs. Joomla vs. Wordpress and so on, is a debate that is never agreed to nor compromised by designers with a preference. Your website will be designed by a designer with a propensity towards one of these design standards. While Microsoft hosting servers run most of these database driven environments its mandatory if your designer will be using .NET technologies to create your website.
If you are not comfortable with your understanding of the difference between Linux Vs. Microsoft hosting platforms, you should consider finding your designer first and then let them tell you their platform preference and then find a hosting company that supports that platform.
Now that you know the preference of your designer and which hosting platform is required, its time to determine the design itself. Most websites are unique in design but if you have spent any time at all on the web you have no doubt noticed the similarity in design amongst competing companies. Look at the online news agencies or sports sites and you will notice a common theme. This is no accident. If your new site will compete with other already established online companies you should strongly consider mimicking them.
The reason is simple. As consumers have progressively moved to online purchasing, their comfort level with these sites has derived from the expectation that the way a site looks is what they expect to see. In other words, if you have online competition and your competitors are successful you’d be wise to consider mimicking the way they do business.
