AUTOGRAPHS

What Site Owners Should Know Regarding Hosting Accoutning Websites

If you’re just starting out with an accounting website, or are considering creating a website for your CPA practice there are a number of ideas you’ll want to find out about before you really start to develop it. If you acquaint yourself with your choices up front you will likely determine that setting up accounting websites is significantly easier than you feared. There are a lot of website hosting companies that have spent years developing websites for accountants, and they have a few practical insights for your consideration…

Hosting Services and Content:

Many web hosting companies will throw in other features such as a free domain name or free email hosting along with the website hosting. Of course I don’t need to tell you that nothing is really free, only bundled into the service offering, so don’t buy a package with features you don’t need. Search engine submission is a popular offering that NOBODY needs any more (search engines no longer use submissions to rank pages), and features like shopping carts may be useful to retail businesses but it’s useless for a professional service like an accounting firm. Take some time to shop around a little. You’ll find it’s pretty easy to get a lot of solid comparative information by doing a few simple Google searches for keywords like “website hosting”.

Determining which package is best for you can be daunting but if you break down the elements of your site you can ensure that you’re picking the best option for you. For example, most GoDaddy web hosting plans come with email and a certain amount of server space that you can store your data on (images, videos, etc). Network solutions offers a free domain name registration with their package. Godaddy charges extra. Other packages frequently offered by website hosts include Google advertising credits, File Transfer options, and other features.

Keep in mind how much media you’re going to be putting onto the site. If you’ll be uploading a lot of videos or storing all your client files online, these will take up a lot of space. If the plan you’ve selected only gives you 10GB of space you may run out of room to upload all of your files and will want to consider a plan with a higher storage space.

If you won’t be utilizing email addresses @yourdomainname.com, but will instead be using a free gmail or hotmail account for example, then you don’t need to look at a plan that includes email.

Reading online reviews of the various web hosting companies can be very helpful as well because many of the reviewers will have the same questions you do when you’re first starting out, so searching for reviews of the hosting company you want to do business with will help you to make a decision you feel good about.

Your Web Address:

Picking the right domain name is extremely important to your business. You don’t want something that’s too long, because then people won’t remember it and it may not fit on business cards if it’s too many characters long. Using important keywords in your domain name can be helpful in getting your website a better ranking in the search engines. Keywords such as your location (FL, Florida, Tampa, etc) or words that explain your service (accounting, CPA, or even very specific keyword combinations like AtlantaConstructionAccounting, etc). As a rule “.com” domain names are superior to alternate domain extensions like “.biz”, “.net”, “.us”, “.org”, etc. Try to avoid breaking the keywords up with dashes and underscores, but if you can’t get a decent domain name without doing so avoid using underscores. You do not have to get your domain name through your website host, and there are even risks in doing so. Get the domain name yourself using a service like GoDaddy, NetworkSolutions. There is even a domain registrar specifically oriented towards tax professionals called at DomainsForCPAs.com. In general, each has separate fee, although some companies will package them together. As a rule domains bill annually. Don’t confuse this expense with your monthly hosting costs.

Be cautious if a company allows you to register your domain name as part of a package with your web hosting. Often website hosts will register your domain in their name instead of yours. Whether this is done as a retention strategy or out of sheer laziness is irrelevant: in the end you won’t actually own your domain name. It’s your responsibility to make sure the domain is being purchased in YOUR name.

The cPanel:

A cPanel is a control panel where you’ll be able to make many advanced settings changes to your various web hosting features. Your cPanel is your domains central nervous system, and it’s vital that you be able to access it. It maps the domain to your website and your email to your inbox. There are all kinds of advanced features on your cPanel. It can be used to redirect pages and even point multiple domains to a single website. Many web hosting companies have the cPanel system integrated into their products.

Either way you’ll probably never need to access it, but it’s vital that you be able to. If you can’t access you cPanel whoever does has de facto control of your website and your email, and this can really put you over a barrel.

Security Certificates:

This is something the beginner-user may not be concerned with, but if you’re going to be storing QuickBooks files online, or accepting credit card payments, then you’ll want to listen up. An SSL certificate is more than an assurance that files and information being transferred to and from your site is secure. It’s also an integral part of a sophisticated online encryption protocol (Secure Socket Layer) that actually protects the information. You can purchase SSL Certificates from a number of companies such as VeriSign, GoDaddy and DigiCert. Visitors will check for an SSL Certificate (often indicated by a unimposing lock icon in one corner of the internet browser) when they’re buying something through your site.

Accounting websites are lawfully obliged to protect uncompromisable client information, so failure to look after client data with a security certificate can cost you much more than a few clients.

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