How VPS can transform your website and ultimately business
How VPS can transform your website and ultimately business
Is your website serving its purpose to serve your current customers and to attract a new base of patrons? Are you scratching your head wondering why is your revenue not picking up despite the excellent products or services that your business is offering? In modern times, the question is no longer how much technology can improve the online presence of your business but rather is it possible to even conduct online business without relying on the technology. Virtual Private Server is a key aspect to businesses especially for startup companies or businesses that are looking to make a grand entrance into the market or those who are desirous to improve from their current stagnant condition.
Is your website convincing enough?
If a website is one of your company’s strategy to reach out to your current and future customers, then you should make sure that your business website impresses them by the first click. Judging the quality of a website created for a business purpose can be subjective. However, there are some basic rules that a website should adhere to in order for it to serve its purpose as a convincing tool that turns visitors to become customers.
- Accessibility
It is of utmost importance that a website is globally accessible by people from all walks of life including the disabled people. A highly accessible website loads quickly, be viewable in different browsers and operating systems consistently. If you are concerned on the accessibility of your website, you can use a free HTML validation tool to check.
- Speed and Bandwidth sensitivity
Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information that can be transferred via internet measured in a given time, usually in seconds. A good website has high bandwidth sensitivity that reacts positively with a new connection, page loading, page browsing, app or file download, streaming video content uninterrupted for long periods and daily processing functions despite having high-quality graphics. However, that is not it. You also need to allocate extra space to grow and when traffic spikes which needs about 50% tolerance.
If your website runs some interactive application, then you should make sure that your customer gets good user experience with the shortest response time every time they click on your website.
- Design
The element of the design is also very important when judging the overall quality of a website as the design plays a key role in converting visitors to customers. A decent website is visually appealing, easy to navigate, and reinforces the purpose of the website whilst maintaining clarity and simplicity.
One of the examples of a bad website is where there is no synchronization between the audio and visual and also confusion by the visitors due to the poorly organized layout. Remember, a strong visual experience encourages the visitor to scroll down for more.
- Content
The website must project strongly its goals and message that it wishes to bring across to the visitor to ensure that the visitor has all the right reason to return. To enhance the experience of the visitor, the methods on how the information is delivered must be considered.
A text rich page is often dull and unappealing to casual visitors. In order to capture the attention of your “future customer”, you should consider at least one of the few examples below in delivering your business’ messages across: -
- Background videos
The background videos that play automatically the moment the website is opened serves the purpose of significantly reduce the amount of other content and is also very effective in engaging visitors. Without even the need of having to read a single word on your website, you are making it effortless for your visitor to understand clearly the key points of your products and company
- Giant product images
Whether the sales you make are to other businesses or to individual consumers, giant product images help your business to highlight different features of products is a more effective way as it magnifies the benefits of a feature.
These gigantic images are also scan friendly to help generate a more in-depth understanding of the functions of the products through clear images rather than text rich articles. This method aims to optimize the user’s experience especially from different devices such as handphones, tablets, laptops and computers.
- Short product or feature videos
Majority of consumers watch online video when researching their desired products and services. A short feature video on your website is a great tool to highlight a specific use of your product and influence the buyer’s decision-making process.
With a short and concise video, the visitor won’t be overwhelmed with too much information whilst being able to grasp your message. A strong example would be a video that shows a “before and after” comparison if you are selling skincare products, interior design services, furniture etc.
- Large responsive hero images
Another method that quickly grabs the user’s attention is a large hero image that is often placed as a centerpiece in the background with text and other content overlapped on top. If your website is to promote or sell a product or service, the hero image should show off its benefits.
A clear example would be a screenshot on a compatible device that gives the buyer a taste by showing what to expect from your products or service. Hero images should render quickly due to its critical function. Unfortunately, many websites that feature a hero image suffer from Hero Image Delay with other widgets being loaded first and hero image last.
The reason behind this is that a high-quality image such as hero image consumes a lot of bandwidth while loading causing the loading time to increase. When that happens, hero image is literally useless.
- Interactivity
Technologies are usually incorporated into a website to augment the purpose of the site and keep the user interested as well as allowing the users to contribute by giving their feedback.
This is especially useful as a marketing tool that provides you with the golden information about your target demographic. If you don’t want your website to end up like a book, then make it more than just informational. Remember, users are more likely to return if they find it engaging.
Ranging from social media (Facebook, Twitter etc), feedback and ratings, forums, FAQs, survey, videos, quizzes, chat rooms to broadcasting are just a few examples. However, bear in mind that if you have very limited resources, these extra plugins such as Facebook social plugins, Twitter feed widgets or sharing tools can take a toll on your webpage as it calls out to multiple different servers.
- Security
Security plays a big role for websites especially those that collect data from the users. A properly secured website enables the users to visit with ease of mind knowing that whatever information that they are imparting is secured and for the intended purposes only.
Security has a huge impact on the design of the website due to the need to integrate the website with digital activity such as email marketing, social media and e-commerce activities. As such, a well-secured website normally requires a certain minimum amount of bandwidth for the integration.
Notwithstanding that data breach is a major PR and financial disaster that cause businesses to often invest heavily to prevent and combat this problem, there are circumstances where the website is not the primary source of attack but due to the neighbours i.e. another website on the same server or the poor security quality provided by the web host that cause the website to be attacked.
What role does VPS play?
Firstly, what is VPS?
VPS, which means Virtual Private Server is a virtualized server with its own operating system and allocated server resources within a larger server. A server is a powerful machine that stores a website’s data and files so that when someone googles your domain name on their web browser, your website shows up on the search result page.
VPS uses virtualization technology to divide the physical server into several smaller slices of virtual ones with their own operating system, RAM, CPU resources and dedicated storage. In effect, VPS totally transform the online business realms by allowing the user to enjoy the server and control their own website in an unprecedented manner.
How can your business benefit from VPS?
- Speed performance
The slow loading speed of a website is usually the primary culprit that turns away most visitors.
Do you know that if your website takes more than 5 seconds to load, more than half the visitors will just abandon your website and go for the next available website, which could easily turn out to be your competitor’s?
The reasoning behind this is that visitors become distracted when made to wait for a page to load. So if your website loads within seconds or even milliseconds after a click, it is able to hold the attention and eventually help you to sell your products and services.
You may wonder what is the VPS position in this? VPS is especially important for websites who have background videos, giant product images, short product or feature videos, large responsive hero image or other enticing content.
For those websites, VPS should already be utilized for their website from day one to increase the connection speed and loading page for better visitor’s experience.
- Security
A VPS protects the data and files of the business by utilizing a more reliable and security-enhanced infrastructure. In essence, a hypervisor is a computer software that is responsible for managing each and every individual VPS.
As it is the one that controls the communication between VPS and the hardware in the data center, it is configured to make sure only that specific VPS’s controller, i.e. the VPS user is able to write to and read from it. At the end of the day, every data from the VPS user is kept in a separate “compartment” it away from other VPS and secure.
Due to the importance of hypervisor in the entire VPS infrastructure, the VPS service providers normally invest heavily to protect it and impose not only tight control on the access of the hypervisor but also build layers and layers of security including firewalls.
A VPS plan from a reputable VPS service provider would include built-in firewall protection and secured remote access to assist in preventing unauthorized users from getting into the network. If you have selected for a managed VPS package, the health of your network can be guaranteed as the VPS manager will keep an eye out on your behalf and ensure that the server is current with the latest updates.
For VPS users, they also have the freedom to impose many precautionary layers to defend their websites from being threatened such as conducting regular housekeeping, i.e. running only the software that is necessary and removing those that are not, configuring the firewall to limit access to only the vital services and using secure passwords for user accounts.
- Data protection
This aspect is essential for businesses that collect data from their customers online. VPS prevents data loss with automatic data backups and allows you to easily retrieve accidentally deleted files and restore the latest version of your work.
If online retail is an aspect of your business, then you are bound to receive credit card as one of the payment methods. Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance test is the test behind every website that receives payment via credit card.
The PCI Data Security Standard is established by worldwide major credit and debit card brands such as Visa, Mastercard and American Express with the main aim of protecting the credit card users against data theft and other kinds of fraud as well as making sure that all data that is passed to the online merchants are processed, stored and transmitted in a secure manner. Due to the well-established security feature of VPS, it is highly likely that your website will pass the PCI test if you have opted for VPS.
- Remote access
Your employees can work virtually anywhere, anytime as long as they have internet access. VPS can accommodate access to email, network data, website administer and even business applications from any computer.
With one central place to keep all the information that is vital to your business, you can better manage the information. It is also more accessible for the staff that travels frequently to locate and share information.
For example, the sales representatives can provide the team with the immediate feedback from the client after a pitch meeting so that the company can quickly adjust the products or services or adopt a new business strategy to turn the potential customers into long term loyal customers. With that in mind, travelling allowance, office space and commuting time can be saved.
- Upgrade image
VPS can help you to present a more professional impression to your customers as it enables you to maintain not just one but multiple websites, create newsletters and exploit the sophisticated tools and software to the advantage of your business.
- Cut cost on resources
This is one of the top reasons enticing business owners to choose VPS.
- Save cost on upgrade
Buying new computers for businesses has always been an expensive hassle. Business owners spend tens of thousands every year to maintain the computers or to get a new one with more advanced technology.
When your computer lags, there are also soft costs such as your employee being unable to work efficiently due to their computer being slow or faulty. With VPS, your older computers or laptops may be given a new lease of life by off-loading the files and data directly onto the server which makes the current computers gain back its original fast speed and efficiency.
- Save cost on hardware
What makes VPS so cost-effective is that it is based upon software that can be conveniently configured to perform many types of tasks. As a result, you will not need to buy additional hardware whenever new demands arise or when you decide to diversify your business.
- Save cost on repair and maintenance
Bearing in mind that with new hardware, you will need additional cooling systems and additional allocation for repair and maintenance costs.
When you have a physical server, rebooting is very time consuming and comes a cost to your business reputation as your website will have to be taken offline for the required changes. With VPS, the whole system can be quickly rebooted.
Certain VPS providers provide self-healing failover which is an excellent feature specially designed to combat the situation where there is a networking failover scenario. This feature allows the server to heals itself whilst mounting your VPS on another available computer to ensure service continuity.
- Save cost on storage
VPS offers the most economical backup solutions in the market. There is no longer any need for equipment or extra payment for the data recovery services by the expert.
Retrieving data from the cloud VPS server is hassle-free and can be done at the snap of a finger. All you need to do is to select a VPS package that offers a large amount of disk space and bandwidth to meet your storage needs.
- Cut cost on labour
VPS allows business owners to gain control over their profit margins by cutting labor costs. If you select a managed VPS package, support for all server management tasks on request including software installations, configuration and troubleshooting will be provided and managed by the expert.
That means that you no longer need IT personnel who is specialized in VPS to be stationed in your office. At just a fraction of the labor cost, you can reap the full benefit of the VPS without worries of operation, maintenance and backup.
- Motivates employees
A web-based application response time is important if you want efficiency. Ideally, 0.1 second is the ultimate ideal time for efficiency and for the users to feel that they are directly manipulating objects in the user interface rather than feeling that they are ordering the computer to do the sorting for them.
If the response time takes 10 seconds or longer, most users will lose their attention on the task and stray off doing something else and when the user comes back to check on the work, they will need to reorient themselves. With a fast response time, you are able to keep your employee focused.
What kind of VPS service provider suits your business?
It is not an overstatement when we say that a VPS service provider can make or break your online business. A competent VPS service provider does not only offer a well-mixed package but also excellent customer service and outstanding performance with well-secured infrastructure.
- Good customer service
It is undeniable that customer service plays an important role in easing new users into using the VPS and in helping the current users to make the most out of the VPS. It is unquestionable that one of the biggest strengths of VPS is that you have the freedom to do what you want with your website and apps.
However, as all the resources come from the VPS service provider, you will most likely have to go back to them if and when any problem arises. You may have some questions from the first day when you start using the VPS.
Even the very basic questions such as how to use a VPS? How to access my VPS? How to use a Windows VPS? can hardly be answered by non tech savvy persons.
For companies with their internal IT department or personnel, customer support is still crucial as details in relation to the operation are only available at their end.
Would you be comfortable with customer support whose turnaround time is about 3 days or one which allows contact via email or website chat only? Or would you prefer a customer service that offers live support as and when you need them and is contactable by phone call or live webchat.
Do check whether the call customer service is outsourced by the VPS service provider to another country as communication problems or insufficient knowledge can be frustrating at emergency time.
- Affordable price
The cost largely depends on the package that you require such as memory space, storage, root access, dedicated IP required, CPU cores etc.
If you are wondering about the cost of Aus VPS server, you can approach a decent and reputable company to get a quote from them based on your resources.
Starting from $10-$20 a month, VPS is considered one of the cheapest web hosting solutions for businesses. Don’t worry about the exact particulars of the resources as cloud VPS is mostly scalable meaning you can scale up your resources when you need more of it and scale it down when you need less of it.
- Reliable
If you are upgrading your system to VPS, then you should get it from a reliable VPS service provider that guarantees that the VPS will behave well.
During your inquiry, feel free to check with the service provider on the guaranteed minimum of uptime which ideally should range between 99.5% to 99.9 % normally.
Constant downtime is a big no no and can easily contribute to impacting your businesses adversely. Certain VPS service providers are slow to notice and respond when there is a session of downtime whereas others get it fixed instantly sometimes without even being noticed by the users,
- Australian VPS Data Centre
Data center is the brain of the VPS. It stores vital information including all data of yours and your customers.
A best VPS Australian service provider should have its data center located in Australia in a highly secured infrastructure equipped with the most advanced technology and cooling system.
Never ever select a VPS service provider that compromises on the quality by outsourcing their data center to another country just to save on their operation cost. The reasons behind are relatively straightforward.
Firstly, the technology in the outsourced data center may not be up to date and is prone to a breach of security. Secondly, regular breakdown is foreseeable due to low-quality maintenance by the data center providers.
- Self-healing failover
This special feature is only available by SSD VPS cloud hosting providers. Its main purpose is to minimise the downtime of the server. It comes into the picture when the physical machine of the VPS runs on fails.
This special system immediately detects the issue and automatically mount the VPS on another node. With your IP address pointed to a new system, your VPS is able to be back online in the exact condition that it was when the failure first occurred. Another time you get to enjoy the benefit of no downtime is during the maintenance session by your VPS service provider.
Not all VPS service providers are able to provide this feature as it requires the clustering technology that allows the transition to happen swiftly normally by using FAST SSD Raid array.
- Positive reputation
Be wise and do some research on the reputation of the VPS service provider before you make your decision. Simply Google and you will have an idea as to whether the company is trustworthy and do as they claim.
How long have they been in the Australian VPS hosting market? How are their ethics as a VPS host? What is its after-sale attitude? How do they react to complaints? All these will reflect whether the company is honest values their integrity.
With just an extra few dollars a month for an SSD VPS cloud hosting package, the benefits and convenience that you are able to reap far outweighs the various problems which may arise from other types of non-SSD or non-cloud VPS.
The key is choosing the right Aus VPS service provider. Get it right the first time and you will find your website more sophisticated and running smoothly without hiccups.
6 signs that VPSBlocks is the right VPS service provider for you
VPSBlocks provides one of the best VPS Australia has to offer. We specialise in cloud hosting and features SSD storage for all packages.
As one of the highly acclaimed companies, we are honest in our business conduct and uphold integrity at all levels. Despite the high-quality VPS plan and excellent customer service, our price remains at a competitively attractive range.
With many outstanding complimentary features and for those that need the extra kick for their websites, VPSBlocks has plenty of functional enhanced features to offer.
- You want to improve the online popularity of your business
Step one is to get an operating system as it is essential to run the server which will directly affect the performance of your website.
VPSBlocks offers the OS for every type of business. From the popular CentOS, cPanel, Ubuntu and up to more than ten OS including Windows VPS, you need not worry that you are unable to find a suitable OS.
In the rare occasion your business prefers a less mainstream OS, just notify us and we will try our best to add it in just for you.
- You foresee a growth in your business
At this point in time, you may need only the minimum resources to keep things rolling. However, do you know that many businesses are pressured to select a VPS package that contains excessive resources based on the idea that they may need more resources once the growth of their business starts to pick up.
Such lack of knowledge often results in waste of resources and most importantly, unnecessary cost to the business which could have been saved for other aspects of the business.
Contrary to this, VPSBlocks allows you to mix and match the resources that fit into the current stage of your business perfectly. As your business grows, you can then add resources to your system without worrying about the cost of migrations.
The whole upgrading and downgrading of resources take only seconds. To understand more on what is a VPS plan and to get an estimation on the cost, just click on the “pricing & order” tab in VPSBLOCKS.COM.AU and choose your criteria such as the operating system and resources such as CPU cores, dedicated RAM, SSD Disk, SATA Disk, bandwidth.
Lastly, you can even choose the payment option that suits the budget of your business of either monthly, semi-annually or annually.
As your business grows larger, you get to add up to six optional features including managed server backups, offsite server backups and server management as and when required to make sure that your website and app is upgraded to meet the needs of your increasing pool of customers.
If you are unsure, we can first provide you with a quote that sets out the details of the functions and costs of any extra features that are recommended for your own business structure.
- You intend to keep your budget for VPS as low as possible
The basic introductory plan by VPSBlocks is only $10 a month where you can choose your desired OS including cheap Windows VPS. Most importantly, it comes with many complimentary features such as the self-healing failover, your own private RAM, guaranteed VPS share, dedicated IP address, managed hardware firewall, 24x7 service monitoring etc.
Whether you are considering cheap Windows VPS or Linux VPS, we believe that we have it all.
Once your business starts to grow at a steady rate, you should consider adding in the optional features such as SPAM filtering, managed cPanel Site Migration, server management, etc. that will further boost the performance of your website and taking the quality of your business up a notch.
- You prefer not to spend most of your time managing VPS
For first-timer, feel free to refer to “VPS Advice” section in the VPSBlocks website that provides you with solid professional guidance and explanation on how to choose the right one.
All standard VPS plans from VPSBlocks are semi-managed means that all hardware, operating system or basic configuration issues are handled by them. If you encounter slow loading webpage, network-related issues such as 404s, Internet server errors, basic task automation, configuring specific settings, failure of the server to restart, VPSBlocks as the administrator will look into these problems for you.
You also have less to worry about the security of the server as any unwanted traffic is firewalled out at hardware level before it reaches the server. In fact, VPSBlocks is able to advise on getting the best performance out of your server.
If you are not skilled in server administration or prefer to maintain your focus on the core objectives of your businesses, then VPSBlocks offers the perfect plan for you.
What is VPS server management?
A VPS fully managed by the expert that will set up and run almost all the essential server management tasks for you. The managed VPS package offered by VPSBlocks is a full fledged management by the knowledgeable IT professional in order to make sure that you don’t need to worry about your VPS at all.
The support includes software installations, configurations, network issues, dns setup, maintaining the virtual server’s security, security updates and even troubleshooting with guaranteed of receiving priority if any critical issues arise. The main thing that you are required to do is to create the hosting account and update your domain dns to kickstart your VPS.
- You have a growing base of business data
Business data relates to information about your day to day business operation including taxes, sales, revenue, strategy, rules, customer database, transaction record, record of interactions with customers and other stakeholders, social media, product catalog, employee data, business emails and record of inquiries, inventory list and partner data. The business data essentially forms the backbone of your business.
If you are seeing an increasing size of your business data, then VPSBlocks offers the exceptional RAID storage where many physical disk drive components are combined into one or more units for the purposes of performance improvement and/or data redundancy.
In fact, the specific storage system by VPSBlocks is fast 100% SSD RAID storage making is over 100x faster than SAS or SATA. As a result, your data is stored in various locations on multiple hard disks to protect against drive failure. The idea of your data being wiped out in the unfortunate event of server corruption is extremely unlikely. For those that practice extra caution, we offer the option of managed server backups where the entire VPS is backed up twice weekly with at least 5 backups being retained.
- You want your website to attract more business
Your website performance depends on how your server connects to the internet highway.
If you want your website to attract new customers and keep the current one interested in your products and services, then your website must fulfill the following criteria.
- It must react fast enough with new connection, page loading, page browsing, app or file download, streaming video content uninterrupted for long periods and daily processing functions
- It must be visually appealing, easy to navigate and synchronises audio and visual properly with a clear and simple organized layout
- It must contain background video, giant product image, short product, feature video, or large responsive hero images
- It allows interaction such as users giving their feedback, forums, webchat etc.
- It collects data from users
With such a website that aims to make an impression on your customer, you will need a high-quality bandwidth. VPSBlocks utilises Tier-1 bandwidth that provides one of the best internet connections globally with low latency.
VPSBlocks doesn’t just gain its status as one of the best Australian VPS hosting companies overnight but rather through time and reputation. Our company is built on outstanding professional service and the ongoing goal to forge a long-lasting and positive relationship with all its VPS users.
If you intend to do the same with your customers and aim to see a sustainable growth on your business, then VPSBlocks is here to serve and support you along your business journey.