If you’re a smart consumer, and obviously you are – you’re reading this – you’ve probably done some comparison shopping to see which web host delivers the most. And you may have noticed that some web hosts offer low-cost monthly teaser rates for their VPS or dedicated hosting and then nickel-and-dime you for every feature and service you need to build a successful on-line business.

If you’ve run a commercial enterprise in the digital sphere, you know it takes a lot of tools and services to create, launch, administer and grow a web store to profitability. And if this is your first experience in the fastest growing marketplace ever, well, just take a look at what Website Source delivers with every VPS and dedicated server account. No extra charges or hidden fees. You get it free.

Free Shopping Carts

An absolute must-have for any on-line business. The virtual shopping cart is used by visitors to hold items before checkout. A good shopping cart package should be simple to use by both site administrator (you) and site visitors.

Website Source offers a number of options here from sublimely simple to deeply featured. For example, Cube Cart™ provides a complete on-line enterprise in a box. It hooks up directly to your site’s database to record and track orders from placement to delivery to the customer. We like it and so do our many commercial clients.

Miva Merchant 5 (free) delivers more features to assist in site administration – whether you’re managing one site or 100s of sites.

osCommerce is an out-of-the-box storefront, as well. It’s open source software (OSS) which means (1) it’s free and (2) it’s constantly being updated and upgraded by a very active osCommerce community of coders working to make osCommerce the best, most complete solution regardless of your level of experience or store size. osCommerce delivers it all and Website Source delivers osCommerce. It’s yours simply by clicking on osCommerce on your administrator’s console – the one that comes with every hosting package we offer.

SSL Certification

It stands for secure socket layer. It’s an encryption service that enables your customers to make on-line purchases securely through the use of SSL encryption so while data is in transit it remains safe.

An SSL site is indicated by (1) the small padlock in the lower right hand corner of the user’s screen and (2) by the addition of the ‘s’ in the URL address to read https. The ‘s’ stands for secure and savvy shoppers won’t shop a site that lacks SSL certification.

We offer low-cost SSL certification for all of our VPS and dedicated server clients through out subsidiary web site at www.lowpricedomains.com. Another problem solved by Website Source.

Site Metrics

How do you measure the success of a site? How do you assess the effectiveness of an on-line PPC (pay-per-click) campaign? How can you see your site the way web spiders see it? The answer is site metrics – quantifiable results of visitor and spider activity. Without site metrics for complete analysis, you won’t know what’s working and what isn’t – until it’s too late. That’s why Website Source offers numerous metrics and site analytics services and tools. Why? Because we want you to succeed. It’s the key to our success, after all.

Options? Plenty of them and they’re industry standards so you know you’re getting the most accurate results and the most complete analysis of the raw data. Your choices?

Google Analytics – powerful data gathering delivered in user friendly GUIs. If you can read a pie chart, you can use this tool to refine your site for improved performance.

The Webalizer is a useful tool to track the service being delivered by your web host (that’s us). Are you receiving fair access to resources with your VPS plan? How about CPU access and bandwidth? Are you receiving your rightful allocation? The Webalizer will provide the answer with a couple of clicks.

Look, without site performance stats – quantifiable data that can be compared to past performance – you have no way of knowing how visitors found you, how they behaved once on site, how many pages they viewed, where they went after leaving your site – all essential information for tweaking an established site to new levels of success and giving new sites a head start toward long-term success.

Our Complete Site Hosting Package

End-to-end services and tools to equip even technophobes with all of the tools needed to build, run and grow a successful website – and it’s all FREE with our VPS and dedicated server plans. So what’s in the package?

Site creation software like Site Studio allows you to use templates to design a professional looking site in just a couple of hours. Site administration? Operate your own Website Source Control Panel for ‘at-your-fingertips’ ease of use.

Commercial site needs? We fill them with osCommerce and Miva Merchant – two of the best recognized names in e-commerce today. How about setting up a merchant account so you can accept credit card orders? Okay, problem solved with PayQuake and PayPal. No hassle merchant accounts that don’t require the purchase of expensive hardware. Just a click from your administrator’s control panel and you’re ready to start taking credit card orders on Day 1.

We’ll even help you transfer your domain name and migrate your site to our impenetrable, custom-designed servers so you don’t have to worry about losing a loyal customer base or getting slammed in Google’s SERPs.

If it helps our e-commerce clients, we do it and most if the time we do it free.

The Marketing & Administration Package

You can have the best looking site on the W3 but if nobody knows you’re there what good do all of those nifty site add-ons do for your bottom line. Nothing.

That’s why Website Source offers a wide menu of marketing tools and services. How about the short list? You can learn more by clicking on the easy apps link, but for starters how’s this for market support from your web host? These tools let you organize your marketing efforts to best advantage in just a couple of hours a week. Perfect for start ups with plans to grow quickly. (Hey, that’s you!)

Free mailing list software to keep in touch with your customers

phpBB adds a bulletin board to your site so you can announce upcoming events, sales and promotions

EveryAuction is an auction software package that allows you to setup an online auction on your vps hosting account.

Postini email protection cuts down on junk mail and keeps malware out of the store.

Spam Assassin – the name says it all.

Real delivers streaming media to any media-ready device. Now you can offer product demos on the home page and cell phone notifications of the sale of the hour.

Chilisoft makes dynamic web page creation easy so you can welcome visitors by name and even point them in the direction of new items they might enjoy.

Virtuozzo is a VPS package that delivers more punch for your buck, enabling you to manage your e-biz from anywhere. Hey, if you’re on the go you’re going to go nuts over Virtuozzo.

Want Some More Useful Tools? OK, We’ve Got Them.

Since we don’t know what you plan for your commercial site, we figure the more services and tools we can provide the better. You may not use them all your first day on line, but as time passes and sales build, who knows how your site will change as it grows?

That’s why we offer more tools to take your site to its highest level in the shortest time. Just take a look at these additional tools we provide with every VPS business account. You won’t find this variety anywhere – at any price!

JDK (Java Development Kit) lets you develop and deploy java applications on your server.

JRE (Java Runtime Environment) lets you run applets that you have developed for your website. JDK and JRE are the two primary java modules necessary for running java applications on your websites.

MySQL database tracks inventory, order processing, customer information, back orders, incoming orders – all the information you need to increase site productivity in one, industry standard package. This is one piece of software you’ll use every day to keep an eye on business.

PostNuke – add a blog to your site in just seconds. Why a blog? It’s a great way to give your site “stickiness” – a reason for visitors to come back to the site. You can create your own posts and visitors can respond to them immediately. It’s a great way to build a site community that keeps delivering repeat business.

php Book – as your business grows more profitable, chances are you’ll increase your guestbook. php Book offers you a guestbook utility for your personal projects. In no time, you’ll have an online guestbook for absolute optimum results.

SimpleSearch is a simple search engine tool that enables you to offer search capability to your site visitors. Easy to install, even easier to deploy, SimpleSearch cuts chores down to size, leaving you more time to do what you should be doing – selling your site!

Shoutcast let’s you share audio streaming from any any browser. Ideal for growing businesses with a world-wide staff. Now, all employees are plugged in and “on the same audio content” with this free and easy tool. Great for sharing audio content with other visitors such as clients or prospective clients as well.

ZendOptimizer lets you improve the performance of your PHP code. Dynamic sites no longer have a slow load time because of PHP scripts.

phpMyFAQ cuts customer service calls and expenses by answering the most frequently asked questions on site. A time saver and money saver, phpMyFAQ updates quickly and provides multi-lingual support for your global customers.

And there’s more. More tools, more options and more opportunities to turn your on-line vision into a screaming success. And that’s what Website Source is all about – success. Yours.

Another Word About Merchant Accounts

Without a merchant account, you can’t accept credit cards and if you can’t accept credit cards, you’re closed down since that’s how most visitors pay for their purchases.

Take a few moments to search the web for merchant account services and you’ll quickly discover that they’re costly and you get nicked every time you process a credit card order. And all of those nicks can add up to site failure, especially when you’re competing in a very tight market with even tighter margins. If you’re working with a 10% margin on gross sales and your merchant account provider dings you 3% on every sale, you’re margin just shrunk to 7% and you have to rethink the business plan.

Acquiring a merchant account through Website Source simplifies the process. The software syncs right up with your VPS or dedicated server account. You receive preferential terms because of the volume we sell. It’s one-stop shopping so you can move your site launch date up a week and it’s pretty much hassle free. That’s the whole point – Website Source takes the hassle out of getting and maintaining a merchant account.