Comparing South African Web Hosting Packages

I have used a couple of web hosting providers in the last 6 months, but found it really hard to compare the packages that I was looking at. I recently found hostinghelp.co.za where comparing South African and International web hosting packages was made fairly easy, like on cnet when you select checkboxes and compare items.

I really struggle with a lot of these web hosting companies who hide the fact that the website will actually be hosted in the USA, you really need to dig deep to find out where in the world your website is going to be sitting. http://hostinghelp.co.za/web-hosting/hosting-south-africa separates ZA from international hosting.

Tax and financial stuff

I have the forms from SARS, but don't really have a clue as to how to fill them in. Also I tried to use GnuCash to do my book-keeping, but failed miserably.

Luckily I have found a small operation of an accountant and admin person and they do personal and business tax and financial management. The thing is I am too small to use their services for invoicing and month-to-month books, so I got to get the right book-keeping software, and use it.

Any advise or opinion on what accounting software is best?

Moving Website hosting

So hosting is really important to me as I run an internet services business, but I am not willing to pay the rediculous prices on local South African Hosting. So I am looking for reasonably priced, good hosting.

I first came up with www.webhostgiant.com and their service was good, but for one thing; their servers are in California. It adds a latency of about 50 to 70 milliseconds, which seems like nothing when you are in any case expecting latencies in the region of 300ms, and latency on domestic hosting is somewhere from 50 to 100ms.

What did i find? www.sharkspace.com my testing on their latency gave me better figures than Google.com, when I tested their Washington DC server, and the folks there kindly moved my hosting from the TX servers to the DC servers. They are not as cheap as webhostinggiant, but support is awesome, and I am happy with my site's responsiveness.

List of South African Web Directories

So my business website is still not really getting that much traffic, and I do not expect a flood of trafffic, but more would be good... So what do I do?

My first step was to make sure that my site was search engine friendly, and then submit it to the search engines. Now my next step is to improve the profile of my site, how do I do that? Through generating inbound links of good quality.

Inbound link = some site linking to your website
You can find out how many inbound links you have on Google by searching for link:www.yoursite.com
My sister's blog for instance has done really well:

So my next step is adding my site to all the South African web and business directories that accept free listings. Remember that not all links are equal and PageRank is still a good way of evaluating if a website is going to give you good quality of link.

Below is my list of directories I will be adding to:
www.ananzi.co.za
www.hotfrog.co.za
www.sayellow.co.za
www.tradepage.co.za
www.ezsearch.co.za
www.brabys.com
www.ifind.co.za

Some of the above do have premium listings which you can pay for, but I am starting with the free version.

Book-keeping for my Small Operation

So I would say that my activities are small, it is really just me at the moment. I hope to use the services of an accountant for:

1. personal tax return (I have to be a provisional taxpayer as I am a member of a CC)
2. company tax return

So I have to figure out how to keep record of all costs and transactions myself. I always want to try and use open source software where I can, so I am trying out GNUCash, which from an accounting perspective appears sound, and so far is easy to use. The only problem is that I know so little about keeping books so I am reading help files and trying to figure this out as I go.



Wish me luck!

Credit Card Approved

Well it seems to pay to go with the bank you are with, perhaps that is why nobody ever switches banks. Standard bank has now come back saying that they approve the Credit Card, and I will have it in hand in a week's time.

First week completed, one business lead went cold and the other is delaying... Got to get some networking done.

Nook Digital - The name of my small business

So I have been posting this blog without wanting to mention my business name, and I have still been an employee elsewhere, but from Monday I am on my own.

The Nook Digital site currently has a small set of services, as one really needs to focus on a few things to start with. Just a comment on the site, I am not a designer, but working to make it a little more pretty.