Why spend hours building, marketing and maintaining a
site that isn't available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week?
If your web site isn't being served up every single
time a visitor requests it why do you have a web site?
Choosing the right web site host is one of the most
important decisions any webmaster can make. A bad hosting experience can
be ugly and expensive. The right web site host can make your web site even
more effective just by offering a few key features.
With everyone claiming to be the best how to choose?
Arm yourself with some knowledge, decide what your needs are and go after
them!
There are basic features that are essential in deciding
what type of package is right for you. These are fairly straight
forward and easy to understand.
It is the additional features that initially you may
feel you don't need, but that may come in handy later that you need to
understand so you can make the right decision.
In most cases, as with anything in life, you get what
you pay for. The first option that tempts many webmasters is a free host.
Free Web Site Hosting
A free hosting service is perfect for personal home
pages, you can get your own space on the Internet without having to pay
for it. Take the time to review several free hosts as some offer banner
ads, others have pop-ups and still others appear to have nothing on the
site but usually find some other way to get their advertising included in
the deal.
Free hosts usually offer no guarantee of site uptime
and you have few or no additional features.
If you plan to make money with your web site however
you need to forget the idea of a free host. Immediately you create
a credibility problem with your visitors that you will not be able to
overcome in most cases.
Bring it into the real brick and mortar world. If you
need to find a business are you likely to use the one with their own
location, their own street address or one camped out in an abandoned lot.
Where will you feel more confident in making a transaction?
Web hosting fees are nothing like that of a commercial
rent. If you can't afford the minimum hosting costs ($5-$10 a month)
you may want to re-think your business plan.
Choosing the Right Web Site Host
How important is it to choose the right web site host?
After all they maintain access to your site 24/7, If your site goes
down so does your chance of making any transactions. You need a stable
company that monitor their servers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week so that
they are instantly alerted if there is a problem.
Make sure you have access to technical support 24/7 and
whenever possible get references from people you trust who have had a
positive experience.
Then decide what features you need from a hosting
package and make sure your new host offers them, and whether they are
included or extra.
Basic Web Site Hosting Features:
There are certain features that apply to all hosting
packages, these are usually straight forward and easy to understand.
Disk Space: Decide how big a site you'll need,
disk space is sold in chunks of MB (mega bytes). Packages usually start
around 5 MB and range all the way up until 300 + MB. The amount of space
you need is governed mostly by the number of images/graphics you'll have
on the site. Text by itself takes up little room.
Email accounts: This is one of the traps hosting
companies use to net extra profits. They allow you a set amount of email
addresses, username@yourdomain.com and then when you discover you
need more they charge you $5 per additional account. Make sure you have
enough email addresses when you get started, and find out in advance how
much extra you'll be charged if you need more.
Cost: Keep in mind hosts are a business and that
they have to pay from $1 to $5 per GB of transfer to upstream providers
themselves. If you are paying less than $10 a month for hosting they
likely won't be able to fund customer service staff and the company may
not stay in business for long which won't bode well for your site.
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our hosting packages here
