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Shopping for website hosting can feel a bit overwhelming - especially for the
newbie. With so many features and options it's hard to know what's important and
what's not so important. Here's what I've learned in my 5 years of dealing with
web hosts.
First of all, a little background information. To make your website available
to the world, you'll need to put it on a server. A server is a piece of
equipment that serves your web pages to whoever requests them. People request
them by clicking on a link to your site. Unless you're a pretty big company, you
won't need your own server.
Most home-based website businesses (mine included) use a website hosting
company's servers. As I mentioned in How To Make Your Own Website, you have 3 options when it comes to building a website. You can:
Build it yourself. If you build it yourself, you'll be building it on your
computer. After you build each page on your computer, you'll need to upload it
to your web host's server. You'll do this using free software. This free
software connects your computer to your web hosting company's computers. Don't
worry, your web host will tell you how to do this. And you can call them, email
them or look at their FAQ's (Frequently Asked Questions) page for help. In the
beginning you'll probably have quite a few questions. Use a web hosting company's website builder. There's no uploading of web
pages involved here. You just type your content into their specially designed
website builder template and you're done. - Have someone else build it for you. If you use this method, you probably
won't be uploading any pages either.
When looking for a good website hosting company 4 factors are extremely
important. They are:
Technical help available by telephone. Every web host company offers email
support and FAQ's (Frequently Asked Questions) pages, but not every company has
telephone support. Telephone support is critical. Because it's not always easy
to communicate your problems through email, especially in the beginning. And
FAQ's pages can't always answer your questions.
Plenty of Disk Space available on your web hosting company's server. This is
where you'll store your website. Just to give you an idea - My plan with
Freeservers.com gives me 50MB of disk space. My website
Dog Pet Names has 52 pages and uses only 5MB of that space. So I have plenty
of room to grow (up to 10 times larger).
Plenty of Bandwidth available. You use bandwidth in 2 ways. You use a little
when you upload pages from your computer to your web host's servers. And you use
even more when your web pages are served. Here's an example - The company that
hosts another one of my websites is 1and1.com. They give me 1,200GB Bandwidth
per month. My site -
Moms Baby Names receives 7000 page views and uses 250MB of Bandwidth per
month. I don't come anywhere near my allowance of 1,200GB. A website stats package. You need a stats package that will at least tell
you how many visitors you're getting, where your visitors are coming from, and
which of your pages get the most visitors. Many stats packages will tell you
more than this. But these are the basic stats you'll need.
I've researched and used quite a few website hosting companies over the
years. And I've found 3 that stand head and shoulders above the rest:
Freeservers. This website hosting company will give you free hosting
if you let them run ads on your site. You can get rid of the ads by signing up
for their "starter hosting package" for only $3.95 per month. It gives you
plenty of disk space - 1GB. Plenty of monthly bandwidth - 10GB. A basic stats
package. And of course they offer technical support by telephone. I wouldn't
recommend them if they didn't. They are user-friendly for beginners.
www.freeservers.com 1&1. This website hosting company's "home hosting package" is $4.99
per month. You get loads of disk space - 120GB. Plenty of monthly bandwidth -
1,200GB. An extensive stats package. And technical assistance by telephone. This
web host is also user-friendly for beginners.
www.1and1.com - SiteBuildIt. This website hosting company is also outstanding.
They're not cheap - $299 per year. But you get everything and then some.
Unlimited web space. Unlimited bandwidth. Technical support by telephone. Every
web stat you'll ever need. A complete marketing plan. A website builder that
takes you by the hand and teaches you how to build a real website business. And
more, lots more.
SiteBuildIt
When you visit a website hosting company remember to pay attention to the 4
main features I told you about. All the other features you see aren't quite as
important. And you won't ever use many of them.
Ellis Combs is a full time webmaster and marketer. He is the owner and creator
of this website and quite a few others.
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