Choosing a web hosting company is a very personal decision based
on your own unique needs. Web hosting is what places your
website into the World Wide Web, where anyone can access to it
24 hours a day. In other words, without placing your site onto a
web hosting service, you won’t get the visibility you want. Most
small business owners will most likely go through a web hosting
company rather than invest in acquiring their own servers, which
is very expensive and difficult. On top of the expense that is
involved with having your own server, you need to have a strong
educational background to be able to deal with the technical
aspects of implementing your own server, or having your own
technical computer staff on hand to deal with the process. (And
those programmers don’t come cheap either!) If you’re a new
online business or looking for ways to expand your market reach,
web hosting is definitely the way to go.
Which web hosting service do you select? There are two key
things to keep in mind when you begin your search for an
appropriate web hosting service: (1) Find a web hosting company
that meets your needs for today, (2) Make sure that this web
hosting company you choose can grow with you as your business
expands. Another important factor you want to know up front
about hosting services, is that once you choose one, and decide
it doesn’t pan out for you, to switch to another service will be
a very painful and a lengthy process. It’s just not worth the
mistake to make!
Check out these tips in how you can select a web hosting service
that has the most qualities such as flexibility, service, and
growth capabilities along with a strong background in technical
abilities that you’re seeking, at a price you can afford.
Shop and Research
Do your surfing on the net. Shop around and compare the
services between the different web hosting services. Ask other
businesses what hosting companies they’re using. Make sure you
check out businesses that have made statements in testimonials
about the particular web hosting company they’re using. Follow
up by contacting them and have a series of questions to ask, and
see how they respond to your questions in regards to those
services. Still don’t know where to start? Check out the web
hosting directories on the net, which will save you hoards of
time, because the real good ones will be the ones on the first,
few pages, www.webhostingrebates.com could be a good place to
start.
Cost and Fees of Web Hosting
This is a pretty good area to begin as well. You need to know
what you’ve set aside to pay for this service, since it’s a
vital part of your business, therefore, it needs to be part of
your marketing plan. Make sure when you’re doing your homework
on web hosting services, get a clear cut picture of what the
fees and upfront cost of everything you can possibly think of.
For example, is there a set up fee? Are there extra fees for
having a ‘secure transaction’ feature? Will it be extra to have
multiple URL’s? Auto-responders, additional email addresses, how
much more will it cost to upgrade to a better plan? Once you
decide, just have it in writing and be specific as possible as
what your expectations are from any particular web hosting
service. You should know exactly what you’re shelling out for.
Contract Length
Many web hosting companies will offer a cheaper rate for longer
contract timeframes. If you decide to go with a two-year
contract, since they know they’re getting a commitment from you,
may offer you a deal. The only risk with that, if you find that
you’re not pleased with their service…it may be tough to get out
of a contract you are obligated to follow through the duration
of the contract. Just be clear about the length of your
commitment and how often you are required to pay on your
contract. Some do it monthly, quarterly or bi-monthly. I would
recommend that when starting out, hoping you never change web
hosting services, that you settle on a one-year contract. Just
understand what you’re getting into before you sign any dotted
line.
Disk Space
Depending on the type of site and business you’re in will
determine how much disk space will be required for your website
to function properly. You can pretty much estimate your disk
space needs on the amount of space your site takes on your own
computer. The reason why this is important to know, is for
example, if you’re an online store that offers free movie
downloads, you will need lots of space for all those large video
files.
Assess Service and Support
A good web hosting company will have excellent customer service
and a support center where you can call to trouble shoot your
concerns about your site. Without good customer support, you can
smell trouble for yourself and your business down the road. You
don’t want to ultimately hamper your business growth because you
overlooked on customer care and technical support from your web
hosting company. A good way to test web-hosting services, before
you make that splurge, is to send them a test email, and see how
quickly and professionally they respond to your email. Make sure
you send out emails on weekends and evenings to see if they
respond to those off-peak inquiries. Think about it, you’re not
going to run into problems only from Monday through Friday, from
9 to 5, right? See how accessible and how they address issues
that may arise during the off-hours is a good way to see how
serious they are about customer care and support. There should
be a technical support phone number on their site, and some
hosting companies do not list their phone numbers…so who do you
call when you’re site is down? Not those ones! I think you get
the gist of that one.
Traffic and Files
Traffic (also called data transfer or throughput) is the
combined size of all the files transferred from your web-hosting
computer to your customer’s browsers. Depending on the traffic
that comes to your site, and how much detailing is involved in
your html pages, determines how much the cost of traffic fees
you will be expected to pay. For example, adult sites usually
generate much traffic, and because of this, many web site
hosting companies have special and inflated pricing plans for
these sites to handle the number of visitors hitting on the
sites.
Email Accounts and Auto Responders
You should know how many email accounts you can have on the
same domain name, where you would have one email account that
allows customers or visitors to email you, another email account
for another department such as billing or accounting, one for
each of the number of staff you have on hand. Make sure that
they give you enough accounts, and what the additional fees are
to add on new ones if you’re staff base grows or you end up
creating new departments within your company. This type of email
address will reflect your company, www.companyname.com. It is
important that you use your own domain name for all your mail.
Do not use another source such as hotmail.com or AOL.com for
your business emails. (It looks like you’re a very inexperienced
website business owner, doing things half-assed!) Pardon my
French. Auto responders are emails that are sent back
automatically to the user that has a standard response to anyone
who queries them. It can be a simple message such as, “We’ve
received your email and we are currently looking into your
request. You will be notified shortly with assistance.”
Sometimes auto responders are used for specific things, such as
if you requested a pricing list, documentation, product
specifications and photos, you would have a separate email
account for each subject, and if a visitor inquired about one of
these categories, and the auto responder would immediately send
them a spec sheet within 5 minutes or less. The possibilities
are endless with auto-responders, and it’s a nice quick feature
that meets the customer’s needs right away. Find out how many
auto responders are included in your package, and what the
additional fees are for more.
CGI Scripts
CGI=Common Gateway Interface are small programming scripts that
add functionality and interactivity to your web pages. Most
hosting companies have libraries of standard CGI scripts you can
use for free. Many web hosting companies will not allow you to
input your own scripts, so if this is a specific area where you
have some scripts that you would like implemented, then you
obviously will need to locate a web hosting company that will
allow you the flexibility to do so.
Monthly and Daily Usage Statistics
This is the standard service of good web hosting companies. Run
clear of any web- hosting companies that aren’t providing this
basic service. Although each web hosting company has their own
format and styles in how it’s presented, you will have to do
some research to find which ones will be the most useful and
beneficial to your business plan.
Upgrades
Make sure that the web hosting company can upgrade your plan as
your business grows. If you get big, some web hosting companies
may not be able to handle your account on their servers. This is
important to find out how reliable their servers are and what
their capabilities are in regards to how many accounts and/or
websites are they handling at any given time.
References and Check those References
Get at least 3-5 references of online businesses that are using
the web hosting company you’re considering and find out exactly
how they feel about that particular web hosting company. This
will be your saving grace. Don’t skip this process.
You now have a serious decision to make about which web hosting
service to go with. With these handy tips and questions in your
hands, you should be able to find one that fits nicely within
your budget and meets your business needs. It’s important that
you find a happy home for your website, and establishing
yourself as a real online business entrepreneur is a good place
to start. As a matter of fact, it’s the only place to start.
Story Description
Ensuring that you choose a reliable web-hosting provider should
be your number one priority. Selecting the right web host
provider will be one of the most important decisions you will
ever make. The wrong host can have a very devastating impact on
your business and let’s make sure that you understand everything
you need to know hot to go about picking the right web host
provider so you may never find out the hard way.
How do I relate to the story?
Contacts and talking with people along the way have given me
the opportunity to become acquainted with their horror web
hosting provider experiences with some unfortunate consequences.
There is so much detail and continuing education revolving
around selecting the appropriate web host provider that
emphasizes how important it is to gather the right facts and
questions to begin your research.
About the author:
Joelene Orlando is a Web enthusiast and a staff
writer/consultant for http://www.emarketinganswers.com with a
broad knowledge of topics covering Internet marketing and
communication strategies for both consumer and small business
owners. eMarketingAnswers.com is dedicated to providing free
emarketing resources and online promotion tools.
