by: Jeff Schuman
When choosing the best website hosting company, it is important to consider several things before making your choice. As they say " You never get a second chance at a first impression." This is true when we are talking about your website!
Web hosting is a service that allows users to post Web pages to the Internet. A Web host, or hosting service provider (HSP), is a business that provides the technologies and services needed for Web sites to be viewed on the Web.
When you choose hosting for your website consider the following things.
Price: Don’t simply look for the lowest price. Your website is your lively hood and you need reliablity that you may not get with cheap hosting.
Technical Support: Is it available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week? If you have a question you need an answer.
Features: Various internet hosting companies offer a variety of services. Make a list of what you know you want your website to do. Here are a few services you will want to consider. Set up fees, transfer fees, email aliases, site stats, contol panel, site creation tool, front page extensions, submit to search engines, sub domains, multiple domain discounts.
Disk Space: The amount of disk space that will be allotted to your web site is another of the key elements in a good web host package. While it might seem that 30 megabytes is plenty of room, the potential for growth of your company means that you could easily need more space later. If you choose a web hosting provider that simply can't offer more space, you might find that your growth will be severely limited.
E-mail accounts How many e-mail accounts do you need? You'll probably need one for each employee and one for each department (sales, accounts, support). Make sure you purchase a hosting plan that has enough e-mail accounts. Also, do you want full POPS access, Web-based e- mail, or both?
E-commerce Will you be selling goods or services through your site? If not, there's no need to sign up for an e-commerce web hosting service. If you are, e-commerce web hosting services such as shopping cart software, SSL support and a merchant account will be vital.
Speed: You need to know how fast your internet hosting provider can provide access to your visitors.
Uptime: This may be the most important thing when choosing the best web hosting company. You can not make money if your web site is down.
It is reasonsable to expect to spend $20-$30 a month for a good hosting company. I personally use Host4Profit for my hosting needs. I have found them to be reliable, fast, offer top customer service, and reasonably priced. They have a web hosting affiliate program that allows you to make $10 a month for every person you refer to them. Refer 3 and yours is free.