Help With Finding A Good Web Host
There are many great websites out there. I quite often look at a website idea that someone has started, and think to myself, I wish I had thought of that. Have you ever felt like that? If yes, then you need to get yourself a website, and you need to get that idea out there, as quickly as possible. With so many people on the internet, there is bound to be someone else with the exact same idea, so you need to get in there ASAP!.
The first thing you need to do is to think on a good domain name. The annoying thing for newbies is all of the best names are taken, so you need to be creative. Make sure your domain name is short, catchy and fills your purpose.
The next thing you need to do is get a good affordable Webhost. Your Hosting is as important as the website itself, because it is up to them, how often your fully built website, is up and running.
There is a problem though. Just run a search on google for the phrase ‘webhosting’. How many results do you get back? billions right? So, how are you supposed to know who is good, and who is not good? (and most importantly, who is a scammer?).
Well, I am not going to give you a review on all of those Companies, that would mean writing a large book, which would be obsolete before it was published. The one thing I can assure you is that not all websites are created equally.
When first starting a website, I chose the cheapest Web Host, that offered the most. They offered unlimited emails, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited storage. Well you get the jist. But, after a month, I could see that my website was down about 3% of the time, that is around 5 hours per week. The Company had promised an uptime of 99%, but sadly could not perform.
As a new kid on the block, I was also not very website literate. So I had a lot of questions. But, the WebHost I had signed up with, was taking about 3 days to answer any questions. So this was meaning another 3 days before I could fix a problem with my website. Yes, in the early days, my website was a very sad site. This is not a good way to start a business.
After that I did some research and found a great company, hostgator, and signed up. I have not looked back. I have been with Hostgator for almost a year now, and they are great.
I am not telling you to sign up with Hostgator, but you do need to find a webhost that will guarantee a minimum of 99% uptime, and then research the Company to make sure that they hold that promise. You also do not need unlimited limits, and should not be swayed by a WebHost that offers a lot more that everyone else. It all comes down to service at the end of the day, and if the WebHost does not have a good service level, none of the rest matters.
After research, and personal experience I have come to find out:
1) Unless you are bigger than myspace.com you are not going to need unlimited bandwidth. Look for a package that offers between 2 and 5GB.
If your website really startes to get big, and you end up needing more, you just need to contact your WebHost and buy a package with more resources/bandwidth.
2) Try and go for a big storage capacity. If you are running a large shop with loads of photos you’ll need a big storage. I have looked at many medium sized shops, and they run easily with 100MB of space. Small shops can quite easily run on 30MB of space.
I would not recommend buying a package with any less than 10MB of space.
If you choose a WebHost that offers large space packages, you may find that a lot of the hosting companies go on to use the space that you don’t use. For example, they might allocate 100MB to you. If you use 10MB, they will use the other 90MB. There is nothing wrong with this, but hopefully the other 90 will be available when you grow.
3) There is no way that you need unlimited email addresses. Most companies will get away with 100 email addresses, and at the most 1000.
4) MySQL databases. You will need at least 1 database for your shop, forum, or blog to run on. Depending on the type of website you have, you may need more than 1. For example, if you own a directory, you may wish to have a blog, forum, directory, shop and more. You will need a database for each of these, which means 4 databases. So, depending on the type of website, ensure you get a package with between 1 and 20 databases. It is unlikely that you will need more than 20 databases.
To summarize, don’t look for those that have the biggest deals, for the smallest prices. Look for Webhosts that have good deals, good prices, and most importantly guarantee very good server uptime.
There are a few webhosts that have been given very good reviews (me included).
The simple truth is, there are plenty of great webhosts out there, and you just need to find the right one. Something which is kinda hard at first. Just don’t jump in, without feeling the water first. Research, and find out what other people have to say about the Company. Remember, your website is your presence on the internet. If you are down, for much of the time, you do not look very professional, and you will lose customers to competitors. Follow my advice, and take another look through the Companies you like. Do you like them because of the service they provide, or because they offer the best for the least? If it is the latter, you should re-think your stance.
