Web Design Tips – Choosing a Web Hosting Company

So now you have your internet site, and you are looking for somewhere to host it. Or maybe you are just registering your domain name and you have been offered a hosting package at the same time. Beware the gimmicks and get a hosting package that is right for your site. If you have a full ecommerce site with lots of different products you will need a very different package than if you have a simple blog or just a personal homepage.

What issues do you need to consider when looking for a hosting package for your website?

The first thing that I consider is reliability. No point having a website if your site is not online. Most hosts quote at least 99.5% time online, and it is hard to verify this. Make sure the package you choose has a guarantee so that if they do not meet their targets that you are refunded. You will probably only be refunded on a pro-rata basis but this is better than nothing. It also means that the company has a financial interest in keeping your site online.

How much space do you get and how much bandwidth? A lot of packages give you unlimited space and bandwidth. Space is obviously a factor if you have a site with a lot of pages, photos or articles attached to it. Or maybe you have a large ecommerce site. If you just have a blog or a personal homepage you will not need a lot of space. Bandwidth is the amount of information transfer to and from your site. If you have a high traffic volume you will need good bandwidth otherwise your customers will have trouble accessing your site.

Support? How good is the support? The great thing about the internet is that you can very quickly search for company reviews to find out how good their service is. If their service is no good go somewhere else. Most companies offer 24/7 support, so it is usually the quality of the service rather than availability that is the main issue here.

Security? Security will be a big issue for you if you are conducting any kind of ecommerce activities or if you are collecting customer information including names and email addresses. You must be able to guarantee to your customers that you are able to keep their information secure, and so your web host must be able to give you this guarantee. Check out the hosting package information so see what kinds of security features are provided and how the data is encrypted.

What kind of web statistics does your host provide you with? This is your business information and is vital to your success on the internet. If you were running a conventional business you would want to know how many people came in each day, why they came in, where they came from, and which way they left. Any decent internet statistics package will give you this information, broken down daily and monthly. Make sure your host can provide you with this information before you sign up.

Other features? How many email accounts do you get? How many subdomain names can you host on one package? (I host all my sites on one package, so you don’t need separate hosting accounts if you have multiple sites). What ecommerce facilities can they provide? How many databases can you establish and what kinds of databases are supported? Can you put a blog on your site easily? From your site design you should have a good idea of what additional features you need on your site, so make sure when you choose your hosting package that you have access to these. Do not get conned by additional features that are useless to you, but at the same time make sure you get access to the features you need.

Your site design will have a big bearing on the type of hosting account you need. There are hosting accounts as cheap as $1 per month, but these do not suit everybody. You need to look at reliability, security, support, statistics, extra features, space and bandwidth, and price when you select your hosting account. If you had someone else design your site make sure you talk to them about what type of hosting account you need. Get the right hosting account for YOUR site, rather than the right site to fit your hosting account.

 

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