After deciding that you are going to have a website,
you need two things, a domain name and a company to
host it for you. Domain names are fairly cheap, you
can go to www.godaddy.com where they sell them for
$9.00 a year or sometimes, the web host provider will
either sell them or give it to you with their plan.
The web hosting company is basically renting you
space on their web servers. Whatever your website
will be, a web hosting company will let anyone in
the world view your site.
What To Look For
When shopping for a Web host, a couple of things
you want to keep in mind: How fast are their servers,
do they have good support and how is their uptime
(meaning, how good are they at keeping your website
up and running).
How fast are their servers? You want to know this,
its crucial when people try to get to your site that
it loads fast. Look for at least a server with a pentium
chip in it and 800 MHZ. Do they have good support?
You do want to have the best support possible. If
you have a question, you want it answered, fast. I
look for host that have 24 hour support, if not anything
else, at least 24 hour email support. How is their
uptime? Everybody can say they guarantee 99.9 % uptime,
but are they just pulling your leg, find out for sure,
ask them for statistics. Basically anyone with 99.5%
uptime is good in my book. Mostly all the better host
will give you that. Ensure that there is some sort
of written agreement regarding service, which ideally
will provide you with financial compensation in the
event of failure.
How Much Should I Pay
If your reading this article, chances are your just
starting out. My suggesting to you would be to spend
no more than $15 a month on a basic web hosting plan.
You can view some of our basic web hosting providers
here.
No need to look for a host that is going to give
you 500 MB of disk space, unlimited bandwidth (note:
be very careful when a web host says they are giving
you unlimited bandwidth, there is a catch and there
is a limit). If you are just putting up a basic website
than 50 MB of space and 2-3 GB of bandwidth should
be enough. Nowadays, some of the bigger web host can
offer you more space at the same price as some of
their competitors who offer a lot less space, these
are the best deals. Reasons for this could be that
they are just trying to get more people to sign-up,
or they have the technology and money to offer these
services to you.
Remember, you get what you pay for. Keep in mind
the 3 top services to look for in a web host and you
should do fine with finding one that does all this
and is less than $15 a month.
