Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Choosing the Right Web Hosting Company

Choosing the right web hosting company for your website is essential to your success online. There are a few notes to take before you decide to splash your cash on your desired web hosting company.

1. Make sure that their 24/7 support is good. Find out from people who have already signed up with your desired company, whether the company provides good support. Live chat, phone support and quick response to emails are the services that you should expect from the web hosting company.

2. Choose the right plan for your website. Look at the Total Disk Space, Monthly Data Transfer, Types of Script Supported, Monthly Fee, etc. For e.g. if your website is coded in ASP, then you will need to find the right hosting plan which support ASP rather than PHP.

3. Make sure that the monthly fee for your hosting plan falls within your budget. Do not spend unnecessary money.

4. Check out what are the free features that come with the plan that you are intending to subscribe.

5. Do find out from people whether the web hosting company provides user-friendly FTP environment for you to upload your files to their server.

For the length of the subscription plan, try not to sign up for more than 1 year if you are a new customer to that particular web hosting company. By keeping your subscription plan to a year, you can still change to a new web hosting company if you do find that the current one is not good.

Do take some time to conduct a research first on the different web hosting company on the Internet. There are plenty of companies around, and make sure that you make the right

Tips about Cheap Web Hosting

When selecting cheap website hosting it seems as if there are a million companies claiming to be the cheapest web hosting provider. But how can you be sure that in fact you are finding quality, or even a trustworthy web host provider? How can you protect your business and find a great host? Find out as much about the web host provider as possible. Google their name and look for negative and positive reviews about their services.

Try to personally contact current customers to see if they are happy with the web host provider. If you can't find anybody else who will go on record with praise for the company, then you might be better off trying another host.

Find a few different cheap website hosting companies that offer what you are looking for. Compare their prices and services with each other. This will give you a good idea of what you are getting for your money. You don't want to jump with blinders on when selecting a cheap website hosting company. Finding the right web host provider is a very important and serious aspect of your business. You want to find the one that fits best for you. This is not a race; you don't have to rush. Some of the important things to look for from a web host provider are bandwidth, disk space and php (if you plan on having a dynamic website), a webmaster management interface, and telephone and online support.

Unless you are an experienced webmaster, you will need some support along the way, so your web host provider must be able to give you reliable support. Once you find a web host provider that fits your needs, don't sign any long term contracts. It may cost you a little bit more money, but you want to be able to bail out of the situation if they are not giving satisfactory service. You don't want to be left with 10 months of cheap website hosting paid for with a company you can't trust with your business. It is better to start out on a month to month lease from your web host provider.

Then if you are happy with how thing are going, you can always pay six or twelve months in advance. Finding a cheap website hosting company that provides excellent service isn't an easy task. But with a little research and comparison shopping, you will be more likely to find a great cheap website hosting company that you can stay with for years to come.

How To Find Cheap Web Hosting?

There are plenty of cheap web hosting companies on the net and sometimes it can be very difficult to decide which one you should go for. After all, once you have decided on one web host, it can be difficult to switch your websites to another one.

Your primary factor when searching for cheap web hosting should not be price. Yes, price is one factor but you need to take consideration into other factors before deciding.

Here are a few factors you should consider as well besides the price:

1. Customer Service

Ever had a problem with your hosting and no one to turn to? It can be frustrating when you have a problem with your hosting and can’t find anyone who can offer technical help.

It doesn’t matter how much traffic you get if your website is down and you can’t get anyone to respond to it. Good web hosting companies should have a support telephone line, live chat, email support and should be able to respond to any support case in less than 30 minutes. If not, move on to other web hosting.

2. Reliability

Most web hosting companies have an uptime guarantee. Look for those that have at least 99.5% and above uptime guarantee. If it’s not stated on their website, call or email them to find out. If you can’t find the information, move on to the next web hosting.

It doesn’t reflect very well on your business or on you if your website is always down from time to time.

3. No hidden charges

Make sure everything is stated out clear and in black and white. I have seen shady web hosting companies who have hidden charges such as extra charge for transferring a domain name out from their web host, extra charge when adding email or ftp accounts, extra charge for adding another subdomain.

While I understand some web hosting do charge extra for bandwidth and disk space and others, it should be made clear on the website and not after you already have brought their hosting package.

4. Ease of use

Depending on your technical skills, you should choose web hosting that suit your comfort level. Most web hosting companies uses cpanel for website management. However a few such as godaddy uses their own proprietary management interface which can take some time to adjust to.

Taking into account all the factors above, how do I go about finding a cheap yet reliable web hosting?

The best way to find is to find web hosting reviews sites and forums and see what others have to say. Beware of some web hosting reviews sites who are biased because they have been paid by the web hosting company to provide a favorable review.

One of the places I visit often is webhostingtalk.com. It is a large web hosting forum where you get unbiased reviews of web hosting companies usually from customers. It’s also a good place to find bargain web hosting offers.

However, at the end of the day, you still need to make up your mind which web hosting you want.