Website Hosting Basics

So you finally decided to take the leap and launch your own website but with so many web hosting providers out there choosing the right one can be somewhat confusing.

This articles purpose is to help you make a more informed decision.

Here is a list of things to consider when shopping for the right web host.

Disk Space:  First determine what category your site falls in personal, blog, e-commerce or business. If your site is a personal or blog you probably won’t require much space ( 1 to 2GB ) for e-commerce or business sites you will require a great deal more ( 50+ GB ) depending on the amount of content you will have. If you’re unsure of the amount of space needed you can always upgrade to a higher package at a later date or go with a web host that provides unlimited space.

Site Builder:  Unless you’re familiar with HTML a user friendly site builder is a must for new webmasters. Site builders allow you to easily set-up your website without any code entries. For the more experienced most, if not all, web host providers allow webmasters to input HTML or other codes within the site editors.

Domain:  Most hosting providers will allow you to choose one domain name. Domain names are subject to availability, at little or no additional cost. If you don’t choose a domain (.com, .net, among others) when you first sign up for web hosting you will be assigned a sub domain from the provider which is less desirable. You can always add a domain name at a later time after setting up your site if you are unsure of the name you want.

Bandwidth:  The amount of bandwidth required for your site will depend on the number of visitors you have. Personal sites won’t need a large amount of bandwidth (1GB to 3GB) as compared to a business or e-commerce site.  Finding a provider that allows unlimited bandwidth is usually easy. So if you are unsure of the number of visitors your site will have, this is what you would want to choose.

Up Time:  Reliable hosting companies will have an up-time of 99.5% or better. This means that .5% of the time you’re webpage will not be available to visitors. While this may be nothing more than an annoyance on personal websites, this could be critical to a business site. I would recommend selecting a hosting provider with a 99.9% up-time.

Guarantee:  A minimum 30 day money back guarantee is usually the standard with most hosting providers. While some providers offer,”anytime money back” which means, if you cancel, they refund the amount for unused months.  I wouldn’t advise using a company without a guarantee in the event their services don’t deliver what they promise

Conclusion:  These are the basic features to look for, in my opinion, when choosing the right hosting provider for your website. Your site might require additional features not covered here but this should get you started. Best of luck with your new site.