What To Look For In a Web Hosting Company
Do you want to create your own website, but do not know where to start? One of the first things you need to consider is which web hosting company would be the best to host your website. Many people want to find a free host for their website, but this could be the worst solution in the long run. Free webs hosting services will show advertisements on your website, that may take your visitor to another website. You spend time and money to get people to your website, then they click on one of the web host companies ads and leave your website. Once people leave your website, they may not come back.
When you use a free service you may not be able to add your own graphics to the website, and you may have to chose graphics from a limited collection. This will make your website look like thousands of others that are using the same service. Your goal should be to create a unique website with unique graphics and content. This will help you get a higher page ranking with the search engines and help you get visitors from the search engines that you do not have to pay for. I can not stress this enough, getting traffic to your website will mean success or failure.
You will want to get your own domain name. A domain name looks like this:
www.yourdomain.com
A sub-domain looks like this:
www.yourname.domainname.com
A sub-directory looks like this:
www.yourdomain.com/topic/
When you pay for web hosting your website URL should look like the first example. You want to have your advertising efforts and money to boost your webpage ranking.
If you have a sub-domain, then you will be boosting the name recognition of the main domain when you advertise your website. Most people will remember the main domain name when they see your website address. So when you promote www.yourname.domainname.com, most people will remember the last part of the URL or domainname.com and they may be more likely to go to that domain instead of to your sub-domain. This could result in poor return on your advertising efforts and money spent on advertising.
If you are given a sub-directory, then your advertising efforts will boost the page ranking of the parent domain. This boost in page ranking may not help your website. Similar to the sub-domain, people will more likely remember the main domain name and may return to the main domain URL instead of your website.
There have been some test on consumer spending habits online, and these show that people will usually buy a product or service after they have been exposed to it 7 times or more. The goal is to have a domain name that is easy to remember and a link to the sales page, so people can get back to the sales page easily. You can put the link to the sales page in an email message that is sent to your opt-in list. You can place that link in an email series, so that your opt-in list can see the sales page 7 times or more.
What Does the Web Hosting Company Offer?
You can find some web hosting companies that provide economic packages that can meet the needs of your website. One thing to consider is the Operating System (OS) of the web host server. There are two main OS available and each has advantages and drawbacks. A Windows based server will give you basic features and limited PHP functions. If you want to use PHP scripting for your website, then you may want to go with a Linux based server. Linux based servers will usually have more features then the Windows based server. I personally have found the Linux Server the best to host my dynamic PHP websites. PHP is a very common scripting language and you can find PHP scripts to use on your website for free. These scripts can add a counter to your webpage, one click bookmarking, and other features that your visitor will find useful.
Make sure that the web hosting package gives enough hosting space for your website and will allow for expansion of your website. The webspace is comparable to the hard drive on your personal computer or laptop. The hard drive is measured in MegaBytes (MB), GigaBytes (GB) and TeraBytes (TB). 1GB = 1000 MB. 1 TB = 1000 GB. This is the hard drive space that is allowed for your website and any other files that you upload to your server. If you do not get enough space, then you may be limited in how much you can build and expand your website. You may also have to pay additional fees if you go over the allowed space. Getting more in the package is better, so try to get a package that gives you TeraBytes of space.
Make sure that the web hosting package gives enough bandwidth (or Date Transfer) for your website. Bandwidth is measured in GigaBytes (GB) and TeraBytes (TB) that are transfered per month. Every time someone visits your website the webpage and graphic files are transfered to their computer. Every time someone downloads a file from your web host server this counts toward your bandwidth useage. The amount of bandwidth that you need for your website will depend on how big your webpage files are, how big your graphics files are, and how big other files that will be downloaded are. If you host video files on your website that visitors will watch or save to their computers, then you will need a lot of bandwidth. If you do not have video or audio files on your website, then you may not need as much bandwidth. Most web host companies will charge a high fee if you go over the allowed bandwidth for the month. Some web host companies may not allow any more data transfer once you have met the allowed bandwidth for the month.
You may only be allowed to register one domain name per account with some web host companies. It is generally better to go with a package that allows you to host more then one domain per account, because you may want to create another website at a later time. If you do not have a package that allows additional domain names, then you would have to create another account and pay the same fees over again.
If you plan to have an e-commerce website that sells products or services, then you will need to have an SSL Certification. This will require that you have a dedicated IP address for each domain name that will have SSL Certification. Make sure your web host package gives you a dedicated IP address for your domain. Some web hosting companies will only give you 1 dedicated IP address per account. You can find web host companies that will give more dedicated IP addresses depending on the package that you purchase.
Most web host companies will allow sub-domains in your package. The number of sub-domains allowed per account may vary with the web host company or package. This may not be a deciding factor for you, it depends on whether you want to have sub-domains. A sub-domain is considered by the search engine as a unique website, so the content in your sub-domain will have very little impact on the page ranking for your main domain.
This is just a basic list of what to look for in a web hosting company. There are many features that may benefit you and your website, so make sure you check out all the features available through the web host company and the differences between the packages offered.
Here are two web host companies that I personally use and recommend. Site 5. You can find many more by doing a Google Search for “web host”.
I wish you success in all your legitimate business ventures and in your every day life too!
Sincerely,
Jim Van Dyke