Who will host me?
When you decide that the time is right to put a website online, one of the first things you will need is a web hosting company. Besides the design and marketing aspect, your web host is probably the most important factor to consider. Of course, if you just want to host a fun little website dedicated to telling the world a little about yourself, then a free web hosting company would suffice. If, on the other hand, you are interested in a more serious aspect, you will have a multitude of web hosting companies to choose from, all of them offering different elements in their packages, which can well overwhelm you and at the very least, confuse you!
All established hosting plans come with details of what you will get for your money. These will include things like bandwidth, which is a measure of how much “information” is being sent and received between the server, where your website will be hosted, and the viewer or visitor. This is measured in Megabytes (MB) or Gigabytes (GB). Basically, the more your website has, such as photos and graphics, the more bandwidth will be used to display the website to the visitor.
You will also be told how much space will be allocated to you on the server to store your website files. Again, this will range from the average 500MB to some pretty big numbers. If you only want to have a few small pages online, then 500MB would be more than enough space. A store website or eCommerce solution would require much more.
Another factor to consider will be email addresses and whether you will get domain email addresses. These are addresses you can use, such as [email protected]. a great advantage if you are starting a business, as it gives your company a much more professional look. If your new hosting plan allows unlimited domain or web email addresses, you can give each member of your staff their own private email address and make it easy for a customer or prospect to contact the right person directly. The other benefit of domain or web email accounts is that they can be accessed through a POP3 mail client like Outlook, Outlook Express, Thunderbird, etc.
One very important thing to consider is whether there is FTP (File Transfer Protocol) and how it is implemented. You may only be able to access your web space to transfer files through the control panel after logging in through your web browser or you may use any third party FTP client software. The latter is the preferred method as you have more control over the files and folders and can do more advanced things like CHMODing the files if files are to be used as CGI scripts.
Subdomains are another element to consider. Subdomains allow you to create a ‘minisite’ but use your original domain name in the title. You can use it for a specific area of your main website. For example, a do-it-yourself website called http://www.do-it-yourself.com might have ‘minisites’ called wallpaper, paint and flooring, which would be on the subdomains http://wallpaper.do-it-yourself mismo.com, http://painting.doityourself.com and http://flooring.doityourself.com. As you can see, subdomains create cool new minisites that use the main domain name and can be much easier to remember on some obscure pages on your main site.
MySQL databases are often included in a web hosting plan. These are necessary for some more advanced scripts. If you know about installing scripts, you’ll know whether or not you need them and whether you’ll have enough of them. If you are having another person or company install a script for you, they will advise you whether or not you need databases.
All these things barely touch what a web host can offer you. The easiest method for choosing a web host is to take advantage of their support system. This should be free and accessible to all users and prospective customers as well. ASK the web host what they recommend and WHY they recommend it. EXPLAIN to the web host what your plans are for your website, whether or not you plan to expand, and ask the host if they are flexible enough to add items as you need them, such as additional space, bandwidth, etc. A good web host will gladly take the time to answer you and help you with your choice, after all, a web host wants their customers to be happy!