There are many important factors by choosing web hosting company. Let's take a look at some of them.
First time you must answer the question which type of web hosting are you looking for. If you want to run a single web site shared hosting will be the right for your needs. For those who own multiple domains it will be better to buy reseller account or look around the web hosting industry and find some hosting plan which allows more domains under single account. Most web hosting companies allows only one domain hosted but because web hosting is very competitive market so if you will search carefully you will probably find some providers which offer more. If you want to drive an advanced business and need more system resources then acceptable on shared server you will need your own, dedicated or virtual private server.
As soon as you decide which type of web hosting is the best solution for your project you should make oneself clear about features you will to use. Consists your web site from static *.html files only or contains PHP or CGI scripts? Webmasters using PHP probably will need MySQL database. Most of web hosting providers offer these features in their basic hosting plans but some extremely cheap hosts (with prices about $1 or $2/month) limit you to use static pages only. If you decide to use some of these very cheap hosting plans make sure of the possibility and price to upgrade to higher plan with more features. Don't forget you don't need to be programmer to run dynamic web site. There is plenty of free PHP or CGI scripts on Internet.
OK, we made clear about the features like PHP, MySQL and CGI support. Now let's take a look at disk quote and bandwidth. Most hosts usually offer more disk space then you can ever need unless you run some web site like photo gallery or adult web site. 1 GB should be enough for 80 % of company presentations. A little harder decision-making can be by choosing ideal bandwidth quote. To discover how much bandwidth you need try bandwidth calculator at http://www.marblehost.com/bandwidth-calculator.php . But take the results with a grain of salt and by choosing the web hosting program make sure that your bandwidth limit is at least 2 - 3 x higher. Don't forget that during the time your site will go up in search engines and get more visitors who can pretty increase your bandwidth.
Last but not least read some web hosting reviews to discover how satisfied the customers of particular web hosting company are. Try to find their experience with technical support and server uptime. Discover how they are satisfied with control panel. Learn about any features which web hosts offers like web site builder or pre-installed scripts.
In the last step there will be necessary to compare prices. Find out if there is some setup fee. Setup fees usually depend on the billing period (if you sign up for 2 years plan you may pay less then if you order hosting for 1 month). Don't forget to discover how much you will pay for the domain name (some web hosting plans includes free domain name). Then take a look for some promotional coupon codes or special actions and choose the best offer. |
