Choosing the right web host is a little
like choosing the right shop for your business. In saying this
I don't mean location but size and facilities. We will discuss
location in another article.
If you're are planning to start a
business or have a business going and plan to move to new
premises you would spend some time in looking at what is
available, and what is suitable. You need to do the same in
choosing a web host. There are certain things you need to make
sure you have.
How Much Space do you Require
How much room (disk space) do you need. Here it is wise to
get whatever you can afford. Most websites will run on just a
few MB. But it is wise to allow for future expansion. Do you
plan to run a membership site with lots of downloads? Here you
may find that 500MB may mot even be enough. You will find that
there are plenty of hosting providers that offer up to 1GB for
very reasonable rates.
What is Bandwidth?
You will also require a reasonable bandwidth. What is
bandwidth? With your currant internet provider you are allowed
a certain amount of download. This is basically what bandwidth
is. Each time you get a visitor to your site they view your
site page or pages depending on how many they view. Each time
a page is downloaded or viewed by your visitor they are using
bandwidth. Hosting companies will limit the amount of
bandwidth you use. If you exceed this your site could be
temporarily suspended and is no longer visible to your
customers. This helps you to see that bandwidth is very
important. You need to make sure that you will have enough. If
more is needed later it can easily be negotiated with your
host.
Do You Need Databases?
Do you need MySql databases? Here I
would say never say no. You will find that even the simplest
of sites will eventually need databases. Make sure that you
are not too limited in the number of databases you can run on
your hosting package.
Which Control Panel?
What control panel is in use? The
control panel is very important. Here is where you will be
able to do all the things required to make you site run the
way you want it to. Here too will set up all the e-mail
accounts you want to run from you site. This is also where you
will be able to set up your databases when required. There are
two control panels that I like. Cpanel. This is a feature rich
control panel and is very popular. The other that I find the
simplest to use is Direct Admin. If you are choosing a new
hosting provider it is always wise to see if you can test
drive the control panel.
Some Other Things You Should Expect
Just as you would need to decide what
equipment you needed, these decisions are also made in
choosing your hosting provider. Some hosting companies also
provide on-line browser based software you can use to create
your site. This software will allow you to create your site
from scratch or use a template that may suit you needs. With
some this software is so powerful that you can create dynamic
sites using PHP. All this without knowing HTML or
PHP.
Some will even provide you with
products you can set up on your new site. All you need to do
is modify a few details in a HTML editor and your site is set
up to go. In the mean time you can be busy creating your own
unique site.
At the beginning I mentioned location.
Unlike finding the right shop in which location is everything.
In choosing the right web host you need to create the
location. This is done by search engine optimization. Search
engine optimization is only a small part of getting traffic to
your site. There are many things you can and should do to get
that traffic to your site. Your success also hinges on the
traffic you create for your site.
I will make that the subject of a
future article.
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