Website Hosting | Choosing a reliable host for your site

Web Hosts helping you to meet and greet the world

Firstly let's clear up any confusion about what a Web Host or Hosting company is.

Imagine that you have a new mobile phone given to you, brand new from Sony Ericsson... great.

But a mobile phone is useless if when you turn it on you haven't got a connection.

That connection is to the 'Mobile' network and you would probably go to 'Virgin', 'BT', Orange, 'T Mobile' or whoever, they are the mobile network providers.

They are your connection onto the mobile network.

 

Web Hosts are like mobile network providers, they are your connection to the World Wide Web or Internet

Don't confuse them with Internet Service Providers (ISPs) who provide your computer connection to the world wide web or internet.

 

So how do you find a web host?

Well if you were to do a search on the internet for web hosting companies you'd get back thousands and thousands of results.

You might imagine that all that competition would be great because it would keep the cost down.

Well yes and no.

The fact is that like so many other services you pay for what you get.

Here is my check list which I am going to keep short and as jargon free as possible.

I'll also give you some examples to give you a tangible idea of what certain options mean in real terms.

 

Firstly let's get the 'Free (or almost)' verses 'Paid for hosting' out of the way

You may see companies that offer free hosting but in reality these companies aren't giving you something for nothing.

• They will force you to show their adverts and any third party adverts on your site
• They don't offer hosting support
• They often buy in hosting and re brand it as theirs so that they can offer hosting and advertise, as per point one
• They limit the amount of storage space, bandwidth, email addresses, scripts (important for running commercial sites) and other expensive elements that many businesses need for a professional website to work well

For 'Not for Profits' organisations these sites can work well, though I'd approach a good commercial site and request a special reduced fee as a better option to free sites.

I won't spend any longer on 'Free' hosting except to say that if you are serious about running a business website then you should be prepared and able to afford, as a business cost, spending £10 per month on decent hosting.

 

Paid for hosting | My top points to consider:

 

Reliability and speed of access

Choosing the right web host is like choosing the right way to deliver your message. Traditional mail is fine if you or rather your recipients don't mind waiting.

But nowadays people are a little bit more impatient and want the answer to their question now.

Some web hosts don't offer the same speeds of information deliver as others which means your website will take longer to download and respond than others might.

Now this might make all the difference if your website takes too long to load your visitors might 'bounce' (that's land and leave within a couple of seconds) before they even read a word of your site.

 

Data Transfer, sometimes referred to as bandwidth

What is bandwidth and why is it important?

Every time someone calls up your website, by putting your domain name into the address bar, by finding you on google or by following a link from another site, your Web Host will send the information i.e. your web pages down the line to their computer.

This information is measured in 'bytes'.

Think of it as an army of postmen delivering information to your door. The more information you request the more it takes to deliver.

Some companies try and lure you with the promise of 'Unlimited Bandwidth'. Don't be seduced.

Bandwidth costs, why else would all the big boys like Virgin', BT, Tiscali, etc constantly tell you about how many Giga bytes of bandwidth you can have a month.

No company will give you this for nothing so you will end up paying for it somewhere and often, if they aren't being up front, through the nose.

But how much band width do you need anyway?

As an example this website, with about 70 pages needs a very modest 2 Giga bytes of bandwidth a month. You can get up to 5 Giga bytes for around £5.00 along with all the other advantages of a good hosting company.

Although you may need to increase your bandwidth over time, as you site grows and is visited by more and more people, don't pay for more than you need.

 

Disk Space

Like bandwidth, this doesn't come free either. Disc space is the storage space your actual web site uses on the hosts computers.

If yours is a small site with a few pages and not many images, or other media then you will use a very small amount of disc space.

However if your site has lots of images, videos, audio and other media files then you will end up using a lot more disc space ... which yo will pay for.

Again this site with a moderate number of images and video uses less than 7 mega bytes of disc space, that's tiny ... most modern digital cameras take single pictures that use more space than this.

For hosting that's as little as £5.00 a month you can get a massive 500 mega bytes of storage space.

One point on storage ... most web hosts build in email accounts with the web hosting so you can have 'yourname@yourwebsite.com' type email addresses.

The storage space is also used by these email accounts so if you receive emails with lots of attachments then you will use your storage space this way too.

Always save attachments to your computer drive and keep the storage used by your emails to a minimum.

 

Technical Support

I value this part of the service as highly as I value reliability and all the other factors.

There are many times when you want to do something like 'Switch on the Auto responder' to tell clients you will be away etc.

Sometime the easiest of jobs can seem confusing on the web and there is nothing more useful than having great support from your web hosting company.

As you get more confident in managing your website then you will benefit from the advice and support that your host can offer when you want to start using 'Forms', 'Shopping trolleys' and other features on your site that need a little more knowledge that simple HTML.

 

Offering support for important scripts

Even if you intend to leave all the technical stuff to your web developer, he or she will need to be sure that the web host you choose can support all the scripts they need to use on your website.

Think of it a bit like making sure that the hotel has all the facilities that you need when you stay ... broadband, 24 hour room service, spa etc.

 

Easy to use and controls

Some websites control panels are a nightmare to understand.

Just trying to log in can be an assault course.

Make sure you use a web host that has an easy to understand control panel so that you can do what you need to do, set up your emails, forward addresses etc.

 

Price

I know I have already said it but ...

You really do get what you pay for.

A well maintained web hosting company means a fast, efficient, reliable, up-to-date service but that doesn't come free.

Would you offer 24 hour support, instant messenger support, up to the minute guidance and near 100% reliability with back up servers .. for a few pennies per month?

No of course you wouldn't, so why think that a good host can?

Don't cut corners with your web hosting.

If I were to recommend a top quality host, one that wins first price in the industry awards then I would suggest Simply Names www.simplynames.com

Take a look around their website and then make a decision.

Call us to set up your initial consultation: 07941 22 75 96

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