Finding A Reliable Low Cost Web Hosting Provider For Your Site
If you are looking for a web hosting provider to host your personal or business website
, you need to look at couple of things. I've done a list of the most important things you should always consider when choosing your web host to help you make the best decision possible.
1 - Bandwidth. For theses who don't know what it is, the bandwidth is the quantity of data your website can download/upload per month. This is important because when your website will grow in popularity, it will use more and more bandwidth. You have to know that every time a user load one of your web pages, even if they don't download anything, it takes some bandwidth. The day your web site's bandwidth will reach the maximum allocation, no more visitors will be able to enter your website until the next month. It can result in the lost of your most faithful visitors or potential customers for your e-commerce website. If you can, try to choose a hosting provider that offers you unlimited bandwidth so you won't have to bother about that anymore.
2 - Disk Space. The disk space is the quantity of data the server let you store for your website. This depends of your goals with your website. If you don't plan to put a lot of media (like photos, videos, music, ...), most of the web hosting packages will provide you with enough disk space. Otherwise, you should consider, like for the bandwidth, choosing a hosting provider that offers you unlimited disk space and simply forget about it.
3 - Features. If you already know exactly what are the features you will need to build your website, you simply have to look at the feature list that is always provided by any hosting company. The most important feature to look at is: do they support the coding language you want to use? You'll also want to know if they have mailing list, databases and email forwarding services. Except that, like most of people you don't know every little things that you'll need. That is why I always recommend to choose the web hosting provider that gives you the most features. You never know if you'll need them someday and that day, you'll be very happy to have them because you won't have to change your host.
4 - Server Uptime. The server uptime represent the amount of time your website was up and running. All the hosting companies goes down for different reasons such as maintenance or hackers. Don't get fooled by a 99% uptime guarantee because it is not that much. You should search for at least 99.5% up to 99.9% uptime guarantee which is becoming the standard in the industry. I've never seen a 100% uptime guarantee so if you see one, I would like you to e-mail me!
5 - Support. The customer support is really important especially if you are pretty new in this business. They don't only need to answer your questions quick but also give you valuable information. Don't only check if they provide phone, e-mail, ticket and chat support but also look if they have knowledge-base, forums, FAQ library or even step-by-step tutorials. These information sources can respond to your question quicker than having to wait for your response. Even if you are a very experienced web-master, sometimes you don't have the choice to contact them to make some changes or to fix some bugs. The best advise I can give you is to test them by asking a question before signing up. See if they meet their claims.
6 - Price. For most people, the price is the most important factor. If you just want a personal website, the cheapest should be fine but if you want a more professional website, you should not be too cheap. Sometimes it is much better to pay a little more to have everything you'll need and a really great service.
That doesn't mean that the cheapest hosting providers can't match your needs but remember that it is more important to have everything you need with a good service than to have only the better price. Also, something you should consider when looking at the price is: does the price includes the setup fees and the domain name? With a minimum of a one year subscription plan, lots of companies offer a free setup and a free domain name. Some even offer you a free domain name for life (as long as you stay with them, of course!).
7 - Money-Back Guarantee. Not so many people think about the money-back guarantee but I think it is pretty important. If you don't like your new host for any reasons, you'll have a chance to be refunded. Most of them offer a 30 days money back guarantee but some even offer an anytime money-back guarantee! Don't forget to think about this!
by: li baocai
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