Things to ponder before we sign up a hosting plan:
- Do you pay monthly, annually etc?
- How long are you locked in for?
- Is there a money back guarantee?
- How many domains are you allowed?
- Is a domain included?
- How many databases are you allowed?
- How much bandwidth are you allowed?
- How much disk space are you allowed?
- How fast and reliable is the service?
- Do you want Linux or Windows hosting?
- Is there an upgrade path in case your site becomes very busy?
- Does the Control Panel have all the functionality you need?
- How good is the support?
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Web hosting tip 1:
Space: What amount of space are you requiring? Are you looking at setting up simple one page websites, or are you wanting to develop your own product with audio downloads? I recently put an ebook and audio product together and could not understand why I couldn't download any of my audio. I was over my disk space and this could make or break your business.
*Please note: Keep your files tidy and delete whatever you don't need because extra files take up valuable space - lesson learnt!
Web hosting tip 2:
Bandwidth: This is the amount data that you are allowed to broadcast from your website each month. Your needs will differ significantly depending on whether you are running basic websites or a complete multi media experience.
Web hosting tip 3:
Customer Service: This goes without saying! Before choosing your web hosting provider contact the support desk or give them a call to see how responsive they are. If your website is down for some reason you want to get this sorted out as soon as possible.
Web hosting tip 4:
Extra Features: If you are new to the internet your initial needs will not be as demanding as the more experienced user. Extra features may include free scripts, PDF writing software, web audio features...and much more.
Web hosting tip 5:
Domains: A domain or URL is your website address. If you are planning on having a number of different websites then you will want a web hosting provider to offer unlimited domain hosting. Most of the time you will have to pay a minimal charge to transfer your domain name to your web hosting provider. Having additional domain names on one hosting account will also use up your disk space and bandwidth a lot quicker so this will be a factor when considering a web hosting provider also.
Web hosting tip 6:
Subdomains: Subdomains are the extensions you have on your domain, such as, www.success-system.co.uk/ultimatehosting. 'Ultimatehosting' is the subdomain. Most good web hosting providers will offer unlimited subdomains which is great because you don't have to keep buying a new domain name each time you want to set up a new website.
Web hosting tip 7:
Statistics: Good web hosting providers will offer a fully functional statistical analysis of your pages. From this information you will be able to see how much traffic you have had, what keywords people are typing in to find your page, what country your visitors are from...and so much more. Internet success is about testing and tracking and you can get a lot of this information from the statistics packages offered.
Web hosting tip 8:
Website developing software: Some web hosting providers offer a complete package that include web design software so if you are looking to create your own website a great cheap alternative is to have this included within your package for a minimal extra charge. The great thing with this is that you will have the support from your web hosting company whenever you run into any problems. They will be able to look at your entire back office to help rectify any problems.
Web hosting tip 9:
Email, Autoresponder, POP3 & Mail Forwarding:
If you are serious about building a successful online business then you will want to automate your business as much as possible and also have the ability to create proper email addresses that are related to your website, such as support@success-system.co.uk rather than joeblogs@yahoo.com Forwarding is a great feature also that allows you to have a number of different email addresses that go to the same account.
Web hosting tip 10:
Control Panel: This is the panel that will allow you to do many of the features that I have mentioned above. Some are more user friendly than others. The first time I saw one I was a little overwhelmed as there are a lot of features on here. If you are a beginner there are some options that offer a basic user experience.
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