At one time it was quite rare for companies and even individuals to have a web site but with the extremely affordable web hosting services available nowadays it makes sound business sense to build a web presence and to not do so can even harm your business.
Many customers and clients expect you to at least have an email address and quite often a web site where they can read up about you or your company and become more familiar with who you are, fortunately inexpensive web hosting makes this a reality.
Therefore, building a web site has now become an essential part of marketing your business, however in order to get the most benefit you need reliable web hosting services combined in a good package that offers value for money.
So how do you go about choosing such a package?
The first step you need to take is to decide what you will be requiring from a web hosting service. This can be difficult if this is your first web site but one essential decision I would advise you to take is to purchase a web hosting service that is outside of your broadband or internet service provider package.
There are two reasons for this, one is that you get to choose the domain name and make it relevant to your business and secondly that you get and retain control of your email accounts and web site files.
Free web hosting services are okay for hobby or family sites but not a good footing for a serious business.
I also recommend that you do not buy your domain name and web hosting package from the same provider. This is because if for some reason your web hosting fails you will be able to swap to another provider with relative ease as you will have a copy of your web site stored on your local P.C. which you can re-upload to a new hosting account.
3 Items To Consider When Choosing Web Hosting Services
How much disk space and bandwidth do you really require? You will see a lot of large figures advertised by web hosting services and to be honest, unless you are operating a site that offers free downloads of large video files, you will never get anywhere near these figures. Therefore, if you have a simple 5 page site then just choose the cheapest option, it is bound to suffice and if you need expansion upgrading at a later date is a very simple process.
What level of support do you require? It is very common to see the best web hosting services offering up-time rates in excess of 99% and these are certainly achievable. However, do not believe the claims of 100% up-time, this is impossible, even the best web hosting services need to have a little downtime for essential maintenance works. 100% is not a realistic offer.
Do you require software packages such as web site builders? If so then you will find several inexpensive hosting providers that offer branded software for this purpose as well as other packages on offer.
In conclusion, identify your web hosting services needs first then go shopping but watch out for the extreme claims of unrealistic features.
Scott F Simmonds has built many websites and had experience of many hosting providers. Visit Scott's site that profiles top web hosting services to discover the best and most reliable hosts around right now. |
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