How to choose the perfect webhost.
When the time comes to choose the perfect webhost for your web site, you must first of all understand the type of hosting you require. If you intend to establish a simple web site where the expectation is for minimum traffic, then you should be looking at shared hosting which should be the least expensive option for web site hosting, and by a long way. If you expect intermediate traffic, your best option should be through a virtual private server (VPS) that offers as much bandwidth and diskspace as you require to host your web site and all the traffic that flows through it. If you intend to be a “big player” then you can start off your web site on a dedicated server, which will be able to handle almost unlimited traffic, and at the speed of light. You should be aware, however, that this is the most expensive web hosting option.
Any reputable and professional web hosting company will be capable of offering a choice of these three services, and should be capable of advising you which of them is most suitable to your needs. An ideal way of putting your toe in the water as you set about to choose your ideal web hosting company is to test out their customer service. Any company who pretends to be a serious web hosting company should offer the highest levels of efficiency in company service. They should be readily contactable through e-mail, chat or telephone. As the saying goes” Value lives on long after price has been forgotten.” In other words, don’t always look at the least expensive webhost, instead look at the value for money that they give you. A company that does not provide answers to your questions and solve your problems will cost you an awful lot more than what you save on your monthly charges. So the first step in choosing your ideal web host is to thoroughly test their response times, the levels of professional knowledge in how they answer. The best way is to make up and then approach a short list of ten web hosting companies with the question “ which is the ideal option for storing my web site” Assuming you already know the answer, this can be an ideal opportunity to test which web host seems the most knowledgeable, professional and pleasant to work with.
Once you have narrowed the field down to the last three contenders, you can start to get down to brass tacks to what you expect from your web hoster on a technical level. The first and most obvious criteria isreliable hosting as well as speed of access. A reliable hosting company should be offering if not guaranteeing uptimes of 99.5% and no less. There is no reason that this should not happen, as they should have a back up server hosting a duplicate site if their original servers fail, even it is for a few moments. Before signing any agreements, it is very worthwhile to check this out with your potential web host.
Another very important point that you need to check into is the amount of traffic or bandwidth available for transfer from your web site to potential customers when they visit your site. Before signing any agreements, make very sure that the hosting company that you have chosen does provide sufficient bandwidth for your anticipated traffic, and will not begin to charge you extra for exceeding your bandwidth allowance. On the other hand, you shouldn’t allow yourself to get carried away in anticipation of tremendous quantities of traffic that in the short term is only a figment of your imagination. If you are opening a new web site, and not transferring it from an existing hoster, you will have no real idea of what the traffic will be. To prevent yourself from running up some really high hosting bills, you should set a realistic ceiling at least for the first few months. A realistic figure would be around 3 gigabytes a month.
The same rule of thumb should also apply to the amount of disc space required to host your site. Bear in mind that an average web page should be around 100k, meaning that a ten page web site should be around 1MB, unless you web site is unusually top heavy on graphics or photographs. There are, however, many web sites that can reach hundreds of megabytes of storage space, usually those in the business to consumer category.
One of the main attractions for many people, who finally put together a web site of their own, is have their own e-mail address relating to their web site, for instance albert@mywebsite.com. This should be a must feature as well as all the extra facilities such as rerouting services and catch all e-mail accounts.
Once you have ironed out these important aspects in your search for the ideal webhost, you should be fine tuning to discover what “extras” are included in their package. You should have access to a decent FTP program, PERL CGI-BEN to allow the minimum of interactivity on your web site. If you are planning to open a business to consumer web site, you should be looking for features such as SSL (secure server), MySQL as well as a user friendly Shopping Cart facility.
Once you have narrowed down all these points, you will now be in the position to choose your perfect webhost on which to launch your website. Bon Voyage!