Posts Tagged ‘hosting companies’
How to Find the Right Hosting Company
Let’s talk about finding the right hosting company today. This is a critical step in web designing, as if you don’t have the right hosting then your site will suffer for it in the long run.
Too many people think about now and not about the future with hosting, it’s important to find the right hosting company that will grow with your website/business. And let me tell you, not all hosting companies are the same!
There are a few things you Must consider in your hosting company, here are just a few to look out for -
1. They Must have enough space available for your website to grow. Make sure they will upgrade your space when you need to add more to your website. Some hosting companies will either let you purchase more space on your current package, or they will let you upgrade your package to a more robust one.
2. They Must provide you with c-panel (Control Panel) access. You must be able to access your admin area of your website via a c-panel. This will give you more control and flexibility to manage your website. You can add a word press blog, forums, content manager system and much more through a c-panel, you can also be able to track your website stats and see how things are going for you.
3. They Must provide good quality support! This is a Must with any hosting company, especially if you are new to all this stuff. Support is the first thing you must look for! To see how well a company’s support is, find their support link, submit a quesiton, and see how long it takes to get an answer, and see just how well they answer the question for you. Most hosting companies should answer your question within 48 hours max! Do they have a forum you can post a question? Go ahead and post one to see what kind of response you get. Check out their FAQs how well do they explain the answers, can you understand the answer?
4. What kind of features are you getting? This is probable another important thing to look for in a hosting company, just what are you getting for your money. You want to make sure they provide enough space for your traffic and your website, to get started you should be fine with no more than 300GB and 360GB bandwidth. It’s not too important you understand this, but it is within reason to have at least this amount. Can you add more domains later on? You want to make sure the package you choose, will let you add another domain name later as you grow. So see that this is available in the package you decide.
5. The Price? Make sure your budget can handle the monthly cost of your hosting. For what I’ve described about it should not cost you any more than $5 to $10 a month. Just make sure you can upgrade later easily and most hosting companies will help you with the upgrade so you won’t have to do anything.
A good rule of thumb here is to choose at least 3 hosting companies and do a comparision on them, write down the pros and cons of all of them, then choose the one that best fits your needs and your budget!
Again, you can do a search for hosting companies on your favorite search engine, but I highly recommend Hostgator.com they meet all the above and more.
To learn more about hosting and how to set it up, grab your copy of Introduction to the Basics to Web Designing today, it will walk you through step by step on choosing a hosting company to purchasing your hosting.
I will be posting more how to articles regarding website designing so you need to subscribe to my RSS so you won’t miss one. Just click the big orange button and subscribe.
Until next time Take Action and get yourself a Hositng today!
Laura Miller
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Tags: find hosting, getting hosting, HOSTING, hosting companies, hosting companyRelated posts
Where does your website live?
I know strange title for a blog post, eh?
Well that’s how I look at my website domain name and hosting. Your website domain name is the address of where it lives, like www.lauras.com where lauras is the address.
And the hosting is where is resides the property so to speak.
I’ve had some folks say they don’t see why the need a domain name or hosting for them to build a website. Well this is probably true, you can of course use Notepad or even Wordpad to build a complete website with HTML. But what they don’t realize is that by doing this no one is going to see the website but them or if someone is standing behind them and looking at the computer.
So it is essential to have both a domain name and hosting to have a functional website. There are of course, just like everything else, research has to be done. You have to find just the right domain name that explains what your website is about, not just any name either, take your time to really think about what your website is about.
And of course if you intend for others to visit your website and learn what you are about and what your website has to offer them, you need hosting.
Think of hosting like you think of your rent or mortgage, you have to pay it monthly or you will lose it. The one difference is that with a hosting company you can pay for a year at a time, or up to 6 months, where I don’t know of a mortgage company or landlord that allows this, but you get the idea.
Just like when you are looking for just the right mortgage company or landlord, you investigate them and their company, you have to investigate the hosting company also, Not all hosting companies are a like. Don’t always take what is on a website to heart, anyone can write anything, Investigate them!
You can do a google search for the company name, see how it ranks.
Look to see what others are saying about them in the testimonials
Is there a Real address and not a po box
Is there an actual phone number you can call and talk to a Real Person not some voice mail stuff, do they offer email support. If they do call them and/or write the support desk, how do they respond. How long does it take them to respond.
A good reliable hosting company will usually respond within24 hours, the max is 48 hours and with curtious and friendly people not some automated stuff either.
There are thousands of good hosting companies online, it take time to research and find the right one for you and your needs. Think not only of your needs now, but of your future needs as well. Will the hosting company provide you with all the support you will need and be able to grow with you and your business.
I’ve been online for a few years now, and believe me I’ve been through a few hosting companies, some good and some absolutely terrible. And for the ones I’ve worked with the best one as of today has got to be Hostgator.
Hostgator is always there with quick responses, usually less than 24 hours. They work with me until the problem is solved. They are patient and curtious and don’t treat me like a dummy. They’ve been able to accomadate my needs with my business as it grows.
So if you are looking for a good reliable hosting company I would definitely recommend you take a good look at Hostgator put them through the test and see for yourself just how reliable and good they are.
Just remember not all hosting companies are the same!
I hope you’ve learned something from this post and will leave a comment below to let me and others know.
Tags: hostgator, HOSTING, hosting companies