So, you have come to the conclusion that you are ready to start a website or some sorts and just need to register a domain if needed and purchase a web hosting account. Picking a web host can be a tought task as you will be stuck with this web host for a long time. Me, I’m not in the mood to keep switching web hosts every few months as this can have a major effect on your websites uptime and even annoy the heck out of your current visitors with downtime, slowish website speed or internal server errors. If you get the perfect web host for the type of site that you are going to start then there is basically no need to ever move off that web host but just upgrade your package as needed. This won’t cause you much or in fact any downtime if you upgrade your current hosting package. Then again your website could be perfect for shared hosting and you would never have to upgrade your plan.
I’m not a web hosting expert by all means but I’m going to mention what I would look for in a web host if I was to start another blog. If you plan to start a WordPress Blog then check out my write-up on Creating Your First WordPress.org Blog. It’s a good read for newbies who looking to start a blog off the Newbizshop way.
Hosting Package’s Price
Are you planning on being cheap and spend as less money as you can to host your website that you have big plans for? You will fail and not get anywhere fast if you go for super cheap web hosting when picking a shared hosting package. You get what you pay for. The one Web Host that I like for their shared web hosting packages is HostGator.com. Right now they having a special on 3 different web hosting packages in which you’ll get 20% off the monthly price for ever if you sign up like right now. $3.96per month for their cheapest package and that’s with the discount. That is a steal of a deal for a well trusted hosting company. This discount will not last long. If you are cheap and want to pay less than that per month, compare that other web hosts specs with the current HostGator spec’s and see which one has the better deal. I would recommend HostGator any day of the week for shared web hosting. In fact, you can even buy a domain from HG as they sell them.
Web Host Support Methods
It is very important to have excellent support from your web host. Yourself, you might not be an expert in this field and want simple questions answered without the B.S. When I’m looking for a web host, I would check to see if they offer Live Chat, email support, 24/7 email support and telephone support. If they offer those methods, I’m already interested in hosting with them. Let’s say your website goes offline and you want to know if it was an issue on your end or it’s just the server that you are on. You email tech support but no response because they only work 9a.m.-5p.m. Well, you out of luck, website offline which is killing your traffic and scaring off potential new clients/visitors to your site that could be costing you money. If you get a response very fast from your web host, you then could tell your visitors/clients via. message on the social networks that they are following you on. My tip for you is to Google for reviews about any web hosts support help and read the review’s. Some reviews maybe fake and some maybe real but you’ll get an idea how well they handle the support. I like a Web Host that has staff working support 24 hours a day 7 days a week.
Site Building Tools/ Templates & Green Technology
When looking at a web host, if you are not that tech savvy, you could actually build a site on almost any software for free with a click on a few buttons in your web hosting cpanel. Check out what type of tools are included in the shared web hosting package. I know HostGator has a 1 click install to install a WordPress blog if you don’t want to download the files from wordpress.org and then manually install the blog via. FTP. You could actually contact the web host that you are looking at supports team and ask them what type of tools are included with the account. I prefer using a web host that use’s almost all green technology to power their business. You have noticed I keep mentioning HostGator in this blog post, they are running about 130% green wind techonolgy. I’m an enviroment freak so that is a plus in my book for a web host.
Website Transfer
Lets say I’m hosting my website somewhere right now and I need to find a new web host for some sort of reason. How can I move my whole web hosting account to my new one that is with another business without screwing something up? The easy answer to this question is make sure the web host that you are choosing will transfer you to their business for free. HostGator does this, they will transfer your old account to your current account that you purchased from them for free. There is a few instructions that you will need to do and provide certain information to them but you won’t have to worry about transferring your website to your new account. The downtime will be a lot less if you follow there instruction’s.
Give HostGator a look at if you are in the neighborhood of looking for a new shared web hosting package or even a dedicated server. I’ve hosted with them in the past and even though not with them, I still recommend them online. I urge you to create a thread on their support forum to ask pre-sales question’s. This blog post was just my opinion and I’m not forcing you to join HostGator, there are plenty of other shared web hosting business out there to choose from.
To Your Success!
Derek
@snakeair2
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