How to Choose a Website Host for Your Business
Website hosts are essential for any website. They are the reason why your website exsists. However, choosing a website host may be a difficult task, because there are so many hosts out there that offer so many different options. This tutorial was written to help you choose a host that is perfect for your website's needs. Lets start with what hosts offer:
Web Space - With Web Space, the more you have, the better! Web Space is like your online hard drive. Website hosts offer many sizes of web space. Most website hosts offer between 1GB and 4GB of space. That is a heck of a lot of space, and most likely, you won't use even half that. If you are setting up an information site, you won't need much web space because .html files are really tiny in size. However, if your website is going to contain video and programs, then you will need a lot of web space.
Bandwidth - Bandwidth is the maximum size of data that can be transfered from your web host's server, to the people surfing your website. However, almost all hosts offer much more bandwidth then you will actually use. Its almost rare for a website to use all of its bandwidth. Look for hosts that offer Bandwidth in giga-bytes(GB). The higher the Bandwidth offered, the better.
E-mail - If you don't know what e-mail is, then please, shut down your computer, and sell it some kid for a hundred dollars. Just kidding! Your web host should offer what's called POP3 E-mail. This is just e-mail that we have grown to know and love, but instead of you@aol.com, its you@yourdomainname.com. You would access the you@yourdomainname.com e-mail address through Microsoft's Outlook Express, or some other type of e-mail program. Most web hosts offer between 10-100 POP3 e-mail addresses, each with its own username and password. This way, you could give all your friends, relatives, or employees their own personalized e-mail address.
E-mail Autoresponders - E-mail autoresponders are a really unique tool. They allow an e-mail address to automatically send a message to anyone that e-mails a certain e-mail address. These are great to have if you have forms on your website, or a shopping cart. You can setup an Autoresponder to e-mail your customers a list of their purchases, or just a "Thanks for Ordering!"mailto:info@yourdomainname.com, E-mail. Look for hosts that offer at least 10 autoresopnders if you plan on using forms and a shopping cart. Some websites even offer Unlimited Autoresponders.
E-mail Forwarders - E-mail forwarders forward an e-mail to your e-mail address. Say your e-mail address is Webmaster@yourdomainname.com, and you want to setup three e-mail address, Info@yourdomainname.com, Help@yourdomainname.com, and Billing@yourdomainname.com. Instead of checking all four e-mail addresses every day, you can get the latter three to forward their messages to the Webmaster@yourdomainname.com e-mail address. This is a real time saver! Look for website hosts that offer 10 to Unlimited E-mail Forwarders.
Subdomains - Subdomains allow you to have many different websites under one domain name. A subdomain's address would be http://subdomain.yourdomainname.com, but "subdomain" can be replaced with whatever you want. You could have http://monkey.yourdomainname.com, or http://help.yourdomainname.com. Each subdomain has its own FTP username and password, or can be accessed through your main username and password. Subdomains are useful because they shorten the urls, and organize your website. You can also allow people to setup their own websites under your subdomains, without having access to your "root" directory, only their subdomain directory.
CGI-BIN/Perl, PHP, and MySQL - These are all powerful programming languages for your website, and allow you to make a lot of things easier. CGI-BIN, Perl, and PHP allow you to setup message boards, form mail, web-based e-mail, banner rotaters, and much more on your website. MySQL is an extremely reliable and fast database system that can be used to better manage the content on your website, or you can use it to store any type of information you want, including pictures. Look for web hosts that offer these for free. Beware of web hosts that charge more for PHP and CGI-BIN. Some web hosts charge for MySQL.
Control Panel - A control panel allows you to take charge of your web hosting account. At the control panel, you should be able to create POP3 E-mail address, Autoresponders, FTP Accounts, Subdomains, and manage MySQL databases. Look for a demo of the Control Panel before you choose your website host. This way, you can see if it is easy to use or not.
Besides offering all of the tools above, a website host should offer you a free domain name with your hosting package. If you have already registered your domain name with a different company like Godaddy.com or Register.com, your website host should offer a free domain name transfer.
As for Price, you shouldn't pay anymore than $20.00 a month for a website host. There are a lot of website hosts that provide you with more than you need for less than $10.00 per month.
