Advertising

What To Look For In Choosing Your Web Hosting Provider

| Print |

E-mail

Written by Lucas Heijn

Wednesday, 30 April 2008

by LucasHeijn

When you set up a new business you would need to make decisions as to the size shop or building required as well as what equipment you will need. A similar rule would apply in moving from one location to another

In starting a business you would need to have a business plan. Part of this plan would include looking over facilities available and how they would suit your needs. When choosing a web host you need to do the same. There are certain requirements you would make sure you have. You would also check out the location.

How much disk space do you need on the server?

How much space (disk space) do you need? Here it is sensible to get whatever you can afford. Most websites will run on just a few MB. You need to find out if you can upgrade without difficulty. Here is one instance where 500 MB may not be enough. If you are going to set up a site with lots of downloadable software you will need to have plenty of disk space.

What is Meant By Bandwidth?

You will also require a reasonable bandwidth. What is bandwidth? With your current internet provider you are allowed a certain amount of download. This is basically what bandwidth is. Each time you get a visitor to your site they view your site page or pages depending on how many they view. Each time a page is downloaded or viewed by your visitor they are using bandwidth.Hosting companies will limit the amount of bandwidth you use. If you exceed this your site could be temporarily suspended and is no longer visible to your customers. This helps you to see that bandwidth is very important. You need to make sure that you will have enough. If more is needed later it can easily be negotiated with your host.

Do You Need Databases?

Do you need MySql databases? Here I would say never say no. You will find that even the simplest of sites will eventually need databases. Make sure that you are not too limited in the number of databases you can run on your hosting package.

What Control Panel Is For Me?

What control panel is in use? The control panel is very important. Here is where you will be able to do all the things required to make you site run the way you want it to. Here too will set up all the e-mail accounts you want to run from you site. This is also where you will be able to set up your databases when required.There are two control panels that I like. Cpanel. This is a feature rich control panel and is very popular. The other that I find the simplest to use is Direct Admin. If you are choosing a new hosting provider it is always wise to see if you can test drive the control panel.

Other Things You Need To Look For

There are added extras that you should be expecting from your hosting provider. a vital one is a site creator. Does the hosting account come with a simple to use site builder? One of the easiest to use in the business is the Drag And Drop site creator. This is a very powerful creator being able to generate vibrant PHP sites.

Some will even provide you with products you can set up on your new site. All you need to do is modify a few details in a HTML editor and your site is set up to go. In the mean time you can be busy creating your own unique site.

Location is everything. At the start of this article I mentioned location. Your web host is not responsible here. Location is completely up to you. You create the location by SEO (Search Engine Optimization). There are many things you can and need to do to increase the traffic to your site. This is another subject we will deal with at a later date.

About the Author:

Lucas Heijn is CEO of LinksParadise a hosting company. LinksParadise specialize in hosting for small business. They supply a package that has been especially designed with business people in mind. They have a number of hosting packages available to choose from. www.my-web-host.com

Only registered users can write comments.
Please login or register.