Before choosing a web hosting company and service plan you should definitely consider asking yourself the following questions so you make the best decision for the kind of website and/or blog in which you’re going to invest your time and money:
- How much bandwidth will you I need? In other words, how much traffic do you anticipate your website or blog to have over any given month? Also, if you plan to upload or host media beyond images, such as video and/or audio, you should ask yourself how much and how often will video and/or audio be uploaded, watched and downloaded if at all from your website or blog.
- How much space or storage do youI need for my website? When you consider how much space, think about the kind of content you have or will have on your website or blog currently and in the near future? In other words, think about the scalability of your website or blog. Do you plan on having your blog content grow over time, how fast and when, etc.
- Will you or an experienced web developer or IT person be responsible for website or blog maintenance as far as domain renewal, database upgrades, third party web tools installations and upgrades like forums, WordPress, email redirects, DNS issues, and so forth. Knowing this will allow you to determine how simple you need your web hosting user admin interface to be, or not be.
- Consider whether your prefer a simple user/admin interface such as a cpanel. “cPanel is a unix based web hosting control panel that provides a graphical interface and automation tools designed to simplify the process of hosting a web site. wikipedia.org“. I suggest using a web host that has a cpanel to maintain your website or blog in the most efficient and easy way.
- How much money per month, per year are you willing to spend on web hosting? Good web hosting these days does not have to cost a lot at all. A great web hosting service can be cheap as low as $7.95 a month depending on your bandwidth, space, customer service and technology needs.
- Have you purchased a domain yet, if not when are you planning to? Do you already have a domain? Most web hosts offer either free or cheap domain purchasing with the purchase of your web hosting package. Also it’s simpler to purchase your domain from your web host so you don’t have to deal with DNS transfer from a domain purchasing agent to your new web host.
- Do you already have a web hosting provider but are looking for a better one because of poor customer service, high costs or lack of technology needed? If so, many web hosts offer free website transfers so you don’t have to move your website or blog from one web host to another ’cause they’ll do it for you.
- How much and what kind of technology do you need for your website or blog now and how much do you anticipate needing in the future? If you plan having a website or blog built that is large and require a lot of bandwidth or specific kinds of technology, this is something you should definitely research and decide before purchasing a package from a web hosting service. Most good web hosting companies offer a script library called “fantastico” which is a terrific service offered by most web hosts that make installing and upgrading popular web applications (such as WordPress, wiki, polls, forums, sureys, form generators, etc.) painless, quick and easy.
- Also give some thought to how much security you need for your website or blog and whether or not you’ll need to restrict access to certain directories of your website or blog and by how much.
- And finally, and probably one of the most important things to consider in finding the best web hosting company and service for your website or blog is how reliable is your web hosting service and how efficient is their customer service? How much down time can you expect on average (if any) for your website? And how reliable is customer service?
