When it comes to choosing a web hosting provider, you will need to do some research and find out which hosting provider would be suitable for you. There are so many hosting companies throughout the world and going through them all would really be a difficult task.
What I will lay down here is a few simple pointers that might help you sort out the technicality. In most cases, if your website is not mission critical, you would probably just go for the lowest cost web hosting provider to suit your budget. Bear in mind the lowest rate web hosting provider may not be the best of choice.
The cheapest hosting plan that you go for would mean having less storage space, less bandwidth, and you may have to pay for the domain name separately and they may not provide you with certain features which may be available with their higher priced plans. But if it is just simple website, then you won’t need all those add-ons stuff. However as your skill improves in managing a website, you may want to have some features that the cheapest hosting package may not provide. That’s when you find you will need to upgrade to their higher price package or take the big hassle of transferring your hosting to another web hosting provider.
Things that you may want to look out for apart from the price includes :
- Storage space
- Data transfer bandwidth
- Database hosting for mySQL
You can of course look into all the details provided, but frankly speaking it could be information overload. You may also want to consider things like subdomain feature, anti-spam for emails, or for the more advance users, you may need to consider frontpage extensions, cold fusion, etc. It all depends on what is your requirement. For a beginner starting out on your first web site all this probably doesn’t mean anything as you have no use for it. So a reliable web hosting provider with ease of use would probably be what you are looking for.
Another word of caution is to make sure the web hosting that you are purchasing is done directly with the hosting company itself and not through some resellers. That’s because in case you need technical support the hosting provider will provide it to you if you are their direct customer. Where else a reseller may not have the technical know-how to give you the required technical support.
Here’s a quick review of some good web hosting provider:
Host Excellence
Host Excellence, a subsidiary of Ecommerce Corporation located in Hopkinsville, KY 42240, USA, has one of the most affordable hosting packages that I have come across. The Express package at *$2.95 per month makes it an excellent affordable choice to start up your very own first website.
With 5 GB of storage space and 50GB of data bandwidth transfer it is more than enough to satisfy the budding webmaster.
But do be aware that such low price comes with fewer features. You will have to purchase your domain name separately, and it doesn’t come with mySQL database hosting. MySQL is very necessary to have if you wish to install blogging software like WordPress, mailing list programs, content management software (CMS), or even to a host forum site. To do so, you will need to use their pricier Business package at US$7.95 per month.
If your website just consists of HTML and JavaScript codes, the Express package I would say is the most recommendable choice.
BlueHost
BlueHost is truly one of the better hosting providers with their first class support and at a reasonable price of *US$6.95 per month. At this price you will get 50GB worth of storage space and 999 Gigabyte of bandwidth transfer. They offer you the ability to host six domains on one single hosting account with the first domain name provided to you free of charge. With the ability to host multiple domain account you can reduce your hosting cost should you need to set up several websites without having to sign up additional hosting plan.
In addition, they are constantly improving their features and giving their customer more and more value for their money spent. One of the nice features which they provide is Fantastico. This has the added benefit of simplifying the installation of website plug-ins such as Joomla, Mambo, WordPress etc. giving any would be newbie webmaster near instant creation of an awesome website without too much effort!
Site Build It!
Site Build It! (SBI) is not just your everyday usual web hosting provider, they provide tools and instruction on how to create a web site but also the direction of starting up a home business online. For those who plan to create a web site that can really draw in targeted visitors looking for specific information, SBI provides all the necessary tools to ensure that you will be able to succeed in your endeavor.
If you just only consider their plan at *$24.92 per month it looks very costly. On further examination, with all the integrated tools and resources, it is worth every penny paid. If you do it right, before long you will recuperate the cost of investing this amount. Many a user swears by SBI system. On seeing a return of investment, actually bought a second and even a third web site with SBI. You can see all their case study and see first hand for yourself their success at using SBI.
There is no need to know much about web site creation as they have integrated all the tools necessary from the look-and-feel of a web site template from the header all the way down to the footer, including a very useful integrated demand/supply wordtracker tool that helps you in your planning to be the top ranked web site in the related keyword searches.
With so much going for it, at **$24.92 per month, it is a steal. If your intention is to make your own web site that works first time round, I would recommend your first web site to be made via the SBI way!
* Note: To qualify for the price shown requires a long-term sign up of three years.
** SBI price is per year basis.
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