Tuesday 21 February 2012

Low Cost Hosting

If you are thinking about getting low cost hosting then you are most probably new to the internet, and new to designing websites. When people first start out they think that they should look for the cheapest option for them to get started. This is by no means a bad idea, as we are all trying to save money in this economy. But you have to take many factors in to consideration when you want to develop a site.

There is basically two types of hosting, paid and free and a lot of people that start out go down the free route. Free hosting gives you the option to upload files to the host server, but it is limited to how much you can upload. The speeds of the server will be a lot slower than a paid host, so for example, if you have a few pictures that you have uploaded to the server for your site, it might take a little bit longer for them images to appear on your website.

Because you use free hosting you do not get a domain name from a registrar, so if you were to start a new business, you would be greatly hampered in trying to compete with other sites in your niche. Customer support is non existent in free hosting also, so if you were to ever have problems, you would basically have to try and work it out for yourself.

Free hosting works if say you are a person that wants to share files to friends or family, or you have a hobby and would like to share to people, you do not mind the restriction that free hosting serves. But if you are serious and want to make a real business online then paid hosting is the way to go.

It is the old saying you pay for what you get, and within the hosting business this term applies exactly the same here. It comes down to what you get for your money, so you need to look in to this very carefully before choosing a provider. What you should be looking for in a provider is the following.

  • Unlimited domains: You need to know if you can have as many websites as possible on the hosting package. It is pointless having the host, if you can only say have five domains, so you could only build five websites.
  • Unlimited Disk Space: This is also very important, say you have a photography business, and you want to upload hundreds of photos on to your site. You need a good host that has unlimited disk space.
  • Unlimited bandwith: You need a host that has good speeds and this depends on the bandwith.
  • 24 hour live support. I consider this to be very important, if they do not offer live support like this then I would not use the company.
On a final note all the big hosting companies offer different types of packages to suit the individual. They offer packages such as Baby plan, hatchling plan, then they go more advanced with options like reseller hosting, VPS hosting, dedicated servers and so on.

Low cost hosting is only as low as what you are prepared to give to your website, there is some great packages out there right now, ranging from $4 a month up to $10 a month. It is up to you the consumer to make your choice.