Choosing a web hosting provider is different for everyone. Every website has a specific set of needs and you have to find a web host that provides the needs that are specific to your website.

However, there are certain things to look for when choosing a web-hosting service. In this article I will give you the ten most common things people should be looking for. These are not necessarily in the order of priority, because as I said every website has different needs and your priorities might not be the same as the next website owner.

1. Tech Support: Tech support in any business venture is always important. As a website owner though, the tech support that your web-hosting service provides is going to be crucial to your business. If your website is offline or not working properly it will cost you sales.

If you have been buying traffic to your website and it goes offline, you are still being charged for all of those visits to your website, which they never saw. The money you are spending on your ad campaign, AdWords program or other traffic sources is going right down the drain. You cannot afford to choose a web host that does not respond quickly when you have a problem.

2. Feedback Forums: A web host that provides a forum, message board, or chat room to discuss hosting issues or to get help in is more likely to get a user to use their web-hosting services. The reason behind this is people feel more comfortable with a web host that gives a personal touch and one that cares enough to provide a higher level of service.

3. Room to Grow: If your web-hosting service only offers one package, it’s a bad sign in most cases. What happens as your web business grows and so do your web hosting needs? If they offer upgrades to dedicated servers, larger storage and bandwidth plans, and a lot of other options, then you can feel confident choosing them as your web hosting provider. You don’t plan to stay small and your web host shouldn’t plan for you to stay small either.

4. Storage Space: This is usually only an issue with websites that will be offering users a lot of downloads such as music or software. The average website can get by with about 10 megabytes of storage, but again you want room to grow, plus you can actually use your storage to back up files from your computer. Don’t backup secure documents there, but a lot of your files can be backed up online. You have storage so use it. The more storage space they offer, the better.

5. Bandwidth or Transfer: This is the size of every file visitors to your website download automatically to their computers each time they visit. The average webpage is around 30k and then you add the graphics and other files that are displayed to the user and you get your bandwidth or transfer usage. The average website can get by on less than 10 gigabytes of bandwidth per month. However if you are offering downloads like software, music, and movies, or you are going to be driving a lot of traffic to your website, you may want to choose a plan that offers you more bandwidth. Make sure your webhosting provider has options that give you room to grow here as well.

6. Easy to use Control Panel: Cpanel is one of the most popular control panels for web hosts to offer, but there are others. Ask what type of control panel your web host is offering to provide you with. Again, this need is different for everyone and this is based on your level of expertise. Some advanced users would rather not have or don’t care about control panels because they know how to configure everything in the server by themselves. Less advanced users need to be sure they pick a web hosting service that provides an easier interface so they can feel comfortable making the alterations they need to their website.

7. FrontPage extensions: A lot of people that do not know HTML still use FrontPage or other programs to design their websites with. If you use FrontPage, you need to make sure your web host is set up for FrontPage extensions.

8. Type of Servers: An example of this is websites that will be built using the .NET framework or ASP. For your website you will need to make sure your web host has a windows based server. Most web hosting providers are on Linux or Apache and ASP websites will not function on them. A better choice is to stay away from building a website that requires a windows server in the first place.

9. Added Features: Instant Install is a feature offered by most web hosts these days even if they call it another name. It’s an automated process for installing databases and database driven features you can add to your website like photo galleries, forums, blogs, content management systems, calendars, guestbooks, and more. It’s just as easy to choose a web-hosting provider that gives you these features in case you need them as it is to choose one that doesn’t. Again, room to grow is important.

10. Is your web host a good neighborhood: This one is a little more difficult to explain and find out about but it is important. Some search engines punish websites who are in a bad neighborhood. They do this by banning websites that come from a particular set of IP addresses due to previous problems with websites on those IP addresses. You need to see samples of other websites that are hosted by your web hosting service. If a lot of them are warez websites, porn websites, file sharing websites, or other websites whose activities do not seem to savory, then you may be looking at a bad neighborhood and may want to find another web host.

That’s my top 10 tips for choosing a web hosting service. I hope you find these tips helpful when you look for where to host your next website!

D. David Dugan recommends the web hosting solutions offered by DD&C at http://hosting.dugancom.com Hosting popular sites like the article directory http://www.acceleratedtraffic.com is one of their specialties.

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How do I know a good web hosting service from a bad one? What features should I be looking for when choosing a web host? What is bandwidth or transfer? How much storage space do I really need? What tools should they offer me and which ones do I need?

In this article I will attempt to give you the short version of answers to those questions for you to use as a reference. A lot about choosing a web-hosting provider depends on what your website needs and every website has different needs.

First question was “How do I know a good web hosting service from a bad one?” Before doing business with anyone on the web that is going to be as important to your business as a web hosting company, you should do a search on the name of the company and look for criticisms, complaints, etc. Keep in mind no one has 100% satisfied customers and finding just one complaint on the web doesn’t mean that the company is a bad one. However if you find a lot of complaints, I would move on to the next provider.

Now about the bandwidth and transfer question I mentioned above. Bandwidth and transfer are basically the same thing. Some tech guy might know a difference I’m not aware of, but it won’t be much difference. This is the number of times each file in your website is downloaded for the web host’s server to the visitors computer.

In other words, the size of you webpages in kilobytes plus the size of each graphic or other type of file that is served to the users computer is the amount of transfer you are using. If your website will have a lot of graphics, movies, downloads, etc., make sure you choose a web-hosting plan that offers you a lot of bandwidth. The average website doesn’t need more than 2-5 gigabytes of transfer per month.

How much storage space do I need? The storage space is no different than your computer’s hard drive. If the web host offers 100 megabytes of storage space that is just like having a 100-megabyte hard drive. If your files are not more than 100 megabytes then that is plenty of storage. Most web hosting companies offer plenty of storage space, more than the average website will ever use.

The question, “What features should I look for and which tools do I need?” are ones that I can answer together.

What about the web host’s support policy. Do they offer 24/7 tech support? Do you think you will need 24/7 tech support? This is one area that is important for you to consider. The Internet is 24 hours per day. Your website is online 24 hours per day. So it is possible you might need 24/7 tech support.

How do you contact tech support there? Just email? Is there a phone number? Do they use support tickets? Do they have a chatroom or forum for tech support? How accessible your web hosting tech support is will determine how fast things get fixed when you have a problem. See if you can send in a tech support query before signing up. See how fast you get an email back or if they answer the phone when you call them.

Those three important issues, bandwidth, storage space, and tech support are not the only things you need to consider. Do they offer Cpanel or an easy-to-use control panel for managing your website? Can they show you a sample of the control panel before you sign up? If you choose a web host that does not have an easy-to-use control panel are you tech-savvy enough to get around in the root files?

How many databases can be created on your web hosting plan. How many do they allow? Do they offer instant-install or install-on-demand features like picture galleries, content management systems, forums, blogs, or other website enhancements?

These are all questions you need to ask before you sign up with any web hosting service. If they do not give you all that information on the automatic signup page, email them and ask them questions. Their response may be all you need to know about whether to choose them as your web hosting provider or not.

I hope this article has helped you to learn about some of the things you need to consider when choosing a web hosting service. Cheap is not always good. This is your online business. Treat it well and choose a web hosting serviee that makes things easier for you.

D. David Dugan recommends the web hosting solutions offered by DD&C at http://hosting.dugancom.com Hosting popular sites like the article directory http://www.acceleratedtraffic.com is one of their specialties.

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So, you have your domain name and you have designed a website or had a website built for you, now what. Well, of course you need hosting. A lot of people want to start a business online but are not aware of some of the basics like how people are able to view or visit your website.

What is web hosting? Right now, if you have already built your website, all of those files are on your computer. People who are surfing the web don’t have access to your computer, therefore cannot find your website. Advanced users know they can turn their computer into a server where people are actually coming to their computer to view their website, however, this is not recommended and certainly not recommended for someone who is not very advanced as a computer technician.

There are computers who are set up to be servers. These are called host computers as well to simplify things. You need to upload your website files to the hosting computer so they can make it available for others to view on the web. This is the service we call web hosting.

Will just any web host do? No. This is a common misunderstanding about web hosting. All web hosts are not created equal. There are many different levels of web hosting and many different plans and packages to consider. There are also many other things you have to consider when choosing a web hosting company. Let’s go over one of the most important issues when choosing a web hosting plan to help you understand better.

A lot depends on your individual needs. Will your website have a lot of graphics and images? Will it have movies? Music downloads? Software or other downloads? Or is it a very simple and compact website that is mostly text? Do you expect a lot of traffic to your website?

The reason for all those questions is something called “bandwidth” or “transfer”. The amount of storage space a web-hosting plan offers you is usually far less important than the amount of transfer or bandwidth the web host offers you.

Every time someone visits your webpage, every file included in that webpage is downloaded from your website to their computer. In other words, from the web host’s computer to the visitor’s computer. This includes each graphic or image on the page, every icon, even the html page itself is downloaded by a user just visiting your webpage. The size of each of those files being transferred to the visitors computer is the amount of “transfer” or “bandwidth” you are using.

Let’s say you get 100 visitors per day to your website. Let’s also say that your html page is around 15k and you have 5 images on that webpage that altogether are around 50k. That means each visitor to your website is using up 65k in bandwidth every time they visit that page. Let’s also say your average visitor opens 3 pages within your website and those pages are the same size as your main page. That means each visitor uses 195k minimum and that is if they don’t keep going back to your main page.

Multiply that 195k times the 100 visitors per day you get and you are using 19,500k or a little over 19 megabytes of transfer per day. Multiply that by 30 days and you get 585,000k or 585 megabytes of “transfer” or “bandwidth” used per month.

Now if your web hosting plan allows for more bandwidth than you think you will need, then you know you are okay there. However, make sure you know upfront what the cost of going over your allotted bandwidth is. Some webhosts charge a lot for every megabyte you use over the limit they set for you in the plan you chose. It’s a good idea to pick a webhosting plan that is just one step above the one you think you need to allow for growth. You might become very popular like a rock star overnight!

D. David Dugan recommends the web hosting solutions offered by DD&C at http://hosting.dugancom.com Hosting popular sites like the article directory http://www.articlemotron.com is one of their specialties.

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