A Short Guide to Affordable Web Hosting

by: Andy Lewis

For individuals & businesses, choosing an affordable web hosting plan (http://www.serverplex.com/sharedh.html) on a limited budget is a challenge.

The main reason for this is that most companies offering ecommerce hosting solutions focus on the higher-end corporate market and often overlook the small business web hosting (http://www.serverplex.com/) segment.

However, finding reliable web hosting isn’t exactly a cakewalk, but it can be relatively easy if you follow these simple steps: define your requirements; user review survey; create a short list of potential ecommerce web hosting as well as email hosting services and ask questions.

Define your requirements:

• How much disk space and bandwidth is necessary?

• Type of hosting – dedicated / private or shared web hosting?

• Will you require CGI or database capacities?

• What type of hosting plan will you need – Windows hosting plans or Linux hosting plans (http://www.serverplex.com/vps.html).

• Will your website have any streaming media requirements?

• Will your site change substantially in the future?

• Affordable web hosting only for your purposes or for clients – shared web hosting.

User Review Survey:

• Always take testimonials at face value. User forums are the best place to find the truth. Also mail webmasters to get a reality checks.

• Be wary of Web hosting directories and mailing lists, many are owned & operated by Web hosts.

• Read the declarations regarding service uptime, downtime, backup, security etc.

Create a shortlist:

• Make a list of potential ecommerce web hosting (http://www.serverplex.com/merchantaccounts.html) and email hosting services (http://www.serverplex.com/enewsletter.html) that you see are recommended the most and complained about the least.

• Determine which hosts offer specific services that you need, with scalability for future changes.

• Determine which host fits your price range.

Ask questions:

• Ask mundane questions to check the quality, speed & efficacy of their response.

• Ask the service providers technical questions to gauge their acumen, knowledge and accuracy.

• Ask a lot of question to determine the host's commitment to customers.

• Subject host to an honesty test: offer them the opportunity to up sell you needlessly. (simple yet effective)

The Tricks of the Trade

SOHO consumers can find the most effective hosting services for their business if they follow and understand the following recommendations:

• Make sure the hosting company offers 24/7/365 technical support by phone, email and chat whether you have opted for windows hosting plans or Linux hosting plans.

• Do not be seduced by hosts offering cheap shared hosting (http://www.serverplex.com/sharedh.html) services or extra services than you need. Most of them skimp on security & support.

• Choose a host who is flexible, scalable, and who can grow with your business.

• Ensure that you can add domains to a core plan and resell services.

• Ensure that the host offers a knowledge base of scripts, online marketing effective coding. (A surefire way to check their scale of operations)

• Check to ensure that the host offers some level of interaction.

• Watch for signs of rudeness, impatience and unresponsiveness.

• Do not sign a long-term contact for hosting services right away.

• If you have more than one site, consider spreading them among several hosts.

For a small web business start-up, choosing the right ecommerce hosting at the right time can be the best strategic move. It can enable your business to grow fast and offer you a high ROI. Reliable and affordable web hosting can be the crucial factor between failure & success.

Summary - For a small web business start-up, choosing the right ecommerce hosting (http://www.serverplex.com/merchantaccounts.html) at the right time can be the best strategic move. It can enable your business to grow fast and offer you a high ROI. Reliable and affordable web hosting can be the crucial factor between your failure & success.


About The Author
Andy Lewis is an expert author on web hosting: http://www.serverplex.com/ related topics

How To Find Good Web Hosting For Your Site!

by: Jonathan White

When building your first site the main things that you will probably think about is what types of content you will be adding to your site, how you are going to get visitors to your site and how you are going to generate good revenue from your site.

Well, all of the things mentioned above are crucial things to consider, but then again, what’s the point in thinking about them if you can’t even get a good Web host to host your site with. If you choose a Web host that has a poor service then it can do more damage to your site than good. If your sites host goes down often then your site will also go down and your visitors will get annoyed and will go elsewhere. Your sites earnings will decline and many people online will ignore your site, as people will start to think that your site is down more than what it’s up.

So now you are probably thinking to yourself, “where and how can I find a good Web host to host my site with, which is also reasonably priced?”

If you need a Web host that is reasonably priced so that you can make more profit from the turnover of your site, then a good place to start looking is by using a few Web hosting directories. You could start by using http://www.1hostseeking.com

Ok! Now your probably think “why would I want to use a Web hosting directory as they contain many Web hosting providers and not all of them are likely to be good.”

The main reasons why you should use a Web hosting directory to find a Web host is so that you can easily find and compare a large amount of Web hosting providers that offer the services that you need to run your site successfully. You can also compare each Web host’s prices against each other and then you will be able to find a reasonably priced Web host.

Once you have narrowed down your search to a few Web hosts from the Web hosting directory, you could then go to your chosen Web hosting providers sites and check them out to have a better understanding to what they offer. If they look good, then the best thing to do is not to purchase any hosting from them until you have checked them out more virally. Checking a Web host out to see if they are reliable can be done by searching through some of the major search engines for reviews on your chosen few Web hosts and also you can check through some of the larger forums that discuss Web hosting topics. If you can’t find any information about the few Web hosts that you have narrowed down and chosen within any of the forums that you use, then you could always bring up that topic yourself and ask others what they think about your chosen Web hosts and if they have had any experiences with the them.

Once you have received other people’s opinions about the Web hosts and you have also read a number of reviews about them, you will then have a better understanding of what Web host should be the best to use for you Website.


About The Author
Jonathan White has been involved in Web Hosting and other Webmaster activities on the Web for over two years now and is the Webmaster of http://www.1hostseeking.com - a categorized Web hosting directory listing a large amount of Web hosting providers.