5 Crucial Things You Need to Check Before Choosing a Web Host
By Nate Atkins
Choosing a web host can get to be pretty hard, especially because there are so many web hosting companies fighting for your business. Choosing a web host is a big responsibility and making the right decision is crucial to both your business' and websites' success. When choosing a web host there are a few things you should be looking at before making your decision.
Disk space is the amount of space allocated on the server hard drive for you. When looking at disk space you will want to keep in mind the size of the website files stored on your backup drive or computer drive. This will give you a rough estimate of how much disk space you will need.
Keep in mind also about future expansions or additions to your web site. If you have things like forums or other user input features on your site you will have to allow for the expansion and growth of this added material as well. For the most part web hosting companies offer at least 250gb which is quite a bit if your talking about data and text, however if your website deals with images and videos this may run out very quickly.
Bandwidth is how much data usually expressed in gigabytes can be transferred over the web hosting network in any given month. This feature is very important, and can get fairly costly if you under estimate your average monthly bandwidth needs. A good way to get a fairly good estimate on your monthly bandwidth needs is to get your average page size and then multiply that by the average number of page views per month.
EX. Average Page Size = 150kb, Average Monthly Page Views = 50,000. This would mean that each month you are using about 7.3GB of transfer a month It is also very important to note that if you have any include files or dynamically generated pages you will need to add the size of every piece of data that appears on that page when it has been loaded in the web browser.
Supported Scripts are going to be a key feature when choosing the type of web hosting (Linux or Windows). Web development languages used to create your website are based on the goals you are trying to accomplish as well as the programmer who is creating the site. Some languages and scripts are not supported on Linux and others on Windows.
If your website uses a lot of windows based scripts and programs, you will have to choose a Windows based platform. These scripts and languages include CGI, ASP, MSSQL, MS Access etc. If your website is based on open source scripts and tools such as PHP, MySql, Python you will have to go with a Windows platform.
Customer Service is in my opinion one of the most important features to look at when choosing a web host. The reason I say this is because there is nothing more frustrating and potentially damaging to a business than when a problem occurs that affects your website and you have to wait an hour to talk to tech support, and when they answer they are unprofessional and it takes technical support days to fix the problem. The second biggest frustration with poor customer support is talking to a representative that is not knowledgeable, and is very rude. Customer support is a deal breaker for me when it comes to choosing a web host. If you have great services but poor customer support, then I'm sorry but you won't get my business.
Price for pretty much all of us is one of the most important parts of finding and selecting a web host. We are always looking for a great deal but you do have to remember that if a deal is too good to be true than it more than likely is. Some of these web hosting companies offering hosting for $3/mo are more than likely able to do this because they have skimped somewhere else like customer support, added features, not up to date equipment or whatever. I'm not saying by any means that they are all like that but you really just have to do your homework and make sure they are following proper business practices.
Selecting an appropriate web host can be very difficult however; it will definitely pay off in the end. Websites offering web host reviews are another good way to review what the company offers and to see what the reviewer rated the hosting company.
My name is Nate, I have been working in web development for over 5 years and also have a diploma in computer programming. One of the most important parts of web development is making your website "LIVE". I have created the website webhostlowdown.com in order to bring to you full reviews on web hosting companies, and supply you with articles to help you make more money online, increase traffic to your website, and much more. If you are looking at starting your own website or need help establishing your website on the net I would encourage you to visit my website
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