Choosing the Right Web Host Made Easy

Once you have your money making website ready for the launch, you will need to host your website so that it will be available on the Internet. There are three main types of hosting: free, shared and dedicated.

Free hosts generally display advertisements on your web pages. Technical support and features provided are very limited. Also, the web host can shut down free hosting any time without any notification.

Dedicated hosting is expensive and usually suited only for large websites.

For most small and mid-sized commercial websites, using shared hosting is the best bet. Shared hosting plans offer several features. Some of the most important features to consider while choosing the right plan are:

Disk Space
While deciding on disk space requirements, you will have to consider the sum total of the file sizes of all web pages, images and other media that make up your website.

Monthly Bandwidth
This is the total amount of data in bytes that can be transferred in a month from your website. 2 GB/Month or more is usually adequate.

Support for technologies used in your website.
The web hosting plan should support the technologies that you have used in building your website such as FrontPage, PHP, ASP or ASP.NET and databases such as MySQL or SQL Server.

SSL Support
If you are using a shopping cart in your website, then the hosting plan should provide SSL support for secure ordering.

FTP Access
The host should provide FTP access to upload files so that you can easily modify your web pages.

Uptime and speed of access
Uptime refers to the minimum time that the website will be available during the year. It should be at least 99.9% or more. The web pages on the website should also open up quickly on a decent broadband connection.

Technical Support
The plan should offer a 24/7 technical support by e-mail, telephone and fax and the responses should be quick enough.

By considering the above points, the task of finding the appropriate web host will become easier and help you in setting up a website that fulfills your business objectives.