Web hosting TipsDefine your needs precisely.Free, or monthly services fees, dedicated servers. Unix or Windows NT. FTP uploads or Microsoft FrontPage extensions. E-Commerce, shopping carts. Domain name, or vanity domain. Where to start! Here are a few things to look for. Domain Name Get a domain name. It's absolutely nessesary when launching anything on the Internet. This reserves your intended name to you, before somebody else grabs that great idea of yours! Price Pricing should not be your main concern! Free services are available, however, if you're serious about your site, you really should consider a paid service. Most free services will display pop-up banners or the like on your site. As a result, you won't have full control over your site's content or look. There are many reasonably priced services out there. Find one that's reliable and suits your needs. Reliable Reliability should be one of your major concerns. If your site is often down, your clients will wonder if you're out of business, and competitors are just one click away. A reliable service is a requirement to ensure constant growth. Watch out! If your site is unavailable when search engines are trying to index it, you may be removed completely. This is not what you need. Operating System People have their own preference here. We use both Windows NT and Unix based services, but would have to give the edge to Unix based providers. You seem to have more control over your site, without incurring special setup fees for items such as Custom Error Pages. For example, NT hosts may charge a fee for each custom error page, while it's simple to do yourself under Unix. Features Connection You'll have to think about what you need here. FrontPage extensions or not. How much space do you need. Do you need one email address, or unlimited? Remember that number of features and pricing are usually directly related to each other. |