Sunday, April 5, 2009

Are cheap web hosting solutions really beneficial in longer run?

Whenever an individual or an organization decides to start an online business or run an online campaign, the first and the foremost thing that they need to build their website, is a good web hosting service provider. Initially when you decide to compare the web hosting cost, you may come across drastic variations in the pricing of different hosts.

On one hand a relatively unknown web hosting vendor may provide you with a complete web hosting package at rates as low as $3-$4/month, while the best in the business may demand as high as $20-$25/month. So here’s the cache, you’ve been looking out for! Those who offer web hosting services for $25/month are not ripping off others money simply, as they offer vivid range of services, right from unlimited monthly bandwidth, unlimited sub-domains, lifelong domain registration, unlimited e-mail accounts, POP3, FTP, CPanel Access, Free Website templates, ready-to-use blog set-up, FrontPage Access, and other goodies like Google Adwords vouchers.

It is quite possible that one might not be aware of few of these things, and these words may sound like Greek and Latin to them. However, the techies who really design their own websites, or do it for their clients are very well aware of the importance of each one of these features.
In simple words, if you pay $3/month just for basic web hosting, pay additional $1/month for PhpAdmin CPanel, MySql databases, $0.5 for domain name, $1 for per 10GB usage, and invest considerable money in buying website and blog templates, then the total amount may add up to much more than the $25/month offered by an established web hosting vendor, who offers everything in its package. Additionally you may also be required to figure out the type of web server being used, which could be Dreamhost, BlueHost, Apache etc, and the type of Web Hosting, which could be Windows or Linux based.

Moreover, when you really enter the ecommerce field, you’d realize that you’re badly in need of help of referral services, affiliate marketing and advertising programs like Google Ad words to attract good number of visitors to your site. Hence, you’re bound to spend money on this aspect too, so it would always be a better idea to look out for free vouchers for these programs, which would in turn bring down the total cost of the package.

Therefore, when you look at the one-shot payment, you may find that the web hosts, who demand as high as $20/month, would cost you to begin with. However, when you try to details down the impact on the longer run, you’d realize that cheap web hosting solutions are not the best options. It is always better to pay a little more, but make sure that you’ve everything that you’d need to run a successful online campaign. Furthermore, try to grab as many goodies and add-on’s that you can get at the time of registration with the web hosting, and all info can be found on the web hosting service provider.

Things to Remember while Selecting your Web Hosting Provider

Finding a web hosting solution may not be very difficult, but finding the right one may not be equally easy. There are countless web hosting agencies that offer high quality web hosting solutions. However,the point here isn’t that there’s shortage of good web hosts, but rather the fact that any host may simply not comply with your requirements.

The prime factors that determine the quality and standard of a web host are the server, type of support, and the quality of the service. Another aspect of web hosting is the secondary services offered, such as Spam protection, Cpanel access, PHP, Perl, Ruby-on-Rails, AJAX and FrontPage support.

The top quality web hosting agencies offer you best of both the worlds, and render all possible services in form of a handy package, at a reasonable price, not to mention round-the-clock support. Moreover, your web host must also offer you the flexibility to try the services for a short duration as trial run, before really deciding upon the selection in longer run. Therefore, you must not put your money on a vendor, which doesn’t give you 100% money back assurance, should you not be happy with the quality of the service during the trial period.

Additionally, the best in this business also analyze the business needs of the customers and offer add-on packages in form of FREE Yahoo and Google marketing vouchers worth $15-$25 to get you started with your marketing campaign right away! Furthermore, when you decide to run an online business, it is very crucial that the web hosting server is high robust, up-and-running almost all the time, and doesn’t distract your visitor by displaying ugly error messages like “Requested URL can’t be found”, “Oops Server Connection Timed Out”, “We regret that the site is temporarily out of service, please try in few moments”.

When the discussion comes to hosting blogs for an organization or an individual, one would require one of the common blogging engines like Joomla, Word Press, Drupal and the likes of them. In this regard, you must also be careful enough to analyze your needs beforehand, and ensure that your web host supports both Linux and Windows hosting as these blogging services are also platform dependent, for instance Word Press fails to work with Windows hosting & requires Linux hosting compulsorily.

Your host must not really charge you additional amount for both Linux and Windows hosting, and whenever you opt for a web hosting package, watch out for the additional offers like free domain registration for a couple of website. Otherwise, it could be the other way round too, as many web hosting agencies actually offer free basic web hosting packages if you register a domain name through their agency.

Therefore, all in all it is highly essential that your web hosting vendor must provide you with all possible facilities that are needed for your business, including all forms of technological as well as functional and tech support, not to mention the choice of server like Apache, dream host etc. After all it’s your business and your money, so it is your duty to ensure that you don’t put your money on a web hosting agency that doesn’t meet all your requirements. You can browse through all such web hosting websites & find out more details about their plan, so that you may compare their services as well as charges.