Web hosting is a way to make your website available to the world without the hassle of owning or maintaining a web server yourself.
For most website owners, paying a monthly fee to a company that provides web hosting is the most economical choice.
- Will You Be Doing It Yourself?
Before you decide whether to tackle the project yourself, ask yourself several questions:
• How often will the content change?
•Will you need special animations, graphics, or other elements that require a skilled web programmer?
•How soon do you need it done? Will there be time to learn, or would it be more cost-effective to hire it out?
•Will the site be used for business or e-commerce, or is it mainly for a hobby or special interest?
•What resources might exist within the company or organization already?
- What's Your Monthly Budget?
How much do you plan to spend?
While this number may change as you learn more about what you want and need, you should have a starting figure in mind.
For instance, if you have little or no budget, and you're just getting started, you may want to consider a site
where they provide you with a subdomain, so you don't have to buy a domain name.
On the other hand, if your project will be large and involved, you will need to add in the cost of hiring a web programmer.
After all, while you may be perfectly capable of replacing a faulty light fixture, that doesn't mean you'd want to tackle wiring a brand new house!
- What Types of Tools Will You Have?
It's possible to build your entire site in a simple text editor, such as Notepad, but it's not for the faint of heart!
Before you run out and buy the latest software for building websites, it's important to know that many web hosts
give you site building tools as part of your hosting package. They also provide you with tools for
uploading files and managing email accounts using only your browser. Other software freebies for your site
include host-installed open source programs that allow you to create web logs, shopping carts, FAQs, and content management systems.
- How Many Sites Will You Be Building?
This becomes important when you consider the costs associated with multiple sites. Some web hosting companies will make it easy for you
to house several sites within one account, and will make it easy for you to automatically add new domain names to your account.
This also brings the issue of customer service to the forefront. The more sites you have, the less interested you will be
in waiting a day or more for an answer every time you need assistance. Look for a web host that has a good reputation for
rapid turnaround time on trouble tickets, and has a user-friendly system for reporting problems.
Visit the web sites of several companies that offer web hosting.
Compare features, such as storage space, monthly bandwidth, and how many email accounts are included.
Try to reach their site, or one of their hosted sites, from inside a corporate Intranet. If it's blocked,
chances are this will be true from inside other corporate Intranets as well, and may indicate that the host has
allowed spammers and/or undesireable web "tenants" to host on their servers. Whatever your personal views on adult sites are,
you would be well advised to steer clear of hosts who provide space for them, because your site may well be filtered out with the rest of them! If your audience can't reach you, you can't reach them!
Also, be aware that if your goal is to post what would ordinarily be considered an "adult site," you should be aware that
most of the more popular and economical hosting companies won't allow that type of content...partly for the aforementioned reason.