Web Hosting is the only monthly/ongoing fee for a website.

What is web hosting?

Every website resides on some computer somewhere. These are typically called “servers”. (Part of the confusion for new website owners can be the different names used for the same item.) Servers are basically computer hard drives. Web hosting services have lots of these – stacks and rooms full of servers.

How to choose your web hosting begins with your preference. Most of my clients don’t have time or desire to research this and I handle it for them.  I set up their webmail as well.

But if you want to choose your own you need to research the company. Find out how to reach tech support. Can they be reached by phone? Email tech support is often enough, but you need to know how to reach tech when there is an issue. And something WILL come up.

Don’t base your choice on price alone. Have you ever had your computer’s hard drive get very sluggish as it ages due in part to reaching the used capacity? The same thing happens with servers. The more packed into them the slower they become over time. You do not want your website to download slowly due to the server. Don’t confuse this with your own (or a visitor’s) download time. This you cannot control. If a visitor tells you the site wouldn’t load – you check it out and it is fine – you can be comfortable it was on the visitor’s end.

If you choose your own web hosting you will need to provide your web designer with the user name and password and the name of the directory the website is uploaded into.

While cheap hosting isn’t desirable you don’t need to over pay. If you are using a simple site with static pages (no Flash, multi-media, audio, video, etc.) you can meet your needs for around $15/month.  You can pay less if you pay annually.

I stopped paying annually with the 2008 economy downturn.  I could foresee companies folding with my clients’ fees paid for a year. Another concern was maintenance expenses for web hosting (all those servers). I wondered if the companies would cut back on maintenance and upgrades to the servers which would mean declining performance to our websites.  I experienced this when one company was sold another. The hosting began to suffer. I now pay web hosting fees monthly on behalf of my clients. I am in a position to move my clients if the hosting begins to decline.

If you are launching an e-commerce site. There are a number of other issues and your hosting needs are higher. You must be on secure servers and there are associated fees.

Read the web hosting’s uptime stats. While some offer to credit you back should their down time be longer than 45 minutes in one month – read the fine print to see what this dollar amount will be. (It’s very small.)

There are a number of web hosting review websites you can check out. It’s a place to begin. Read the fine print and email any host you are considering. Their response time can give you some idea of their customer service attitude.

Web hosting is the foundation for your online business. Make an informed choice.