Did you know, there are hosting services and ... hosting services. It is absolutely important to your online success, that you select the right hosting company for your domain right from the beginning.
You need a hosting service that is in business years from now. Imagine having to move your site to another hosting company when you have a web presence with hundreds and hundreds of web pages - which you will have when you intend to market online. It is a heartbreaking and unnecessary experience.
The Bad And The Ugly ...
Heartbreaking because your host may go out of business and suddenly you won't hear from them at all. Your FTP access will be blocked. No help emails will be answered. In fact, your emails will bounce back to you. You can't get online and change your copy. Just imagine you have a time sensitive transaction running and you won't be able to stop it.
After your website and your online business has been frozen for two month or longer, a new owner may take over the failing business. When you have luck, your site will be released to you by the new owner. If there is no new owner, you are out of luck. Hopefully you have backup copies of your web pages. If not, you have lost everything - your website and your income.
You will be off line for some time during the transfer of your website to a new hosting service. This experience is unnecessary too, because with a little planning and research into web hosting companies, you could avoid lots of extra work and hassle. You may wonder why I know? Well, you guessed it. I went through this unpleasant experience.
Premium Service at a Better Price
ATTENTION: There are actually web hosting companies out there that still charge $20 per domain per month without any web hosting tools such as an easy WordPress installation, a shopping cart, form script, polls, online community scripts, etc. They think they can charge you a fortune just for the mere hosting of your site! - And you will gladly pay, if you don't know better!
Here is a good
domain hosting service that I personally use and have come to trust.
This is what a good domain hosting service will offer you:
- Fast, Uncrowded Servers
- Reliable 99.9% Uptime
- Low Hosting Fee!
- 55 GB Disk Space
- 5 TB Bandwidth
- True Multi-Site Hosting
- Free and Instant Setup
- 1-Click Installs
What are 1-Click Installs?
1-Click Installs auto-install over 50 available scripts for you, quick and easy, with just one click - no technical experience needed. This saves you lots of time figuring out how to configure all these programs. And it saves you money if you need to hire someone to install the software for you. Look at some of the CGI and php scripts you'll get from them:
- FormMail: Have a newsletter subscription form on every page.
- Guestbook: Encourage your visitors to leave you feedback.
- Counter, Clock and Countdown to beef up your site.
- WordPress: Host your newsletter/blog on your own site.
- Content Management: An advanced portal with search engines friendly URLs, online help, full content search, threaded comments, blogging, news aggregator.
- HelpDesk for convenient customer relations - no spam annoyance.
- Discussion Boards to have your visitors deliver content and take an active role.
- Shopping Carts: Select the eCommerce version you prefer.
- Image Gallery: Show your pictures off professionally.
- Mailing List featuring multiple mailing lists and attachments.
- Polls and Surveys for complex and advanced surveys. View results in real time.
- Site Builder installs site templates for you. Just fill in your text.
- Classifieds and Auctions: Generate income with your site.
- WebCalendar featuring private and public calendars.
Before you select just any hosting company, you owe it to yourself to check out a
domain hosting service that over-delivers. I personally have not found a more feature-rich, fast and supportive hosting service.