Web Hosting Options for Small Businesses (and other folks)
Thanks to a question from a fellow twitterer today, I realized that hosting decisions can be overwhelming to many people. So I want to help sort that out for you.
First, some technical aspects. Some people have asked me “What’s a Web Host?” So I suppose it would be in everyone’s best interest if I tried to answer that first. A web host is basically just a company which owns a server. A server is just a computer that is connected to the internet where your website will be stored so people can see it. Its just like if you navigate to a file on your computer, except site visitors will be navigating to your website on your web host’s server.
So now that that’s perfectly clear, lets talk about what sorts of needs you have when it comes to webhosting.
Most people just need an account for a simple blog or a content management system. This is really just a simple way to create a website.
Ninety-Nine percent of the time I recommend that people and small businesses use web hosting pad. These guys have an excellent service and a low rate. You really want to use a software on your server called c-panel. Web hosting pad offers it as a part of the service, and this is something you really want.
Now just so you know, if you plan on hosting multiple domains, you will benefit tremendously from a reseller account. This is an account which will allow you to have many different websites and you can manage them all at one place. For this I highly recommend Host Gator. With Host Gator you can have lots of different websites. This is good if you want to market lawn sprinklers and sports cars at the same time. It would be a big mistake to put both of those on the same site.
If you have a wordpress blog, and want to host it yourself, it would be a good idea to read my article on managing wordpress on your own server. It has some great tips for getting past the technical details.
If you just don’t particularly care about doing it yourself, you could contact me and I will be happy to do the work for you and host it for a very competitive rate.
Hi Jared. I went to web hosting pad a couple months ago when you suggested them. They have been really great. Beside being able to put all the domains you want in one area, you can also set up as many sub-domains as you want. So, if you have a lot of blogs and chose the domain like ‘expert.com’, then you can set up your blogs as ‘weight.expert.com’, food.expert.com’ ‘blog.expert.com’ etc. I have set up two other organizations on web hosting pad since then - one being a union. We have 10 blogs set up on their web site as of now.
They have a free web site builder that has a good selection of templates, but they also have the option of uploading any template you want to use. I would definitely recommended them.
Jared, whatever I read from this post, web hosting is quite expensive your side. Here, in India, it is so cheap and gives many facilities.
Thanks, Joyntheir. Thats the one I promote the most.
Sangeeta, I realize the economy is different on this side of the world, but the one I recommended is only 4.95 per month and they have very good services and lots of space and bandwidth as well.