This posts serie is for Web newbies, and will provide the end-to-end easy guide on how to get a domain name and create your fisrt website or blog.
This is the post number #1.
First of all, let's answer to this magic question: How to choose a webhosting service (or provider)?
Choosing a webhost provider is important when creating a website or blog. At
the beginning, with a low traffic blog, problems with accommodation
(unavailability of support, bandwidth problems or disk space etc..) are
not very troublesome, but once your website starts to have popularity and traffic consequently, these problems must be taken seriously.In the remainder of this article, we will see five essential tips to make the choice of webhosting.
1. Trust and reputation of the host
The reputation of the web hosting plays a major role in the choice of the host. Host a little known and highly appreciated is a better host well known but poorly appreciated by its customers.To do this, we must consider:o
Do a search on Google or on the tops hosts visit the sites specializing
in hosting tops ranking
o
Go to the forums on web hosting to see what customers think that
webmasters and bloggers, you can also see the reviews on both sites
ranking of the top web hosts. This will give you an idea about the hosts and the type of problems encountered by users generally.However, it must often avoid hosts that do discounts (rebates) all the time unless they have a good reputation. Some of them sell more than what is expected and therefore support issues arise frequently.
2. Availability of servers, disk space, bandwidth, domains
The disk space offered, limiting the number of domain names and bandwidth also play an important role in choosing a web host. Of course, unless your site has huge traffic, bandwidth and disk space will be almost totally consumed not for several years. Against
by limiting the number of domain names could soon be a problem if you
plan to create other blogs the same accommodation. So
consider the possibility of multiple domain names, or at least the
ability to change hosting package if you want to add new domains.The most important for me in all these parameters, it is the availability of servers in the host. Nobody would like to have, in a host, a blog that is inaccessible one day each month.Availability is indicated by a percentage of the genre ... 99.99%. Should
opt for the highest possible availability, which would mean that your
site is inaccessible only a few tens of minutes per month.
3. Test support and responsivenessSupport is often overlooked when purchasing a hosting package, then it is necessary and must be of good quality.Three
types of media are usually offered, technical support (for problems or
technical issues), sales support (for the purchase, renewal etc..) And
billing support (for all billing aspects and problems).Should be possible to test if at least commercial support before the subscription in a host. Send an email and ask questions, and see how managers will respond. The reception and responsiveness are paramount. At least you will be reassured that they will not send you walk once you have subscribed to their accommodation.It
is also important to know the means of support available to customers
(chat, email, phone support) and also the availability of support
(24h/24) and language support (English, French etc.). .
4. Package content supplyOnce
the web host you like and your choice is made, it is important to take a
look at the content of its offerings, especially on the technical
level. I
talked about the disk space, server availability and limitation of
domain names, but do not ignore other technical elements such as:o The type of administration interface (cPnel is one of the most usedo The type of database management tools and databaseso The version of PHPo The number of FTP accountso The number of accounts and the features offered Emailso Anti-virus and anti-spam offeredo The geographic location of serverso And so on ...Generally, this plan package, most hosts have similar packages. This is not a concern for most of the time, but this is something not to be overlooked.5. At what price?Finally the price aspect ... If you want a serious blog, you still need to spend a minimum but reasonable. At the beginning a new blog, have accommodation costs less than 10 us dollar per month (including domain name) is reasonable. With
this amount it takes to have a shared server (that is, a server shared
with other blogs / sites, but each with its access rights to the disk
space). The key is that the above criteria are checked.When you see the need to opt for a dedicated server, it will be essential to move higher rate.The idea is not to rely solely on the price for choosing a host, all other items listed above are important for this choice.If
you want to subscribe to a web hosting that meets all these criteria,
you can try Hostgator. I subscribed to them it's almost a year and I've never had any trouble with them, both technically and commercially. In addition they are present in the top10 during several years.And you, do you have other criteria for choosing web hosting?
In the next post (post#2) we will continue to show you how to get a domain name and create your first website.
Keep in touch.
Zac Wallace
