Working on my Website, but who will Host it?

Reader Asks Maya: “I have a web designer who asked me to research and choose the web hosting company to manage my webiste. How do I choose?”

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First: Congratulations! You have chosen a web site as a marketing tool for your business. You are committed in giving your clients and potential customers what they need and are looking for to make it easier for them to do business with you.

Now the dilemma… When you Google, “web hosting” you get over a million results. How to choose?

What kind of website are you designing and developing?
Are we talking about 5-20 pages? Is your site an informative site with lots of content? Are there anything database driven pages? Is it a membership portal? Is there a shopping cart or ecommerce features? What technologies (Flash animation, Music players, Training videos, etc.) are you using for the website?

You visit a Web Hosting company that offers you a package of features but you don’t necessarily know how these features benefit you. Let’s dissect each feature one at a time:

1. Disk Space
One web hosting company may offer you 5GB of Disk Space while another offers you 100GB. What does this mean? They are asking you, “How big is your website?” … this includes your graphics, web page content and pages, databases, audio files, video files, etc.

Use this Disk Space Guide:
a simple web page averages 50KB of space
1 MB = 1,000KB (translation: 20 pages)
1 GB = 1,000MB (translation: 20,000 pages)
if you will be running a small database (Access, MySQL) usually you only need 1-3MB of Disk Space and you can always upgrade
if you have an ecommerce site that holds 1,000 products… you may consider at least having 50MB of Disk Space

2. Monthly Data Transfer
One web hosting company may offer you 100GB of Monthly Data Transfer while another offers you 1,000GB. What does this mean?

It’s all about your web site visitors. Do you expect to run an online marketing campaign where you expect more than 40,000 page views/visitors hitting your website for the month? How many web visitors do you predict will be visiting your website on a monthly basis?

Use this Monthly Data Transfer:
500MB = 20,000 page views
1GB = 1,000MB = 40,000 page views

If we have hosting that allows 200MB of data transfer per month and your site transferred 500MB, then the host may stop half our visitors from viewing our site. It’s better to purchase more than enough (1GB).

3. FTP Accounts
FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. You have to ask yourself the following questions:

• Who will be updating your website?
• Do you want to control permissions to access only certain directories on your website or have one FTP account that you can all use that accesses everything on your website?

4. Website Development Features

A question for your web designer or web developer, “Will you be using ASP, ASP.NET, or PHP as their programming languages?”

• ASP and ASP.NET are programming languages used on Windows-based web servers.
• PHP is a programming languages typically used on a Linux-based web server.

5. Application and Database Features

If you are using a content management system to manage your website or have an E-commerce site where you will be selling your products, you will need to ask your web designer or web developer, “Will we be using MS Access, SQL, or mySQL as our database? And how many DSN (Data Source Names - in short, allows your web page to connect to your database that stores information and then publish that information onto your web page) do we need?”

6. Email Accounts

Do you need 50 email accounts or would you like an unlimited option? How big will your mailbox space be to store all your emails? Does your emails handle autoresponders? Are you given an online Control Panel to check your emails? What type of Spam Filters and Virus Scanners do they use for your security?

7. Customer Service and Support

• Can you email customer support 24×7? By email? By submitting a support ticket? By online chats? 24×7 support is useful so you can work fixes and upgrades to your website while the majority of your web visitors are sleeping.
• Do they provide a 1-800 (toll-free) line to Technical Support?
• If you call Technical Support, how long are you waiting on hold? Can you leave a voicemail and have them return your call? But most importantly, do they return your calls?
• Does technical support actually understand web development jargon (it can be really disappointing when you, the customer, with minimal web development expertise, knows more than the “technical support” person over the phone)?
• How long are most trouble tickets or inquiries handled?

8. Security

• What security measures does your host implement to prevent from hackers?
• What happens if a web server becomes corrupt? Are there server backup and recovery strategies?

Either develop a habit to backup your website on a consistent basis? Or invest in a web hosting company that offers a good backup and recovery option for your website.

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