Day 2: Easy Web Hosting to Build a Website Yourself

So you’ve finally chose your website name, aka domain name, aka web address, aka URL. But there’s no website at that address! Now you need to sign up for web hosting. What’s web hosting? Basically you’re getting servers (computers) where your website will be installed with many programs already on those computers that allows your website to do all the amazing things you see websites do.

Web Hosting, Upon Which Your Site is Built

Let’s say you’re out to build the next Facebook, Amazon or Twitter, can’t help you there 🙂 You and your development team need to figure out for yourself what super-turbo servers and custom capabilities you’ll need.

For the rest of us, we’re in luck. Many web hosting companies today offer unlimited space, unlimited bandwidth (for traffic), unlimited emails, and tons of free programs and apps. Unlimited storage space means you can upload as many pictures and videos as you’d like. Whether you’re up to the challenge of building your own site or decide to hire a freelance developer, the free programs and apps makes it fast and cheap to get a site up and running!

Recommended: HostGator.

Having built and managed sites for myself and clients, HostGator is the only web host I fully recommend. I’m not going to give a comparison table of which web hosting has what features. There are many sites for that, and most of the feature are the same nowadays.

The difference, however, is the quality and reliability of the web hosting company’s hardware, software, and facilities. I had sites on HostMonster down for days when HostMonster’s server facilities had a power outage. That was REALLY BAD for our business!

Traffic spikes are also a concern, and HostGator was always able to handle it. Imagine you or your business being mentioned on TV or a major media site like CNN.com. The break you’ve been waiting for! A flood of visitors rush to your site and, because your web hosting couldn’t handle the traffic spike, your site crashes. All your visitors see is “ERROR.” Again, it’s happens and it’s REALLY BAD for business!

As I consult clients, we always plan for your business to be a big success. That means choosing a web host that allows for growth! You may want to offer secure e-commerce shopping or proprietary data, at which point you’ll need to move to your own VPS or Dedicated Server.

HostGator offers the whole lineup from basic discount services to dedicated servers so upgrading your website is as simple as sending HostGator’s tech support a request. Within a few hours your site is upgraded and transferred seamlessly. However, if your web host only offered the basic discount service, it may be a pain to transfer your site accompanied by a lot of complications.

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Recommended: Network Solutions.

Unlike the other Web Hosting companies listed here, Network Solutions doesn’t just offer web hosting with useful programs. Network Solutions has the full suite of services to develop any type of online business and with any type of online business strategy.  It’s not hard to get these services separately, which we’ve listed in our resources section. But if you’re not tech savvy, having all the services together on Network Solutions makes it much easier:

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Other Good Web Hosting Specialists

If you’re less ambitious and only want a simple site as either a blog, design/modeling/photography portfolio, or business card, these discount web hosting services will work fine for you.

Tip: Discount services say “unlimited” because you end up sharing computer resources with other sites with the same web host. The danger occurs when a site, totally unrelated to yours, gets a traffic spike or some other error, and your site crashes along with it just because both are on the same “shared” server!

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