Monday, July 13, 2009

Choosing A Affordable Web Hosting Company

By Nicholas Halmond,Nick Halmond

Only you can choose your web hosting, but if you choose affordable web hosting, you can certainly get your online business going. However, you also have many variables to consider as an entrepreneur before you choose this particular option. This article should give you a little help in that direction. Take a look at the pros and cons of affordable web hosting.

The Pricing

Obviously, if you start an online business, you are online to make money with your website and not have your web hosting service break the bank. There are a lot of different options available, but of course, your goal is to figure out what's going to work best for you. With web hosting, the most expensive doesn't necessarily mean the best. Therefore, prioritize your business and weigh the options you have with web hosting -- price only being one of them.

Your needs

Before you choose your hosting option, be careful, because you'll need to figure out what you need before you do so. What you want out of your website? How much space are you going to need? What type of content are you going to have? Do you need a dedicated server, or will a shared one do? These and other questions are going to need to be answered before you proceed and they'll be crucial to the success of your business, so make sure you answer them carefully.

Shared, or dedicated?

When you first start out you won't have a ton of traffic coming to your site. It's one of the reasons why affordable web hosting is the way to go in the beginning. Even though you'll be sharing servers with several other websites, it will still allow you to get everything going for a minimal fee. Once you see your site taking offers, you can always switch to a dedicated server later.

What's great about having a dedicated server? Well, it's your own, which means that if you have a lot of stuff on your website -- videos, media content, animated banners, and so on -- your visitors won't have to put up with a slow loading process, which can drive them away and therefore hurt your business. Therefore, if you do have a lot of content or activity, and it's going to take up a lot of bandwidth, a dedicated server is probably your best bet.

There are pros and cons to each approach, but at least at first, it's probably a good idea to keep costs down. You don't know how things are going to turn out at first, so therefore, it may be a good idea to go with a shared server and therefore just pay for affordable web hosting. If things are picking up and your content is beginning to pick up (and your traffic is common to), you can switch over to a dedicated server later.

Viruses

Unfortunately, viruses are a common problem on the Internet today. With website owners, this is certainly a problem if you take personal information from consumers. Make sure if you do choose affordable web hosting at first, your website is protected so that you can't contract the virus that could mess up your customers' personal information. And unfortunately, if you share a server, this could be a problem, too.

Therefore, if you are going to be taking customers' personal information, your best bet is to choose a dedicated server, especially if you're worried that this information might somehow get into the wrong hands. In that case, it may be that the more expensive dedicated server option is probably your best option.

Your Choice

Is affordable web hosting your best option? This will depend on your financial budget, your goals, and other variables you encounter. This article can't entirely tell you what to do, but certainly, affordable web hosting is one good choice for you if you think it's going to work well for your business.

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