web hosting

How Does Cheap Web Hosting Stack Up? A Closer Look at Your Options

Ever wonder why cheap web hosting is so popular these days?  Well for starters, it provides individuals and small businesses with a means for creating a presence online.  It makes sense – but why go cheap when you can pay for something that is more reliable?  Besides, “cheap” doesn’t have the most appealing ring to it.  Moreover, if saving money is the issue, why not cut your costs entirely by signing up with a free web host?  If you are still struggling with the concept of cheap web hosting, this article will explain why it makes a viable option between free and costly alternatives.

Free Equals Limited

Most free web hosting providers leave you very limited and are not recommended for business purposes.  For example, most of them will litter your web pages with banner and pop-up advertisements in exchange for their free service.  This can be a huge distraction to the people who come visit your website.  Many of them also limit you in terms of ownership.  Sure, they may provide you with a domain, but it is generally attached to their website, leaving you with a name that is both hard to remember and unprofessional.  Last but not least, free web hosts typically provide you with minimal bandwidth and disk storage.  Once you start to generate traffic and popularity for your site, you will eventually exceed the allotted resources and have no choice but to upgrade to a premium package.

More Freedom at a Great Price

The limitations of free web hosting is what leads most individuals and businesses to more flexible yet affordable solutions.  Cheap hosting delivers the features and flexibility you need at a price that is easily within reach.  With so many providers offering service, several companies price their plans considerably low to keep pace in the highly competitive web hosting industry.  Play your cards right and you can find a host offering service for under $10 a month.  It isn’t hard to get yourself a package with a generous supply of disk space, bandwidth and features.  Today’s cheap web hosting services are geared for individuals and businesses, providing email accounts, e-commerce applications and everything needed to open an online storefront.  These plans are widely available so why pay extra for something that could end up setting you back?

Don’t Forget the Essentials

Cheap web hosting offers many benefits but it can also be a disaster if you overlook some of the critical aspects.  Even though you are paying less for service, your hosting account should still come with acceptable customer service and technical support.  Getting answers from the experts is important as your customers will surely be needing an explanation from you if something should go wrong.  Additionally, you should never  go for any cheap web hosting plan that advertises an uptime guarantee less than 99.9%.  Excessive downtime is something you can’t deal with as it is the best way to cripple your web presence.  When knowing what to look for, you can go in on a strict budget and come out with a great web hosting package.

Three Web Hosting Mistakes to Avoid

If you want a website, you should know that finding a web host is that first crucial step.  It all seems pretty simple on the surface.  You sign up with a company for a monthly fee, upload your content to their web server and they serve your pages for the world to view.   However, beneath the surface are a number of factors that makes selecting a web host more challenging than it seems.

In order for your web hosting adventure to be smooth, there are three critical mistakes you need to avoid.  If you want to establish yourself as an online business owner, these mistakes should be avoided at all costs.

Free Services

It’s hard not to find interest in a “free” service.  When it comes to web hosting, you can reduce your start up costs significantly by signing up with a free host.  Sounds good but take heed – the negatives outweigh the positives by far.  More often than not, this type of service is only free because it is being sponsored by other companies, companies that want to liter your web pages with advertisements.  That doesn’t sound like having your own business at all.  The visitors you bring in could end becoming someone else’s customers.  Or perhaps visitors will view your site as unprofessional and don’t even bother to return.  With advertisements cluttering your site and a free provider’s stamp appended to the end of your URL, this only makes a good option for someone looking to have fun with a personal website.

Limited Options

Paid hosting outweighs free services easily with thousands of providers on the market.  However, not all paid hosts are created equal.  Some of them are limited and will only provide you with the basics.  For this reason, you should avoid any companies that don’t offer or allow you to incorporate essential items such as web forms, email accounts and shopping carts into your website.  Here are a couple of useful features you should look out for: adequate bandwidth, storage space, multiple email accounts, database access.  While the features all depend on the individual needs of your site, these are necessary services that should be included with an hosting plan.

Cheap Hosting

Here is where things get tricky.  Some companies will advertise their service as “cheap hosting” while others in the industry look down upon such solutions.  Even if you are trying to host on a budget, stay cautious of providers offering plans for around $2 per month.  When the price for hosting is this low, there is usually something hidden in the fine lines of the contract, something that could tremendously impact your bottom line.  If you are working with limited resources, raise the bar a little higher and look for a company offering packages from $5 to $10 per month.  Some might still consider this as a cheap service, but there are many reliable providers that fall into this price bracket.

The web hosting industry is like a jungle with companies swinging from all angles to win your service.  Jot down a list of what your site requires to be successful, do a little research and go out and find a company that meets those needs.  After landing a winner, you will be more than happy that you did.