Web Design Whim

* This article is written by Marie Barnes AKA Pixie of www.webdesignwhim.com Please do not copy our material and portray it as your own work. Feel free to post our articles but only without removing this notice and stating where you got this article from. Thank you *

Once you have chosen your domain name and have it registered the company you register it with normally direct your page to one of there parked pages until you have the domain hosted. So until you sort out your web hosting your content will not be visible to the outside world.

So basically you need to find a company to Host your website. It will have huge servers (network of computers) to hold yours and many customers information for there particular websites.

There are so many website hosting companies out there and finding one can be confusing so ill tell you what i look for when picking who to host my websites.

These days alot of companies offer one monthly price for hosting your main domain and then unlimited amount of other domains that you own. This is fantastic as if you create more websites, you always know what your monthly outgoings will be on web hosting. So make sure the company offer this.

Think about how much disk space your website will take. A small or medium web site will need between 10 and 100MB of disk space. But again these days alot of hosting sites don’t put limits on your space, so try and find one that’s unlimited.

Also you need to think about how much data you think your website will consume each month. This basically means every time someone clicks on your site, every time it loads a page for them to view it will transfer the data to them and that’s what is classed as your data transfer consumption. A small or medium web site will consume between 1GB and 5GB of data transfer per month. Again alot of hosting companies offer an unlimited service, which is always handy when you have no idea what your amounts will be.

Next Email accounts. I always look for hosting that offers at least 20 email accounts. Many offer more and some alot less. When your looking at what they offer you, check this amount as you and your employees will want there own email address e.g myname@webdesignwhim.com

Also check if it has web based email access. Most do but always check as this allows you to check email through your Internet browser.

Check what server they are offering the hosting through:

Windows Hosting, Unix Hosting or Linux Hosting. The most common is the windows hosting and the least expensive for normal websites and its the one you are most likely to need but check my article about different types of hosting servers to double check.

The next I check for is, MySQL, and how many databases are allowed or if any. These are used for things like forums, word press and many software packages. Many hosts offer a large amount of databases but some don’t offer any so remember to check for this.

These are just some of the things i check for but remember its always different for anyone. Like for this website i decided to go with hosting that has the simple one click installer for word press. I also wanted unlimited space and Frontpage extensions. Everyone’s needs are different but i have listed the main things people look for.

Another thing is make sure you don’t go with hosting that ties you in for a long periods of time. I personally prefer to pay monthly, as i always know where i stand and hate companies that keep me tied in. Once i got stuck with a company tying me in for a year and it was unbearable. As you will know from the sites name, im a girl who does whims so as you can imagine one day id be making a website the next i would of lost interest. Not good if you have brought a domain name and got it hosted and your tied into that for a year. Just check what they tie you in for, and that if its more than 30 days its probably not worth it for you.

Before you choose your web host, make sure that:

• The hosting type suits your needs
• The hosting type is cost effective
• Upgrading to a better server is possible
• Not tied into a year contract

Today when i created this website i found some great web hosts by searching online. I found one that suited my needs as it offered a FREE DOMAIN NAME, hosting i could pay for monthly as money is short at the moment with baby on the way, and all the features i needed. A low monthly fee with all that i needed swayed me to that company. Here is the company i chose. BUT remember whats good for me may not be good for you. Check whatever company you choose has what you need at an expense you can afford. You can always google the term Web hosting companies and you will find many results to find what you need.

What we use:

Always find whats best for you.

Thanks for reading again.

Pixie x

* This article is written by Marie Barnes AKA Pixie of www.webdesignwhim.com Please do not copy our material and portray it as your own work. Feel free to post our articles but only without removing this notice and stating where you got this article from. Thankyou *

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