6 FAQs on Hosting Every New Webmaster Needs to Know

Most people understand that their small office or business should really have a website for marketing purposes but are afraid to start. This article is basically a complete beginner’s guide to hosting and it will provide you with all the information you need to choose a good web hosting company.

Can I use a free web host account?

Sure, if you are going to be using your free website just for fun or for a nice place to display the photos you took at the family reunion. But the majority of people will not take your company seriously if you use a “free” hosting account for business. Bite the bullet and get a real hosting account.

How much should I pay for web hosting?

You can find web hosts from $2.75 to $200 a month and on up. The higher the service is not a guarantee of better quality nor is the cheaper price always a good bargain. You should do your homework, read reviews, check out forums and view websites hosted by the companies you are interested in using.

What about a “Domain Name”?

A domain name is not only the “title” of your website but is also its web address or URL. Many hosting companies offer “domain registration” services in their packages. But if you ever move your website to another web host, you probably will have to pay a “transfer fee” in order to continue to use that domain name. The beginners guide to hosting suggests that you register your domain name separately so that you have complete control over your “brand”.

What is shared hosting?

Most new websites will be fine with ordinary shared hosting (your website “shares” a web server with other sites). Just be aware that some hosting companies don’t limit how many websites can share a server and that an overloaded and overworked hosting system can cause erratic behavior on your site and maybe even cause your website to crash.

How much disk space should I get?

You will see everything from 100MB to 1700MB (Megabytes). But the beginners guide to hosting recommends that unless your company is starting a large ecommerce or media site, a new website will be just fine with 100MB – 500MB of storage space.

How much bandwidth should I get?

Think of bandwidth as a highway with traffic (visitors to your site) as the cars. A few cars on a four-lane roadway poses no problems, but that same highway can be jammed during a heavy rush hour, so you would need more highway…hmm, bandwidth to help the flow of traffic moving. But most new websites should be okay with just 1 to 5 GB (Gigabytes) of bandwidth a month.