How-to Select a Cheap or Affordable
Web Hosting Company
Before you being locked into a hosting service, review the essentials of a good web hosting service.
There's more involved in choosing a hosting company than the monthly price. A plethora of cheap priced hosting services can be found on the Internet. But how can a consumer choose the perfect service that covers storage requirements? The following tips are the essential to finding a hosting service that will curtail costs and include web site requirement.
Bandwidth and Data
As Bandwidth and data transfer are synonymous in meaning, both measure the transfer of data on a website. For instance, if a website uses 5 GB of bandwidth, monthly, a plan that offers a minimum of 10 GB would be the right hosting choice. Selecting a hosting company that covers the potential of excess storage can prevent higher prices that are caused by over usage (spikes) in service. Certain hosting services charge or interrupt services that exceed the minimum bandwidth requirement.
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Approximately, one megabyte (1 MB) is equivalent to 180,000 words of text (about the size of a standard novel).
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Finding a hosting solution that is compatible with your budget and space needs is the first Tip to finding the right hosting service.
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Calculate how much bandwidth (data transfer) your web site uses. |
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How To Calculate Website Capacity:
Tally the total for the following:
- Tally the size of your site's pages (or website)
- Number of visitors to your website
- Types of files you offer your visitors
Hypothetical web page bandwidth calculation:
The average size of each of your web pages is 20 kilobytes (20 KB). (Every time a visitor enters your site, they are using and receiving 20 KB of data).
If 1,000 visitors viewed 1 page on the site, the total data transfer would be 2 GB (1,000 x 2 MB = 2,000 MB) or a single 10 KB file could be viewed 200,000 times and the data transfer would be 2 GB. (Generally, corporate or professional websites utilize less than 2 GB bandwidth per month).
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The smaller the total size of a Web page, the faster it will download. |
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Disk Space
Disk space is contingent upon two needs:
1) How much web space your site requires and uses
2) How much you plan to grow.
If your web site needs 100 MB of disk space, look for hosting plan that offers at least 150 to 200 MB of web space. It will prevent an inflated and unexpected bill at the end of the month. Generally, web hosting companies charge high prices for extra disk space usage. As a result, it can add to your bill.
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Look for hosting plans where the cost is no more than a dollar per 10 MB or three dollars per GB for bandwidth usage. |
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Prior to selecting a hosting company, cost-compare hosting plans and project future growth. Planning ahead will alleviate unforeseen surprises, and thwart excessive costs, (short term or long-term). Calculate your growth rate and project future expansions.
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Chart a growth rate log to calculate future needs. Maintain a good record log of past and present bandwidth and web space usage. It will help project future needs. |
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Hosting Contract Term
Prior to, opting for a long-term contract to save money on hosting fees consider the commitment. While, many web hosting providers offer exceptional discounts for half and yearly payments in advance, it's basic business commonsense not to become locked into a hosting service that will not deliver.
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Select a short-term contract until a hosting company demonstrates reliable service. |
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Mail server
Obviously, communication is essential to successful online business. In order to ensure that your site will have an adequate number of email addresses for your domain, select a hosting company that provides email addresses. Also, search for email features that include the following:
- Email forwarding
- Auto responders
- Email Spam Protection (protects users' mailboxes against suspected spam messages)
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Because many hosting services offer free mail servers, avoid hosting companies that do not include mail server with the hosting plan. |
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Applications and databases
Regarding applications and databases, certain hosting programs charge an additional fee. Before making a hosting service decision, look for a service that supports the applications and databases of your site. For instance, some hosting companies charge an additional fee for programs like Dreamweaver, FrontPage, ASP pages, PHP, databases, CGI, etc.
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Double check the applications and programs of your website. Confirm that the hosting provider will support your applications at no additional cost. |
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Exceptional Customer Support
After you sign up for a hosting, customer support can make or break the hosting service. If you do not have experience at programming and uploading your site, a hosting company that provides immediate support is critical.
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Look for a hosting service that offers a minimum money back guarantee. Incas the customer support or interface is not compatible with your needs, you can get out of the hosting service with little conflict. |
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| Bandwidth and Disk Space Conversion |
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8bits = 1 byte.
1,024 bytes = 1 kilobyte (KB).
1,024 kilobytes (KB) = 1 megabyte (MB or Meg)
1,024 megabytes = 1 gigabyte (GB or Gig)
1,024 gigabytes = 1 terabyte.
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