How to Select The Best Web Hosting Plan for Your Web Site

I have researched and compared hundreds of web hosting packages offered by 60+ web hosting companies and selected my top 10 in the resource section of this article. Free webhosts do not offer the features you get from a paid hosting service. You simply should not use a free hosting for your online business or important personal site. This article will guide you on how to carefully select a paying hosting service that will best serve your needs.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. The first thing you need to do is is to decide what you need your page to do. Is this you personal site, business site or some organization site. These are just some of the questions you need to answer yourself before even starting to choose. You will need to chose a hosting plan based on your website need and what you want your website to do.

2. The services you will be looking for can primarily be categorized under the folloings:
   1. Free Domain Registration
   - New Registration
   - Transfer
   2.Disk Space - for hosting pages and database
   3.E-mails
   4.Unlimited Bandwidth
   5.SSL / CGI / PHP scripts and add-ons
   6.Size of MySQL Databases
   7.E-Commerce Enabled
   8.Free Web-site Builder
   9.Frontpage extensions
   10.Hosting of Unlimited Domains
   11.FTP
   
   Other Services
   - Search Marketing (SEO), yahoo credit, google adwords credit
   - Web Design Services
   - Data backup and storage
   - Web Analytics
   - shopping cart functions
   - PHP
   - chat, forums
   - gallery

3. Storage space and data transfer:
   look at a minimum of 2 GB (2000 MB) data transfer a month for high traffic site (8000 – 10000 unique visitor per day) go for at least 1000 GB per month If your Web site is expected to grow.
   Reliability:
   DO NOT go for anything less than 95% uptime. Period.
   Technical Support:
   Get a hosting company that can help you resolve problems quickly with the least possible disruption to your site activity. You shouldn't have to pay extra for this and you want 24 hours/7 days support. A good company should reply within 24-48 hours.

Tips & Warnings

• Added Features: Various internet hosting companies offer a variety of services but you may need all of them or you may need something different. Do your research and make a list of what you need. Do not settle for a plan with fewer features than you need only because it is cheaper. Get what you need. You absolutely need to make sure you sign up with right hosting plan the first time since domain transfer is a bugged and messy process and your site can be down for days or weeks if you need to transfer your site from one hosting company to another. If you are paying for a website, you should definitely be getting email accounts and FTP access. Don’t settle for a site without them. Make sure the email addresses are for your domain and not at your host’s domain. FTP access is critical is you intend to do any amount of uploading files to your server.
• Make sure your email domain is your site domain
• FTP
• Frontpage
• unlimited bandwith
• 24/7 FREE tech support
• minimum of 95% uptime
• frontpage extension
• email correspondence
• web analytics
• chat, forum
• PHP
• scripts
• shopping cart
• e-commerce
• database

Resources

• Ipower - $3.95/month, 2500 emails, 300 GB, unlimited bandwith. Web's top hosting plan for service quality, uptime, price
• IX Web Hosting - TOLL FREE support 24/7 - $3.95/mo
• Apollo Hosting - Fast, reliable service
• Blue Host - 6.95 hosting package with free domain
• PowWeb Hosting - 1,500 GB + 15,000 GB - Free Setup! - $3.88/month!
• Hostgator - Reseller Hosting Starting at $24.95!
• Lunarpages - Unlimited storage and Unlimited transfer for only $4.95
• Jumpline web - 3 months Free
• Hostrocket - 1000GB 50GB Web Hosting for only $4.95/month. PHP4, MYSQL, CGI, SSH all included. 10 Domain Names
• Dotster - 5 Free Domains At Dotster With Any Hosting Package! Enter Coupon Code

[Rockney]

on 11/3/2009 Great article! 5*!

[mdmagic]

on 4/4/2009 GDI is the best place that I have discovered that offers a website because it is only $10 and not only that but it pays you for anyone else you refer Visit: http://magicformula.ws and follow the steps and I gurantee that your income will grow rapidly just like mine!