Avoid the Freebies

Websites that offer free web site hosting usually aren't really free when you consider the benefits you must give up. Most free web site hosting offers give you free space on another company's website, but you are not getting actual domain hosting. You're getting one or a few of your web pages displayed on someone else's domain. Therefore, you can never fully promote your website or help it to reach its full potential. If the company is shut down tomorrow, your site will shut down as well.

Another disadvantage of free web page hosting is you will probably have advertisements on your web pages. At the very least, you'll have an ad for the company that is providing the hosting space. This can cause your visitors to click out of your website before buying your products.

Even some cheap web hosting services offer similar services as the free hosts. The only difference is they charge you for poor hosting service!

Compare Virtual Host Packages

When shopping for cheap web hosting, be sure to compare web site hosting packages - not only prices. Some key features to look for are the amount of web space you're getting for the money. You might not need much web hosting space at the start, but as you expand, the website will grow much larger. So, you'll most likely have to purchase more web hosting space if you don't purchase enough at the start. In comparing low cost web hosting packages, you might be surprised at the differences in amount of web space you get when paying only a dollar or two more.

Other things to look for when comparing cheap web hosting packages include customer and technical support availability, multiple email accounts and auto responders, detailed control panel such as cPanel or a similar program, password protected directories, etc. If you need special web design integration with PHP, MySQL and databases, be sure the virtual host offers these features. Also, if you plan to resell hosting to your customers, be sure the virtual host offers reseller hosting as well.

Decide on Web Design First

Before choosing a cheap web hosting package, decide on how you will design your website. What programming language will you use in your web design? Will you need to integrate a shopping cart and/or customer database? How will you handle your customer emails? All these questions should be considered before choosing a cheap web hosting package.

Take some time to find the web site hosting service that will meet your needs, both today and in the future. Keep in mind that you will probably use your web host's services for many years to come. Taking time now to find the best possible cheap web hosting with all the features you need will save you from many headaches in the future.