[T1169]Top Web Hosting Provider

If you own and/or manage an online business, or any kind of enterprise getting a significant fraction of revenues from the Internet, it shouldn't take an economic recession to get you thinking about good, cost-effective, beneficial business practices. With your web presence being critical to your existence, your hosting provider is not merely another vendor to pay every month but a partner, and a vital one at that. As we examine the many reasons why carefully choosing your web hosting provider will benefit your online business, you may be surprised at just how broadly and deeply this relationship affects your company's fortunes.

There are a number of variables to consider when choosing a web hosting provider, and going on price alone is the single worst method for arriving at the right decision. You need to make sure that when you are comparing web hosting plans you are not, as the saying goes, comparing apples to oranges. The two primary things you will need to consider are the amount of storage (disk) space you are allotted, and the bandwidth, which is the amount of traffic going in and out of your domain. Speaking of domains, there are some hosting plans that will include the registration cost and first year's fee. The "apples and oranges" situation seems to be evolving into a regular fruit salad, as there truly are many other considerations.

About the servers

Before we get into the other ways that a carefully vetted web hosting provider can benefit your online business, let's take a quick look at the hardware that is involved. There are a few aspects of the server that you must consider, the first of which is shared vs. dedicated hosting. If you opt for a shared server, you will pay less money and not have to worry about hardware maintenance, which the hosting company will handle. On the other hand, you are sharing space with other websites, so your business can suffer when someone else creates or exacerbates a technical problem. With a dedicated server, you pay more and accept the responsibility for maintenance, which could be a problem if you do not have the requisite expertise. On the upside, of course, you have your own private server and cannot be victimized quite so easily.

You also have to choose the operating system (OS) of the server. Many people choose Linux-based hosting, as it is somewhat less expensive (Linux being open source software) and easier to work with. Windows hosting, of course, is popular, too, and also lets webmasters use powerful FrontPage extensions. There are security issues with both, so it's a toss-up on that score. In fact, a good case can be made for either OS, so another measure of the providers you are considering is the way in which they will recommend one approach over the other. All of their arguments should be made in terms of what is most efficient and cost-effective for you, the customer.

Other account components

One of those "other considerations" deals with e-mail accounts. How many are offered in the plans you are comparing? Even some low-priced packages now include unlimited e-mail accounts, as hosting providers know that the average SMB (small to medium-sized business) uses fewer than 20. If you are careful, you should be looking at how well each candidate company covers your unique e-mail needs, as well as other basics.

Another vitally important one is your administrator "control panel," most often a browser-based toolkit for managing your site. This is how you will set up e-mail accounts, manage MySQL databases, handle advanced matters such as streaming media and PHP configuration, capture and analyze traffic data and other information (metrics), etc. A good control panel will also have security tools, tutorials, backup procedures, FTP services, a way to create subdomains and, sometimes, even a "site building" application.

Making the call

Choosing wisely among possible hosts means considering both large issues and small matters, as well as real solutions to your so-called virtual problems. You should not hurry through the process, by any means, just as you did not grow your business to where it is in a slapdash manner. Unfortunately, when it comes to the most important aspects of your online business, the most overlooked part of it seems to be the hosting. Business owners tend to think that hosting is just another added expense, rather than a critical marketing investment. Its physical and virtual location, and the manner in which it is maintained, will play unique roles in the eventual success or failure of your site. Companies often go through a number of hosting providers before "the right one" comes along.

Web hosting has dropped significantly in price over the past few years. However, as stated previously, choosing a web hosting provider based solely on cost is not the right move. Poor web providers can cost you thousands more in the long run, by losing sales when your site is down or simply failing to function properly on a day-to-day basis. When doing your homework on different providers, look for the ones that have the best reputations for quality. Their monthly fees won't necessarily be higher than their lesser competitors, but you may conclude a few more dollars are worth it, since you do need to find a host that provides you with all of the particular features that you need for your site. This way you can be assured that you will not be hit with any ongoing problems and inconveniences. Clearly, you will reap many benefits for your online business by carefully choosing your web hosting provider.