How do you choose a web host for you business?

* Search online?

* Word of mouth?

* Online advert?

* Printed advert?

Businesses are forever being told to invest in a website, a well designed site will generate business through sales leads both online and offline. Having your website provide you with constant web traffic is between you and your SEO company. Having your website visible online all of the time is between you and your web hosting company.

Providing your web site with a stable hosting platform to operate on is a key component of any business strategy. Without a suitable web hosting provider your business will suffer as potential traffic is denied to you through down time. Reputation is everything in business and your presence online will be spoiled by inaccessibility errors.

Finding a good web host is important. Online searches only provide you with a fraction of the potential hosting suppliers available. Let's outline 3 key components of a hosting company, get your pencil and paper ready.

Reliability

Your biggest concern is reliability, so choosing a company that provides a reliable web hosting service is very important. You want all of those potential customers to get to your web site. So look for a web host that provides a high percentage of up time.

Support

Web hosting support is another important factor for your business. You need to know that any problem experienced by you or your hosting company is going to get fixed quickly. So 24/7 support by phone and email is vital. Any web host that does not meet these criteria ignore.

Web Hosting Package (domain name, hosting space, bandwidth, email accounts etc.)

Web hosting packages are starting to look very similar these days, which means that you need to pay more attention to the smaller details. Since you are looking for a web host you should make a few notes. Write a list of what you want to include in your website;

* Articles

* Images

* Music

* Shopping cart etc.

Think about what you want your site to be able to do. Once you have put together a list of your needs its time to go shopping. For your convenience if you wish to compare several web hosting providers then click here. This page includes a list of different web hosting providers covering those on a budget to companies looking for dedicated managed hosting. Each of these hosts have also provided a special offer so why not check them out and save yourself some money.

About the author:

John Wright is an IT professional specialising in internet marketing and computer systems. For web hosting special offers click here…

What ever are the services offered by the web hosting companies, LIVE customer support is the most vital of it all. Easy contact with a competent, helpful web hosting support person is the most valued service you need for fixing up a problem when the highest-capacity server and telecommunications web hosting technologies fail you at some instances. Similarly E-mail hosting services that are well fortified with virus scanning and have superior spam control helps you to have better web communication with your customers than the high end e-mail web hosting service that provides you multiple access option. Serverplex.com offers a wide range of email and list handling options, the best one can get anywhere. Along with the above mentioned e-mail hosting services Severplex.com also offers 'Cpanel' which is a client side control panel interface, that allows the reseller companies to easily control a web hosting account – add e-mail accounts, access their files, backup their files, setup a shopping cart, and more. And to top it all Cpanel has top of the line multiple visitor tracking soft wares which you can choose based on your convenience and need.

About the author:

Andy Lewis is an expert author on varied topics. For details visit: http://www.serverplex.com/enewsletter.html

About the CWHR Rating: This number (from a low of 1 to a high of 10) is a weighted average of customer ratings of the web host (80%) and the staff evaluation of the web host (20%). Customer ratings are themselves weighted by the length of time the person has been using their web host. Customers who have hosted with a company for years count more than a customer who has hasted there for a couple of months. As our rating is mainly determined by customers of web hosts, our rating is less likely to be gamed by staff evaluators playing favorites or web hosts giving our staff special treatment. The CWHR Ranking determines the sites we list each month and the order in which we list them. A CHWR Rating of "NA" means not enough customers rated this host for a meaningful result. This rating is only found in the special needs hosting section.

Top Five General Purpose Cheap Web Hosts for September 2005

#1 — Dreamhost http://www.cheapwebhostingreport.com/zdreamhost.php

Price: 1m: $9.95 1y: $9.95 2y: $7.95 Setup: 1m: $49.95 1y: Free 2y: Free Bandwith: 120 GB Disk Space: 2400 MB Mailboxes: 600 CWHR Rating: 9.6

Special Features: 75 shell/ftp accounts, php4/php5/cgi/fastcgi/ unlimited mysql databases, ruby-on-rails, zend optimizer, Frontpage available, host 3 domains and 15 sub-domains, 1 free domain name. Excellent customer support (with public customer forum).

Comments: Dreamhost has long been — and still is — listed as the best affordable web host for unusual content (as they will host just about anything legal) in the Special Needs Hosting section of this report. Improvements in their plans in the last year have made them very competitive in terms of bandwidth, web space, and features offered for the price, and they are extremely well-rated by their customers.

New and improved features are announced in the Dreamhost newsletter almost every month, for example, the June 2005 newsletter announced the availability of PHP5 and MySQL 4.1 and the July 2005 announced the availability of Ruby on Rails, FastCGI, Miva 5, the Zend Optimizer and bandwidth/disk space amounts that grow slightly every week you are with Dreamhost (by 1 GB and 20 MB disk space for the account listed here).

Dreamhost's customer support is the best we've seen in the low cost hosting industry. If you are looking for low cost, high quality web hosting with few content restrictions, truly excellent tech support, and very friendly people, check out Dreamhost. Dreamhost offers a 97-day money back guarantee, see their web site for details. (The Cheap Web Hosting Report hosts with Dreamhost.)

#2 — Lunarpages http://www.cheapwebhostingreport.com/zlunarpages.php

Price: 3m: $9.95 1y: $7.95 Setip: 3m: $30.00 1y: Free Bandwidth: 40 GB Disk Space: 1000 MB Mailboxes: unlimited CWHR Rating: 9.1

Special Features: Storage can be increased to 3000 MB in steps, php4/cgi/1 mysql database, Frontpage available, host 1 domain and 15 sub-domains, Fantastico script library. JSP and ASP available for additional charge. Public customer forum.

Comments: Lunarpages has been in the low cost web hosting business since 2000 when Add2Net expanded into shared hosting. While their customer rating fluctuates more than most hosting companies we list, it is alway high and long time customers seem very loyal. Their support for controversial content is second only to Dreamhost among low-priced web hosts. Lunarpages offers a 30-day money back guarantee, see their terms of service for details.

#3 — InMotion http://www.cheapwebhostingreport.com/zinmotionhosting.php

Price: 6m: $9.95 1y: $9.95 Setup: 6m: $30 1y: free Bandwidth: 100 GB Disk Space: 8000 MB Mailboxes: 400 CWHR Rating: 9.0

Special Features: php/cgi/5 mysql databases, Frontpage available, host 1 domain and 5 sub-domains.

Comments: InMotion Hosting is an employee owned and operated company founded in 2001. Their employees average over 4 years of hosting experience while their senior staff average over 10 years of hosting experience. This shows it their higher than normal customer rating. The Power plan listed here is actually InMotion's intermediate plan. (InMotion offer an ever lower priced plan, Launch, but it lacks some features most people consider critical, such as access to your web sites log files for traffic analysis.) The Power plan offers evey features most web sites need and comes with InMotion's reputation for reliability and toll-free telephone support. InMotion offers a money back guarantee, although its terms are somewhat unclear — if these terms were not so vague, InMotion's CWHR Ranking would be slightly higher.

#4 — HostRocket http://www.cheapwebhostingreport.com/zhostrocket.php

Price: 3m: $11.95 1y: $7.95 Setup: 3m: Free 1y: Free Bandwidth: 50 GB Disk Space: 1000 MB Mailboxes: unlimited CWHR Rating: 8.1

Special Features: php/cgi/10 mysql databases, Frontpage available, host 1 domain and unlimited sub-domains. 50 preinstalled scripts.

Comments: Founded in 1999, HostRocket is a popular web hosting company that is well-rated by its customers. They greatly expanded their offerings in 1994 and are now very competitive in bandwidth, disk space, and features. HostRocket often runs very nice short-term specials, check their web site for details. HostRocket offers a 30-day money back guarantee, see their terms of service for details.

#5 — Netfirms http://www.cheapwebhostingreport.com/znetfirms.php

Price: 1y: $9.95 Setup: 1y: Free Bandwidth: 100 GB Disk Space: 2000 MB Mailboxes: 100 CWHR Rating: 7.8

Special Features: php/cgi/10 mysql databases, Frontpage support, two free domain names, free CD with NetObjects Fusion 7.

Comments: Founded in 1998, Netfirms rapidly acquired a reputation for affordable, reliable web hosting. Although aimed at business hosting, Netfirms hosts sites of all types" personal, hobby, business, weblog, and more. Their Netfirms Advantage plan is full of useful features and should handle almost any personal or small business web site. Netfirms offers a 30-day money back guarantee, see their terms of service for details.

Honorable Mention

The following web hosts also rated quite well in customer ratings and might also be worthy of consideration: * BlueHost (CWHR Rating: 7.4) http://www.cheapwebhostingreport.com/zbluehost.php * PowWeb (CWHR Rating: 7.1) http://www.cheapwebhostingreport.com/zpowweb.php * APlus (offers both Unix and Windows hosting; CWHR Rating: 6.5) http://www.cheapwebhostingreport.com/zaplus.php * iPowerWeb (CWHR Rating: 5.8) http://www.cheapwebhostingreport.com/zipowerweb.php * StartLogic (CWHR Rating: 5.6) http://www.cheapwebhostingreport.com/zstartlogic.php

Special Needs Cheap Web Hosting

Fewer Content Restrictions

Dreamhost http://www.cheapwebhostingreport.com/zdreamhost.php Price: 1m: $9.95 1y: $9.95 2y: $7.95 Setup: 1m: $49.95 1y: Free 2y: Free Bandwidth: 120 GB Disk Space: 2400 MB Mailboxes: 600 CWHR Rating: 9.6

Comments: In an effort to avoid arguments and complaints, most web hosting companies are fairly restrictive on questionable content — to the point that some will terminate a site for displaying a picture of a classical (but bare breasted) statue from ancient Greece. Dreamhost not only has an excellent, cheap web hosting package but is far more liberal than most web hosts on acceptable site content. Basically, if your content is legal in the US, Dreamhost will probably have no problems hosting it.

For more information on Dreamhost, see the description above.

Windows Hosting

Easy CGI http://www.cheapwebhostingreport.com/zeasycgi.php Price: 1m: $9.95 1y: $7.96 Setup: 1m: Free 1y: Free Bandwidth: 50 GB Disk Space: 3000 MB Mailboxes: 50 CWHR Rating: NR

Comments: Easy CGI provides Windows 2000 servers instead of the standard Unix servers. Their accounts come with ASP and one Access Database. They are one of the most affordable and most popular Windows hosting providers. Customer service reports are spotty, however. Most people report excellent service but minority report major problems

Virtual Dedicated Server Hosting (Root Access)

Jumpline http://www.cheapwebhostingreport.com/zjumpline.php Price: 1y: $9.95 Setup: Free Bandwidth: 5 GB Disk Space: 500 MB Mailboxes: 75 CWHR Rating: NR

Comments: Jumpline uses special technology to provide each account with its own virtual server. You have your own Apache web server, your own email servers, your own database server, etc. and you have root access to the virtual machine running them. These types of accounts can be more stable and provide better control, but are best used by Unix experts who understand the ins and outs of running servers.

Dedicated Server Hosting

ServerPronto http://www.cheapwebhostingreport.com/zserverpronto.php Price: 1m: $29.95 Setup: $149.00 Bandwidth: 200 GB Disk Space: 40 GB Mailboxes: unlimited CWHR Rating: NR

Comments: A dedicated server gives your site its own physical computer as a server. The upside is that you have full root access so you can install whatever software you want on it and have very few restrictions on scripts (even if they hog CPU time). The downside is that you have to maintain the system yourself. ServerPronto has some of the most affordable dedicated server prices we have seen (and they often have sales that cut the price of the setup fee), although there are many options that can increase the monthly price or the setup fee. Windows and Windows 2003 dedicated servers are also available at higher prices.

The information in this report was checked for accuracy on August 31, 2005. Web hosting companies, however, can change their pricing and plans at any time so the information may no longer be accurate when you read this report. The Cheap Web Hosting Report and its staff are not responsible for errors nor for what use you may make of this information. For updated information, check The Cheap Web Host Report web site at http://www.cheapwebhostingreport.com/

Looking for more information on designing, hosting and promoting a web site? Download a copy of our free ebook/newsletter, the CWHR Web Site Design Guide. This guide is updated monthly with additional articles and the current edition of The Cheap Web Hosting Report's current monthly report. Download it at http://www.cheapwebhostingreport.com/freewebdesignguideebook.php

Notes:

The prices listed are the monthly price based on the shortest prepayment period offered (1m = one month, 3m = three months, 6m = six months) and for annual pre-payment (1y = annual rate)

The setup fees listed are for the shortest prepayment period offered and for the annual pre-payment plan.

—–

You are free to publish the September issues of The Cheap Web Hosting Report on your web site or in your newsletter, so long as all links are included as published here and are clickable if this article is placed on a web page or in an HTML newsletter. Minor corrections of spelling or grammar are allowed so long as the article's intent is not altered.
About the Author

Randall Stukey is the chief editor of the monthly The Cheap Web Hosting Report (http://www.cheapwebhostingreport.com/) which lists the top five low cost web hosts and several special purpose web hosts along with articles on web hosting, web site design, and site promotion.

How do you choose a web host for you business?

* Search online?

* Word of mouth?

* Online advert?

* Printed advert?

Businesses are forever being told to invest in a website, a well designed site will generate business through sales leads both online and offline. Having your website provide you with constant web traffic is between you and your SEO company. Having your website visible online all of the time is between you and your web hosting company.

Providing your web site with a stable hosting platform to operate on is a key component of any business strategy. Without a suitable web hosting provider your business will suffer as potential traffic is denied to you through down time. Reputation is everything in business and your presence online will be spoiled by inaccessibility errors.

Finding a good web host is important. Online searches only provide you with a fraction of the potential hosting suppliers available. Let's outline 3 key components of a hosting company, get your pencil and paper ready.

Reliability

Your biggest concern is reliability, so choosing a company that provides a reliable web hosting service is very important. You want all of those potential customers to get to your web site. So look for a web host that provides a high percentage of up time.

Support

Web hosting support is another important factor for your business. You need to know that any problem experienced by you or your hosting company is going to get fixed quickly. So 24/7 support by phone and email is vital. Any web host that does not meet these criteria ignore.

Web Hosting Package (domain name, hosting space, bandwidth, email accounts etc.)

Web hosting packages are starting to look very similar these days, which means that you need to pay more attention to the smaller details. Since you are looking for a web host you should make a few notes. Write a list of what you want to include in your website;

* Articles

* Images

* Music

* Shopping cart etc.

Think about what you want your site to be able to do. Once you have put together a list of your needs its time to go shopping. For your convenience if you wish to compare several web hosting providers then click here. This page includes a list of different web hosting providers covering those on a budget to companies looking for dedicated managed hosting. Each of these hosts have also provided a special offer so why not check them out and save yourself some money.

About the author:

John Wright is an IT professional specialising in internet marketing and computer systems. For web hosting special offers click here…

You need a server to host your site so that it can be viewed over the internet. This server can either be an Internet Service Provider or of your own. Most websites are hosted by an Internet Service Provider because they can provide powerful server hardware, high speed connections and reliable server support.

Most providers have very fast connections to the Internet such as a full T3 fiber-optic (45 Megabytes per second) connections which is about 1000 high speed (56 Kilobytes per second) modems combined.

For those who are looking to set up their own servers and host their own websites, a personal computer is often not powerful enough to do the job. As the name suggests, a personal computer can hardly handle multiple visitors to your website- servers are needed to handle these visitors simultaneously.

Getting Your Web Hosting

There are thousands of companies that offer web hosting for your website. Which to choose and what to look out for? With the multitude of features and terms in each hosting plan, it can be puzzling for those who are just starting out. The golden rule in choosing your website: Nothing beats reliable web hosting. Many web hosting plans offer more space, more benefits than others. The decision to your web hosting should be based on reliability. We have seen too many disappointed website owners who chose benefits and space over reliability.

About the Author

Lester Boey works in an Australian Web Design and Internet Marketing company -Australian Seo and Web Designs Services – http://www.definiteweb.com/
His life revolves around websites; providing full-time and freelance seo services to US and Australian businesses. Email: projects@definiteweb.com

Is it?? Read on. Way back, when I was a real novice, when I was amongst that typical "The Internet is so wonderful" optimist, I signed up with a paid web hosting service provider. I thought I found the perfect solution. I was provided a chunk of webspace, a web address and content for my site. But before I could even realize what's going on, I found out that the space was a useless chunk which won't work properly, the address wouldn't connect, the contents warped and too much downtime.

Wiser I grew as an year passed, I labored my way up to get a working website, having a helpful lovely support team. I knew what I wanted for my website. How did I achieve it? I had the advantage having a lot of wonderful friends who are working for several web hosting companis. But what about you? You see a world of opportunity waiting to be tapped and just dive-in into the vicious circle of money loss and disappointment!

I don't seek to be the angel of all odds, but I thought some useful tips and hints on how to get started in the web might help the ignorant and also save you from the misfortune. So what is it? I don't want to repeat the "Know what you want" statement because that's too clich d and not that simple to handle when it comes to the real thing. Sure you have a vague idea of what you want but what about the fine prints in all that, the "mumbo jumbo", so to speak?

I don't think you do! So relax, sit back and before you go jumping off to the last line, just read a bit.

MB of Space
What's an MB? MB stands for MegaByte. Basically this is the storage place allotted to you. Before buying the space, spend a little time in thinking about your website's requirements. Calculate approximately how much you require and then add another 50. Excess space will help you to add and alter and expand in the future. Always better to have too much in the bag than too little, isn't it? Remember audio and video files need a lot of space.

Pricing (Monthly/Yearly)
The payment options are either monthly or yearly. Believe me it is wiser "test the water" first by starting with the monthly plan. Don't be tempted by all the marketing talks about discounted rates for longer period of time and pay for the year (or more) at one go!

Domain Name Registration
What's a Domain Name? It's basically the www.yourdomainname.com. This Domain name has to be registered so that no one else can use it. Most web hosts would provide domain registration as a package. If you already own a domain name then you surely have to transfer to the new host. Ensure that the host provides this service. Also ask for directions on how to do it yourself. If you don't have a name already, then ponder for a moment and think how many names you would need. Will one be enough? No extra names to be attached to sub-domains? Do you need redirects?

While selecting the suitable domain name for your website, make sure that it is relevant to what your site would feature. It should not be that you talk about "woodworking" while your website name is "cool-curtains.com". That's very embarrassing!!

Email Accounts
There are quite a few options here.
Mail Servers: You think you would be getting substantial amount of mail through your website, then opt for a mail server. It is basically an actual online site, like mail.yoursitename.com, where you have your personal mail box. An email address like info@yourdomainname.com would be more professional unlike those free email addresses like John6578@hotmail.com

Mailing Lists: Do you want to promote your site through newsletters, promotional informations, sending emails to lot of people, then you might look for this mailing list option. However, lists are not always a "must-have" service option for the hosting company.

Mail Catch all: This service executes what the name suggests. It collects emails which have wrongly typed names (typo), wrong names etc but have your domain written properly in the email ID, like typo@yourdomain.com

Mail Redirects: If you want the emails, to be redirected from your name@yourdomain.com email ID to another mail box e.g. to your hotmail account, then avail off this service.
There are many other options you might choose for your page. Like having multimedia, Front Page Support, Access/Database support, cgi bin, custom 404 error pages, search engine submissions etc. Think and make a list of your website's requirements.

But before you initiate anything, send an email to the support team of the web hosting service provider, asking them whether they provide the services you require. Try to be polite and friendly and point to your specific requirements. Assess their feedback and response time, whether they are prompt or slow. This would give you a good indication of what kind of support you would get in the future.

Basically, the crux of the matter is that you think before you spend. Countless victims are there to tell their tale of woes and frustrations. I'm one of the one but I had grown wiser. Don't be fooled by sweet talking marketing guys whop would spare no efforts to promise you everything. Are you sure they can deliver?

About The Author:
Ainuddin Mohamad is the Webmaster of http://www.BestWebsites.com.my which is a Directory of Best websites. Since 1998 it has featured thousands of best websites in many categories of interest with descriptions/reviews given by leading publications and webmasters.

Control Panel
Control Panel is an interface where you can access your site on the web server, allowing you to set-up and subsequently update and customize your web site. Though cPanel is by far the most popular control panel, some hosting providers customize their own so that they can up-grade and expand it at will.
Diskspace
A vast majority of sites that don't have tons of graphics, sound and video clips or downloadable files easily fit in 50 MB of disk space. You should always leave yourself some room for growth or check if the host has a bigger plan in case you need to upgrade.
Bandwidth
Bandwidth is the amount of data transmitted or received through a unit of time. In web hosting, bandwidth is consumed when visitors make requests for files on your web site and download them to their personal computers.
Email Account
With POP3 email accounts you can check email from Outlook, Netscape Mail, Eudora or any other Email software.
Scripting language
As all our top 10 listings are using Unix and Linux platform, php, perl and CGI are the languages we are talking about here. It is best to choose a host that supports the latest version to maximize the latest web technologies for the fee that you pay.
Database
If your web site is going to store a lot of data that should be dynamically accessible (like user accounts, stock prices, maps, Interactive news, message boards and forum etc.), you'll need to look for an account that offers a database. MySQL is a powerful and most popular database program that runs on the Linux operation system. It is able to handle million of entries all at once. Its flexibility and speed allow you to also store logs and pictures. MySQL is designed to scale well under heavy traffic conditions and is ideal for database-intensive or e-commerce-enabled Web sites.

Customer Service/Support
No matter if you are an expert or a novice in web hosting, you need a web host with good customer support system. What is the criteria of an excellent customer support? Let us explain.

How big is the knowledge base?
This is particularly important for those who want to search for quick answer without seeking direct assistance from customer support staff. Due to the huge database, normally it s searchable. Some web hosting providers will even make your life easier by making a video tutorial guiding you step by step in setting up your new account. Very useful for beginner.

Responsive customer service staff.
If you are too lazy to find the answer out of a big pool of database, get the direct answer from someone who knows it. Direct customer support comes in a few forms.
a. Email support

b. Phone support: Normally, sales and technical support uses separate phone line. A good phone support staff knows what your problem is and answers with relevance.

c.Web Host like Lunarpages and Globat even have live chat support. However, it s not how many support channels that are available but how responsive it is of the staff. You can find out the hosting reviews and ratings of each of our Top 10 Cheap Web Host.

Price to Disk Space / Price to Bandwidth Ratio
Are you paying too much for your Web Hosting Plan?
Having done the research on hundreds of web hosting companies, in general, we ve come to this conclusion: the more disk space and bandwidth you are getting, the more expensive is the monthly price.

To help you understand which price is competitive enough for you to take up the offer, we have categorized 5 different price range. For each price range, a score of maximum of 10 is assigned. To understand the concept behind this, please refer to the details here.

Popularity
A web host might have the best feature offered, unbeatable customer support and reliability in place but without an effective marketing plan, it will go bust too. Let s face it. If a web hosting provider does not have sufficient members and steady growth of new members, it s very difficult to survive in this highly competitive industry.

We judge the popularity of a particular web hosting provider by looking at the number of awards won, the reviews of other websites and the Alexa traffic ranking.

Reliability, Speed and Uptime Guarantee
Nothing can hurt you more than this: your visitors come to your web site only to find that it s not accessible. You lose credibility and possibly even a sale. If your web host does not guarantee at least a 99% uptime, leave the web host now!

To ensure maximum uptime, installation of redundant back-up systems is essential. Each web host has their own management systems to minimize downtime. "Redundant" means that if any of the Internet connections get interrupted, the alternate Internet connection will take over.

We use Alertra software to monitor the uptime of each of our top 10 web hosts.

As for speed, even though routing, web server set up and local area networks play a part in determining the speed of a site, the main concern of how fast your site is depends very much on the types of network connections.

Many hosting providers still connect to the Internet through T1, or T3 connections. This is not the case for our top 10 hosts- they are using OC (Optical Carrier)
lines.

A T1 line will offer data transfer rate of 1.5 Mbps (megabits per second), while a T3 line can supply data transfer rates of 43Mbps. OC-1 refers to a circuit that transmits 51.85Mbps. Higher levels are multiples of that speed. Ultra-High Speed OC3 and OC12 lines offers 155Mbps and 622Mbps respectively. Some hosting providers have connections to major internet backbones at the speed of OC48 (2488Mbps) and OC96 (4976Mbps).

About the Author
Leo L. Site owners of
Top 10 Cheap Web Hosting Directory – Provides extensive review of top 10 web hosting providers.
Website Hosting Directory – Directory of reliable web hosting services and resources.
Domain Web Hosting Checker – Find the right web hosting solution for you.

Is it?? Read on. Way back, when I was a real novice, when I was amongst that typical "The Internet is so wonderful" optimist, I signed up with a paid web hosting service provider. I thought I found the perfect solution. I was provided a chunk of webspace, a web address and content for my site. But before I could even realize what's going on, I found out that the space was a useless chunk which won't work properly, the address wouldn't connect, the contents warped and too much downtime.

Wiser I grew as an year passed, I labored my way up to get a working website, having a helpful lovely support team. I knew what I wanted for my website. How did I achieve it? I had the advantage having a lot of wonderful friends who are working for several web hosting companis. But what about you? You see a world of opportunity waiting to be tapped and just dive-in into the vicious circle of money loss and disappointment!

I don't seek to be the angel of all odds, but I thought some useful tips and hints on how to get started in the web might help the ignorant and also save you from the misfortune. So what is it? I don't want to repeat the "Know what you want" statement because that's too clich d and not that simple to handle when it comes to the real thing. Sure you have a vague idea of what you want but what about the fine prints in all that, the "mumbo jumbo", so to speak?

I don't think you do! So relax, sit back and before you go jumping off to the last line, just read a bit.

MB of Space
What's an MB? MB stands for MegaByte. Basically this is the storage place allotted to you. Before buying the space, spend a little time in thinking about your website's requirements. Calculate approximately how much you require and then add another 50. Excess space will help you to add and alter and expand in the future. Always better to have too much in the bag than too little, isn't it? Remember audio and video files need a lot of space.

Pricing (Monthly/Yearly)
The payment options are either monthly or yearly. Believe me it is wiser "test the water" first by starting with the monthly plan. Don't be tempted by all the marketing talks about discounted rates for longer period of time and pay for the year (or more) at one go!

Domain Name Registration
What's a Domain Name? It's basically the www.yourdomainname.com. This Domain name has to be registered so that no one else can use it. Most web hosts would provide domain registration as a package. If you already own a domain name then you surely have to transfer to the new host. Ensure that the host provides this service. Also ask for directions on how to do it yourself. If you don't have a name already, then ponder for a moment and think how many names you would need. Will one be enough? No extra names to be attached to sub-domains? Do you need redirects?

While selecting the suitable domain name for your website, make sure that it is relevant to what your site would feature. It should not be that you talk about "woodworking" while your website name is "cool-curtains.com". That's very embarrassing!!

Email Accounts
There are quite a few options here.
Mail Servers: You think you would be getting substantial amount of mail through your website, then opt for a mail server. It is basically an actual online site, like mail.yoursitename.com, where you have your personal mail box. An email address like info@yourdomainname.com would be more professional unlike those free email addresses like John6578@hotmail.com

Mailing Lists: Do you want to promote your site through newsletters, promotional informations, sending emails to lot of people, then you might look for this mailing list option. However, lists are not always a "must-have" service option for the hosting company.

Mail Catch all: This service executes what the name suggests. It collects emails which have wrongly typed names (typo), wrong names etc but have your domain written properly in the email ID, like typo@yourdomain.com

Mail Redirects: If you want the emails, to be redirected from your name@yourdomain.com email ID to another mail box e.g. to your hotmail account, then avail off this service.
There are many other options you might choose for your page. Like having multimedia, Front Page Support, Access/Database support, cgi bin, custom 404 error pages, search engine submissions etc. Think and make a list of your website's requirements.

But before you initiate anything, send an email to the support team of the web hosting service provider, asking them whether they provide the services you require. Try to be polite and friendly and point to your specific requirements. Assess their feedback and response time, whether they are prompt or slow. This would give you a good indication of what kind of support you would get in the future.

Basically, the crux of the matter is that you think before you spend. Countless victims are there to tell their tale of woes and frustrations. I'm one of the one but I had grown wiser. Don't be fooled by sweet talking marketing guys whop would spare no efforts to promise you everything. Are you sure they can deliver?

About The Author:
Ainuddin Mohamad is the Webmaster of http://www.BestWebsites.com.my which is a Directory of Best websites. Since 1998 it has featured thousands of best websites in many categories of interest with descriptions/reviews given by leading publications and webmasters.

If you plan on starting any type of business online, then you need to find a reliable web hosting company. That company needs to have a track record and establish in the web hosting company for many years. Make sure they are not some fly by night operation.

They need to be able to provide you with a lot of referrals from customers that has dealt with them in the past. A hosting company needs to be a hosting company. That means try to stay away from hosting with re-sellers. Re-sellers borrow space from a top hosting company and sell it to you. Just think of how many people are using this reseller hosting space. Your website maybe in jeopardy of crashing because of too many people hosting on one server. That's not how you want to do business online. If you plan of putting your business out there you need to have the back up and support that an establish web hosting company can bring you. Do your homework.

Don't pay to much on hosting per month, per year, make sure it fits your budget.

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I know some people say that you can market this and that without having your own website, but I definitely disagree. Many affiliate programs and various business opportunities offer you "personalized web sites" that you can use without owning you own server space. However, replicated company websites and an often long and cumbersome affiliate link can only take you so far, with thousands of other people using the exact same material.

Another trick, that seems to be really in vogue these days, is people who want to advertise with Google Adsense or Yahoo using your money. Most often they make it sound like this is as easy as it gets, when it comes to making money online as an affiliate.

While Adsense and other pay per click advertising is definitely a viable option, one should remember that it requires thorough keyword research and continuous tracking in order to produce a good ROI. Additionally, according to Google's new Terms of Service, you can't point an AdSense ad directly to an affiliate link – the link must always point to an URL of your own. The very same thing goes for publishing articles in the popular article directories.

Finally, if you have your own company and product, your own high quality server space really is an absolute must these days. However, the big "dot-com bubble" was at least partially caused by people charging obnoxious fees for company websites that actually delivered very little results.

Done right, your online presense doesn't have to be that expensive, while still generating great revenue. The choice of web host is one of the crucial steps in turning your website into a great success.

Points to consider when choosing a hosting company

If you are serious about making it online you definitely need you very own web space, that you can do what you want with. As an affiliate you can, for instance, put up your own websites that offer some unique content to your visitors and pre-sells them on the affiliate product or business opportunity of your choosing. People do not like to be sold, remember – a friend with a genuine recommendation is always more welcome than a stranger with a business pitch.

So how do you choose a web host, then?

In my humble opinion you should be looking for the following:

* Reliability

* Support

* Integrated features

* Price

Exactly in that order. There are many services that provide you hosting space for free, I know, but if you are going to market in a professional manner you definitely need to get professional hosting. Besides, most free webhosts pack YOUR site full with THEIR advertisements.

When you are trying to build credibility with your audience this can easily be fatal.

The webhost I personally have chosen, fulfill the criteria I mentioned above. Their service is extremely reliable and their support is the best I have seen online anywhere – you can call, email or chat live with the friendly support staff 24/7/365.

I can not overemphasize the importance of this, because when working with websites, scripts and things like that, it is not a question of IF you will run into trouble but when. And unless you are a total guru yourself you will need help, the faster the better.

When it comes to features, it is naturally important to be allowed to run scripts like php, cgi, asp etc. Because these are widely used by shopping carts, sequential auto responders and other tools you may need.

Naturally, depending on your business strategy and goals, the features required of your webhost will vary. If you are an affiliate, promoting many different products, you need a web host that will allow you to set up many different domain names on the same server – creating separate web sites containing valuable information for your various target audiences.

If you are going to run a large web shop and/or send out large amounts of email, you should seriously consider investing in a dedicated or virtual server. Shared servers (which means you share a server with several other users) often place limits on how much email and bandwidth you can use per month.

When you have found a suitable web host, that can deliver all of the three first mentioned points according to your needs, you should start looking at prices. As the old saying goes, you generally get what you pay for. However, high quality hosting does not have to cost an arm and a leg these days. There are many excellent web hosts to choose from, and if you shop around a little you will find one that also fits your budget.

About The Author

Bjorn Hakans has been doing online marketing for over six years. On his web site, http://www.build-a-solid-homebusiness.com/Web_Hosting.html he shows you how to get high quality web hosting practically for free.