How To Shop and Save On Website Hosting

"What's your web address?" nnFrom small "mom and pop" home-based businesses to mega- nstores, people ask this question in business every single nday. Even if you only operate a small, local business, if nyou don't have a website (or at least email) people nhonestly look at you funny. nnA few years ago, website hosting was one of the largest nexpenses connected with setting up a website. Now, with ndramatic drops in pricing, website hosting can actually npresent the least costly component of operating a website. nnHowever, before you run out and sign up for $2-a-month nwebsite hosting and wake up tomorrow filled with regret, ntake 5 minutes right now and learn the main points to nconsider when evaluating any website host. nnTotal Storage nnHow much space do you get to store your nwebsite files? If you operate a small website with a nhandful of pages and only a couple of pictures per page, nyou can get by with 5-10 MB (megabytes) of disk space or nless. However, if your site contains dozens of pages and nhundreds of pictures, you may need a hosting plan with 10- n25 MB of space. nnData Transfer / Bandwidth nnHere's where many people fall down and get run over by the nInternet bus! Bandwidth represents the total amount of ntraffic the website host allows you to receive. nnSuccessful sites that get a lot of traffic eat up more nbandwidth than sites without many visitors. Honestly, nbargain website hosting companies don't want you to get nmuch traffic because your bandwidth costs them money. nnIf you plan to do any business online, make sure you get a nbare minimum of at least 1 GB (gigabyte) of data transfer nper month. nnEmail "Aliases" nnMost web hosts allow you to set up email addresses nconnected with your domain, such as jim@thenetreporter.com, nand have them forward to your email account, like nyourname@aol.com. The ability to set up email aliases forms nan integral part of any online business. Make sure your nhosting company allows you to set up at least 5 email naliases. nnWebsite Tools nnIf you want to do anything more than let people look at nstatic web pages, you will need to have certain tools navailable. The two most important tools are CGI and website nstatistics. These allow you to run scripts and see who came nto your site and when. nnTech Support nnMake sure you understand any company's technical support npolicies and hours of operation. Don't wait until Saturday nafternoon to discover your only help option is to wait and nemail them Monday morning. nnGo to www.comparewebhosts.com and check out the tool for nresearching and comparing the offerings of over 9,000 ndifferent website hosting companies. Try the "Power Search" nfeature, which allows you to specify about 50 different nvariables, including price, company location, bandwidth, nand number of email aliases allowed. It even lets you nsearch by how often the hosting company backs up its nservers to protect against data loss.n