Budget Web Hosting - Are They All Designed Equal?Selecting a budget web hosting company can be overwhelming. Indeed, selecting any web hosting company can be a challenge due, in large part, to the undeniable fact that there are so many of them. Do a search for "web hosting" with the quotes around the keywords on Google, and it'll return over 5 million documents! That doesn't mean there are 5 million web hosting providers but there very well could be at least 1 million! That's a lot of web hosts. How can you settle on one that meets your needs? What is Budget web hosting anyway?Budget web hosting is commonly defined as any hosting service that is below $10 per month. It is called "budget" hosting because of the low cost. Now, most companies in the budget web hosting category only provide one year plans. The majority of budget web hosting companies though, will quote you the monthly cost you would pay if you divided the annual expense by 12 months. Keep that in mind when you are comparing one company with another. The other thing to look out for is the setup fee. Do they charge you a setup cost to get started? Evaluate your general impression of the companyThe first place to begin evaluating budget web hosting companies is their front page. Does their website give you a sense that they are professional? Is it uncomplicated to get all of the information you want? Check out their contact information. Do they list a physical address, an email address and a phone number to contact them? If they don't provide any contact details, that has to raise a red flag. If you arrive into problems setting up your website, and you have no proper way to contact them, how are you going to request tech support from that company? Do they have a toll free help number?Does the budget web hosting company supply a toll free number for you to contact them? If they are based in Atlanta, Georgia and you are in Seattle, Washington, you shouldn't be paying long distance to them if you want to talk to them on the phone about a concern you have. A toll free number also attests to their willingness to deal openly and honestly with their customers. What kind of guarantee do they provide?Pick a budget web hosting company that offers a good guarantee. Most budget web hosting companies don't openly publish their satisfaction guarantees. If you have to look in their terms and services agreement to find out where they stand with regard to giving you back your money if you are not satisfied, you must move on to a different provider. What is the uptime guarantee of the site in question?Uptime guarantee refers to the range of time the server is live and serving your web pages. An uptime guarantee of 99% means that the host guarantees that their servers will be up and operational 99% of the time. Over the course of one year, 99% uptime would represent a downtime (the one percent) of around 87 hours in a year or an average of 7 hours per month. An uptime of 99.9% would involve only 8 hours of downtime for the entire year. What kind of after sale support can you expect?While there are quite a few other factors you could take into account, the final one I will deal with is after sale support. What kind of resources do they make available for you. Ask if the budget web hosting company offers free scripts. Do they have any marketing tools they can make available to you? What kind of support for setting up your account can you anticipate from the budget web hosting company? All of these factors must be taken into consideration.Only because a company offers a budget web hosting service, doesn't imply you necessarily have to compromise on features, quality or support. All three will only be found, but, if you make sure to do your homework to get a budget web hosting company that is a perfect fit for you. Did you enjoy this article? Please share it!       |
