Get-online but Avoid Getting Duped with Small Business Web Hosting

Avoid Getting Duped with Small Business Web Hosting

Have you ever been duped? If you have, and lets face it, most of us have at one time or another, it’s not a nice feeling is it. Usually it’s not even about the money, it’s about the loss of trust, the feeling of being betrayed, let down or deceived. Well if you’re about to, “Get online” or select a new small business web hosting company read the rest of this article to prevent being duped yet again.

Don’t Blame the Web Hosting Company

Firstly, don’t blame a web hosting company if their hosting solution is not to your needs; you did know what you were getting into. After all, you did read the two-hundred page contract, split into small sections and spread over one-thousand pages (for your convenience) didn’t you? No! Don’t tell me you were more interested in the entertainment news or that you actually wanted to get on with some real work.

• Okay, I’m being facetious, but you get the idea.

Unscrupulous Web hosting Companies

Lets face it, we rarely read contracts. At best we might skim over the pages to get the main details, rather than read that valuable information about our online business hosting. Unscrupulous web hosting companies just love our apparent lack of interest. Like sharks, they lurk, ready for the kill. Patiently waiting for us to arrive, grab those flashy headlines, skip the fine print, and sign-up for a web hosting package, which on the surface, looks like a really good deal.

Rule #1

• If you want your business to thrive on the internet over the long haul, be cautious in choosing your small business web hosting. Not all hosting companies are equal!

Only Gurus to Get a Good Small Business Web Hosting Company!

Do you need to be a computer guru to get a good small business web hosting company? You might think you need to be computer savvy and armed to the teeth with information about business web hosting before you can make an intelligent choice with regards selecting a web hosting company for your business. Not necessarily. Just think about it! How much do you really know about the car you drive, the washing machine, the computer you’re using now. Do you know their inner workings? Have you read the workshop manuals? Probably not.

To get a good web hosting company, just cultivate an appreciation towards how things run on the internet and remember, if it’s too good to be true, it’s too good to be true. The good web hosting companies, such as those listed in my article, top recommended domain name registrars, want your business for the long term. They may give you a good introductory deal, but they know their service is what keeps you for the long term.

3 Fail Proof Ways to Choose a Small Business Web hosting Company

Knowing exactly what you want to do with your website will make it easier for you to decide which small business web hosting company has the right solution for you. Here are some tips.

Know What You Need

Choose between a shared server and a dedicated server.

If you are starting a blog or small shopping site then a shared server will get you started for very little cost, certainly less than $100/£65 per year. This website is run on JustHost at a cost of $36/£24 per year (five year contract).

On the other hand, if you intend to run a busy ecommerce site with lots of photos, video clips and tons of information to share among your readers you should go for the dedicated server solution.

What’s the difference? A shared server, as the name would suggest, is a computer which has it’s resources shared between many users, a maximum of ten usually. This mean your sites resources will be dependant upon the other users of the server. If there is a heavy load (from other users) on the server then your site could suffer speed degradation etc. With a dedicated server, you are the only user, so all the resources belong to you.

Choose unlimited bandwidth.

With regards bandwidth, I would only recommend unlimited bandwidth. The days of bandwidth restrictions have gone, don’t skimp on this. All of my recommended internet service companies supply unlimited bandwidth for their shared and dedicated server packages.

Free or Paid Hosting?

Why spend your hard earned cash when you can run your website using a free host? Ever heard the phrase, “there’s no such thing as a free lunch”?

Well, given that everyone has bills to pay, so everyone has to make a profit one way or another. How do you think the free hosting is being paid?

• When it comes to online business, freebies don’t work.

Always remember “there’s no such thing as a free lunch”, everything costs money. When you want to be taken seriously on the internet, you should be willing to pay.

Free hosting services are good if you want to have a blog about your pet dog, hobby or just somewhere to publish your rants, (Facebook, MySpace, Blogger and WordPress.com are your best bets), but consider this, would ANY multi-million dollar enterprise consider free hosting?

Free or Paid Email Service Providers?

If you intend to create an email list (affiliate/email marketing for example) then you will need an email service provider. Unfortunately, they are not cheap. So, should you go for a free email service provider?

• Consider this. How is the service being paid for? As I said earlier, everything costs money, there’s no such thing as a free lunch.

Usually, the service is paid for with advertising. This mean, if you use one of the free services, you customers email addresses will be shared with other companies, some of whom may not be as reputable as you. Also, in the header or footer (or both) of your emails, to your customers, there will be advertisements from other companies, some of whom may actually be your competitors.

• How do you feel about free email service providers now?

For me the most important thing is this. My customers trusted me with their email address and other personal details. They would not expect me to give such information away without their express permission. To do so would be gross betrayal of trust. Don’t do it!

Trust Issues

Talking about trust, how reliable is your preferred small business web hosting company? Can you trust them with your database (customer data/email details etc.). Do they provide automatic backups for you? How reliable is their service, what’s their uptime/downtime record, anything less than 99% uptime simply is not good enough. Have a look at the companies in my recommended domain name registrars list, all have uptimes well over the 99% mark.

Of course, you can go cheap! Cheap hosting is available for less than $1 per month (no I’m not going to tell you from whom, you’ll only blame me when things go wrong).

Freebies sound great. However, most cheap web hosting companies are just that – cheap. They will host your website on a shared server with a hundred other users to cut costs. The load on the server will be such that your website will crawl along, giving visitors a poor (at best) opinion of your service.

With slow page load times, your visitors immediate reaction is to click away. Every time a user “bounces” off your site due to speed problems you are loosing dollars and sending your visitors straight to your competitors.

Avoid Getting Duped with Small Business Web Hosting Conclusion

• Remember, nobody can sell you anything you don’t need if you don’t let them. Information breaks the chains of ignorance.

As stated above, you can research your domain name choices and hosting companies at any of my recommended domain name registers. Most of these registrars provide domain name registration, domain name hosting, free domain name search facilities and some even provide your domain name for free when you register for a domain name hosting package.

If you need a web-page design software solution then see my article, website design software solutions for my recommendations. Some of the design solutions presented are free, others, for a price. There should be an application to solve every problem you’re likely to encounter.

Should you require more information on email marketing services (autoresponders), then you will find my article, top recommended email marketing service companies valuable. If you’re an affiliate creating an email list (the monies in the list) these are the services you need most.

If you’re trying to get an online business started and need a fast-track solution, I would recommend you take a look at Chris Farrell Membership.

Well, I hope you found something useful and enjoyed this article, Avoid Getting Duped with Small Business Web Hosting.