MaineBusiness.com

Choosing a Web Host

Google "Web Host" and you'll pull up about 57 million results. If you're looking for an appropriate Web host, that's a lot of sifting ahead of you.

One of the decisions every Web site owner needs to make is where to host their Web site. In the same way you (probably) have to rent out office or retail space, your Web site needs space on a server so that your prospects and customers can access it.

In my experience, there are no great hosting companies. The few that I have known have decided to grow and put customer acquisition above customer support. In fact, ironically, my own hosting company, who I often recommend, is currently down right now. I have no access to my email or my Web site.

I'm feeling very professional right now, thank you very much.

When you are deciding where to host there are several items you may want to consider:

What are my hosting needs?

• Will your site offer e-commerce? If so, you may want to choose a host that focuses on e-commerce hosting, and perhaps even provides a free/included license to a shopping cart software like Miva Merchant. You may also require secure server space and the ability to install a security certificate.
• Will I include a lot of multi-media? With broadband becoming more common, more site owners are looking to add audio and video to enhance the visitor's experience at their site (often to the detriment of their visitor's experience, but that's another story.) If you plan on audio or video, or hosting podcast content at your site, make sure you have plenty of hosting space at your server.
• What programming does the host support? If your programmer/Web developer is programming the site using PHP or ASP or needs to access a MySQL database, can your host support that? Plenty of times we've needed to find new hosting for our clients because their current host didn't have the infrastructure to host specific types of programming. This is often a time to ask your programmer or Web development team to make a recommendation.
• Is there hosting that specializes in a specific need I may have? If you plan on building a Web site using a Content Management System (CMS) like Joomla or Mambo, or if you want to use your hosting to support a WordPress blog, there are many hosting companies that focus on these products. They often have "one-click" installation saving you hours of installation time and handfuls of hair. Check the discussion forums for these products to see if they recommend some specific hosts.

One thing that I always require out of a hosting company is 24/7 toll-free tech support. Sure, I like to figure things out and get my hands dirty...however, if a client needs their site live to take advantage of the Christmas/Chanukah/Kwanzaa rush, I want to know there's a knowledgeable person that can be reached by phone who can get a site up and running.

One thing that's not on my list is price. Not that price isn't important, but value trumps price every time. One bad customer service experience or one overlong call in voice mail hell can blow any savings you may have thought you were going to get from a cut-rate hosting company. Choosing a hosting company based solely on price is the most costly mistake you can make.

There are several Web host ranking Web sites out there, but buyer beware: it's easy to put up a bogus Web host ranking site and make your own company come up first. Double-check any results you find with other ranking sites and also do some Googling on these companies as well as checking out different discussion forums to see what people are saying about the hosting companies.

E-mail this entry to a friend