Now that your website is designed and programmed, it has to have a home or a computer where the files will reside. One of the first decisions you need to make is what kind of hosting account do you want. You'll find that there are basically three plans to choose from:
1) Shared Hosting Account – This is the least expensive of the three and a good place to start if your site and budget are modest. By opening up a shared hosting account your site will be stored on a server that also hosts hundreds of other websites. With this plan you will not get server root access, but most good hosting companies will help with server related installations and maintenance. You will get a control panel that will allow you to administer your account through an easy-to-use web-based interface.
You can expect to pay less than $10 per month for a shared hosting plan.
2) Virtual Private Server (VPS) – This type of hosting plan is a step up from the shared hosting plan, but not quite as robust as a dedicated server. With a VPS plan, a hosting company will take one server and virtually slice it into numerous sections. Then each section is allocated to a VPS owner. The main advantage of a VPS is that you get to have root access without the high costs of a dedicated plan. This provides you the ability and responsibility of customizing the server software to your unique needs. However, you still are sharing the hardware with other website owners and their processing could have an impact on your site's performance.
Typical VPS accounts range from $50 to $150 per month depending on the amount of RAM (memory), disk space and bandwidth.
3) Dedicated Servers - With a dedicated server you'll have complete control over the all of the hardware and server software. You will be the only website on that machine. All of this freedom does come with a price. This plan is the most expensive of the three. Plus you or someone you pay will have to be responsible for the server administration tasks.
Low end dedicated servers start around $200 per month and will run much higher for more advanced configurations and the resources utilized.How To Find a Good Hosting Company
For anyone who has ever tried to find a hosting company, you've probably wondered which one of the thousands out there is legitimate and which ones are being run out of someone's basement. One of the best resources I have found is a site called WebHostingTalk.com (WHT). This is a free forum-based website that has a very active following. You can go to the site and search around the forums and find out what other people have to say about hosting companies. If you already have a few names of hosts, then enter them into their search field and read their reviews. Please keep in mind that even the best hosting companies out there will have a couple bad reviews. You must balance the good with the bad to get an accurate picture.
Once you've found a hosting company you want to work with, go to the Web Hosting Offers forum at WHT and see if your selected company has any specials. Often you'll find your new host will have a special and you'll wind up with a great recommendation and a discount to boot!Technical Support
Every web server on the Internet has to have a person or company that is responsible for the technical support of the server. That is who will update the server software, who will be performing the backups, and who will troubleshoot any problems that occur.
For those who have a shared hosting account, the hosting company will be responsible for the server administration. This is a big relief to the many website owners who don't have the time, money or knowledge to perform the administration themselves.
For VPS and dedicated server plans, many hosting companies will provide what is called managed hosting. In other words, they will, up to a point, act as your server administrator. There is no one definition of managed hosting, so be sure to do an apples-to-apples comparison between hosting companies.
Finally there are third-party server administrators and monitoring services that can be hired. These companies can perform all sorts of tasks like securing the server from hackers, installing new server software, troubleshooting problems, and monitoring the server every five minutes and notifying you and the hosting company if a service is not responding.
One company that I have used is Platinum Server Management located in Edgewater, NJ. For $29 per month, Platinum will act as your in-house server administrator and can work with your hosting company to ensure the smooth operation of your hosting account.Hosting Services Provided By Website Designers
Often the company who is creating your website will provide the hosting services. A website design firm may resell a portion of the space on their large VPS or dedicated account, placing your account on the same server as their other clients. Alternately the firm may open a single shared/VPS/dedicated account for your website. In either case, the firm will act as the liaison between the hosting company and the client.
If you use the hosting services provided by the designer, you can expect to pay a small premium above what you could pay for on your own.
The advantage of using the hosting account offered by your design firm is the added bonus of an established professional relationship between the design firm and the hosting company. Since the design firm is familiar with the configuration, features, and limitations of the service, the chance that they will run into unexpected problems is minimized.
Mark Beck is Vice President and Partner of The Boulevard Group, a full service internet services company specializing in web design, web development and internet marketing. The Boulevard Group serves a broad customer base and provides services that include dynamic content management systems, database-driven ecommerce catalogs and shopping carts, and traditional brochure-style web sites. Mark formerly provided content to the Duct Tape Marketing blog where he covered topics relating to web design and internet marketing. He may be contacted at Mark@theblvdgroup.com or by calling 908-876-3707.
