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Home Business Web Site Hosting
Get your Home Business web site hosting off to the right start with our FREE Step by Step Video Guide
A good way to begin the research
process is to talk to friends and other professionals who may have had
some experience with web hosting. Get their opinions and start from there.
When searching for home business web site hosting, ask people what companies
they recommend.
Another way to find out other people’s experiences is to
check out sites such as CNET and Epinions, because these sites let users
share their opinions about web hosting companies and can provide very valuable
input regarding who to choose and who to stay away from.
Once you’ve narrowed down the list the next step in the process is to
make a comparison chart. The following are some things you should look
out for when comparing
Money Back Guarantee:
This is key if you want to make certain you won’t
be locked in with a provider you’re unhappy with. Good companies usually
offer a 30-day money-back guarantee so you will trust the company, but
this usually also means they don’t have anything to worry about because
they provide stellar service.
Storage space:
This is how much space you will need to keep your site
up and running. Don’t pay too much for space you don’t need, but keep a
little extra to make way for future growth. Small sites usually do well
with 10-15 MB.
Bandwidth/data transfer:
Data transfer (bandwidth usage) is simply how
much data or information is sent and received from your hosting account
on the server over a particular time period. This is usually measured out
month to month. If you have more visitors to your website you will need
to have more bandwidth. Smaller sites work well with 1 GB per month.
Site speed:
You may not realize just how important site speed is to the
running of a successful online business. This simply means how fast your
site’s pages will load for visitors. Because online surfers are impatient,
you need a fast server, otherwise you’ll lose business.
Before signing on the dotted line, make sure to ask the provider for a
list of some of their client’ sites so you can see how they are doing.
You can actually check the speed of a site by using online tools designed
to do just that.
Customer service:
always the most important factor, especially with web
hosting, if you don’t’ have good customer service, you have nothing. Choose
a company that you can contact in more than one way, quickly and efficiently.
Test the company’s response time before making a final decision.
Uptime guarantee:
Because a website acts like a virtual store, you can’t
afford to suddenly “disappear” off the face of the planet. How will customers
shop at your store and how will you make a decent profit? If your website
is down too often, you’re going to be in big trouble. Look for a provider
with a 99% uptime guarantee.
Home business web site hosting is serious business, so it pays to use
a company of a high caliber, such as SiteSell.
