How to Choose a Web Hosting Service

OK, so you have worked hard and put your blood, sweat and tears into making your website everything that you wanted it to be...all your files are ready and you are roaring to go. Well, how do you go about getting your website on the internet? A lot of people are confused about web hosting and they confuse it with domain name registration which is purchasing a domain name (i.e YourDomainName.com).

It really isn't as complicated as it appears to be. If you want your web page to be on the internet for all to see, you need to get a web hosting service, it's as simple as that. Before you settle for a web hosting service you will need to identify what functions you need the service to perform. You should know how much bandwidth you need for your website to run quickly and efficiently, how many email boxes you need/want and how much server space you need for storage. If it is still confusing to you, let's clear everything up right now.

 

Web hosting service 'bandwidth' is a weird concept for anyone who did not grow up in the digital age. If you can still remember the days of the Commodore 64 Computer, this explanation is perfect for you!

Bandwidth is basically your traffic. How many people are visiting your site and how many at a time? It's like a parking lot, it can only fit a certain number of visitors before it becomes full and backed up.

If you are tech savvy, bandwidth is the number of bits transferred between servers and your visitors. For example, an MP3 music file is about 4,000 bytes (4 MB) and a movie is typically about 900MB (9,000 bytes).

You can calculate the size of every page on your website by just adding the amount of bytes (including your pictures, music, video, multimedia). Every person that visits your site and goes to that page, will use that many bytes. Of course you can only come up with estimates and educated guesses, but you'll also want to be conservative and give yourself extra room just in case. Remember, extra traffic is always a good thing! Make room for it and and keep an eye on your bandwidth. You should have no problem increasing your bandwidth with your we hosting service company, if your site becomes more popular than anticipated. However, decreasing your bandwidth isn't always easy.

 

To set up email boxes on your web hosting service is not very difficult at all. All you have to do is calculate how many people are going to have their own email box on your domain name through your web hosting service. For instance, if your domain name is "MyDomainName.com" then seomone's email address will be something like "JohnDoe@MyDomainName.com"; and that would take ONE email box.

Give yourself a general email box and also allow some extra space in there, so that you have room to grow.

 

Server storage space is not that difficult to understand either. By listing all the items on your site including the pictures, video, etc. you can calculate how much space your website will need on your web hosting service providers' servers. You can add up all the bytes and MB of space and add a little bit more to find out the minimum amount of space you will need. Seriously, don't just buy the exact number that you calculated, that would be a big mistake. As you change your website, improve it, add pictures and video to it, etc. you will need more space so you should plan ahead. You will regret it in the future if you don't give yourself extra space now.

 

Now you should be ready to decide on the right website hosting services for you or your business and get the right hosting plan in order.