Marketing Review Online

All right! You have done your research, and finalized a niche that you want to start your Internet business in.

The next challenge now is to decide on a Web Hosting plan. This can be a bit confusing when you are just starting out. You need to get a clear idea of the technicalities involved so that you can make an informed decision about the hosting plan that best meets your needs.

So let’s begin from the beginning and peek inside a typical hosting plan and see what exactly the different components mean -

• Web Hosting - To make your site available on the internet, you need to store the pages, images, and other related files on a computer that is always online and connected to the internet. Many companies provide this service and will host your site on their servers. They will typically also provide some add-on services like some free tools to build your site, additional modules to add functionality like forums on your site etc. This will cost you anywhere from $4 to $15 depending on the plan that you choose.
• Disk Space - This is the amount of space that your site will be allotted on the server. A normal html page will be around 5-10 kb. The minimum disk space that Go Daddy offers is 10 GB - which should really be enough for most sites. You can have almost 1 million pages in your site before hitting that limit. BlueHost provides unlimited disk space in their hosting plan.
• Monthly Data Transfer - This the total amount of bandwidth your site can consume. The minimum offered by Go Daddy is 300 GB. Again, this should also be enough for most sites. BlueHost is ahead here also - they offer unlimited data transfer!
• Domains - A Domain is the name of your site. Like abcd.com, or abcd.net. You would first have to register a domain, before being able to use it. You can do this also through Go Daddy.
• A typical hosting plan would allow you to host one such domain. The hosting companies would sometimes say something like “host unlimited domains”. What this means is that you can host multiple sites through your hosting account. But the hosting company will add a header on the top of your site in this case, containing their name and an ad. So, it’s recommended to go for paid hosting as then the ad will not show up and the site will look more professional. And don’t forget, you will have to register all these domains separately. Hosting does not include domain registration.
• Sub Domains - A sub domain is a sub part of your domain/site. They are typically used to ear mark sections of your site that have some different content or functionality. E.G. google.com is domain, and mail.google.com, docs.google.com are its sub domains. You may want to create separate sections in your site for a blog, forum, or a wiki. A sub domain can be used for these purposes. Do remember though, that from a search engine point of view, they treat a sub domain as a separate site when determining rankings of your main site. So, you may want to think about using a sub folder instead of a sub domain. Most hosting companies will allow you to create unlimited sub domains on your site, as it doesn’t really take up any extra resources on their part.
• Sub folder - A sub folder, as the name suggests, is a folder in your site. So if your site is www.abcd.com, then www.abcd.com/content and www.abcd.com/images are sub folders in it. They are used to manage the files in your site so that similar ones can be grouped together. It’s entirely in your hands how many sub folders you want to create in your site.
• Auto-Responder - An auto responder is a software that allows you to send automated email messages. For example, if someone sends an email to you, then you can configure an automated acknowledgment mail to go out to the sender. Auto Responders are mainly used in email marketing. And if you plan to do that, the simple Auto Responder provided in your hosting plan would not be enough. You would need a professional Auto Responder like Aweber in that case.
• Ftp Accounts - To upload the files of your web site to the hosting server, you will need to use an ftp program. This software would connect to the server and upload you files to whichever folder you choose there. To connect to the server, you need to have a login account created for that server. he hosting company will provide you with this.They may also provide multiple ftp accounts with different permissions as to what they can do when they connect to the server - be able to upload a file, delete a file, create a folder etc. Go Daddy provides 50 accounts, whereas BlueHost provides 1000 accounts. Although, you may not really need that many.
• Database - Databases need to be created if you install some softwares on your site. So, if you want to add a blog, or a forum to your site, then first you will need to create a database for it. This is a simple process, and can be done through the admin panel provided with you hosting account. Go Daddy allows you to create 10 databases, and BlueHost allows upto 100 databases.
• Add-on Applications - These are scripts that you can add to your site for additional functionalities. Like a forum script, or a script to add a wiki. Many such scripts are bundled together with your hosting plan. However, many open source versions for these scripts are available freely, so you need not worry about these when choosing your web host.

Finally, when you are deciding on your hosting plan, the main points to focus on are the disk space, bandwidth and the support for sub domains and databases. Rest, you can find separate softwares for easily enough.

BlueHost is leagues ahead of the competition in all these factors, and is one hosting company that you can consider safely for your hosting requirements.