Category: Business

Choosing the Right Web Hosting

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You need to get a website online and there are literally hundreds and thousands of web hosting providers out there. Independent hosting companies, hosting resellers, domain registrar are all able to provide your assistance to get your website online. Furthermore, there are technical jargon to overcome, gigabyte, SSD, disk space, metered and unmetered bandwidth, subdomains, linux, cpanel, etc. It can all begin to get a bit too much and you can become overwhelmed with the idea and place it in the too hard basket. Let’s help break it down to something not only a robot understands.

Hosting Cost

It is generally one of the first things you’ll be exploring, the price of web hosting. Like anything in the economy, web hosting can vary in pricing from free web hosting to hundreds of dollars per month to keep you website online. Although price is one of the factors that affect our decision making, it should not be the only factor to base your decision on. Picture this for example, you want to move your car from Perth to Sydney, so the next step is to compare car transport quotations, you jump online and get 7 different prices from professional car carrying companies, 6 of them are similar in pricing whilst the final quotation comes in significant lower. Do you go with Transport Company that provided the lowest quote?  Maybe you will or maybe you won’t, but before you make your decision you will question why the costs are lower? You’ll look at other factors before making your decision; perhaps there is better support, higher customer satisfaction, quality of service, etc.

Getting a Domain Name

Starting a website is always and exciting time, whether for a personal blog or a new business venture, a domain name is essential and will become part of your brand or identity. If you are not great with technology, a novice user or a Luddite, there are plenty of websites that are able to offer hosting together with domain registration with simple to use website builders, Go Daddy, Netregisty, Crazy Domains all offer this at no extra cost. For the more technological advanced, separating domain registration and web hosting can provide more flexibility, be more cost effective and give a higher level of customization.

Technical Specifications

Specifications vary between hosting providers no matter if they are independent, resellers or companies that combine domain registration. Disk space, email accounts, RAM and bandwidth all determine the quality of web hosting provided. Determine what is important to you, how much data you website will require and whether you have room to grow. It is also important to understand which operating system is installed on hosting servers, Linux or Windows. Most providers offer Linux servers as this is more cost effective as hosting companies do not have to pay expensive Microsoft licenses.

Web Hosting cPanel

Upon having an active hosting service you will have access to the hosting control panel such as cPanel. It is a user interface to allow you to control the settings of your hosting service. Upload website files, perform backups, create databases or install content management software such as WordPress.   The control panel allows you to take control of hosting your domain, so it makes sense to be comfortable with it and test the cPanel before committing to a hosting plan. Much like a car, you wouldn’t purchase a car without first test driving it, so find a reputable hosting company that offers free demos of their cPanel.

Server Location

Hosting providers may have multiple servers in multiple locations interstate or around the world. It is important to note that the speed in which your website loads is determined by the location of the server. If your business is based in Australia, ideally you should be looking for hosting services in Australia. You may find cheaper hosting services with servers located in the USA, Germany, India or somewhere aboard but please understand that the further your hosting is from your visitors, the longer your website will take to load at their end, which ultimately affects your brand.

So, when it comes to choosing the right web hosting, there are a variety of factors to take into consideration. Free web hosting may be a place to start a new idea or venture you are unsure of but as you grow your website and brand, it is never more important to understand how a great hosting company can provide the foundations to becoming successful.

Top 5 Free Web Hosting For Startups

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Ever had an idea for a website, an online business or blog that you wanted to get online but didn’t want to commit to a long term hosting plan? At Free Web Hosts we understand what it’s like and so do many hosting providers out there. Car dealers allow you to try before you buy, so does your local ice cream store so why are people so against hosting companies?  There are abundant hosting companies that are willing to provide free web hosting, simply because they believe in their product and services. You see, web hosting providers believe that if customers are happy with what they are getting, they won’t mind paying for it down the track. It also provides opportunities to upsell more expensive web hosting solutions to those who may need it. So let’s see what are our Top 5 Free Web Hosting providers.

1.Infinityfree

Our top pick is infinityfree when it comes to free web hosting. With a well designed website it gives a great first impression and has been operating for more than 6 years. It offers unlimited disk space and bandwidth, ability to host multiple domains, up to 10 email accounts along with access to FTP to upload data. There are no hidden fees and boasts a 99.9% uptime but does not come with the support if your site goes down. Control panel provides access to over 400 applications with the Softaculous Script Installer and when the time comes to upgrade, Infinityfree offers a low $5.90 per month hosting plan for unlimited that can significantly improve load time. Find out more at infinityfree.net.

2.Googiehost

This 8 year old hosting provider offers 1GB disk space with an allowance of 100GB monthly traffic. Not to be confused with Googlehost, the hosting company claims to have more than 165,000 hosted websites. It is the only provider in the top 5 to offer cPanel as the control panel and Cloudfare. However, it does come with flaws with messages identifying the connection is not private and not secure from the web browser. Find out more at googiehost.com.

3.Byethost

Based in the US where products and services include hosting, domain name and reseller. It claims to have over 1 million websites hosted and offers 1GB of disk space with 50GB bandwidth per month. It provides access to technical support as well as comprehensive knowledge base, up to 5 MySQL databases, 5 email accounts and FTP access. Find out more at byet.host/free-hosting.

4.000Webhost

Has been established for over 10 years and has millions of users, offers 1GB disk space and an impressive 10GB monthly bandwidth. It lacks some of the essentials such as an email account and a proper control panel. Building a website is performed through Zyro website builder, WordPress or manually uploading data. You are more or less on your own if your site goes down and will need to rely on forums for assistance. Find out more at 000webhost.com.

5.FreeHostingNoAds

This provider is as the name suggests, free web hosting with no ads. As with any free hosting service, FreeHostingNoAds offers a fraction of what you normally get from paid hosting plans with 1GB disk space and no more than a single MySQL database. The control panel is limited to Joomla, Grav or WordPress for one-click installs and file size limits are only 15MB.  Find out more at freehostingnoads.net.