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How To Choose A Reliable Web Host For Your Website
A client of mine paid for a solo advert to promote his
website in the newsletter I publish at e-bizministry about
two months ago. As Iwas about to send his advert to my list,
he called me up on phone and told me not to send it yet.
Naturally, I asked him why. His reply shocked me outof my
wits.
He said he had just discovered that his website had disappeared
from the net. He even said the same thing had happened to
the same website earlier in the year when it disappeared
in January only to reappear for just one week in May. I
could not help but laugh because I knew his problem. He
had made a wrong choice of web host.
Your choice of web host can either promote your business
or ruin your business. You have to be very careful when
choosing your web host or you will be consistently losing
up to 80% of your income due to your web host's inefficiency.
Here are a few quick tips on how to know which web host
is reliable, affordable and right for your website.
1. Check if the web host has a web presence. Face it, if
a company claims to be a web host and they don't have a
functional website of their own, then they have no business
hosting other people's websites. Any web host you will use
must have a functional website where you can check for domain
availability, get support and order for their hosting services.
Additionally, you should conduct random checks ontheir
website. If you visit their site randomly ten times and
the site is not available more than once in those ten times,
forget about that company except you want your own website
too to be unavailable almost all the time.
2. Any web host you will use must have an appreciable level
of relevant experience. A minimum of a full year of operation.
A new web host will only experiment with your website and
the result may not be good for your business. Visit the
web host's website and read about them. If they don't talk
about their experience, then they don't have it. Just leave
them alone.
3. Look out for their present clients' testimonials on
their website. Call or email the clients and ask them questions.
If they confirm that the web host is good, then the company
has passed this test. However, if you don't even find a
single testimonial on their website, they probably don't
have any satisfied client. What to do? Just leave them alone.
4. How fast or how well does the company respond to support
emails? You can find out by conducting this small test.
Visit the web host's website and submit or email an enquiry
to them. If you don't get a response in 24 - 48 hours, please
run away as fast as your legs can carry you. Why? When you
host your website with them and you have a problem, it will
take them more than a month to respond to your support emails
or requests.
5. You should not forget to check out their prices. The
prices must be within reasonable limits and their packages
must have the features you desire; adequate monthly transfer,
email addresses, MySQL databases, CGI bin, FTP access, control
panel etc. Very high prices don't necessarily translate
into very good services. Don't be fooled by high prices.
It's a common trick, please don't fall for it.
6. It must be easy and secure to make payments to your
web host. It is not advisable to fill in your credit card
details when making your payment. You should rather use
a web host that accepts other forms of payment that do not
require you to fill in your credit card details e.g. paypal
and egold. If you are in a country where you don't have
easy access to credit card facilities, it is even better
to use a web host that accepts payment in your local currency.
This will ensure that you won't have any problems when you
want to renew your domainand your hosting accounts.
7. Use only web hosts that give 24 hour online access to
your account. With that, you have total control over your
domain and your website and you can change anything including
your name servers (DNS)whenever you want.
8. It is better to use a web host that offers additional
web services such as web design, website promotion, search
engine submission and website management. They can be of
help to you in future if you have any problems with your
website or you need any additional services.
9. Before you make your payment, read the terms and conditions
of the company carefully. If you don't understand or agree
with any of their terms contact them for more explanations.
10. Finally, I know it may be very time consuming for you
to conduct these tests on the hundreds of web hosts out
there before choosing one. I have therefore taken the pains
to analyse hundreds of them. I recommend two web hosts that
have passed our simple tests. I can put my reputation on
the line and guarantee their efficiency, reliability and
affordability.
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