Choosing a Host for Your Web Site

It's easy to get overwhelmed when you buy your first web hosting plan.  The costs can range from around $5 a month to several hundred dollars per month.

Here's the thing to keep in mind.  You can always upgrade to a bigger account as your business grows.  In the beginning, you don't need a tremendous amount of storage space or bandwidth.  (If you don't know what those terms mean yet, don't worry.  You don't need to.) 

In the beginning, 50 gb of storage is plenty.  A monthly bandwidth of 500 gb of transfer is sufficient.

Make sure your hosting plan includes at least a few MySQL databases, so that you can later add forms or options for interactivity with your web site visitors. 

Although you won't need them initially, try to be sure that there are some free "scripts" that can be added to your account.  Preferably those should be able to be added with just on click.

Here's an inexpensive hosting option that is perfect for business start-ups.  Just click here and the link will open in a new window.  They offer everything you need at a very reasonable price.  If you can save money by paying for a year in advance, go for it!

Here's another popular hosting option to compare:  Click here and ThirdSphere will open in a new window.  One of my stores is hosted here, so I have one of their more expensive plans.  I have been satisfied.

Here is a link to my favorite web host.  It is a green, carbon neutral hosting company.  It's another one that I use for some of my sites, and I have never had any problems.  I recommend this one:  DreamHost.  Click here for DreamHost's site(in a new window).

You really can't go wrong with any of these.  I happen to prefer DreamHost partly for ease of use reasons and partly for environmental reasons.

I also use one of the famous ones--you know who I'm talking about--but I am slowly migrating my sites to those hosts that I've recommended on this page.  That "nameless," famous host is amazingly difficult to work with and offers poor support.  I went there when I first started, because I didn't know any better!  But you have no such excuse...