Small Business Web Hosting How To Design A Website

Arranging Small Business Web Hosting

Web Hosting is not usually something you need to consider when using a Web Designer to develop your Website. The first years hosting aught to be included in their initial costs. Year two onwards, will be billed annually. However, there may be some situations where Small Business owners are arranging their own hosting i.e. building their own Website or their Web Designer's costs are too high.

What Website Hosting Supplier To Use

Our advice, is similar to what we recommended when registering your Domain Name; since, there are, literally, thousands of companies on the Internet offering Web Hosting and they all offer more or less the same service, in most cases, we would advise choosing a supplier based in your own country. Although, in theory, it shouldn't make any difference, issues such as time zones and cultural differences may become a factor later on in your relationship.

However, as in our case, if suppliers offer good communication channels and seem approachable, then there are no reasons why they should not be able to offer a first class service.

Are More Expensive Suppliers Better

Do not be fooled by thinking, a more expensive service is a better one. Unless, you are purchasing a Dedicated Web Server, costs amongst all the leading "players" should be more or less the same. Suppliers that are, significantly, higher, tend to be more focused on larger organisations. In which case, it is debatable, if they are geared up to offering the necessary support to smaller businesses.

Choose A Hosting Plan To Fit Your Needs

If it is your first Website, it is unlikely you will need all the "whistles and bells". Upgrading your Plan at a later stage is an automated process and, usually, means only having to pay the difference. Therefore, paying for unlimited Email Boxes, unlimited Databases etc, everything,

As an example, our Web Hosting costs are one of the lowest in the UK. Full facilities are offered for £16.99 (plus Taxes, where applicable) per year. Other suppliers are charging hundreds of pounds for the same service!

Try And Avoid Free Web Space Suppliers

For business Websites, you should avoid using free Web space offered by many Internet Service Providers (ISP) and other Internet related suppliers. Apart from looking unprofessional (caused by excessive use of advertisements etc), free Web space is not favoured by many Search engines. It can be quite difficult to get your site noticed, so why create unnecessary hurdles? In our opinion, free Web space solutions are really only suitable for individuals/homeowners who want to create their own Personal Website for recreational purposes.

What Should Be Included In A Web Hosting Plan?

Below, is a list of standard features, most leading Web Hosting suppliers should be able to offer;

There should be no set-up fees. Web Hosting is, mostly, fully automated, so why charge for creating new accounts?
Ability to upgrade individual Web Hosting components i.e. more Mail Boxes, more Bandwidth, extra FTP logins, extra Databases etc.
20 Mbyte of Web Space is sufficient for the majority of Small to medium sized Websites (SMW).
1000 Mbyte Bandwidth per month will give you 20,000 page hits per month based on a 50Kb page file size and will be suitable
for most sites. For a 20 twenty page Website, most small businesses do not use more than 200Mb per month.
5 POP Accounts should be enough for most SMW. Additional Pop accounts should only cost a matter of a few pounds per
year each.
10 Email Forwarders, typically, used for creating info@, admin@, sales@ Email addresses. You may require less but check the price if you want to add more at a later stage.
The ability to create Aliases (as above) and forward them to predefined Email addresses. For example, you may want to create an Email Alias for, info@yourcompanyname.co.uk. A particular person may already have an Email address
(joe@yourcompanyname.co.uk) who deals with information
requests. It is likely. therefore, you will require the ability to
redirect Emails addressed to info@yourcompanyname.co.uk to
joe@yourcompanyname.co.uk.
It is useful for many small businesses to, also, have the facility of forwarding Aliases to more than one Email address i.e. send a copy to both your Business and Home computers.
Good facilities for handling Spam Email. For example, our clients can create their own Spam Filters and send Spam to a pre-defined Email address. Our system also sends a confirmation Log each week of Spam Email.
Automatic Auto Responders
Catchall facilities. For example, forward any Email addressed to @your-domain-name, to jsmith@your-domain-name.com.
Facilities for adding extra FTP accounts. Useful, if you want to give someone access to, specific, areas of your Website.
Option to add Database facilities without needing to upgrade your Hosting Plan.
phpAdmin facilities for MySql databases. This interface is much more intuitive for less technically minded.
The ability to add sub-domains. For example, you may wish to create a sub-domain for your support area i.e. http://support.your-domain-name.com.
Online File Manager would be useful and saves having to buy FTP software. This allows you to upload files from your local computer to the Internet
Ability to easily password protect certain areas of your Website i.e. members only area, staff area.
Domain mapping i.e. re-route www.your-domain.com to www.your-domain-name.com.
Industry standard Servers and software such as RedHat Linux and Apache.
The ability to update your website (FTP) 24/7.
CGI-bin Perl for processing on-line Forms
Formmail for processing Forms and sending confirmation
emails.
Library of ready-made systems and Web Scripts. Being able to install, for example, an Ecommerce system by making a few mouse clicks, is much easier than having to download software from the Internet, then installing.
Log Files for you to view and analyse raw Website data.
Statistical software such as, Webalizer, to view Website statistics without the need for any technical ability.
PHP4 for processing any future database solutions or additional Website functionality. Ask cost to upgrade if not offered.
Access to MySQL database for potential future development.
Password protected Directories to stop unauthorised access to you Website data.
Control Panel administration allowing you to look after all aspects of your Website.
Facilities for easily backing up your Website and databases.
On-site UPS in case of for power-cuts.
99% uptime guarantee for Server availability
And, probably, most important, free, fast and helpful customer
support. You will need it!

How To Design A Website - Hosting Summary

If this is your first Website and you will not be building it yourself, then use the Web Hosting supplied by your Web Design company. It will be included in their standard costs, so why pay twice?

If in year two, you find their Hosting costs are too expensive, then you should be able to host your Website with a cheaper supplier. Because, it is a relatively simple procedure for your Web designer to upload your website to a new Server, it is unlikely they will charge you for doing so. However, you may wish to check this with them in advance.

If you are building your own Website, then some of the facilities mentioned above may not be necessary. However, it would be prudent to get some costing's in the event you may need them in the future. If they are not included as standard, it may mean the Hosting company is trying to keep their costs down and, therefore, additional services may come at a premium.

Check Out Our Other Web Design Services

If you are thinking of registering or hosting a new Website, then why not check out our Domain Registration and Affordable Web Site Hosting Plan services. New Domain Registrations are as low as £4.25 and come with a free, one page Website. Compare this to over £100, charged by many other traditional Web Design firms. Achieve better results in Search Engines by using our Website Marketing & Optimization services.