Saturday, September 27, 2008

Web Hosting Services for Personal Websites

By Matt Hedges

It can be hard to design a website and it requires a lot of work and creativity to do a good job. Of course, your job is not complete after designing it; you then have to publish it online. There is confusion about the best way to have your site hosted and whether people should pay for the service. A person may not pay much for the hosting but it still incurs a cost.

Web hosting basically makes your site available for the general public to see, and the public can check out your site and communicate with you if they intend to purchase something. There are many ways of conducting web hosting. So it is very important that you be aware of what features you require for your site, and select a service accordingly in order to save you unnecessary costs. If the designed website is a personal one, then you must take a decision about which type of web hosting service do you need. Many web hosting services are available on the internet. You can find them by searching for them online, and you can also check out the various features and plans offered by them.

Each web host firm is different and there are a variety of plans to choose from, some more right for a user than others. There are important issues to consider and these are the ones that should impact on your decision.

Firstly, check what amount of web space they are offering you. You can check this by calculating the size of files that you can store on their server. You can host additional sub-domains if you have more web space. If you have more space, then it will be easier for you to install more programs later on, if you want to. Secondly, see the amount of permissible traffic limit to your site. Web hosting companies normally keep a track on how much traffic is being generated by the site that they host, but it would be very beneficial for you if there is no restriction imposed on traffic to your site. If there is a limit to the traffic, a person might not be able to visit your site after that limit has been exhausted. This would surely lead to quite a bad impression of your site in the mind of the visitor, and he might never visit your site again.

One solution could be to sign with a free web host provider as this will cost you any money and there are many firms to choose between. There are many great offers available and you could earn between 10-20 MBs of space, you could receive POP3 accounts for email purposes or you could be given FTP access. Many users will think who needs a paid for service with so many benefits of a free service and it would cost a lot to get similar services from a paid for host.

The most important bit in this regard is the need for the services that paid hosts offer. Most of the time, you might not need the extra services. You might simply need a web server that could display java scripts and HTML data to the visitors. Unless you want to have an e-Commerce website, you will hardly need SQL databases or services as such.

If you look closely into the picture, you will be able to take a much better and an informed decision. You can go for a paid or a free service provider depending on what purpose you need the website for. Also bear in mind that you might just be considering the image that the web host has in the market. In case of free service providers, you won't be charged money, be sure about it, but they would place ad banners, pop-up windows, hot links or other such objects on the site which you might not appreciate. This will result in the look of the site being hampered and will irritate the visitors as well. The domain name of your site will also be long in that case, so the scope of traffic increasing to your site would be very low. People might not visit your site again if they forget he site's URL, and it's certainly not worth expecting every visitor to bookmark your site for future reference. To add to it, your site won't be reflected so easily in results from search engines, so on the popularity chart, your site would be unlikely to cross a certain level.

Having a personal website can play a major role in the image you project to future employers or business associates. Offering a business card which states your email address is name@freeserver.com, is not going to make you look professional. Similarly, having a portfolio hosted at an address of something.freehost.com, would create an uncomfortable time for you. Ensure your website and email address backs up the professionalism you offer in other aspects of life.

When every advantage counts having a reliable and welcoming personal website is important for today's modern professional. Success breeds success so it is important to seem successful and having a website like www.yourname.com or having an email that reads products@yourname.com would be extremely professional. Placing some money into these issues and obtaining the services of a paid service for web hosting is going to be of great benefit. Free services are okay for some but not for everyone and if you need to succeed and show professionalism then you should avoid them. Having a paid for service is likely to reduce the chances of your site breaking down so visitors can have more confidence in your site.

If image is not important then a free host can do the job. If the site is for friends and family to enjoy there is no need to waste money on this service. A free service can also be good as it would force you to learn about web hosting and you would gain good knowledge from it. This is a reason why free hosts are increasing in popularity with some users.

So there you go! The most important factor to consider while going for a free or a paid service provider would be your purpose of building the website. If it is for business purpose, then a paid one would be the best option, else if the site is just designed for casual purposes, then opt for a free web hosting service provider.

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