It is important to know few basic but important things when choosing a web hosting service provider for you business. You should be aware of the requirements of your website/s such as the language used for scripting for example MySQL, PHP, Perl, ASP, ASP.Net etc., you also need to adjust things according to the budget. Once, these things are clear, you can hunt for a suitable web hosting service provider. If you are targeting customers in a particular Geographical location, it is suggested to have your website hosted on servers that are placed in or near those areas.

There are two platforms namely Windows and Linux to choose for hosting your website/s Windows and Linux. If your website is designed using PHP and MySQL, Linux Web Hosting is the most recommended web hosting solution. But, incase you are planning to develop your website in ASP.Net, then you do not have any option other that going for Windows Web Hosting as ASP is supported by Windows only.

Both Linux Web Hosting and Windows Web Hosting have their individual benefits. Web Hosting providers offer various web hosting plans such as managed and unmanaged Dedicated server hosting, Semi-dedicated Web Hosting, Virtual Private Server (VPS) Hosting, Reseller Hosting and Shared Web Hosting for Linux and Windows platforms. Some web hosting providers also offer customization of Dedicated Web Hosting solutions.

Below are some benefits of Windows Web Hosting and Linux Web Hosting.

Benefits of Windows Web Hosting

A) On Windows server you can host websites the use Microsoft’s .Net technologies such as ASP.Net and VB.Net.

B) If you need a database, it is mandatory for you to choose a Windows Server Hosting plan for having a MSSQL database.

C) Access databases are available only with Windows Web Hosting solutions as Access is a Microsoft product and can be run on Windows Servers only.

D) Microsoft’s Sharepoint service too needs to be run on a Windows Server, hence Windows Web Hosting would be the perfect plan for you.

E) Windows Web Hosting solutions are particularly more costly than Linux Hosting as a licensing cost of Microsoft needs to be paid.

Benefits of Linux Web Hosting

A) Linux is an open source software and is registered under the GNU General Public License, hence you are not required to pay a licensing fees for the operating system. It can be downloaded for free from the internet.

B) Linux web hosting is considered as an affordable web hosting solution. The cost of distribution is borne by the web hosting service provider or the owner of the web site.

C) If you have used PHP, MySQL, PostgreSQL or Perl for developing your website, Linux Web Hosting solution would be the most appropriate for you.

D) Linux Web Hosting is comparatively more secure than Windows Web Hosting, hence it is a preferred platform of designers and programmers.

For small business websites, Linux hosting can be more appropriate and affordable hosting solution.

Bookmark To:

Many are usually reluctant to create their own websites due to the botheration of the expensive web hosting solutions, unaware of the fact that, with the ever increasing competition in the web hosting business, there has been a substantial decrease in the costs of the web hosting packages. It has become fairly affordable for small or mid-sized businesses to create their own websites and host it with web hosting providers that offer cheap and affordable web hosting solutions.But, the selection of such a web hosting provider should be made carefully, as many make use of such words to attract customers. There are few criteria’s that one must keep in mind while choosing an affordable web hosting service provider.

Every business is established with an aim of expansion, so it is suggested that you sign-up with a web hosting provider that offers flexibility of upgrading or downgrading the web hosting packages. This feature would be useful when your website/s become popular and start getting high traffic. Never get trapped in the typical marketing strategy of “Unlimited”, note that nothing is unlimited, everything comes with a cost to pay. You can find really cheap web hosting plans with reputed web hosting providers who have been in this business for quite sometime.

Uptime guarantee is one of the most important feature that should not be compromised on. A maximum uptime would mean that the website is rarely down. The more the uptime the better are the chances that the visitor would access your website. And more the visitors to your website/s, the better are the chances of conversion. Hence, one should hunt for a web hosting provider that offers atleast 99% uptime guarantee. There are many monitoring tools that can help you determine the uptime of the servers. It can prove to be useful for choosing a web hosting provider. But, now-a-days technologies are fairly reliable, hence it won’t be difficult to find a hosting provider who can satisfy the criteria of uptime.

Apart from the above mentioned criteria’s, a professional yet friendly customer support is one of the important features that plays a vital role in the selection of a web hosting provider. Usually, it is useful if the support team can be contacted whenever there is a problem with your website or server. You must look for a host that operates 24×7x365 and offers  prompt support via Live Chat, E-mails/tickets and phone.

If you haven’t built your website and planning to build one, you can search for web hosts that offer free website building tools alongwith the web hosting package. Choosing a web hosting provider, who are pre-equipped with offerings for any of your web hosting needs.

You can find number of web hosting plans that are most appropriate for small or mid sized businesses and ofcourse are cheap and affordable. Before designing a website, it is important to decide the true motive of it, with this it means, whether the site would be offering information, or would it be an online sales website (eCommerce)? Make a list of all the requirements and get in touch with your short listed companies. Check for the one’s that best suits your requirements.

Inorder, to figure out a reliability of a web hosting provider, you can do some research in the forums or even visit their customer testimonials.

Bookmark To:

Web Hosting is a basic and probably the most important aspect of any online business. Web servers are an essential component when one needs to get a website live on the Internet. Any E-commerce website needs to be taken care by multiple infrastructure factors, which includes buying and hosting servers, managing them, seamless network connectivity and constantly monitoring the performance of the servers.

Managing the servers can be tedious and ofcourse an expensive task. It may divert away the focus from the core business issues. Here, managed web hosting services can be the best alternative. In the web hosting business, one can find cheap web hosting plans that would best suite once requirements. There is a big misconception that a managed web hosting service comes with a huge price to pay for. Many web hosts are reputed for offering reliable, scalable, high performance, and cost effective in house web hosting solutions.

Managed web hosting service is little different than other hosting solutions such as Standard Dedicated server hosting, Shared web hosting, Reseller Web Hosting and VPS Hosting. Customers have the privilege to choose between Standard and Managed Web Hosting. Though now-a-days hosting providers offer managed services such as managed messaging, managed security, managed server updates etc.

In addition to this, depending on the web hosting provider, these services maybe categorized as cheap web hosting solutions.

Shared web hosting is another type of web hosting, which can be offered under managed hosting category. In this type, multiple accounts are created on a single physical server. Shared hosting is best suited for running open source applications.

There are multiple issues such as security issues, server downtime, network downtime, hardware failure etc. that needs to be addressed on a priority basis. Here, the Managed web hosting can prove to be helpful. Managed web hosting is bit complex, but inspite of that it is flexible and includes system monitoring, network and security management, data back-up services, application management, infrastructure provisioning, database administration and disaster recovery. All there services are now a days included with a web hosting plan at reasonably cheaper rates.

Other good thing about hosting a web site on a leased server is that, one does not need to own any hardware and space. Most of the managed hosting providers offer 24×7 infrastructure monitoring.

Bookmark To: