Using low cost web hosting services are really great option as you can save on your expenditure of having a store but still get good customers. But there are drawbacks too; if your budget web hosting service is really lax and is offline most of the time for maintenance then even though it is an affordable web hosting service, you aren’t really getting anything out of it!
After trawling through several low cost web hosting services, I made a list of what you should get for your money when you sign up.
- You should get an e-mail with the domain name of your website. Most budget web hosting services provide auto-responders, pop mailboxes, email aliases, surveys, and counters etc as free perks when you sign up. These services are really basic if you want to stay in touch with your customer base. With the information gleaned from surveys and emails, you can keep updating your site to make it more customer-friendly. Ask your web hosting service to provide you a professional id of the budget web site hosting service as it looks better.
- Find out what the uploading method is and how to use it. The most common method of uploading is through an online hosting manager but this does use a lot of time and is pretty slow. FTP is better and much quicker but not many budget web site hosting services provide FTP services. Don’t get me wrong if you are a beginner, a hosting manager is the best for your needs as it does ever thing for you and you don’t need to deal with the technicalities of FTP. But if you want FTP, then check to see that is being provided in your package.
- Use logs to track your progress. For a serious paying website which has a lot of customers you should be able to access your logs and see traffic you are getting at your site and when. Every low cost web hosting and budget web hosting site should let you access your logs via download whenever you want.
- Use low cost web hosting services which offer scope for growth. The amount of space you use should not be restricted. There are chances that you will want to grow your site as your customers increase. Aim for about 25GB of space as the starting limit which gradually increases as your site grows. Changing affordable web hosting services can be really difficult if they don’t provide an option of increased space. So make sure that you have the option of more space included in your agreement.
- Almost all budget web hosting services are really fast and provide prompt service. One good way of checking how well is to click start > run > put in “command” enter, and then type “ping webhostname.com” Let the instructions run and then wait for the ping commands to return to you. The lesser the number of pings the better for you and of course, the faster your site will load. If you still need a number; then about 80 is good while anything over 100 is bad.
- You need good customer service as that’s the only way to make sure that your site will remain online. Your discount web site hosting service should have 24/7 customer service, help pages, FAQ pages, toll free support and all hours email support or even chat.
No matter what type of affordable web hosting service you use, before signing up just Google them for reviews of the provider and then make a decision.
