Considering that it’s virtually impossible to make money online without your own website, it’s important to give your choice web host a lot of thought.
Although you can certainly build up a lot of secondary sites using third party websites like Squidoo or Hubpages, at the end of the day you need to own your content. It just makes sense to have your own website. And you can’t have your own website until you choose a web hosting service…
The web hosting program you choose will hook your domain up with storage on the web host’s server. This storage will hold your pages and all the information relating to your website. Many people buy their website domain names and their hosting together – but it doesn’t have to be that way and in fact I’d always advise you to pick your hosting account and domain name provider from different companies.
Finding a good web host will make your online business a lot easier. Here are three keys to look for in a good web host:
1.Customer Support
Unless you are a technical whiz kid (and you don’t have to be in order to earn money with Internet marketing), you’re probably going to find yourself spending some time talking with your web host’s customer support people. Whether you need someone to hold your hand through the set up process or you need to reach someone right away if your site goes down, finding a company with good customer support is important.
Your web host should offer 24/7 support on the phone or through live IM/Chat support – avoid any that don’t offer this.
2.Capacity
Your capacity needs are an important factor in choosing a host. If you have multiple sites receiving a lot of traffic, your space and traffic needs will be a lot bigger than someone who just has one popular blog. You should take the traffic and disk space limits of any host into account. Read the fine print on what your hosting company does if the bandwidth limits are reached so you can be prepared if you get an influx of traffic. You should also pay attention to how many separate domains you can have on your hosting. Some hosting plans are only for one website, which makes them useless to most Internet marketers.
A web host that offers room for growth and allows you to easily upgrade your hosting plan is ideal.
3.Company Reputation
When you do nice things for people, they spread the word about your services. Web hosts are the same.
You should do some research on your potential web hosting companies to see what others have to say about their service and the quality of the hosting. Be sure to filter out the obvious affiliate reviews and sites that are just set up to direct you to one web hosting plan. Searching on popular Internet marketing forums can be a great way to find out your options. Since these folks rely heavily on their web hosting to make them money, you can bet that if you see a hosting company’s name again and again, it’s a safe bet.