Affordable Web Hosting for Small Business
Anyone that wants to store their website or have a facility to offer products and services on the Internet will require a web hosting company to do this. This allows individuals and organizations to have their own website available on the internet which may be supplied as part of another package, free or through a fully paid service. Anything relating to a website (files, media etc.) can be uploaded onto one of these servers or data centers so people can access them form their computer.
People first starting out with free hosting should consider if having a free package is what they need because although these supply almost everything needed to create and host a site, they are not a match for a service that is paid. For more storage space, better email facilities, sub domains and more you really need top look at paid web hosting plans; this is particularly pertinent for business customers. Hosting packages vary enormously and must be chosen according to the needs of the user and not based on price because certain requirements may not be available in the lower price range.
In the early days you may be quite happy to have your files on a server which is shared by many others while you try their hosting services. When the need for more space and security is required then a dedicated server at extra cost can be used. With web hosting you get your own web space, but you do need to have a registered domain before you can use it, then you are allocated with enough storage to keep all your files for online publication. The term ‘file’ is a generic name for anything that is uploaded (the opposite of downloaded) to your website with the space allocated normally not less than one half of a full gigabyte but these figures are always increasing.
The good thing about having your own web hosting package and domain means that all your email addresses will contain your domain name in them and not that for the free service provider you may have been using previously. People who are serious about their internet presence will want to have their own identity and to prove the point; you will never see a company using someone else’s domain in their email address. Another problem to consider is called bandwidth which is essentially how much digital data is being transferred using your domain name and will affect the cost of the hosting package, this needs to be considered carefully.
If your company can’t offer you better bandwidth, then it will be very hard for your users to view your web page. Sites that contain mp3 audio tracks or video files require more storage and a greater bandwidth allocation (amount of data that can be sent) if they are to be used. In almost every case it is a wise decision to use a web hosting company and not consider using your own computer as a host due to the risks, especially for those unfamiliar with internet security.
