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When I was getting started years ago I made the mistake of allowing my web designers host the Websites they created for me. This seemed logical to me because when I was first starting out I was terrified of creating the Website, and I didn’t want to think about the complexities involved in hosting it either. So I hired someone else to do it.
This mistake cost me. The first company I went with didn’t create the Website I wanted but at least did a good job of keeping the site live. The second time around I allowed the Web designer to host the site again, and that was a huge mistake. I can’t even count how many times our membership Website was down. For some reason is seemed to happen on the weekends, so it was often hours before I was aware of the problem and had a difficult time reaching anyone to help.
The downtime damaged our relationship with our clients and also made it impossible for new members to enroll during that time. When I addressed the issue with our Web designer, he always worked to correct it right away but didn’t seem to understand the depth of the damage this problem was creating. Eventually I had to move on to a new Website designer and a new hosting service.
In retrospect, my failure to select a good hosting company in my first years of business is one of the most expensive mistakes that I made. By selecting a high quality hosting company from the start you can look professional, keep clients happy, save money by not wasting time moving around later, being down can be very expensive. Here are the qualifications that I currently use for selecting a hosting company now and who I am currently working with:
• Secure
• Fast (availability of T3 or more
• Lots of space for growth
• Daily backups
• CGI (common gateway interface) access, which is a common way for Web servers to interact with users
• No contracts required
• Shopping cart access
• Good downtime record
• E-mail accounts
• FTP access for uploading files
• Access to server logs so you can analyze your traffic whenever you want
I currently use HostGator: www.hostgator.com and am really happy with them, but there are other hosts out there who fit these qualifications too so if you have one that you are happy with then by all means work with them. Whatever you do, do not use a free hosting service. You will not get the quality or functionality you need, and you have no control over when your service may change or end.
