Water Sports

Water Sports  » Is Your Web Host A Paddle Boat Or A Cruise Ship?

Is Your Web Host A Paddle Boat Or A Cruise Ship?

A paddle boat is great for fun on a day off! But would you

consider taking it to the open sea? A cruise ship on the

other hand is ideally suited for pampering its guests with

every facility imaginable for the vacation of your dreams!

Applying this analogy to web hosting can help you make a

wise decision if you are currently

1) new to internet business and looking for that first web

host, or

2) up and running but thinking the time has come to upgrade

to a higher level.

Web hosts fall generally into 3 categories. They are:

1) Free Services

2) Budget Hosts (under $20-25 per month)

3) Full Service ($25+ per month)

Let's take a look at each category.

1. Free Services

If you want to run a home page for personal interest for

family and friends, great! If you want to ease into the

internet cautiously, great. Tripod.com offer a good free

service with reasonable support. Or check out:

http://zap.to/1freewebpage/ for a good listing of what's

available.

In short, if you merely want to paddle around, have a little

fun, gain some experience, these services are fine. For

serious business however you really need your own domain

name, not someone else's. Tripod takes the edge off by

allowing your name to come first in the URL,

e.g. http://yourname.tripod.com

Having said that, you can't get away from the fact that your

credibility as a business takes a hit when clients see this

kind of domain name.

2. Budget Hosts

You get what you pay for, generally. Many may knock the

value of budget hosts. If you are running a serious

business, then probably this kind of package would not give

enough stability or features.

Consider the following first-hand nightmare experience: "One

popular low-cost host left my entire site dead for over a

week while I scrambled frantically to save my business.

Heck, I couldn't even reach anyone or get them to return my

plea for help. When the dust settled, they had lost the

backups of my entire site and I was left to fend for

myself." - Ken (Internet Marketing Challenge)

On the other hand, you may find my experience helpful in

your decision making. I am running a resource site at

present containing information pages and some doorway pages.

I don't sell from my site. I don't need a secure ordering

page. For my purpose in running this particular domain, a

budget host is fine. However, I ran a check on it some

months back using the free service at

http://hostwatcher.com.

I was shocked to see how many times the server was down, or

there was a very long load time for my pages. I wrote and

complained. The reply came back that ownership of the host

had changed and a better service was promised. Recently I

checked again and found the company now has a 99% up time -

a vast improvement. I was on the verge of changing my host

but I now find the service is very good for what I need.

Read a more in depth report on this here on my website:

http://www.vitalstop.com/cheapwebhosting.htm

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3. Full Service

If your business is taking off and you need 24 hour full

support with all the "bells and whistles" then this is the

way to go. If your internet business is your main stay then

you need a "cruise ship" company who are going to give you

professional top of the line facilities and service.

The choice out there is vast! How can you decide? Research

carefully! You can use this excellent resource at

http://www.hostcompare.com/ which allows to search for any criteria you set.

See if there are good shopping cart facilities so you can

easily set up your online store. Managing your post office

and autoresponders should also be easy through a friendly

interface with good web hosts.

Look for 24 hour technical support and immediate

response to customer needs. Some even have a troubleshooting

crackforce which can give a response usually within an hour

or two.

This is the kind of service you can expect from a top line

professional web host. If your site is really beginning to

make money, can you afford any less?

Choosing a web host or changing a web host is one of those

decisions which will have a massive impact on your business.

Use the 3 category test above and decide where you are

going! Then decide whether to jump into a paddle boat or

book yourself a ticket on a cruise ship for a happy

troublefree experience.

About the Author

Mike Jones

mikejones@vitalstop.com