When starting out your first/new web site project, one of the biggest decisions you’ll have to make is where to host it. Some think they can host their own site(s) from home with a broadband Internet connection, let me warn you now that is a very bad idea unless you are an experienced server administrator with a full understanding of server security and maintenance. There are hundreds, if not thousands of malicious people out there just waiting for access to your unsecured PC once you open it up to server web pages. They’ll have their hands on every file on your hard drive, and likely hijack and abuse your server capabilities to launch attacks against other networks or to send millions of Spam emails out–and all of it will appear to have come from you directly.

There’s also the question of free hosting services. My opinion on these is that they may be fine for personal or hobby pages, but if you are launching a commercial project of any kind, or you even want your personal page to appear professional to visitors, stay away from free services. They tend to lack in basic features, don’t allow you to use your own domain name, provide low quality and slow support, and often disappear in the middle of the night leaving customers with no web sites and no access to their files.

With the very low cost of professional hosting services, many of them under $10 per month, there’s just no reason not to use a paid web host. The stability and support alone are worth the price, and if money is really that tight for you…any web site–even a personal page–can make $10 per month by displaying a little advertising such as Google’s AdSense to recover the hosting costs.

In my opinion, there’s no question about where to host a web site, use a paid service. The real question is which web host will you use? There are hundreds to pick from, and while most of them offer the same basic services you’ll find that prices can range from a couple dollars per month to hundreds of dollars per month.

What you have to do is define your needs, compare them to what the web host offers, try to judge the web host’s stability–usually you do this by seeing how long they’ve been in business and finding out what customers have to say about them–and if everything seems to mesh well and the price is reasonable to you odds are you’ll be happy with the service. And if after a short period you aren’t happy with them, the good news is every reputable host offers a money-back trial period where you can always move to another host without losing your money.

The 5 (and an optional 6th) very basics you’re going to require from a web host are:

1) Enough disk space and bandwidth (often called transfer) to meet your needs. There’s no set number on this since every web site is different in size, but a general rule of thumb I’ve found is that whatever you determine your disk space needs are (the amount of space required to store all of the files for your site, plus your email storage), you will want at least 10 times that amount in bandwidth/transfer each month. For example, if your site and email storage needs are 200 MB, then you’ll want at least 2 GB of bandwidth. If you plan to have a lot of audio or video files on your web site, you’ll have to double or even triple the bandwidth amounts, but for an average site without a lot of media files the 10-to-1 ratio has always worked for me.

WARNING: if a host is offering “unlimited” disk space or bandwidth RUN AWAY! There are some other features where “unlimited” is fine, but there’s NO SUCH THING as unlimited disk space (can you imagine a hard drive larger than the Moon?) or unlimited bandwidth. It is a physical impossibility for either of these to exist, so you know any host who advertises them is willing to lie to their customers and should be avoided at all costs.

2) FTP access. I used to think this was a “given” with paid hosting, but have found that some don’t offer it and force you to use their web based file managers to upload or access your files. Since I’ve always found these to be far slower than direct FTP is, and I value my time, I won’t even consider a web host who doesn’t offer FTP.

3) Stability and security. Judge these by finding what past or present customers say about the hosting service. If the web host has forum boards, browse them to see if customers generally praise or complain about the stability and security of the host. If there are no forums, do a quick search for reviews on the particular web host–but take these with a grain of salt as they’re often “paid for” and likely to be more favorable.

4) Technical support. It must be provided 24/7, including weekends and holidays. Murphy’s Law applies, whatever can go wrong will go wrong at the most inconvenient time possible. Make sure the host provides 24/7 support, and test it to see if there’s actually someone there for you at 4AM.

5) A control panel and both web-based and POP3 email access. cPanel is a popular and widely used control panel, it offers all kinds of extra functions for you, from instant script installations to web statistics, and is extremely simple to use. On email, it’s good to have the ability to use whatever email software you want to read and send messages, but it’s also nice to have a web-based option available too in-case you’re traveling or using multiple computers to access your mail.

6) Reseller or Multiple-Domain hosting accounts (optional). If you plan to eventually run more than 1 web site it’s a good idea to use a web host who offers Reseller (often called Multiple-Domain) accounts. These are basically bulk hosting accounts that allow you to host numerous web sites from the same account at a discounted rate. For example, lets say your host sells regular hosting for $7 per month. To host 4 separate web sites there would cost $28 per month ($7 x 4 = $28), but if they offer Reseller accounts for $19 per month you could host all 4 of your sites (and more) on just one of those, saving you lots of money the more sites you run.

One last tip I have is that most reputable web hosts I’ve dealt with usually offer a large discount on the monthly fees if you pay on a yearly basis. Since you have the trial period to determine whether the service is good or not this is a great deal to take advantage of if the host you choose offers it. Remember, the savvy entrepreneur looks for every penny of savings they can find, because a penny saved is a penny earned.

Or, as my Grandfather used to tell me, a penny saved is a 2 penny swing. Every penny you don’t spend is also a penny you still have. This may sound silly, or a lot like “fuzzy math”, but it’s actually quite brilliant. If you get the value in service of that penny but still have the penny in your pocket, then it really is a 2 penny swing in your favor.

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