Once you settle on your domain name, it’s time to find a host to house your website. Shared hosting is the first tier and a great starting block for a new small business enterprise. In fact, until you get a little experience under your belt, using shared hosting as an option mitigates the losses you might experience from the hosting learning curve.
Like the name implies, shared hosting is an environment where numerous websites are hosted on a server. Instead of footing the bill for the entire pie, you are buying a single slice.
This allows you to bypass any financial barriers to entry since a good shared host typically charges $5 – $10 or so a month depending on resource usage. In an earlier post, I suggested selecting the lowest level of shared hosting with the ability to upgrade should your site grow and need more resources.
For example, I use both HawkHost.com and Sharkspace.com for shared hosting. With HawkHost, I selected the Basic Plan which requires a minimum 3 month commitment. I used a coupon code, june2010, in order to get the initial payment decreased by 40% to a total of $7.11 for 3 months of quality hosting. Subsequent months revert back to the $11.85 total. *** for the coupon code, just substitute the current month/year*** As you can see, $7.11 is a small initial investment to get your site on the web.
The downside to shared hosting depends on how your virtual neighbors conduct their affairs and how well you host monitors the environment. If a site on your shared server starts consuming huge amounts of resources, then your site will be affected. You’ll see slower load times and occasional outages. Hosts like HawkHost and Sharkspace do not oversell their servers and regulate resource intensive customers. Uptimes for both of these hosts are extremely high.
When you first start building your ecommerce store, resist the urge to upgrade to the highest tier of service. Get your feet wet with shared hosting. As your site grows and your resource usage increases, you can easily upgrade hosting packages on the fly.
Step Number Two – How to Select a Small Business Hosting Provider
First and foremost, do not have your domain hosted at the same place you have it registered. Unscrupulous hosts can hold your domain name hostage forcing you to continue hosting with their company or else risk losing the domain name you worked so hard to establish. At the very least, some hosting providers might intentionally delay and make a domain transfer next to impossible. Having your domain separate from the host gives you complete control over where your site is hosted. Very important and a mistake many newcomers, including yours truly, make when first starting out.
Once you have the domain, it is now time to select a host. There are a myriad of providers offering incredible deals and unbeatable prices. Beware of relying on Google to sift through the reviews. Many hosting review services charge a fee for placement in their top-10 lists. Basically, a host with top placement just has deeper pockets or more dollars attributed toward advertising. It says absolutely nothing about customer service and quality. Nothing.
Perhaps the best source for unbiased and realistic reviews is webhostingtalk.com. I was blind until I found this resource. This forum is populated primarily by hosting providers. However, forum rules do not allow them to hype or advertise their services. As such, you get information from arguably the best source on hosting – the hosts themselves.
Coupled with this unparalleled access to information, the site is littered with offer after ofter for hosting services in a single category that allows for host advertising. This is where I found one of the best hosts I have worked with, Sharkspace.com. In fact, Sharkspace hosts this very resource guide.
The three biggest factors when choosing a host are price, customer service, and uptime (quality of server). There are other factors such as terms of service (TOS), control panels, and money back guarantee to name a few. Generally, though, most hosting decisions come down to price which is perhaps the common mistake when choosing a host.
From personal experience, I think price is a distant third. Knowing what I know now after having set up multiple websites and ecommerce stores, I put customer service as my number one factor when choosing a host. Server quality and uptime are a very close second. It is such a relief to get server problems handled within minutes by competent professionals. In a way, it is like you are hiring your own personal staff to help you with server and hosting issues. For a few dollars more a month, you can have a top notch team at your disposal. It is not worth the frustration and hassle to save a few bucks when the host represents the foundation of your online presence.
If you are building an eCommerce site for the first time, I recommend selecting the lowest level of shared hosting. I’ll break down the difference of shared hosting, VPS hosting, and dedicated hosting in a future post. If you are just starting out, then shared hosting with a solid provider will suffice. Anything else would be overkill. One caveat would be to make sure the host allows for an upgrade on the fly in the event your site starts to outgrow the level of service. Trust me, if you have to upgrade and pay more for hosting, then you are going to be beyond happy to spend those extra dollars. It means you’ve got an up and coming internet business.
The bottom line is that you need to research a host and place more of an emphasis customer service and server uptime. This decision alone can set up a positive, strong foundation from which to anchor your eCommerce website.
*** Got a couple of emails asking more info about Sharkspace.com.
Here’s a coupon code that will drop the price of hosting in half! Tell them eCommerceBlog.org sent you!
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