Cheap Web Hosting For Beginners

In Part 1 of this article we considered several issues that you must decide about your website before you begin your search for the best web hosting for beginners. Some of those factors that will play into the choice you eventually make include website complexity, how much and what types of content you’ll be publishing, and how involved you yourself are going to be involved in setting it up. Because you just want to start small, a basic personal website will become our model. (The author also assumes that you’ve already registered your website’s domain name with an Internet registrar such as GoDaddy.com or one of many others.)

As we’re talking about this being a basic website, we’ve also come to understand that all the easy web hosting for beginners packages come with enough tools and resources to meet your basic requirements. All packages include an easy-to-use website design program (usually driven by automated templates), quite a few email accounts, and a file manager program to help you manage your website’s files on your server. Many hosting companies are also standardizing around offering unlimited disk storage space and unlimited network traffic as part of their basic packages. (You can always upgrade or purchase more later if needed.)

Now that your website’s preliminary requirements have been determined, it’s time to move on to consider several more important topics. How long do you plan on keeping your personal site online? Monthly plans are the standard offering, some with very attractive discounts for a year or multi-year engagements. If you’re truly serious about putting up a website, I’d suggest subscribing to at least a one-year plan. This not only gives you enough time to become established online, but you’ll also be taking advantage of any special savings.

When signing up for any hosting package, you’ll be prompted to provide a credit card number to pay for your hosting services. Your host will probably keep your credit card number on file so that they can auto-renew your web hosting account when it comes due; you’ll also be emailed renewal reminders closer to the date. I’d suggest setting up your account that way, as the last thing you’d want would be for your hosting account to be suspended – and your website disappear from the web! – for any length of time due to accidental non-payment.

The reliability of your hosting company and network should be important to you too, so you’ll want to surf some of their sites and do a little research. Here are a few things to look for when comparing the best web hosting for beginners providers:

- Each plan offered will have a list of features for that package. See what it says about the server hardware you’ll be hosted on. Try to determine if your website will run a generic “white box” server, or on a quality server like those from Sun, HP, Compaq, or Dell.

- Is toll-free technical support included in your web hosting package? Email and chat support are common, but you may want – or need – the ability to talk “live” to a technician for some support issues.

- Be aware that if you’re sharing an IP address with other websites on that same server (as is usually the case for cheap hosting plans), your own website may be at risk. Should any other website sharing that IP address with you demonstrate bad behavior like spamming, that IP address may be blocked. This would effectively render your website useless. Get your own IP address for an extra couple of bucks a month and avoid this issue altogether.

If you can remember most of these tips as you’re shopping for the best hosting provider for beginners, you’ll end up with a good selection that you can be happy with. Pricing between hosting companies can be pretty aggressive, so you should also be able to save some money too. Enjoy the learning experience, and before long you, too, will be joining millions of other people on the World Wide Web.

With over 15 years of hands-on experience, author Markys Robertson writes extensively about website design, cheap web hosting for beginners, domain names, and other Internet related topics. If you’re looking for the best web hosting for beginners, click here now to see some of Markys’ top recommended providers.