Website Sitebuilders Easy to use Website builders Come with a Price
Professional web designers don’t come cheap. A good web designer can easily charge you $1000 or more for a five page website. This high cost leads many people to tackle web design for themselves. How hard can it be? Get yourself an HTML editor, throw up a website and voila! Your website is live right? Wrong! There is a lot of knowledge you need to develop before you can get your self made website onto the internet.
What is a Sitebuilder?
More and more web hosting companies today offer Sitebuilder software that takes care of all the technical details to getting your website up and live on the internet. They allow a novice to choose a built in template, select some colors, throw in some pictures, and add some text. Once these steps are done, all the novice has to do is publish their website to the internet. All the hard stuff is taken care of by the Sitebuilder software. So what’s the catch?
Next to Impossible to Move your Website to Another Company.
Most Sitebuilders in use by web hosting companies today are designed to make it as difficult as possible for their users to transfer their website away. Most, if not all the fancy features like counters, navigation, templates, etc… are built into the Sitebuilder and won’t work unless you have an active account with that particular company. If you want to take your website elsewhere, you will have to build your website again from scratch.
Cookie cutter approach tends to look amateurish
Sitebuilders in generally lack the flexibility to allow the website creator to create a website any way they like. Most Sitebuilders out there will lock you into doing things in one way - their way. This leads to websites that can look like they were just thrown together and therefore look unprofessional.
Little ability to handle traffic growth.
Most Sitebuilders come with enough storage space and monthly data transfer to meet the average website’s needs. If your website traffic truly takes off though, chances are, your Sitebuilder company will cut you off. Most hosting companies bank on the fact that 99% of it’s clients will use relatively little resources. If your website starts to use too many server resources, most companies will pull the plug on your website. If your website is built with their Sitebuilder, you’ll be out of luck and in the unenviable position of needing to rebuild your website right when a ton of traffic is hitting a dead page. Not pretty.
Sitebuilder or traditional web hosting account - which is for you?
If you have never put together a website before, and you have no desire to dive into the technical details of putting your website online, a Sitebuilder is probably your best fit. For maximum long term flexibility and growth potential, learning how to get your website live on a traditional web hosting account is well worth the effort. You will end up paying less, you won’t be locked into one company, and you will be able to grow your website as traffic demands it.
This article was written by Joe Duchesne, president of http://www.yowling.com/, a web hosting company that offers traditional Web Hosting plans. Copyright 2004 Yowling. Reprint Freely as long as you provide a clickable link back to my website from this resource box.
Tags: html editor, sitebuilder, web design, Web Hosting, website builderHow to Find the Perfect Web Hosting Company
So you have a web site and now you need to figure out where to host it. There are many choices but not too many affordable, reliable solutions. So how do you know which one to choose? What makes a hosting company good?
Here are some general guidelines you can use to help you find the perfect hosting company.
* Is their website professional looking?
It’s safe to assume that if a hosting company has a sloppy looking website then the company is also run sloppily. You don’t want to get stuck dealing with a company that’s run by a bunch of kids out of a garage.
* Is their customer service available by phone during business hours and by email 24/7?
Many Hosting companies take a long time to get back to you and some don’t even have a phone number listed. You can get an idea about how good customer service is by contacting them anonymously with a question. See if they answer the phone and/or get back you quickly. This will help you gauge how long it will take them to get back to you once you’re a paying customer.
*Are they charging too little or too much?
Remember the old saying “If something seems too good to be true, it probably is”. This is very true when it comes to web hosting. If they are charging under $5 it is likely that the service is poor and their technology is antiquated. Also if the prices seem astronomically high, it’s likely you’re being ripped off. There is no regulation when it comes to web hosting pricing so some companies will charge an arm and a leg hoping that someone “bites”.
So keep in mind that you want to find a hosting company that provides superb support, stability and value. Don’t be fooled by ridiculous claims and don’t assume that paying more means you’re getting more.
Spencer Steele is the owner of Bsleek.com ( http://www.bsleek.com ) - a site that specializes in web hosting, design, promotional items, printing, CD Presentations and more. Spencer also owns WittyShirts.com ( http://www.wittyshirts.com ) which sells funny t-shirts. Spencer also owns Daterade.com ( http://www.daterade.com ) which is the first free online dating web site.
Tags: cd rom duplication, graphic designer, hosting, printing, promotional items, web design, Web HostingWhat to Look For in a Web Host
Disk Space
The amount of disk space offered generally not a factor these days. Most websites will use less than 50 mb and unless you’re hosting lots of images or video and sound files, a few hundred mb will be adequate. If you like to store your emails on the server you will want to have more space.
Bandwidth
Most websites use less than 2gb of traffic per month. If this will be a high traffic site look for more. Also inquire about overage charges and about their policy concerning what happens when a site goes over the limit.
OS
Under most conditions you are going to want to choose a UNIX based system. These are generally more stable and secure than their Windows counterparts. The only time I recommend someone use Windows hosting is if they need it for ASP or ASP.NET scripting or for some other reason it is required. Many individuals misunderstand that the computer they use at home plays no role in this choice.
Speed
Before you signup with a company always be sure to ask what type of connection they have to the internet and what type of redundancy is in place for this connection. Also see if they have any sample sites they can refer to you so you can test the loading time.
Reliability
Ask if there is an uptime guarantee for their hosting plans. Look for uptimes of 99.99% or better. Things happen and servers have issues, but it is important to see how quickly these issues are resolved. Ask if they have any historical data of their reliability they can provide.
Shell Access
If you anticipate needing shell access, check to see if it is available. Many web hosts are disabling this feature
Scripting Languages allowed and Database
Make sure the plan you go with has all the features you need. Make sure it has CGI access. If you want to install a script make sure the hosting supports the language and type of database it may use. Most UNIX based plans should have CGI, PHP, Perl, MYSQL included and most Windows plans should have ASP, ASP.NET, MS SQL and support Access databases.
Statistics
Make sure they provide software to see statistical information. Ask what they offer and investigate whether this contains all the information you need.
Support
This can be a very important thing to look for. Look for both phone and email/ticket support methods. If phone charges are an issue, make sure a toll-free number is available. The most important thing to look for in the prospective Web Host is the turnaround time for resolving technical issues. It is too late to check or complain about this once a problem has occurred. The shorter the response time, the better. If you are new to the website/hosting world and expect to call in for help with setting up your account, make sure that you check to see if this is allowed. Most support departments will not be your web design reference section and will charge to fix design mistakes.
Server Location
The location of your server play’s an important role in the access speed. If your customers are in the United States your server should be in the United States. If your customers are in India then your server should be in India.
Price
If the price is too good to be true, then it probably is. You will get what you pay for. If you are spending less than $10 a month, expect the level of service to be similar to that amount. I’ve personally spoken with customers running websites that take in thousands of dollars a day on a $3.95/month hosting package. When the site goes down with server issues don’t expect the hosting company to pay a single cent of your lost revenue. If you’ve got a high revenue website a shared hosting plan is out of the question and you should look for a custom package with redundancy built in.
Scott is the owner and chief designer for Smith-Concepts LLC a Fairfield County web development firm located in Danbury, Connecticut.
Related Links: http://www.smith-concepts.com
Tags: bandwidth, choosing webhost, disk space, web design, Web Hosting