How to Choose the Best Web Hosting

Most site owners shop their web hosting by price.  A budget might be certainly an important thing to consider, but since the differences in hosting prices are negligible, there are other features and more important factors when choosing the perfect hosting.

PRICES

Many web hosting services let you choose from several types of packages, each with a different price and slightly different range of offerings. Prices can range from $4.25/month to over $40/month. These price differentials can be attributed to the different features included within each plan and to the eagerness of some newer hosting companies, to grow their brand by offering extremely low rates. 

CUSTOMER/TECHNICAL SUPPORT

Customer support in a web hosting service should be efficient and effective, as well as polite and responsive. Your hosting service should quickly answer when contacted and be able to solve your problems right away. 

CONTROL

Do you have all the access you need, and can you find all the functions you require for running your website?  Is there proper documentation and help articles?  Do you have a user-friendly control panel? 

The situation is ideal if you have full control of your site and can manage it on your own – most of the time.

SERVER FEATURES

A good hosting service offers both Linux and Windows servers and enables you to move between when necessary.

BACKUPS

Choose a hosting service that backs up your web content regularly.

BANDWIDTH AND DISK SPACE

Even if your site is small at the moment, you should look for a minimum of 5 GB of disk space and 250 GB of bandwidth from your web hosting plan. Many web hosts are offering an unlimited amount of both at a very favorable price. 

EASE OF USE

Choose a web host who‘s control panel is easy to use. 

RELIABILITY

Look for hosting services that guarantee uptime, and will tell you exactly how they implement this promise.

Four Popular Hosting Services:

  

iPage 

Best for: Small business owners and bloggers looking for a low-priced, feature-rich service to get their sites up quickly and affordable.

Best Value: $4.50/Month

Bandwidth: Unlimited

Disk Space: Unlimited

  

Just Host 

Best for: Inexperienced webmasters looking for a hosting provider with a well organized, easy-to-use user interface at an affordable price.

Best Value: $4.45/month

Bandwidth: Unlimited

Disk Space: Unlimited

BlueHost 

Best for: Webmasters looking for instant website setup, an intuitive control panel design and the option to purchase additional professional-grade site builders.

Best Value:$6.95/month

Bandwidth: Unlimited

Disk Space: Unlimited

  

Host Monster 

Best for: Professional or novice webmasters who require speedy customer phone support and are looking for a plan offering unlimited email accounts.

Best Value:$5.95/month

Bandwidth: Unlimited

Disk Space: Unlimited

  
The features offered by each provider, as well as the cost of their services, changes over time, so it is important to do your own vetting before deciding which service works best for your business.

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FREE Checklist to Create Your New Website

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Checklist for Your New Website:

Before you (or your web designer) start creating your website, make a plan that should cover at least these points:

• Domain Name
• Web hosting
• Programming language **
• Font type*
• Page layout
• Website Title and Meta title
• Meta description and Keywords
• Text preparation and editing
• Image preparation for web
• Customer tracking system
• Email opt-in buttons
• Follow Social Media buttons
• Sharing buttons / plug-ins
• Event calendar

• About us
• Privacy page
• Payment systems
• Site map and search function
• Usability tests
• Website marketing
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

* Arial or Verdana are available on all computers
** HTML or XHTML & CSS, if you sell your book(s) from your website: shopping cart PHP embedded.
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There are also very inexpensive shopping systems available that you can use right away from your website. See our former blog post:
http://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/2013/12/18/why-sell-your-books-from-your-own-website/
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Planning is the most important step
Programmer, designer and SEO people can only work with the material you provide them. Planning a website is just as important as creating one. The website should work in concert with your overall marketing plan. It might need a series of one-on-one meetings between you and an experienced designer in order to create a successful website.

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Multi-Media Elements

Create a quality website, interesting content, be genuine and give your customers value. The following multimedia elements, will greatly enhance the appeal and usefulness of the website:

• Images, illustrations - in high-quality
• Documents (usually PDFs)
• Audio
• Video (i.e., embedded from YouTube or Vimeo, or self-hosted)
• Content feeds (from other websites, or blogs)
• Twitter stream
• RSS feeds
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How to Write Internet Content
Eye-tracking studies have shown that readers SCAN text (in an F-shaped pattern), rather than READ it. And: website visitors read more slowly on the screen than in print.  Reading on a screen is fatiguing.  A screen, whether a massive 26-inch monitor or a tiny smartphone, projects very small points of light at your eyes.  Reading long stretches of text can be very tiring.  Users will scan for key points in the text, which is the reason to write short blocks of text and bulleted or numbered lists to make it easy to scan your text.

Online content is not just about words.  When you write for the Internet, think “presentation”. Print content is formally written and a passively read. Online content is informally written, interactive and dynamic:
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Use Bullet Lists, such as this one

• Create lots of short paragraphs, and give them all a headline
• Keep sentences short, they should never be longer than one line
• Use spell check and a beta reader / software
• Readers like to interact on the Web, so give them lots of links
• Illustrate your text, use lots of images
• Don’t let your readers scroll on the screen, keep it to one page
• Except prepositions and the words “and” and “the”, all major words in a headline should be capitalized

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Read these Helpful Books Before you Start Your Website:

Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition, by Steve Krug http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000SEGQNS

Another great resource for planning a website is a comprehensive article: Web Planning Guide by Ben Seigle.

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