Are you bitten by the idea bug that you can’t wait to showcase to the world? Are you thinking of expanding your horizons by taking your business online? Do you want to own your own website? Have you found a suitable domain name? Is your domain name registered with a domain registrar? Congratulations, you’ve cleared step one of starting your website.
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Where to start?
Let’s not waste any time. Owning a website will help to position your ideas on the Internet but you must consider these vital elements before you create a website. First, you will need a domain name. If you haven’t yet purchased a domain name, the following are a few things to consider when choosing one.
- Your domain name is the primary identity of your website (eg: monsterhost.com). It is what your users will type into the address bar of their browser.
- Your domain name is not changeable. You would have to buy a totally new domain again if you want to change it.
- A well-chosen domain name is a key to brand building and marketing strategy, so choose well.
- Though ‘.com’ is the most popular extension, you can choose a more customized and even country specific extension. Popular TLDs options are available that may suit you better. For example .co, .de, .be, .biz, .eu, etc.
That’s the easy part. Domain registration just means that you own the that particular domain. No one else can buy or use it. With that said, it is good to choose a reputed domain provider/registrar. Particularly because you would also need to purchase a suitable and powerful hosting plan from the registrar or Internet hosting provider. But let’s say you’ve never heard of a web Hosting provider. No, worries, we’ll jump right into it.
What is Website Hosting?
In order to have your website online, you would need to own or rent a server. Web servers keep all the relevant files to your website online and accessible. While owning and maintaining your own server is a viable option, it is really expensive. Requiring special infrastructure and expertise. For this reason, the more cost effective alternative to rent out servers or hosting space from hosting providers came into play. Web hosts own, run, manage and secure their own multiple servers. They give you access to either an entire server or a certain amount of storage space. It allows you to store the necessary files that keep your website up and online all the time. This service is called Web Hosting.
If you are looking at purchasing a hosting service for the first time, it can be understandably quite confusing. So, we’ve put together six key features that you should consider when choosing your Web Hosting Plan.
6 Points to consider before creating a website
1. Website Security
Security is a primary feature to consider when purchasing any Website hosting plan. Websites lacking security gives cyber criminals not only access to data from a website but to also plant malicious software. This software could shut down your entire website or worse yet, trick your end users to provide sensitive data. Information like email IDs, login passwords, private contact information, payment details, etc. are what we mean by sensitive data. These attacks could also put unwanted advertisements, links and forwards to snare the users into other sites with malicious content. Unfortunately attacks like these are not easily identifiable nor traceable. Therefore, having a strong defense to prevent these types of attacks before they happen is the best option. We believe that blocking/preventing a disaster is better than recovering from attacks after they happen. Since, the latter would prove to be time consuming and in some cases, very expensive.
It is strongly recommended to choose the right Hosting provider offering the right security package containing SSL Certificates, Website Scanners, Web Application Firewall and periodic software updates that keep patching and fixing the vulnerabilities of the server for your domain.
2. Hosting Support
Web Hosting companies own, manage, maintain and rent a multitude of servers, so it’s only natural that they provide support for these services. But not just a one off, one time support. First of all, for your site, you’ll need assistance to set up your hosting. If set up properly, a website ideally will not run into issues. Plus, it is always good to have a group of experts providing timely support and assistance all year-long. Additionally, the availability of a good knowledge base that assist you with answering critical questions and also helps you troubleshoot issues saving time and money. Having the right resources and unfading support puts you in a better position to avoids unwanted disruptions of your service.
3. Web Server Disk Space
Since web hosting is renting server space, be sure to choose a powerful hosting plan that provides adequate storage according to your needs. This ensures the smooth operation of your website and lets the site be responsive without your storage space getting full. Web hosting plans differ according to storage and disk space. The bigger your website, the more you will need.
4. Website Bandwidth
Have you ever used a website that kept throwing an error and after hitting refresh a couple times it let you in? When a user accesses your website, they send and receive data from your server. So, the more greater the number of users on your website at a given point of time, the more data transfers in the background. This is analogy is what we call website traffic.
The bandwidth of your server determines the amount of data that can be used at a time without slowing down the website operations. The higher the bandwidth is, the smoother and faster your website gets because it would be able to host more number of visitors at the same time. Alternatively, if you use your website for media consumption, like streaming videos and images, the volume of data transferred will be higher. Therefore, the website will require a higher bandwidth.
5. Cloud Backup
Backup is an essential feature that does not get the needed consideration, a website could crash due to cyber attacks or human error and maintaining regular backups would help you restore the website to the latest working version in the shortest possible time and prevent unwanted downtime of your website. Your webhost should facilitate the maintaining of periodic backup which is automated, secured and customization. Having a well designed and intuitive user interface to manage your backups easily and for multiple devices. So, before starting your hosting, you should also look for and internet hosting provider with the best cloud based backup solutions.
6. Free Custom Emails
Having an email Id with your own domain name as the extension like [email protected] is one of the biggest benefits of owning your own domain name. It is plays a crucial part in the brand building of your company. It adds to the credibility and gives your customers a point of reference to your company. The requirement of the number of email addresses may be lesser when you begin, but with the growth and expansion of your organization, the need for more email accounts would arise. You may even want custom email addresses for teams and business functions like [email protected], [email protected] etc. purchasing email accounts from other third party vendors could prove to be expensive. So, it is easier and cost effective to pick a hosting plan that provides you with an adequate number of email accounts.
Bonus: Top Web Hosting Services and Useful Software
Building a website is not as tedious and technical as it used to be before.
Software built for specific purposes like website builders, SEO management and email marketing are known as some of the top web hosting services and are easier to configure with hosting plans. You can easily drag and drop the design you like and edit the content simply by clicking while still making the website look completely professional. The compatibility of the web hosting plans with databases like MySql and also website creators like WordPress which are the current standards, provision for Search Engine Optimization also needs to be considered before finalizing on a hosting plan.
Managing your website
The best web hosting providers have a simple interface for you to log in and manage your entire account. You can manage your domain, sitebuilder, SEO tool along with hosting all from one easy interface. Take a look at the video below for a preview of Monsterhost’s simple client area where you can access and manage your account.
Conclusion
Since you have decided to create a website, all the above stated points are worth considering before purchasing a domain name or hosting plan. More is not necessarily always better and there are pitfalls of hidden costs and lack of essential features and security in lesser plans, the security of your online data and cost effectiveness while keeping your requirements in mind is the balance you will need to accomplish while choosing to register your domain with a website hosting company.
The internet hosting company needs to also be able to accommodate your increasing needs and website growth. Plus, there needs to be a flexible and seamless process for switching plans when the need arises. You could always fall back on this page as a reference or chat with our experts any step of the way.
