Walk The (web Hosting) Line
By Nate Landerman, Mon Dec 26th
/p> If you've ever started a new Internet business, you're probablyquite familiar with the siren's song of cheap web hosting. Butwhile most webmasters simply wrinkle their noses at the merestsuggestion of budget hosting, I prefer a more holistic approachto the topic. Every business decision is a balance between cost and benefit.For the neophyte webmaster, it's easy to forget this principleand blindly follow the well-intentioned advice of industryveterans. Normally, this is a good thing to do. But no adviceshould be followed blindly, especially when it comes to yourbusiness. For all their experience and expertise, none of thosegimlet-eyed webmasters have the perspective to say exactly whatis right for your particular set of circumstances. Before you cast aside cheap as a viable option foryour site, consider this: Very few eCommerce sites see muchtraffic at all in their initial start-up period. Much of thework you'll be doing over the coming months and years will belargely experimental - testing traffic and consumer responsefrom a number of different advertising sources, honing andtweaking your site, and generally figuring out how to build yourbusiness.
During the initial phases of any new online venture, I alwayshost my sites on a cheap web host. For me, there's no need tobuy an expensive dedicated server or rack space for a projectthat very well might not pan out at all. Even if it does panout, I find very little benefit in paying the additional cost inthose early months when my traffic is practically nil. The keyfor me is choosing a low-cost hosting plan that has a decentreputation for uptime and service, and leaves room for growth. In short, I walk the line. I don't overbuy hostingfor any of my web sites, I buy what they need. For a new site,this generally means shared .NET hosting in the $10 per monthrange. As the sites grow, I add on a-la-carte features such asSSL certificates. When traffic or disk space begins to stretchthe bounds of the original plan, I look to upgraded packageswherever I might find them. With a bit of shopping around, youcan sometimes find really good deals on hosting - I recentlyfound a VPS plan that was cheaper than my current shared plan. Which brings me
to my next point - Don't be afraid of migratingto a new web host. When done properly, the switch can be madequite seamlessly and with no downtime (I'll cover the exactprocedure I follow in a later article.) Being able to change webhosting providers easily and effectively is one of the simplestways a webmaster can shave dollars off of his or her hostingbudget. I recently had a site hosted on a shared Windows serverfor $4.99 per month with unlimited bandwidth. That sounds like agreat deal unless you happen to know (as I do) that thisparticular hosting company has a tendancy to shut sites off thatconsume too much bandwidth. When I found that my site wasstarting to garner more and more hits per day, I simply switchedit over to a new host. The money I had saved in the meantimeallowed the site to be profitable, and that always makes me feelgood. And the best part is that I accomplished this with nointerruption of service and very little effort. The bottom line is that cheap isn't necessarilybad. If your site isn't pulling in that much revenue, yourhosting costs could be the only thing that stand in the way ofprofitability. All it takes is a little research into thehosting company you plan on using. Make sure that it has a goodreputation as being reliable (look it up on my web hosting reviewsite to help with that) and that it gives you JUST enough ofwhat you need to start out. Make sure you keep a very close eyeon it, and have your next move planned already when it getsclose to migration time. I have just one final note to offer. Don't for a minute assumethat because a plan is priced higher than a competitor it isautomatically more reliable or robust. In my many hours ofcomparing, aggregating, and reviewing hosting plans I have foundthat price is usually the least reliable means of comparison.Always look to quality above all else, and your site will be therevenue producing machine you've always envisioned. About the author:Nate Landerman is the founder and CEO of iNetpublication, a sitededicated to providing webmasters with the tools they need tocreate and maintain successful websites.
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