Free Webhosting - Cheap Webhosting ....???

Let's Talk About Affordable Webhosting!

Looking for cheap webhosting or even free webhosting is a natural cost cutting impulse at first, with the idea of upgrading at some time in the future.

But in terms of launching a new business website, and starting out right the first time, either option could prove to be a serious mistake.

When choosing a cheap webhosting service provider for an Internet business website, think of it as if you're opening a retail store in your home town.

In fact, free webhosting may prove to be very expensive, considering how much they can cost you in terms of lost sales and damaged credibility.

When choosing a free webhosting service, keep in mind that a pretty sales page doesn't really tell you anything about the service that will be provided. If you intend to be serious about growing your business, you really can't afford to cut corners with free webhosting or even cheap webhosting that doesn't provide what you will need.

Stable, high quality webhosting is the foundation stone of your business. It's not a luxury, it's a basic necessity of online success.

Unfortunately, there still remains some of the old hype that an online business can be started with little to no cash. Don't believe it, as good as it may sound in the beginning. Business websites using free webhosting services (Tripod, Geocities, etc.) and free email services are not taken seriously by the Internet buying public. Therefore, few if any sales will be realized.

Take note of this as well.

Free webhosting services aren't generally interested in your success or that of your business. Typically, their only concern is in their own business. That's why most of them display their own advertising or that of their advertising clients on websites they host.

And you will have no control over the ads that will appear. With free webhosting, your website may end up looking like a second rate garage sale, damaging your credibility with potential customers. In addition, many search engines refuse to list sites hosted by a free webhosting service.

When scouting for cheap webhosting, don't be ashamed to ask other webmasters for their own reviews and referrals. We'll make a few mentions in a moment about affordable webhosting services that we use and trust.

But if you wish to investigate for yourself, then be sure to get the facts about the cheap webhosting services you are considering. Email or telephone directly to their sales desk, asking for answers to each of the questions below. A reputable webhosting service will be happy to provide you with whatever information you might need.

Don't hesitate to be upfront about this. After all, even for a cheap webhosting account, it's your money and you deserve answers to these questions:

- How long have they been in business?

- Do they run their own servers? (If so, that's a good thing!)

- Or are they "resellers" (in other words - middle men who rent space on a primary server and "sub-lease" it to you. You don't want that!)

- How many active clients do they serve?

- What is their uptime/downtime percentage?

- Do they have back up generators in case of a power outage in their area?

- Do they employ backup servers online?

- Is there a set up fee? (If so, look elsewhere. Set up fees are a rip off.)

- Is support available 24 hours/7 days a week?

- How quick is their average response for customer support?

We've recently seen cheap webhosting for as little as $4.95 US per month. Be aware that, at least sometimes, you will probably get exactly what you pay for. Some cheap webhosting services tend to crowd their servers with too many accounts - meaning your website may load slowly, or may be frequently offline altogether.

Would you accept a discount on an apartment rental in return for sharing a bathroom and kitchen with 100 other people?

Be sure to inform yourself first, and know exactly what it is you are paying for. Here are some minimum requirements involved to ensure the potential for long term growth of your business.

- Ability to use your own domain name (www.yoursite.com) rather than a subdomain ( www.theirsite.yoursite.com)

- Unlimited access to a control panel page that is dedicated to your website. This is where you will work on your site and make use of the features and tools provided in your hosting package.

- User access by means of cPanel control panel. cPanel is the most beginner friendly interface, while still providing all the features any professional webmaster could want. Any webhost provider that uses cPanel will say so clearly, somewhere on their sales page. So be sure to look for the word cPanel when choosing a webhosting provider.

- POP email accounts (ie. you@yoursite.com) to provide you with a professional business image in your email communications. NEVER use Hotmail, Yahoo, etc. for business purposes. It looks tacky!

- Autoresponder capability on all email accounts. This will eliminate some of your need to outsource for autoresponder services, and take on another monthly expense in the process.

- A minimum of 500 megabytes (mb) of disk space allotted to your site. (Think of this as the floor space inside the building where you will open your store.) Webpages themselves do not occupy much space. Webpage graphics sometimes do. eBooks, softwares, and other downloadable files definitely require a lot of space. A site offering ebooks and softwares for sale and/or download may eventually need 1000 megabytes (approx. 1 gigabyte or GB) or more of space. If you don't need the space right away, consider it room for expansion.

- A generous allowance for monthly transfer. This refers to the number of customer pageviews, graphic displays, downloads and other information transfers that are allowed to happen on your website in any 30 day period. 5 GB (gigabyte) monthly is about the minimum acceptable for a beginning site. BEWARE that many discount webhosting services offer lots of goodies upfront, but are very restrictive about monthly transfer allocation. You don't want your site to be shut down at 10 am on a busy morning just because a lot of customers showed up!

- Capabilities for CGI, MySQL and PHP. If these terms sound like a foreign language, don't be concerned at this point. Just be sure you either have them upfront, or can upgrade in the future.

- Built in FTP (file transfer protocol - the software you will use to upload pages, graphics, ebooks, etc.) or at least convenient and unlimited remote FTP access. You don't want to be restricted as to when and how you can edit your pages and work on your site.

- A statistics log where you can go to keep track of how many visitors are coming to each indiviual page on your domain.

First of all, I strongly suggest you use the same highly affordable webhosting service that I use, simply because I can personally vouch for the quality and the price.

Here's the link:  affordable webhosting service

But in the table below you can quickly compare other well established yet affordable webhosting service providers that offer cheap pricing but also provide high quality features and a professional service. These guys are not rank newbies, part-timers, or fast buck artists.

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