There has always been a big buzz surrounding free Website Hosting and how great it can be to host any website totally free of charge. I agree that there are a few good free hosting companies out there but can these companies actually provide you with enough features for your business to grow?
Its like anything really, if you want a good service and want to provide your clients with a top service then this costs money. If free hosting was good enough, then we would all use it. I know free hosting exists so why would I pay for Website Hosting. I pay for website hosting as I require a more powerful piece of the server in order for me to provide a professional service to my clients.
A lot of scripts and certain files types are not compatible with most free hosts as well as the ugly advertisements that are forced on your website in return for free hosting.
In my opinion, if you are serious about an online business then you must invest not just in paid hosting but in the future of your business and the reputation you have to uphold once your online business has grown to a reasonable size.
Free Hosting has many bad points such as high downtime, very little support is offered including no direct email or phone support, the server could be deleted, or the free website hosting provider could just shutdown the website due to not making any money and is unable to fund the service.
For the future of your business to be stable, your Website Hosting provider also has to be stable. In order to keep stability, money is required to run the servers. This is why paid hosting is paramount for any business that looks into the future and has high priority of keeping up a good reputation with new and existing clients.
Paid Website Hosting in my eyes is my first priority, as with the right host and support, anything is possible such as unlimited growth potential and server management when it is needed the most.
Archive
For September, 2011
For people who like to take photos and share them to friends and whoever else wants to view them, one can make use of photo hosting sites. Attaching them in e-mails and sending them multiple times only takes up a lot of time that frankly not many have much to spare. With photo hosting sites, one can share photos with everyone by only uploading the photos once.
It is a fact of life that not everyone we care about lives close to us. And printing copies of a hundred photos and sending them through mail not only requires some work and consumes a lot of time but can also cost us a lot. Free photo hosting websites solves all these problems.
Free photo hosting websites will allow one to share photos with everyone one knows and at the same time save money and time. Some of these sites allow one to upload multiple photos at the same time saving one valuable time. And while waiting for the upload to finish, one can do something else using ones time efficiently. Then after the upload is complete one can send the link to everyone one wants to share the photos to. Find more information within http://www.ms-payday-loans.com about all loans applications.
Free photo hosting websites will allow one to share photos with everyone one knows and at the same time save money and time. Some of these sites allow one to upload multiple photos at the same time saving one valuable time. And while waiting for the upload to finish, one can do something else using ones time efficiently. Then after the upload is complete one can send the link to everyone one wants to share the photos to. They can look at the photos and download any photo that they would like.
Free photo hosting websites though only offer limited data storage space for one’s photos. They are able to make photo hosting free through advertisements. But bigger storage space requires some maintenance and has additional costs. That is why most of the sites offer bigger space for a monthly or annual fee. Also, they put limits on how big a photo file can be uploaded. This is to facilitate the size of the photo that can be rendered and the speed in which it will be rendered when the photo is viewed.
Many social networking sites offer free photo hosting. By using social networking sites, one can organize the photos into photo albums and be able to keep private pictures private and only allow people in one’s social network to view the photos. Some social networking sites also allow photo sharing where one can showcase photos posted by someone else in ones profile.
Other benefits that photo sharing offer can be allowing one to make an online portfolio. With the technology today, one can create digital images with the use of photo editing and image rendering software. These kinds of photos are considered art and one can showcase one’s talent in this field by posting images one has made through this method.
One can also showcase photographs that one took that shows one’s artistic talent. One’s love of photography can be showcased with the use of photo hosting sites. One can show off ones work to attract more clients. One can even sell the photos online by showcasing digital copies of it.
Different sites offer different services and different amount of storage space. One can choose which site would best fill one’s needs. One can also opt to pay a fee to have access to extra services and, as most photo hosting sites offer, unlimited storage space.
Millions of website owners select low cost or free hosting options that may not be appropriate for commercial or small business websites. Based on one recent experience with a custom website client, I feel site owners need to understand that free ad supported website hosting is not for everyone.
The cost for paid hosting together with quick loans online ranges from modest to outrageous, so many business owners fall victim to overpriced hosting services because of inexperience. Some pay $1000′s USD per year for their domain, hosting, and maintenance when in fact their site is static and nothing is ever added. A monthly fee based on the contingency that something might need to be changed in the future is a waste of money if your website is launched and just gathers dust. If it is dynamic adding content frequently and you receive value for money, monthly fees are practical.
The ads exchanged for free hosting offered from one major hosting company are described as done by inserting “advertising on a small portion of the site”. In fact this “small ad” is a top banner that covers the width of the screen with a height of 1.2 inches (30.4mm), and displays 3 separate ads. The choice of ads placed in the banner advertising is fed based on page content, so your site might feature an advertisement from your competition. This is fine for non-commercial personal sites, or a website monetized for advertising revenue only. It is senseless to advertise for your competition.
Website hosting is inexpensive. The decision to use free ad supported hosting should be considered carefully.
The cost for paid hosting ranges from modest to outrageous, so many business owners fall victim to overpriced hosting services because of inexperience. Some pay $1000′s USD per year for their domain, hosting, and maintenance when in fact their site is static and nothing is ever added. A monthly fee based on the contingency that something might need to be changed in the future is a waste of money if your website is launched and just gathers dust. If it is dynamic adding content frequently and you receive value for money, monthly fees are practical.
Tip: You do NOT have to include the copyright date on your web pages. Using the copyright symbol and the year means you have an obsolete website a year later. The cost to change the date each January hardly justifies paying thousands annually in monthly fees. Published material is covered locally and internationally by copyright law without specifying the year or including a copyright statement. The fact that content is published on your website means you own it. My advice is avoiding dated material and simply state “Copyright Material – All Rights Reserved”.
Another client told of a service where they paid $179 a month for a similar package which included a logo design and website graphics. Although their agreement also included high quality artwork of their logo for printed marketing materials, the service provider refused to make it available when requested. The website version was 3-color low resolution and looked fine online. Creating a 4-color CMYK high resolution version appropriate for professional printing should have been easy. Instead, the website owner was compelled to shop around and pay extra to have printed marketing materials designed.
When you remove “maintenance” as a service in the example above, your small business website can be online for less than $150 USD annual cost instead of $2148.00. The amount this customer saved was enough to pay for a custom site design, and then future savings of $2000 a year after the first year. You need a www domain and hosting, plus a site design. Dependable service companies are out there at less than $10 a year for your domain, and less than $5 a month for hosting. Why pay more? Choose carefully when you select someone to design your small business website, and their advice may save you more than the design.
Next, the technical implications of free ad supported website hosting may escape the notice of most site owners. In the recent incident, the XHTML code to create this site was deprecated by the free service when they automatically inserted code to generate the advertising banner. Instead of a website with zero code errors, 10 XHTML errors were added to each page because of the extra inserted code. Currently proper HTML or XHTML code is not mandatory for favorable search engine ranking, yet if you have a perfect design, there is the risk that deprecated code could affect ranking in the future if search algorithms change.
Small business owners are usually too busy running their day to day operations to learn about the best options for getting and keeping a website online. Free ad supported website hosting is available, but the downside needs to be understood before you opt for free hosting. If you select a web developer to design your website and they do not offer monthly fee based services, they will most likely offer advice for your best hosting options.
In conclusion, designers who offer value added services are viable choices for small business owners who choose to have fresh content added to their site frequently. Just make sure to communicate your needs for online and in print to maximize your results and avoid disappointment. I am opposed to free ad supported website hosting for small business websites because anything displayed on your site needs to promote your product or service. Advertising, especially competitive ads, detract from the positive first impression that is critical for the success of your small business website.