Choosing the right host is an important aspect of lowering our web hosting costs. So this is important that how can we reduce the hosting cost? The web hosting industry, boasting several thousand web hosts, is still young and growing at a remarkable pace, hence finding the right host is not only difficult but very much time-consuming, fortunately, though it is worth the time and effort.
How much web space our web site needs and compensating for a bit extra, for growth. For example, if our website needs 200 MB of disk space, look for the plan which offers at least 250 to 300 MB of web space, this will prevent a large unexpected bill at the end of the month when high priced costs, charged by most web hosts for extra disk space usage, are added on to our bill.
How much bandwidth our website uses. We should ensure we get more bandwidth than our site uses. For example, if our website uses 8GB bandwidth per month, then choose a plan, which offers at least 8 or 10GB bandwidth per month. So preventing the cost from reaching high, or to higher extra costs. As a reference, an average website should pay no more than some dollars per GB for bandwidth usage. Very much concerned if hosts have “block buying” facilities for purchasing projected extra disk space or bandwidth. But, careful, if our website needs only 2 GB extra bandwidth, we may have to buy an extra package in blocks of 5GB bandwidth, in this case, look for the host which will allow us to purchase extra disk space and bandwidth allowance as per our needs, this is crucial to cost savings.
We should ensure that we know the over-usage allowance rules, we need to know what happens if our website uses more disk space or bandwidth than we have been allocated. If we have more than one website, sign up for an account with a web host who provides multiple domains hosted on one account, this will work out a lot cheaper than an account per website.
A good thing would be to ask our friends and colleagues if they want to host their websites with us on one account. We should ensure that all the applications our website uses, are supported within the chosen account type. If there are any extra fees for particular applications or associated database support.
Emails are the lifeblood of our online business. Ensure that we get a sufficient number of email addresses with our own domain name these are necessary for other email features like forwarders, and autoresponders, etc. Many web hosts offer large discounts on yearly or half-yearly payments in advance, this may appear a good way to go, but note how long we are locked in. If possible avoid long-term contracts until we are sure about the services and reliability offered by that particular host.
Paying to host on a monthly basis obviously has its benefits. If there are concerns with our service encouraging us to seek a new host elsewhere, we may lose out on many months of hosting fees when breaking a yearly or half-yearly contract.
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