Reliable web hosting from home saves money for future business growth. Once a business is profitable and website traffic increases, it may become necessary to pay for professional hosting.

A computer with a high speed Internet connection is required to host a website. This computer will act as a server and needs to be kept online at all times.

Web servers

The first step in creating reliable web hosting from home is to install a web server on the computer. This can be done with any operating system but most professional hosts use the Linux platform. Most computer users use Windows which has a web server application built in. This program runs in the background and listens to requests from people on the Internet. It finds the website saved on the computer and sends it to the users requesting it.

Next, computers with a local area network are required to configure their router to enable web access. This can be done in the router’s control panel by forwarding outside web requests to the web server’s port. The default port for web requests is 80.

Domain name

In order for remote computers to connect to the web server, a domain is necessary. This is the name of computer’s server on the Internet. Many sites offer free subdomain and domain name selection cost less than $10 a year.

Most services offer free updating of IP addresses, which is important if the computer’s Internet connection does not have a static IP address. It is crucial to know the computer’s external IP address and have a way to update the domain’s DNS records.

DNS Records

Configuring the DNS record allows remote access to the web server by typing in the domain name chosen for the web site. Internet connections with a static IP address simply have to input the IP address once into the DNS records.

Connections with a dynamic IP address require the use of a service similar to DynDns. This is a utility that updates the DNS record every time the IP address changes. All that is required is the creation of an account, selection of the preferred domain name and choosing a name to use as a sub-domain.

Security

The last step in creating reliable web hosting from home is to secure the computer from malicious software and attacks. Updated antivirus and anti-spyware programs and a firewall are necessary for good web hosting. Create rules in the firewall to allow the port chosen earlier access to the Internet, as well as any other programs commonly used.

Hosting from Home

Home-based web hosting is an increasingly common occurrence for new business owners and hobby or professional webmasters alike. Reliable hosting websites can be found for free if the proper steps are taken and security issues are resolved. Installing the right software, configuring each program, creating a domain name and creating a website are all that’s needed for free web hosting from home.

Some of the things you consider include:

1. Disk Space

This is the amount of space that will be allocated by the web hosting company for your website. The amount of space you require will be determined by the size of the files in your website. If you have a simple website with a few images and text content only, you will not require a large disk space. A 500MB space will be ideal.

On the other hand, if you plan to host large files such as audio and video files as well as large e-books, you should get a larger disk space. Depending on the files you are hosting, you can opt for 5GB, 10GB or even unlimited hosting. With unlimited hosting, there is no space limit to the size of files you can host.

2. Bandwidth

This refers to the amount of traffic that will be allowed to access your website each month. Some site hosting companies refer to it as monthly data transfer. Simple websites that are not targeted for the mass market may not require a huge bandwidth allocation. On the other hand, if you are marketing to a wider audience and anticipate huge amounts of traffic to your website, getting unlimited bandwidth is your best option.

3. Server Uptime

Keeping your Website Online is Important — Photo by Fatcow

Server uptime refers to the amount of time the web hosting company’s servers remain functional. Anytime the server fails to function, your website will not be accessible. Ideally, you should choose a company that offers a minimum of 99.7% uptime and above for 3 consecutive months. No company can claim to offer 100% server uptime as there are many human and natural causes that can lead to server downtimes.

4. Price

Price is also a major thing to consider when choosing a hosting package. Compare prices from different web hosting companies to find one that is affordable. However, as you compare the price, look for other features in the package too.

The following points are important in your web hosting account; this is what makes your price.

• Disk space
• Bandwidth
• Number of domains that can be hosted
• Number of email accounts allowed

5. Type of Web Hosting

There are two major types of web hosting packages you can go for: shared hosting or dedicated hosting. Most websites are hosted on shared servers and they work well. However, if your website has e-commerce capabilities such as a shopping cart and you need to provide a secure gateway to your customers who will be buying online, you will have to get dedicated hosting.

Web Hosting solutions for any purpose — Photo by Fatcow

Shared hosting is typically cheaper than dedicated hosting. However, your website is hosted together with other websites on the same server. This means that if there is a problem with one of the other websites, e.g. a sudden surge of unusual traffic such that the server fails, your website will also be affected.

With dedicated hosting, your website is hosted on its own secure server and there are fewer chances of it getting downtimes.

The above are some of the things you should consider when you are looking for a good web hosting company. Above all, get a company that offers good customer support.

Looking for cheap business cards?

When you are a web designer and you are really devoted to your profession, you live on the Web. This is quite normal – pros are like that. If you want your life on the Net to be comfortable, you need to find a nice place for you – i.e. a good web site hosting offer where to host your and your clients’ sites.

With tons of offers for business website hosting and for web site hosting in general, there is no reason to complain about not having alternatives to choose between. However, when there are so many options to choose from, the choice isn’t easy.

Sure, you can pick one type of web site hosting with a provider you randomly choose but if you make the wrong choice, migrating your sites later won’t be much fun. This is why it is much better to do some research before you sign up for a web host as you will become aware of what web hosting options that are good for you as a designer.

What are our Options?

Basically, the options for web site hosting are shared hosting, dedicated hosting, VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting, and reseller hosting. In theory, you could choose any of these but in reality shared hosting and reseller hosting are really the best alternatives for you. Dedicated hosting and VPS hosting aren’t to be totally excluded but for a web designer they often aren’t the best alternatives.

Picture by LBhosting

For a Web Designer, Shared Hosting Is a Cheap Alternative

Shared hosting is the most popular type of web site hosting and there is for a reason this. This form of hosting is especially good for personal hosting but for it could also be considered for small business website hosting. Here are some of the features of shared hosting you as a designer can benefit from:

1. Shared hosting is cheap. The low price is obviously one of the great advantages with shared hosting. With monthly fees in the low single digits (i.e. $3-5 dollars a month or even less), shared hosting is pretty much unbeatable in regards to how much, or little, money you will have to spend.
2. Shared hosting is hassle-free. Unlike unmanaged dedicated hosting and reseller hosting, where you are in charge of the administration of your server, with shared hosting you don’t have to deal with configuration of the operating system or the web server. The only thing you administer is your account and your sites.
3. Shared hosting gives you all you need. The fact that shared hosting is cheap doesn’t mean that it is of no use. For a small business site and for almost any personal site (i.e. a portfolio one or a blog) shared hosting is exactly what you need.

You can start with shared hosting. If you notice that shared hosting is a limitation for you, you could consider VPS, which is also a form of shared web site hosting but it offers more (and costs much, much more than shared hosting). However, if you plan to get really serious and if you have clients whom you can resell business website hosting, reseller hosting is a much better option for you.

Reseller Hosting Is Business Website Hosting for Web Designers

Reseller hosting is the best option for web designers that have a large clientele. Reseller hosting is dedicated hosting plus the right to resell the space and bandwidth, making it possible to offer clients a complete package. Here are the advantages of reseller hosting for web designers:

1. Reseller hosting gives you freedom. You get the whole server and administer it the way you like to. Well, if you aren’t willing to be a webmaster on a large scale, this kind of freedom can be a burden.
2. Reseller hosting makes it easier to administer client sites. When your clients’ sites are hosted on your server and you have full control over them, these sites are much easier to administer because you don’t have to deal with third parties (i.e. another web site hosting provider where your clients host their sites).
3. Reseller hosting is a chance for an additional income. With reseller hosting you pay for the whole server and then you sell space and bandwidth to your clients. This is really a way to make $100-200 or more a month from one server. The money might not be a fortune but everything counts.

Reseller hosting is a much better option for a web designer, especially if he or she will use it as business hosting. Still, the risk you need to be aware of is that if you can’t find clients to whom you will be able to sell the web hosting space and bandwidth, you might get stuck with lots of it and you will be paying for something you don’t need.

In the time I have been hosted with WPwebhost, I have tried many aspects of their hosting to see if they are really any good. I’ve always wanted a solid webhost and WPwebhost proved to succeed in any aspect of my wishlist.

In this article, I will explain what you should look at when choosing a webhost yourself.

The Wishlist when choosing a Webhost

Webhosts always promote the hundreds of features that you will receive when ordering a plan with them. Many of these features however, are not needed and necessary for your website(s). For this reason, choosing the host with the largest plans and features will not always benefit you. That’s why you need to make a good selection of those features that you need. Let’s list them.

Bandwidth

Bandwidth is the number of bytes your have that ‘you can transfer’. Meaning that all bytes transferred from pages, images, videos or anything else to the computer of your visitor is bandwidth. Some hosts try to seduce you with terabytes or unmetered bandwidth, but that is not needed: you will never use it. Of course, when you have a websites that push those numbers of bandwidth you should not choose a shared hosting plan, but look for dedicated hosting.

Recommended is to choose a plan with enough bandwidth that gives you the possibility to grow. A normal blog or website (with around 500 pageviews a day) usually only push a couple gigabytes a month. Try choosing something that is around 30 to 50 gigabytes transfer, as that will allow you to start other websites in the future.

Recommended: 50 GB

Web Space

You can see webspace as the hard-disk space you have available on your computer. Usually, not more than a few gigabytes are needed to provide you with enough space to host multiple websites. For example, 10 websites generally only cost you 1 gigabytes of space, so don’t get seduced by hosts offering you 100+ gigabytes. You just don’t need that.

Recommended: 5 GB

Add-on Domains

Many plans out there try to limit the number of sites, and therefore only allow one (or very few) domain names. If you are looking to publish multiple sites, the number of domains you can add to your plan is important. Depending on the number of domain names, usually 10 add-on domains per account is plenty to deal with.

Recommended: 10+ Add-on Domains

Control Panel

A control panel for shared plans is where you can control anything that happens on your website. Usually, you can add MySQL databases, add email addresses, add domains and a lot more, so it’s important to have a control panel that is easy to work with. Cpanel is the control panel I feel most comfortable with. Most webhosts give you the possibility to sneak peak in the control panel, so be sure to check it out before ordering.

Recommended: Cpanel

Other important features

How many email addresses are you looking to use? Usually, the maximum is around 10, however, many hosts offer unlimited email addresses. That way you can create plenty of email addresses for every site you build.
Same goes with MySQL databases, you can never have enough. It is recommended to use a new database each time you build a new website, so try to find a host that – at least – offer you 10 databases.

Recommended: unlimited email addresses
Recommended: 10+ MySQL databases

What about service and support?

There comes something that is very important also. What service do they offer when you get stuck? What about the time they need to reply to your email? Do they have a phone number that you can call anytime?

When something happens (like a server fail), it is important that your webhost help you out immediately. Your website is your business, so getting back online is needed as soon as possible. Your webhost should help you with that right when something happens. Before you can see how the support team react if something happens (you aren’t signed up yet, right?), you should test them.

“Your-host Sucks”

When people are not satisfied with the services of a webhost, they will comment about that. Google will help you search for these reactions. Try searching for “the-name-of-your-potential-host Sucks”. Don’t forget the quotes (“”). The number of results you will get will indicate the number of people that have bad experiences with your potential webhost.

Servers Status

To see if your webhost is accurate and is fair about the 99.999% uptime guarantee, look for a servers status page. This page will give you a direct look at the status of the servers and how long they have been online.

Support Forums

Browsing the support forums of your webhost will give you a good indication of how fast and how accurate the support team answers questions from (potential) clients. You can also ask them a few questions yourself, to see how fast and good they are.

Money Back Guarantee

You should always pick a webhost that offers – at least – 30 days of money back guarantee. In this time, you can check the performance, the quality of the support and everything in general. If you don’t like their services, just ask for your money back.

DivitoDesign’s Recommendation

Like I’ve told you in the intro of this article, DivitoDesign (along with my other sites) are hosted on WPWebhost for two years now. During this time, I have tested many aspects of their hosting to see if I could recommended their plans to you.

I believe I can recommend you WPWebhost. Remember, my experiences will not always be an indication of how happy you will be with WPWebhost, as each situation will be different.

The “freedom” plan that powers DivitoDesign offers 50GB of webspace, 500 GBs of monthly bandwidth, 50 add-on domains, unlimited email and MySQL databases and a 100 days money back guarantee for only 5$ a month. With the coupon code divito30, you will receive an additional 30% discount on any plan, which will get you the plan for only $3,50 per month (yearly payment).

WPWebhost is not only a WordPress related hosting website, but their plans can be used for almost any kind of site. Their support team can help you with a lot more. I’ve asked questions on PHP errors and databases problems and they answered them accurate.

For all of these reasons, I highly recommend WPWebhost.