What’s Included In Your Web Hosting Package?

Like many new website owners searching for a web hosting company, you may not really understand what is included in your hosting package. If you see a chart of features on the web hosting company’s home page and it looks like a different language to you, we can help you navigate through the sea of features.

Each web hosting company has different web hosting packages with unique pricing structures, and you can’t just close your eyes and pick one, hoping it will be right for your website. The wise thing to do is ask questions.

What Does “Unlimited” Really Mean?

The word ‘unlimited’ is a hot button for many disgruntled website owners who have purchased a web hosting plan with unlimited this or that – only to find out that unlimited does have limits.

Unlimited bandwidth or unlimited disk storage space can be helpful to website owners who have websites with many pages and who intend to grow their online presence at some point. You do not have to be penalized for using additional space for your files or traffic. For example, with BlueHost, you don’t have to worry about ‘unlimited’ meaning something else. You really get unlimited domains, unlimited web space, unlimited data transfer, and unlimited bandwidth. With BlueHost, unlimited means unlimited. Period.

Testing Their Customer Service

You will see a choice of several features that may not seem familiar to you, such as DNS Management, SSL Support, and CGI-bin/perl. Do not be afraid to contact your potential web hosting company to ask questions. In fact, contacting their customer service phone number to ask questions before you decide to sign up will give you a pretty good indication of the level of service you will have in the future, if you ever experience a problem with your website.

Asking detailed questions will demonstrate how knowledgeable the customer service and technical support representatives are. They should be able to explain in easy to understand terms what each feature means to you and your new website. You may even want to read online reviews and choose a web hosting company with good customer service ratings, such as HostMonster, to get your questions answered.

Which Features Are Right For My Website?

This is an important question because each website has unique needs. If you intend to sell products online, for example, you will want a shopping cart and e-commerce features, as well as security features to protect your customer’s private information.

If you have little or no web design experience and you cannot afford to hire a professional web designer, you will need an easy to use site builder.

If advertising is important to you, choose a web hosting company that offers bonus Google Adwords or Yahoo Search Marketing advertising credits for signing up with them.

If you are uncertain that you are choosing a web host with everything that you need, be sure to choose a web hosting company which offers a money back guarantee. Whatever your needs may be, the easiest thing to do is make a list and match it up to what each web hosting company offers. Take notes on each web hosting company’s hosting packages and after doing a written comparison, it should be easier to make the final decision.

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