Hosting with Instant Website Builder vs Common Hosting – Which one is best for you?

One of the main questions when starting a website is how will it look? And who will build it? Easy HTML website design of yesteryear is gone like the dinosaur, and the slick-looking websites of today may look easy, but the coding is far from understandable to the general public.

Most entrepreneurs or blogger enthusiasts are not certified web geeks complete with pocket pouch protector and signed photo of Bill Gates on our bedroom wall. Instead, most are comfortable surfing the web and know what a good website looks like. And when it comes to creating their business, blog, or personal website most don’t have a clue how to begin.

The good news is that there are plenty of web hosting companies who can help novice web builders get a great, professional-looking website. The decision comes down to a choice between common web hosting, or specific “instant website builder” web hosting.

Instant Builder Hosting

This type of hosting takes aim at a very specific market – businesses who want a professional website but do not know how to do it themselves. Web hosts like Yola.com or Intuit (www.intuit.com/freewebsite) were created to provide an easy way for a small business owner to build an eCommerce or simple website, buy a domain name, and host it all in the same place.

The benefit to these types of hosts is that users can get right to the point – get a real website online in just minutes without worrying about all the convoluted “features” of a common web hosting plan. Clients get to buy a domain, build a website using the provided wizard and guide, and publish the site complete with shopping cart, ready to sell online.

The downside is the clients don’t have as much control over all aspects of their web hosting plan. Prices are comparable, but usually are a little more expensive than common hosting plans.

Common Hosting

Common hosting is the typical shared hosting plan offered by popular web hosts like BlueHost.com or iPage.com. These companies offer hosting plans with a long list of “features” that include amounts of bandwidth, disk space, number of email accounts, etc. The features list can be dozens of entries long, and a small business owner with no idea what they mean can easily get lost.

These types of plans usually come with a website builder, just like the instant builder hosting plans, except it is not the central focus of the plan. Instead, these companies market to the “connoisseur” website owners who are more familiar with web hosting terms and features.

So, which one is best for you? If you are a complete novice at website construction, publishing, and maintenance, an instant builder site may be just for you. However, if you are knowledgeable about web hosting terms and know the difference between a parked domain and a sub domain, you may be more apt to buy a common type of hosting plan and save a little money as well as have more control over your website.

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