Last updated on September 6th, 2017
We spend a lot of time here at the search engine optimization e-blog talking about SEO and online marketing – strategies to help you maximize your online investment and bring in revenues.
However, before you even start thinking about that, you need to obtain a domain name for your site and reserve the online space that will be the home for your website.
Web hosting is how this is done. Hosting is essentially a service that provides storage for the content on your site, and then displays it on the Internet.
Before you even choose a hosting service like Pair Networks, Bluehost or Vodahost, you need to find a good domain name. Godaddy.com is one place you can go to check the availability of your preferred domain name. Remember, this is how many people will recognize your business online so be careful when choosing a domain name.
Once you have an available domain name, you can go to your chosen web hosting service and pay them a yearly fee for the use of that name. This generally costs anywhere from $8 to $20 per year.
Next, you will need to pay a yearly fee for hosting your website. Costs vary depending on how much space you require but in my experience, this cost around $100 per year. Most services charge on a yearly basis.
Some things you will want to look for in a hosting service:
- Do they allow you to setup sub-domains? Is there a limit on how many domains you can register on an account?
- Do they accept credit cards for easy payment?
- Do they offer email and/or web email services?
- Do they have the ability to include a blogging platform with their services so you can have your own dedicated domain for your blog?
- Do they have dedicated IP addresses for each domain you include? Many low-cost providers will clump several domains on one IP address, which can spell disaster for your site in terms of SEO.
Quality hosting services is essential to being successful online. There are literally hundreds of thousands of providers out there so be careful…beware of low cost hosting services!