Once you found a web host, finding a web hosting plan can be a little tricky.  Here are some things to think about.

First, think about your web hosting requirements.  Do you already have a website?  If so, you have it easy since all you need to do is check your current plan and determine if the new plan will fit.

If you are setting up a brand new website, finding a plan to fit your needs is a bit more difficult.  The two biggies you need to think about is how much web space and bandwidth will you need?  There are of course, other items to think about, but these two are universal regardless of the technology or features you need.

Bandwidth

Since this is a new website, your bandwidth needs likely will be minimal at first, since the site will be starting out with minimal visitors.  As time goes by, word gets around to the search engines and people in general, more and more visitors will stop by and eat up your website’s bandwidth.  How soon will this happen?  It depends, but it can take a couple months to get your new website into the search engine rankings.

For starting out, a minimal plan with low bandwidth might be a good fit.  You can always grow and add more bandwidth.

Disk Space

If the website is brand new and hasn’t been developed yet, this can be a bit more difficult to estimate.  Some things to think about:  Will this site be the next Youtube or Flickr?  If you plan to host photos or video, you will need a lot of disk space.  Or is your website a brochure site that will have some photos and a handful of web pages?  If so, you likely can go with a minimum plan, 50mb or 100mb will likely be plenty.  Usually at any time, you can upgrade to more disk space.  So you can grow your website’s content before emptying your wallet.

Features

Once you have determined how much bandwidth and disk space your website needs, determining what features your site will use will be important.  Some plans will offer a world of features, but it doesn’t make sense to pay for them if you are not going to use them.  And most times, you can easily upgrade at any time to get those features.

For features, you will want to check out what languages are available and make sure they are inline to how you will develop your website.  If a web developer is building your site, get them involved immediately so they can ensure you get the right hosting plan to fit your website being developed.  They will understand what options and features you need.

If you are going on your own, what languages are you willing to work with?  PHP is pretty popular and most hosts usually provide this.  If ASP is more inline to what you need, a Windows plan will be a better fit.

How many email boxes will be provided?  How many do you think you will need?  Note, most email boxes get their disk space from the hosting plan, so if you only get a 10mb plan and setup a mailbox with 10mb of storage, you may run out of space very quickly for your web site.

Do you need a database for your website?  If so, which one do you need?  MySQL?  PostgreSQL?  Microsoft SQL?  These are very important to note and if you are working with a web developer, they will be able to help you select the appropriate one.  How many databases do you need?  Usually for small websites, one database will be plenty.  For larger websites, having multiple databases may be necessary.

Price

Price is important.  You don’t want to over pay for functionality and features you are not able to use.  Yet, you don’t want to get too small of a plan where your website will exhaust all its resources by mid-month.  By reviewing your needs, you will ensure the price you pay matches your needs.  Otherwise, if the price is too high, you may need to compromise on website features and select a cheaper plan.

For new websites, a low-end plan likely is a very good fit.  The number of visitors will not be very high when starting out (unless you have an existing website, in which case you will already have a good idea of what plan you will need).  The disk space may seem low, but likely you will not fill it up initially.  After the first year, you can review how much your website has grown and determine if an upgrade is necessary.

Summary

Hopefully this sparked some ideas on what to look for when looking for a web plan.

Tekro LLC provides web hosting plans and we would hope you consider us for your web hosting needs.  We have been providing hosting services since 1999!

Tekro LLC offers three “out of the box” hosting plans as well as the ability to build your own web hosting plan!  Take a moment and check out our web hosting plans.