One of the great things about having my own servers is that I can control many of the things that a typical hosting company won’t let you do.  One of those is IP addresses.

A Really Dumbed-Down Explanation of How the Internet Works

When you’re sitting at home, and you decide to order pizza online, you pull up your browser on your computer.  Then you type in a URL, such as pizzahut.com.  Your computer then sends a message to your DNS, normally your local ISP (the company you pay for your Internet connection) asking for a translation of pizzahut.com to an IP address.  An IP address is simply a block of numbers (like a physical home address) that identifies where the pizzahut.com information exists on the web.

Your ISP then identifies that address online and requests the default HTML file related to that particular address (the pizza hut home page).  Once received, that file’s contents are sent back to your browser, and your browser translates that code into the web page you see before you.

All of that happens in a matter of seconds.  As soon as you type something else in, or click a link, the process starts over again.

Shared Hosting

Most small businesses are hosting their websites on a shared host.  That means that there’s a server with hundreds (maybe thousands) of websites, all housed on the same hard drive.  Every one of those websites share the same IP address.  Shared hosting is a terrific, cheap way to host your website.

But there’s a problem.  A few, actually.

1. You have no control over what else is housed on your server.
   If there’s a porn site (or hundreds) on the server, the server could be blocked or banned by companies like Google, Yahoo! and Bing.
2. Your load speed could be affected.
   If there are some popular sites on your server, its possible that the server can’t handle the load.  This means some websites could not be displayed, or the websites will take a long time to load.  Not good.
3. Spammers can screw up your day
   If someone on your server decides to send out an unsolicited email blast, your server and emails could be blocked by companies like Barracuda.  This means a ton of your clients may not receive the emails you’re sending out.
4. You’re just another website in the mix
   Being on a shared host could mean that you’re one of ten, fifty or hundreds of other similar businesses.  You aren’t set apart.  You’re just part of the mix.

Fixing the Problem

The easiest way to fix this problem is to get a dedicated server.  A dedicated server is just what it sounds like – a server that only houses your website.  Problem is, they’re darned expensive! Hundreds of dollars per month.  Since most businesses don’t need a complete server, there must be another way.

There is – a static IP address.

A static IP gives you your own ‘address’ on the Internet, not shared with anyone else.  Basically putting your website on an island, you’ll no longer share the same reputation as the many other websites probably hosted on your server.

Some hosting companies will let you purchase a static IP address, others will not.  The average price for a static IP is around $4/month.  It’s one of the best low-priced things you can do to set yourself apart, and the SEO benefits are worth $50 bucks a year.  Well worth it.

By the way, if your hosting company doesn’t do static IPs, you’re free to switch over to Lighthouse Technologies

After doing a little research, I discovered that they were using a hosting company that was based out of Canada, giving them a Canadian IP address for their domain. Ouch.

After speaking with them about the need to change to a US-based server, we made the switch.  And within two days suddenly they were #1 for their brand name on Google.  Suddenly they were recognized as a US based company, on a US based IP, so Google.com picked them up and ranked them accordingly.

Is your hosting company based in the US?  If not, and your target audience is in the US, you might want to consider changing.  I (of course) suggest my hosting company, which is based in the US. It will definitely make a difference.

My process is simple: Get hosting. Buy your domain.  Develop your website. Launch.

Purchase Web Hosting

Since my business started doing web hosting way back in the 90′s, I’m a bit partial to hosting with my own company.  For less than 11 bucks a month you can have everything you’ll need to get just about any website a place to live.

There are tons of hosting companies out there, just do a search and you’ll find plenty.  For SEO purposes, I’d recommend staying away from Windows servers, though.

Now, you don’t have to have hosting when you go to buy your domain, but it is highly recommended.  We’ll discuss that below.

Making the Decision – Domain Purchase

There are literally thousands of domain names being researched and registered every day.  Heck, every hour!  If you find a good domain name, you should register it immediately.  This is without question the most important step.

Let’s say you’re building a new website for your company.  You know your name is available, but you want to get the site up first.  You don’t want to have one of those ‘under construction’ banners on your website, and I can’t say I blame you.

Finally you get your site ready, and then you go to get the domain name and sure enough, someone has registered it.  What could have cost you $20 bucks or less now may cost you hundreds, thousands, or even worse, the person doesn’t want to give it up.  Now you’ve got to come up with something else.  That bites.

The Development Period

During the time after you buy the domain and before you launch the website, you can do a few different things.

Under Construction – Back in the early to mid 90′s this was the norm.  People would buy a domain name and put up a crazy (or boring) message saying something to the affect of “This site is under construction. Check back later”.  Like someone is really going to check back.  My recommendation: don’t do it.

Block the Spiders – If you’d prefer, you can simply block all spiders from crawling your page.  This will allow you to build your website right on your domain (if you so choose) or you can put up the God-awful ‘under construction’ banner, but it won’t get indexed.  I’d only use this method if you are in no big hurry to get indexed. Need to know how?

Park the Domain – Another one I’d probably not recommend.  Most domain registrars, when you purchase, will offer you the option to park the domain for free on their server.  They’ll put up a splash page with ads and basically make money off any type-ins that may occur.

Probably the biggest reason that parking occurs is because you have purchased a domain name, but haven’t got around to getting the web hosting yet.  This is something you need to have prior to getting your domain because they’ll ask you for information (such as name server addresses) when you purchase the domain name.

Splash Page – If you want to at least let the search engines know you exist, and briefly what you do, you can put up a simple page of content (text, not graphics) that explains what your website will be about.  This will give your visitors a reason to check back (if they like what you’ve written) and will also be a small bit of fodder for the spiders.

From a marketing standpoint, this is probably your best option.  While you won’t have much info out there, at least it’s something.  And you can start doing some low-end link building too, which may help you when you finally launch your site.

Conclusion and Cheap Plug(s)

If you come across a good domain, or if you have a business and want to register your name before someone else does, do it.  Don’t wait.

If you don’t know anything about registering domains, or need ideas for good marketable domains, just contact me or visit my business website.  If you need hosting, I’ll throw the domain in free for the first year.  What could be easier?

Sometimes my hosting business gets requests to extend a hosting account just a month or two.  I’ve always accommodated these requests, as I can understand money can be tight.

However recently I’ve had two instances where people have requested an extension (and they’ve paid their $9 bucks or whatever it is) just to move hosts.  They had planned all along to do so, and just needed a little more time to do so.

Well, no more extensions.  From now on you pay for a year or I terminate the account.

What is that saying, lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part?  Something like that…

But such is life (not) in the big city. If for some odd reason, a local business actually decides that they need a website, they still have no idea the few purchases (domain, hosting & web designer) that they need to make just to get that site up and running. Web hosting is the most foreign of the three to the average business owner.

So today I’m going to help Mister Joe Average out there who’s running a business selling appliance parts or running a local drywall company.

Web Hosting Defined: A service that allows users to post web pages to the Internet. A web host, which is also called hosting service provider (HSP), is a business that provides the technologies and services needed for websites to be viewed on the web.

Basically, web hosting is the virtual real-estate that you lease which you build your website upon. You rent out a portion of a hard drive on a server that is connected to the Internet.

So how do you go about picking out a web host? There are tons of them out there. Some are professionally driven, and some are run by a 15 year old high-schooler. Here are some quick and easy ways to pick out a good host.

Pre-tips Tip: This may be a personal bias, but if you’re planning on marketing your site, I suggest you stay away from Windows-based hosting. The options with Linux servers are much better, and there are plenty of them out there, don’t be at a disadvantage right from the get-go.

Tip 1: Check Out Reviews

To get started, visit a site like Web Hosting Blue Book or WebHostDir and check out the reviews. Keep in the back of your mind that every web host has problems, from cut pipelines to hurricanes. Things happen. But things shouldn’t happen over and over. People will always complain, but they won’t always tell the whole story.

While I’m on the subject, I should also mention that just because the companies are on the first page of these sites, it doesn’t mean they’re the best. It just means they have the most advertising money Take time to do a little research before you decide which way to go

Tip 2: Test the Support

Probably the number one thing you’ll hope works, especially if at 2:00 AM your host’s web server takes a dive. Once you’ve settled on a few options for hosting companies, I suggest you pick a time and send the company an email, asking something generic such as the speed of their servers. Then watch the amount of time that it takes them to reply. If they don’t have a support email address available, hopefully they at least have a support form that you can fill out.

Either way, see how long it takes them to reply. Try to write to the ‘support’ team and not ‘sales’. Any sales team should be on the ball because they want your money, so ask something thats a bit more technical and you’re more likely to get a response from a support-type person.

Tip 3: Google Search Other Forums for Complaints

This kind-of goes back to tip one, checking out reviews. But instead of reading reviews on a website built for such things, just do a search on Google at sites like WebmasterWorld and Digital Point to see what other Average Joe’s are saying about their hosting company.

Example:

Tip 4: Disk Space Isn’t That Important Anymore

Disk space used to be a big selling point for hosting companies. Over there you can get 10Gb, here you can get 100Gb. It doesn’t matter for 99% of the people looking for hosting.

Let’s say the average HTML page takes about 8k or so of space. That means you’ll need 125000 web pages to fill up one Gigabyte of disk space. You think you’re small business will have that many pages?

Tip 5: Worry About Bandwidth? Yeah, Maybe – But Probably Not

Bandwidth is the amount of data transfer that goes from your web host to various visitors’ computers. Every time someone pullsup your home page, they’re downloading that 8k file, and your web host will tabulate that. More than likely, your small business won’t have to worry about bandwidth, as these limits are rising as well. The average web hosting company gives 10Gb or more with their base hosting deal.

So unless you’re planning on ‘serving out’ some pretty big files, such as MP3′s or videos, you probably don’t need to worry about bandwidth.

Tip 6: Easy to Use Control Panel

All web hosting companies offer some sort of a control panel where you can set up things like your email addresses, create subdomains and check your stats. In my opinion, stick with a company that offers cPanel or Plesk, the two most popular control panels.

Hosts like GoDaddy, which offer a lot of ‘extra’ stuff to their customers (sometimes all their ads get annoying) has a (IMO) really bad control panel. I’ve done some work for a customer that hosted there, and I hated it.

Tip 7: Payment Plans & Contracts

Good news – web hosting is cheap. Bad news – web hosting with good support is cheap, but harder to find

Most web hosting companies have hosting starting around $6/month or so. Usually the ‘cheap’ package will suffice for most small businesses. Plus, you can always upgrade if you find out that you’re going to need more room or bandwidth.

I have noticed that some hosting companies are now requiring their customers to sign up for two years instead of one. They usually offer a nice discount, and are counting on keeping you and getting those residual payments to make up for their upfront loss. Be careful choosing one of these, because they’ll require payment up front. Then, if you aren’t happy with them, you’re stuck with hosting you’ve already paid for. You can always move to another host, but you won’t get your money back from anyone.

Some hosting companies still allow monthly payments. These payments may end up being a few dollars more a month, but may be the way to go if you’re not 100% sure about them. If after a few months, you’re satisfied, see if you can go to the yearly (usually discounted) pricing plan.

Summary

I hope these tips help you pick out a hosting company that’ll knock your socks off with their service and pricing. In my opinion, support is the number one deciding factor when choosing a hosting company. With my hosting company, its something I rely on a lot. If my customers can’t get the support they need, they’re going to go elsewhere, and I don’t want that!

We spoke a bit about my business and how I started out doing web design. As I would build these websites, I would always ‘farm out’ the web hosting to another company. I saw a need for my clients to get hosting, and I discovered that I could offer these things on my own. So that’s where I started making money online. Ten years later, I’m still doing it through SEM.

And the good news is, you can too!