Baby Steps to an Online Business : Choose a Website Hosting Service

Choosing A Hosting Company

In order to take your domain live, you’re going to have to choose a hosting company.  Although free hosting companies are out there, it is NOT a good idea to pick one of them. They often come with restrictions that can be challenging to work around, can be slower, less secure, less reliable and may make you put their ads on your website. Hosting is inexpensive and worth picking a good one. Here are some criteria for what to look for in a hosting company:

1. Good customer support is a must! Make sure you pick a hosting company that has 24/7 support and has various ways of contacting their help desk.

2. Listen to what others have to say. A solid hosting company will have positive reviews from other customers. If you’re trying out a new restaurant, are you going to try one that other people love or one where people say the food tastes like dirt? Same with web hosting. Go with the flow.

3. Make sure the company has c-panel access.

4. Look for a hosting company that is Linux based rather than Windows based.

Web Hosting Companies

Here are a few hosting companies that you can take a look at.  I personally LOVE MomWebs.  I use them for all my hosting needs and am very happy with their service and support.  It is excellent!  But do take some time to look around and pick a hosting service that you feel would meet your needs.

Arvixe: https://sherigraham.com/arvixe

Once you have chosen and purchased a hosting service, the hosting company will give you their nameservers.  These will need to be entered in your domain registration account in order to link your domain name with your web hosting service.

Updating Your Nameservers

Here is a Youtube video that will walk you through how to update your nameserver, which will tie your domain name to your hosting account.  This video shows how to do this on www.NameCheap.com, but the basic instructions are pretty much the same on every domain name account.

httpv://youtu.be/7sIb7o4CW1w

Once you have updated the nameservers, it can take up to 48 hours before your site is “live”.

In the next post we will be covering setting up your WordPress site!