You’ve finally finished testing the perfect cloth diaper pattern and it’s ready to sell. Or all your WAHM friends are clamoring for your web design services and you really need to setup your own site so you can start charging what you’re worth. Yep, it’s time to figure out what web hosting company you’re going to use.
I’ve worked with a few hosting companies — and currently run my own — so I’ve experienced a few of the horror stories and fixed a few messes. And I can tell you right now that choosing the right hosting company from the beginning will save you a lot of headaches.
This post is the first in a series on this topic, since bit-sized chunks of information tend to be a bit easier to digest.
For starters, here are the top three web hosting mistakes new business owners make.
- Choosing the least expensive host with unlimited this and insanely cheap that. Signing up for that hosting account is kind of like buying a used car. You get sucked in by all the bells and whistles — the unlimited bandwidth and brand new engine.What they don’t tell you is that hiding behind the “unlimited” bandwidth is an acceptable use policy that limits your resource usage — a statistic that most companies don’t allow you to see, let alone monitor yourself.Oh, and that used car with the new engine? Hiding behind that shiny engine is a transmission with 200,000 miles and three months of life.
- Signing up for a year of hosting — and then finding the perfect shopping cart that won’t run on your new host’s servers. In other words, before you sign any contracts or make any commitments, you need to make sure all the pieces to your online business fit together.For example, I had a client come to me for a website design. She had picked out a cart and wanted me to create the design for her. We realized too late that the hosting company’s servers ran Windows — and the cart she wanted to use would only run on a Linux machine. In other words, the two wouldn’t work together.
- Hosting your site with your kid’s friend’s brother who lives down the street and has a server in his parent’s basement. Or choosing a very young company, or one that doesn’t have a very good track record.One of my design clients purchased a cheap hosting account several years ago. The client ran a busy parenting message board with dozens of people surfing daily. Everything was fine for a couple of months — and then the client started getting database errors and the site would run very, very slowly during certain times of the day. We contacted the host, who rebooted the server or MySQL a few times.And then one day, the site disappeared.
The only thing left was a database error message in everyone’s browsers. Oh, and I had an inbox filling up with database errors — one for each time someone tried to access the site or hit the refresh key. So I contacted the host via email (their preferred contact method) to find out what had happened.
I never heard back from the host. Trust me, if you’re running a busy ecommerce site and your mortgage depends on your sales, you don’t want this to happen!
If you are depending on your site to say online at least 99 percent of the time, choose the company with the best customer service and equipment, not the best price.
Next in our series: My #1 tip for choosing the right hosting company for your business.
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Jenn Cangelosi is owner of 
The old adage, “You get what you pay for” comes to mind here. But I do think that if you’re just starting out there’s no harm in going with an inexpensive hosting plan, as long as you are able to upgrade later when you need more bandwidth and storage space.
Cindy Bidars last blog post..Six Years is an Aeon in Internet Time
Nice post, Michelle! I don’t mind paying a little bit extra for the tools that will make my business run smooth.
Hi Cindy!
Thank you very much for your input. I agree that when you’re starting out, it’s OK to go with in inexpensive hosting account.
However, I think you need to make sure you’re realistic and have a basic understanding of the hosting business model.
You’re not going to be able to get unlimited bandwidth, superior customer service and 99.9 percent uptime with a $3 per month hosting account. Something is going to give somewhere.
However, if you get a $3 a month hosting account at a reputable company that gives you reasonable resources for that amount, and is committed to providing superior uptime and support, you’ll be just fine.
You’ll just need to keep in mind that as soon as you start generating traffic to your site, needing additional resources such as databases and disk space, you’re going to have to upgrade.
One of my clients started out on a small shared hosting account and ended up with two dedicated servers within five years.
Chances are, most ecommerce sites aren’t going to need to do that. However, this brings me to another topic: Make sure your hosting company can meet your needs as you grow.
For example, at my web hosting company, we offer several shared hosting accounts — and also VPS and Dedicated servers.
A client can start out with our least expensive $3 a month plan and grow to our largest dedicated server.
Just want to make sure I’m clear about what I mean by inexpensive and what you should expect from your hosting company.