Before I get into this, if you want to learn about hosting, you can read the post, but if you want to kill some time and watch Freddiew be awesome, do that instead.
Alright, back on topic we go. In the first post within this Startup Series I talked a little bit about how your domain name ties into your niche, and how to choose a domain name that is right for your business in the online world. I covered a couple tips when it comes to choosing and gave you a couple tools to use along the way. Nothing over the top, but just enough to get you started.
You’ve come up with an awesome domain name and now you’re wondering what’s next, right?
Well person on the other side of the screen. Your next step is going to be finding a place to store your website files so that people can look at them. At this point we hit the next phase of the Startup Series and another question comes up that gets a little bit more technical.
“Hosting, do I even have a hosting provider?” And “What language should my website be in?”
I don’t mean English, French, Polish or Klingon. I mean programming language and more specifically, server side programming languages. Generally most web hosts will support the programming language you want to build your website from. Just to give you an idea of what I’m talking about, an example of a server side language would be PHP (which actually stands for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor, weird right? It’s an acronym within an acronym within an acrony… you get the picture). You might also hear ASP.NET or just .NET being tossed around, which stands for Active Server Pages, and uses the windows based .NET framework.
“Woah woah woah… I was promised kittens.”
Ok, I’m sorry, too technical. Here, this should hold you over.
Click the pic to head over to "Post a picture of the cutest kitten you can find." Ironically posted by a member known as "Time For Destruction!" What?
Ok, so lets skip that techie part. I didn’t really want to get into it but my nerd took over and for that I apologize. I did want to bring this up briefly however, because this is something your computer person is going to have to know. In the next post I’ll cover a bit about what questions you should be asking them. This is something that you as a client have a right to ask. Basically, “Can you please find out if my web host can run the programming language you’re going to use to build my website with?” Moreover, if your website is going to have a database (again, this is something your computer person should know), then they’ll have to find out if your web host can support it. MySQL server and MS SQL are common database platforms that you might hear being tossed around.
Hold on, hold on. Just look at that cat’s face and try not to laugh.
So, back to the original question, do you have hosting? Well, if you’re not sure what it is, then probably not. As a rule of thumb, in my personal opinion, I try to stick to the local guys here in Canada, I’ll also do research through Google. Something like “[Insert company name] Reviews” should do the trick. So far I’ve used three providers in my development years. Netfirms, GoDaddy and Host Papa.
Netfirms has a really nice administration area, it’s relatively easy to navigate, and they’ve just upgraded their tools. What I found about them though was that the customer service wasn’t anything spectacular, and things took a bit long to get going. GoDaddy on the other hand has amazing customer service (in my experience), BUT, for some reason WordPress websites take FOREVER to load and their tools are way too complicated.
This brought me to Host Papa. Canadian, fair prices, great interface with easy to understand tools, and best of all, they run on Green Energy (energy provided naturally though wind turbines and solar panels). I haven’t had to deal with their customer service yet, so we’ll see about that.
When it comes down to it, you’ll probably be paying around $100/year for hosting, and about $10/year for your domain name. You can probably find a bit cheaper, but given the service that Host Papa provides, they are worth it.
As a recap, here’s what’s in this 5 part series:
- First of all, do I have domain name? If not, what should it be? What is my niche market and why is this important?
- Do I have a hosting provider? (This post)
- Do I know a ‘guy?’ (This is a common question that many people ask themselves)
- Who should I hire if I don’t know anyone? Where should I look for web design services?
- What should my website achieve? Do I have a product to sell?
Cheers,
Hammer Bro