When you have a website built for your company, there are a few hidden costs to consider in the overall price but nothing compares to the complexities of picking the right hosting company.

What is Web Hosting?

To understand what web hosting is, you need to understand that a website has a few key elements:

The Domain Name

This is the easily understood name that you share with people such as thisismyurl.com, thingsidoformoney.com, gamesgarrison.com etc. The domain name is the part of the website that we type into a web browser’s address bar to access the website. Generally a domain name costs between $7.95 and $15.95 per year, depending upon who you register with.

The Website

A website is the part of the process which visitors see, it’s generally a series of pages that make up a marketing or application package. Websites are scripted in a language called the HyperText Markup Language (HTML) and are stored as a series of files very similar to how you would store a collection of Word or spreadsheet files on your local computer. These files are simply placed in a directory on a hard drive, which is accessed by a special software application called a web browser.

Web Hosting

Now that we can appreciate a website is simply a series of specially formated documents, we can appreciate that we need to store those documents somewhere for everybody around the world to look at. In most small offices there is a shared directory which allows people from all departments to store files for others in the office to view. In larger companies, we make use of remote file sharing which allows users in one location to share files with users in countless other locations, this is what web hosting is all about.

Your website, which is a series of files and folders, is uploading to a hard drive connected to the Internet and shared for millions to access and see. The website uses a special piece of software called a Web Server to serve both static (HTML) and dynamic (PHP / ASP) pages to your visitors.

The key characteristics of a quality web host are:

• Connection Speed - How long will it take to load the website, this is a key factor as people will leave slow websites.
• CPU Speed – For websites using CMS tools such as WordPress, a fast processor will help load pages quicker, just like a faster computer will load Word documents quicker.
• Reliability – Sometimes referred to as “Site Up Time” this factor represents how often a website is offline for maintenance or because of hardware/software failures.
• Storage Capacity - How big can your website be? Most websites are only  five MB (Mega Bytes), or a couple floppy discs in size.
• Transfer Bandwidth – How many times can your website be transfered to customers in a given month? Remember, each page your website contains has a weight or file size. Each time that file (and all the graphics are transfered) it consumes part of your transfer allowance.

Web Hosting Costs

Now that we understand some of the basics of web hosting, let’s take a look at some of the pricing options available for customers:

GoDaddy Hosting

Economy – 10 GB Space, 300 GB Transfer – $4.84 per month
Deluxe –  150 GB Space, 1,500 GB Transfer – $6.79 per month
Unlimited – $14.95 per month

BlueHost Hosting

Unlimited – $6.95 per month

Bell Aliant

Standard – 1 GB Space, 192 GB transfer – $14.95 per month
Marketer – 3 GB Spage, 288 GB trasfter - $24.95 per month