STEP 2: Website Hosting

After registering a domain name, the next step is to find your domain name a place to live. This is the function of a website host which is really no different than a person buying property (the hosting plan) to build their house (website) on to live. It is where your website will reside on the Internet and be given a unique address so that others can locate it. The property on which you build your website usually resides in a grouping like a city or town and is known as a web server computer. These groupings are ultimately connected to the Internet. Web servers are connected to other web servers by networks that act like highways—connecting one city to many cities. This is why the Internet was given the nickname “Super-highway”.

Finding a suitable website host is a daunting task. You may not always know what your needs are—now or in the future. Do you need a one-lane ramp on and off the Internet or a four-lane ramp? Do you want a large piece of property to grow into or start smaller and move later? Do you want a host that provides all kinds of services including phone support, or are you happy to figure out all your own problems? Hosting companies usually offer a lot of flexibility in their plans to accommodate your changing needs.

Your hosting company should also provide you with email services to have your email sent to your domain name (myname@mycompany.com) A good hosting company will allow you to set up your own names and manage the accounts yourself, so if you want to add a mailbox called gary@mycompanyy.com, or later change it to gbrown@mycompany.com you can.

Often, hosting companies will provide you with another method for reading your email. This method is an "on-line" method which allows you to log into your mailbox remotely and look at what is there before the mail is delivered to your computer. This is like driving over to your local postal station and reading the mail destined to be delivered to your house. The advantage of having this optional method is for those times when you can't either get to or use your own computer. It will allow you to still read and respond to your email. So, if you are on vacation, away from your computer, your computer is infected with a virus or having other problems you can still get your current email.

How Website Hosting Works
Going back to the example of properties and houses in cities, hosting companies build the infrastructure around your website like a city will build the infrastructure of roads, hydro, gas, garbage collection, and water and sewage lines in and around any city. Their job is to maintain the integrity of this infrastructure so you don't have to worry about it. They provide the high speed data lines, the technical staff, the powerful server computers, the climate controlled rooms for these servers, the backup generators, the security, and many other considerations. Your hosting company will give you access to your house by issuing you a username and password that acts like a house key to get you in and allow you to do what needs to be done.

The Hosting company will also assign you an IP address that they own which then gets associated to the domain name you own. This will happen automatically after signing up with a hosting company and completing the next step (Step 3).

An IP address is a unique number like a phone number except it is designed for the Internet. Just as every location in the world has a unique phone number, so does every computer attached to the Internet have a unique IP address.

For example when you register www.yourname.com it costs a small yearly fee to own the name. Now, whenever someone types www.yourname.com into their web browser, they get redirected to a web server that manages that IP address (a series of numbers, in the format of ### . ### . ### . ###). For example your website www.yourname.com could be associated to the IP address of 123.45.67.89

Depending on the hosting plan you purchase, your domain name may not receive a "unique" IP addresses. This is because the hosting company may instead issue you a "shared" IP address. This works similar to how one phone number can go to one location and then be redirected to various rooms throughout the building using extension numbers. There are drawbacks to this "shared" method but it is cheaper and may be suitable for your needs.

Now that you have a picture in your mind about what a hosting plan is and why you need one to build a website, keep in mind that what the house looks like and all the furnishings inside are yours to design, buy, and maintain. The hosting company just looks after the infastructure.

Tips

• You do not need a completed website before you sign up for a hosting plan and it is a good idea to have one before your website is ready to be published. The reason for this is because it takes 24 to 72 hours before all of the routers in the world that control traffic trying to find your website know where to send them (see next step).

• If the hosting company offers several plans, it is a good idea to start with one that provides you with good support over plans that are selling more storage or bandwidth. When you are just starting with a website, it is recommended you buy the personal support you will need rather than other services you may not use.

• Caution! It sounds easy to move a website to a new host, but depending on how complex your site is, it can be very time consuming. It's always wise to pick the most appropriate host first, instead of moving from host to host constantly.

• Some hosting companies offer really cheap plans upfront to lure you in. They may save you money initially but overall quality of service is far more important. So when you shop for a Web Host, consider first your needs and then the advantages their "whole" plan offers. Their cheaper plan may seem like a deal at first, but if the rest of the package doesn't meet your needs then what advantage does it really offer you or your customers in the long run.

Cost
Website hosting can cost anywhere from $5 to $500 per month depending on what your needs are. I suggest you initially bank on $20 or $30 per month for as long as you want your website on the Internet

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