In the last issue, we learned how to create our website. By now, we should be proficient with the HTML editor of your choice, such as FrontPage 2000, 2003 or Dreamweaver. We know how to put background colors and change the fonts. We already know how to put the hyperlinks and make the buttons work and most important of all, we know how to upload our program to the hosting company for publication to the Internet world. We are now a proud Webmaster of a website which is no longer contained inside the computer files but can be seen by the outside world. (That's what you think, at least for the time being).

As a beginner, our next decision -- selection of the web hosting company -- will be crucial. And we say, crucial because it can become a heavy cross to carry if we make the wrong choice.  We have to choose wisely. Whether the website that you painstakingly developed will be viewed by your target market lies solely in the hands of your web hosting company; therefore exceptional care must be given in your selection process. Once your website is on the Internet, you could lose hundreds of dollars (or as a beginner, a few dollars) any one day your website is off, very often caused by malfunction in the systems of the web hosting company. 

You cannot afford to experiment in this area. Choosing will be difficult but the peace of mind that you will enjoy when your website runs will be worth the effort. 

Our concern about the proper selection is that it will be a burden for us beginners to contend with changing web hosting companies if the first choice was not satisfactory. And in the beginning, expect to need a lot of assistance from our hosts' support department, as we familiarize ourselves with the features and tools offered by the hosting company. Our nightmare at this point will be to choose a web hosting company that will be highly inaccessible that we literally feel that we were thrown in the hinterlands far from civilization when problems arise. 

Making the right choice is important primarily because moving to another web hosting company can be a very disruptive process, sometimes downright messy. The first web hosting company, depending on the congeniality of your relationship, can make the transfer as difficult or as easy as they may decide to. But certainly, moving your domain to another company will take time, normally from 3-5 days (or more if your web hosting company disliked you!). 

But before your go around shopping for a web hosting company, think of what you needs will be. You need to know and understand your requirements, what your website may require and the kind of response that you can expect.  Will your website be a simple and straightforward presentation of your products or services requiring only a few kilobytes of disk space? Or will it contain a thousand pages? Will you need the capability to run CGI scripts? Are there areas in your site that needs to be password-protected? Do you need a shopping cart and online capabilities to process payments if you were planning to have an e-commerce Web site?  How much traffic do you expect? Identify what you need, then look for web hosting company that you think can address your requirements. 

An important consideration for many people, and the number one source of complaints, is the quality of customer service. It is important to find a company that will be there for you to answer your questions, hear your complaints, and learn of your server problems - when you need it! Many web hosting companies offer both telephone and email customer support. Some offer even live chats. Some offer 7/24 support; while others have set time. Stay away from companies that has no customer support contact numbers; you don't want these companies that can never be reached when you have emergencies or your server goes down for one week.  If they offer only email support, check how fast their response times are.  If they get back to you after one week, they do not deserve your trust (and your cash).  However, always bear in mind that response time to a potential customer and to an actual customer can be two different things! Contacting each company by phone and gathering information on their support services and trying them out at random, would be very helpful in your final decision. 

To help you in your choice of good, reliable, and reasonably priced hosting company, you can visit sites that rate hosting companies. HostReview.com is one good source; check their page where individuals rate and review the web hosting companies that they have used. These reviews are honest to goodness assessment of their experiences with certain web hosting companies. The ratings and candid comments from those who have actually experienced the quality of service given can help you make your own hopefully, informed choice. You definitely wouldn't want to enlist in a web hosting company that consistently gets the poorest score, even though they offer the lowest price! Researching on the kind of service offered by the web hosting copany will give you some amount of confidence when you make your own decision. 

Web hosting companies have their facilities well advertised in business magazines. You then make your selection by matching the their capabilities and features with your hosting requirements. As a beginner, you must always look for the best for less, right? The standard on going rate for a 20-25,000 KB site ranges from $19.95 to $29.95 a month and this comes with standard facilities like, email, list server, file manager, statistics manager, cgi-bins, FTP server, and several standard programs. Prices vary according to the sophistication of the site that you intend to put up. E-commerce sites which includes shopping carts, shipping calculators and credit card acceptance facility are more expensive. Although Web hosting companies offer these features as a package, accepting credit cards or acquiring a Merchant Account would depend on your credit record as most Web hosting companies only serve as agents for this facility. We discuss more about this aspect somewhere in the Web site.