The Best Web Hosting List

So you think you’re ready to buy web hosting? That’s great! Like the first time I purchased web hosting, you must be very excited! It’s a little bit scary, a little thrilling, and a great deal nerve-wracking. To help ease your web hosting anxiety, here are some presales questions you may want to answer yourself before you buy from the best web hosting provider of your choice.

What kind of website do I want to host?

Are you ready for business hosting? Ecommerce? Personal? Family? Narrow it down as much as possible to a specific niche. Here are some further examples:

* Blog hosting / WordPress web hosting
* Joomla hosting
* Web 2.0 hosting
* Dedicated Server Hosting
* Adult hosting
* Music hosting
* Email hosting
* Reseller hosting
* Photo hosting / Artist hosting
* Church hosting

What kind of features do I need?

Consider the kind of website you are looking to create. If you are starting a church website, odds are you are not going to need very much storage space, whereas you might need a website template and an average amount of bandwidth. On the other hand, if you are running a photography website, you are going to need a good deal of storage space and bandwidth, but may be less concerned with website templates or the amount of email addresses you can use.

How many webpages and/or websites will I create?

You may not know this ahead of time, but think in generic terms – do you plan to add other websites to your hosting account in the future? Would you like to be able to have that option?

Do I need advanced web hosting features?

Do you plan to add scripting or programming to your website? If so, make sure the kind of scripts you want to run are supported by your web hosting provider. If you’re unsure, odds are you don’t need them.

Can I build the website myself?

If yes, don’t choose a web hosting provider who offers free site building tools over one that doesn’t just because it looks like they offer more. If you’re unsure about building your own website, make sure that you put a website builder as a priority on your web hosting checklist! Or get a web design template.

Many people have asked us what it takes to actually build a website from start to finish: i.e. How long does it take and how much does it cost?

Building a website can be extremely easy and can take you less than a few hours if you plan the building of it ahead of time! Here are some tips and tricks for getting your website online in under 5 hours!

1) Write your content and get your images ready first.

Yep, before you sit down to purchase web hosting, domain name, and start building, come up with your text, save your images, and even get your videos, music, and other production tools ready in advance. Having these at hand will speed up the process of creating your website.

2) Choose your website builder or templates.

This may require doing a little research and you might need to compare web hosts in the process, but find out which content management system, website builder, or web design template you’re going to use to actually put your site online and make it look good. Our biggest recommendations go to:

* WordPress Web Hosting – For this, we would recommend IX Web Hosting, ThinkHost, or HostMonster. They can all help you get WordPress up and running with no programming or design experience required. Plus there a gazillion Free WordPress Theme sites you can choose your design from. Easy, easy, easy.

* Joomla Web Hosting – For this, we recommend IX Web Hosting, DreamHost, or BlueHost, all of which have Joomla tools that help you install and get started without having to know a thing about technology! Plus, sites like iJoomla.com offer Joomla Extensions and design tools that help you make Joomla work for you and look good to boot.

* Web Design Templates from DreamTemplate. These guys know website design, and their templates are super cheap. You only have to pay one-time and they can help you install them. These templares are compatible with all of our Top 10 Web Hosting providers.

3) Pick the Best Web Host and Build!

Once you log in, you can start building your website immediately. That means less time spent worrying.

Now for the best part – you can design, build, and host your website for under $100 per year. This is around $6.95 or LESS per month! That’s less than 25 cents/day. You really cannot lose with these easy website hosting deals.

We have already explained some basic web hosting terms in detail, but it’s time to get to the nitty-gritty web hosting terms that come up literally everywhere you look! This ought to make it easier to choose the best web hosting provider for your business or personal website.

Control Panel – This is what you use to manage all aspects of your website. For example, you will login to your control panel to update your website, install a blog like WordPress, or to create an email address.

Database – You will likely never use them (either consciously or unconsciously) but databases are places you can store things like product or customers lists, scripts, or where automatic installations install important features. For example, when installing Joomla, your web hosting control panel will install modules into databases. You don’t need to know this, but it helps make Joomla function.

Domain – Your website URL that you want visitors to type in to visit your website. For example, thebestwebhostinglist.com is our domain name here. Normally, you can get this registered for free with your web host.

FTP – FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol, and though it sounds technical it’s as easy to setup as downloading a file from your email! FTP Programs help you upload and download files, music, and videos from your webhosting account to your PC or vice versa.

GB – (gigabyte) Honestly, you don’t need to know what a ‘gigabyte’ is to enjoy your webhosting account and website. But a gigabyte (or GB) is a measuring increment. 1 GB is worth 100 MB (megabytes). Make sure you choose a web host who offers more than 5GB of storage space and more than 100GB of bandwidth. That’s all you’ll really need.

Money-Back Guarantee – Pretty self-explanatory, this is something every web host should offer. It’s a guarantee that, if you dislike their services, you can get a refund within a specified period of time. Most MBGs are 30, 60, or 90 days.

Subdomain – Yep, there are levels for domains. For example, thebestwebhostinglist.com is our primary domain. But ix-web-hosting-review.thebestwebhostinglist.com is our subdomain, devoted to explaining everything there is to know about IX Web Hosting. Using subdomains can help you build a new website without purchasing an entirely new domain name for it.

If you are a work-at-home mom, just starting your home business, or perhaps looking to extend the reach of a local business to a broader online community, small business web hosting is definitely the way to go. But what exactly does a small business website need that’s different from what normal webhosting customers require?

For one thing, technical support. If you are running a simple blog and it goes down for a couple minutes, it’s no big deal. But if you are operating a business online, every minute of downtime means the possibility you are losing sales, money, and customers. Don’t be fooled by “99.9% uptime” though – every web host says they have that. What you need is valuable, trustworthy, knowledgeable technical support available as close to 24/7 as possible. Remember, live chat is great, but live phone support is better and a decent ticketing or email system is best.

Another difference is storage space and bandwidth. While shared web hosting providers can make up high numbers, you really need a web hosting provider who can stand behind those numbers and back you up if you reach them. Choose the best web hosting you can to assure you can run shopping carts, multiple websites and pages, hundreds of emails, and more. Remember to choose the features you need most and worry about pricing second – most webhosts will be affordable these days.

Make 100% sure your webhosting provider has the following features or that you are able to purchase these features at an additional cost:

* Dedicated IP Address
* SSL Certificate
* Shopping Carts
* Blogs (WordPress)
* CMS (Joomla)
* Multiple Parked Domains (redirecting domains)

Small business webhosting can be tough, but with the best web hosting list guiding you every step of the way, you can make sure you are making the right decision.

Along with shared and dedicated hosting, a few hosts also offer VPS hosting. Simply put, VPS hosting is a step between shared and dedicated. Instead of going really cheap and sharing a server with a few hundred people, or going really expensive and purchasing your own server, you can look for a Virtual Private Server, in which you would be sharing the server with a couple dozen other people. The server is partitioned with a specific software so that each client on the server receives an equal share of the server, and each client can see and deal with the server as though s/he was the only one on it. This is a good option if you have a large amount of outgoing email or a website that’s taking up more than the allowed CPU usage in the shared environment, but not enough to warrant the price of a dedicated server. Another reason for looking into a VPS is if you need root/shell access. Some of the best web hosts do not allow root access on their shared server as a security measure, so a VPS would be a good option.

VPS hosting can range from $20 to $80, depending on the company, the type of server, and the specs. Be sure to check out our growing list of hosts that offer VPS services!

A Content Management System (or CMS) is something that will make your website much easier to run! Content management system web hosting is quite popular with new webmasters and website owners who are not programmers or are unfamiliar with how to run a website and just want a simple website hosting solution.

Content management systems simplify the process of creating websites by giving you an easy creation tool. You can input content, edit articles, post news, add blogs, upload and store photos and music, and even implement advertising and videos. Basically, content management system web hosting or CMS web hosting makes creating and editing your website as easy as possible.

Two of the most popular methods of CMS web hosting tools are Joomla web hosting and WordPress Web Hosting.

Joomla is best for more intense websites, while WordPress can be used for blogs or simple website hosting.

You can find beautiful WordPress Themes and Web Designs as well as Joomla Extensions to help make your website the best it can be!

You can use many tools to set up your new website. One of the most popular web hosting tools is called Joomla and it is a Content Management System, which allows you to simplify the website creation process by giving you a simple content management interface. From this ‘dashboard’ of sorts, you can manage entries, post news articles, add pictures and text, and even implement surveys, host advertisements, and sell space on your website.

Joomla web hosting is becoming increasingly popular because most web hosts offer Joomla web hosting tools right in your control panel! Since Joomla is free software, even if your best web hosting provider doesn’t offer it automatically installed, you can download the software from the Joomla website and install it yourself onto your website.

Joomla web hosting is cheap, affordable, and very easy once you get the hang of it. Best of all there are Joomla extensions you can purchase, which allow you to host your website using Joomla but also to implement exciting features like Magazine web hosting, search features, advertisement hosting, and Digital Web Hosting Stores!