The Best Web Hosting List

The best web hosting providers will offer easy website scripts that you can install with one-click. For example, if your web hosting provider uses cPanel, one of the forerunners in web hosting control panels, then you also get Fantastico, which allows the kind of easy website script installs I mentioned earlier. But if you don’t have an easy tool to install scripts, you can do them yourself without any HTML or programming experience! Here are a few popular script ideas you may want to use.

Counters & Web Stats

Having a website counter or web statistics program on your web hosting plan allows you to see who is on your website, at what time, how long they stay, where they came from, and even how many times they came back.

* Perfect for business web hosting to keep track of potential customers or personal web hosting to see the popularity of your blog, church website, or hobby website!

Advertisements

Owning your own website means you can put your own advertisements on it if you wish! This is fun because you can actually make money off online advertisements, and it won’t cost you a dime to install them. Make sure the ads are relevant to your website, find a good application or script, and install it. It’s that easy.

* Perfect for ecommerce web hosting to gain additional income from your website or blog web hosting where you can easily capitalize on your readership.

Photo Galleries

Do you want to have a professional art or photo gallery for your family, church, vacation, business products, digital or traditional art, and more? Then installing a photo gallery script will help your best web hosting look phenomenal! With photo gallery scripts, you can have any many ‘galleries’ as you want and can add unlimited photos or images instantly, all from your main hosting control panel!

* Perfect for mothers and families, churches, blog web hosting, vacation photos, business products, digital or traditional artists, and more.

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.

You may not know this, but there are other choices besides internet web hosting to host your website. Of course, there are ups and down to hosting your website from place to place, so here’s a brief rundown of some pros and cons for hosting your website at home vs hosting it with a reliable web hosting provider.

Hosting at Home

Yep, you can host your website from your home computer if you want to! You can do this by using your home computer’s system resources, your DSL or high-speed internet connection, and web space. Using Microsoft Word or other free products, you can design a simple website and put it online.

Pros: It’s nearly free! You only have to pay for your internet connection, home computer, and any web design products you’ll use to get online.

Cons: There are…a lot of cons to this, unfortunately. I’ll just list three of the biggies. 1) You can’t use your home computer for both hosting a website and as a computer, unless your computer is MASSIVE. It takes a lot of resources to run a website. 2) Your internet service provider likely won’t provide you with a dedicated or static IP address, which is necessary for good SEO (search engine optimization) and ecommerce web hosting. 3) There’s no support hotline, so if your hard drive melts, you see a blue screen with white text, or get corrupt files, will you know what to do?

Web Hosting from a Reliable Web Hosting Provider

You already knew this was possible, but it’s the most popular method for hosting your website.

Pros: You get technical support if you choose a provider from our Top 10 Web Hosting List. You also get a free domain name, unlimited emails, and you don’t have to worry about melting your hard drive, backing up files, or your internet connection. Web hosting companies have better internet connections anyway, one that will never or very rarely be down. You can also purchase dedicated or static IP addresses easily, so ecommerce and great SEO is never a problem.

Cons: It’s slightly more expensive, though if you run into trouble on your home computer, trust me, the cost will be tenfold more than what you’ll pay for reliable hosting service from our affordable hosting providers.

Here’s a quick list for you of 5 website design tips. Once you’ve got your best web hosting picked out, you’ll need them to start actually designing the look of your new website!

1. Simplicity is Key

When people first started designing websites back in the 90s, websites were ugly and overcrowded with a bunch of images, text, and worst of all links. These days, web hosting and web design are better when they are created with simplicity in mind. Keeping this thought close, after you purchase your website hosting and start to design your website, don’t overcrowd your site with pictures and links. Let your content do most of the talking but keep that below 500 words for the index page. Take a look at thebestwebhostinglist.com, for example. The most important thing to remember is: don’t use flashy animations or blinking text, etc. These things are not effective or professional.

2. White Space is Good

These days, a clean website is a beautiful website. In the old days, clutter was best, but having nice white space or blank space between words, images, links, and everything else, means your website will look cleaner and neater. It will also look modern, which is good for any new web hosting customer to consider!

3. Be Appropriate

Personally, I love anime girls, but I’m not going to have a template with anime girls on it if I’m running a business, because that is not professional. If you are running a business, make sure your photos, music, videos, and overall theme is tasteful and effectively portrays your image. As state above, clean and simple is better than messy and crowded for website design.

4. Organize, Organize, Organize!!!

The most important part of a website’s design is how effectively you can lead your customers or audience exactly where you want them. For example, if you want them to buy your product, make sure your product’s price, details, and images or screenshots are easily accessible from the homepage and from all other pages on the website. Likewise, if you have important information, display it prominently. The most important thing to remember is to include a link back to the homepage of your website on EVERY page, preferably in the header or top of your website’s menu.

5. Make it Pretty

That sounds silly, but honestly, a beautiful website sells better than an ugly one. By make it pretty, though, I really mean to check for broken links, make sure your website works on all browsers, double check that your message is clear, and get comments from your community. Ask them to take a survey or comment on a blog about how your website looks.

Make sure to choose a reliable web hosting provider so that these tips are not wasted on a website that is down most of the time. To avoid this, check our Top 10 Web Hosting List for the best web hosting companies in the world.

If you’re anything like we were when we first starting building websites back in 1998 or so, the letters “HTML” scare you terribly. It’s one of the first things people think of when purchasing a website: “But…what if I don’t know HTML?” You wonder not only if HTML will be hard to learn but if you have the time and patience to work with it to design your website.

Well, the absolute truth is, these days HTML is not as important as it used to be, so don’t let it scare you. The best web hosting providers will offer you tools that will help you around HTML, but if you’re still sure you want to learn it, here’s a quick tutorial for two of the most basic and important HTML tags you’ll need to know to build your website.

LINKS

To link text, follow this easy method. Type:

< A HREF = “http://www.YourLink.com” >

Replace “YourLink” with the website you’re actually linking to. Then type:

Your Website Link Text < / a >

“Your Website Link Text” stands for whatever you want the link text to be. For example, if I wanted to link our website, http://www.thebestwebhostinglist.com, to the phrase “web hosting”, I would type the following:

< A HREF = “http://www.thebestwebhostinglist.com” > web hosting < / a>

Just be sure you remove ALL spaces before you’re done. Then it’ll show up like this:

web hosting

IMAGES

First, find the image you want to use, and make sure it is uploaded to your website. If you’re not sure how to upload, your web hosting provider should be able to help you out! Copy the URL that you can use to view that image online and keep that URL handy. Then, type:

< IMG SRC = “http://www.YourImageURL.com” > < / a >

Replace “YourImageURL” with your image’s URL and then delete ALL spaces. Then your image will show up instantly!

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.

Do you know what ASP, JSP, PHP, MySQL, and MSSQL stand for? Well, here’s a quick guide to help you out if you’re stuck, because defining web hosting terminology shouldn’t be as difficult as it often is!

ASP – (Active Server Pages) ASP is a Windows-based script that allows you to customize your website. It’s not necessary for personal webhosting, so if you’re not a programmer, odds are you can live without it. More often than not, ASP web hosting is more expensive than basic hosting.

CGI – (Common Gateway Interface) CGI is a very tiny script that allows data taken from website users to be processed on the server. CGI-bins are common in web hosting control panels so that you can store CGI scripts.

FrontPage – (Microsoft FrontPage Extensions) FrontPage is a web design tool developed and licensed by Microsoft. Many users prefer the ease of use in designing websites using FrontPage. FrontPage web hosting is very popular and affordable.

HTML – (HyperText Markup Language) HTML is a commonly-used phrase these days, and it’s nothing more than language you can learn and use to design and develop your website. HTML can make your text italic, show pictures, create line breaks, and even design borders, links, and play music.

JSP – (Java Server Pages) JSP is a scripting language similar to ASP in the tasks it can perform. JSP web hosting normally is more expensive, and if you are not into web programming, you do not need it.

SQL – (Standard Query Language) SQL is a protocol used to generate information requested from databases. The two most popular ways to utilize SQL is by using MySQL or MS SQL databases. They are both similar, and the main difference is that MS SQL is developed and licensed by Microsoft and works best with Windows Web Hosting.

XML – (Extensible Markup Language) XML is a language similar to HTML, which also allows for website design and development. XML is more for website programming than design and actually allows programmers to define its functions.

You’ve got the best web hosting. You’ve registered your domain name. You have even created email addresses, learned how to use the web host’s control panel, and have set up your first blog!

But what makes your website work? What makes it look good? What makes it do the things you need it to do?

In fact you’re wondering, how do I make my website work?

1) The first step is great web hosting. Choosing the best webhosting provider can be difficult, so take a look at our Top 10 Web Hosts for suggestions.

2) Find great website design. If you are working with WordPress Web Hosting, try finding free WordPress Themes. If you are working with a basic website, you’ll want to get reliable web design templates.

3) Learn scripting or hire a professional. If you want your website to do things, automate certain processes, or otherwise interact with your customers or audience, you’re going to need to learn coding like PHP and MySQL. There are many resources online to hire professionals also to help you out.

Building and designing your website is only the first step in getting that website noticed online. Once you have a reliable website provider hosting your site and a web design you are completely satisfied with, you will need to move into the realm of SEO (search engine optimization), which can be tackled in several simple steps, the first of which are called meta tags.

Meta tags have actually been around since HTML was put into practice and they are merely descriptive words and phrases used to properly categorize your website in the search engines. There are millions upon millions of websites in the world, so Google and the other big search engines use meta tags as one form of identifying where your website belongs in search results.

For example, if you purchased web hosting for the domain name BlueHatsForSale.com, you are going to want to come up first in Google for the search term “Blue Hats” because potential customers will see you before they see anybody else. So in your meta tags, you need to supply the search engines with some necessary information so that they can place BlueHatsForSale.com in the forefront of relevant search terms. This merely requires some knowledge of 1) the search terms you would like to get ranked for and 2) a description of your website that will assist in #1 and also aptly describe your website to potential viewers.

Please check out part two of this article on Writing Great Meta Tags, brought to you by thebestwebhostinglist.com

After you have created a successful website design, you are going to need to put that design on your website and make it live for all the world to see. Web Hosting is actually what gives you that functionality, as you would just have a pretty design if not for the best hosting providers out there.

And if you’re confused and wondering how to get your website design and content from your computer to your website, here’s a helpful hint – use an FTP program!

FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol, which is tech-speak for a way to send and receive files online. FTP programs are extremely common, and your web host probably offers a couple within their plan offers anyway. If not, you can download them by searching for “Free FTP” in Google. FTP programs allow you to upload HTML files, documents, pictures, video, music, podcasts, and just about anything you’d like. FTP programs allow you to upload quickly and efficiently by browsing your own computer for the files and browsing your web host’s control panel to upload them. You can transfer many files at once, and you never have to login!