Getting Started With Domain Names and Hosting Services

Before you go ahead and blow over $150 for a hosting plan and domain name, you should know a little about what you're buying. If you're just getting started with domain names and hosting services, you probably don't know exactly what kind of hosting your website needs. Knowing what you need can save you a lot of money, and can find you a more suitable hosting plan.

1) So first off: Domain Names. Picking a name, and buying it.

Do domain names come free with the plan? If they don't are they too terribly expensive? If a hosting company is trying to sell you a $10 domain name, don't buy it for a second. Go to GoDaddy.Com or another reliable domain registrar and buy a domain from them. Then transfer it over to your new hosting account.

Another thing to consider is your domain name. If you are creating a site for your business, it should be closely related to your business name. If you had a landscaping company named Smith's Landscaping, an appropriate domain name would obviously be SmithLandscaping.com.

So what is all this .com/.net/.org/.whatever about? Here's a quick rundown: the extension on a domain name generally tells what the website is about. A .com is a company, a .net is a network, and a .org is an organization. There are plenty of other extensions too, and you can choose which one you would like, but it's appropriate to choose which one describes your website type the best.

2)A hosting plan-What works for you.

Shared or dedicated hosting-what's the difference? On a dedicated hosting plan, you have one server to yourself. Unless you have a huge corporation and your website is going to be a main gateway for your corporation, I don't suggest dedicated hosting. Shared hosting is 10x cheaper.

Space? 50mb, 150mb, or 500mb? Again this depends on the size of your website. A simple blog, personal site, or small business site that only uses HTML and a few scripts isn't going to need more than 50mb, so don't pay for it. For small websites, or websites just starting out, I recommend asmallorange.com They are the cheapest on the web that I've ever been able to find. If you're going to need more space however, search for a bigger web host. http://www.skye-host.com is something I personally recommend.

Bandwidth is data transfer. When you have images, videos, or any kind of media besides basic text or HTML, you're using bandwidth. Every websites going to have images most likely, but if you're going to have a lot, make sure you have enough bandwidth. Talk to your hosting provider before hand to see how much you will need.

Hopefully that's enough information to get you started with website hosting and domain names. Detailed and more technical questions can always be answered by your hosting provider. Remember to ask questions and overview their hosting plans thoroughly before spending your hard earned money.