Web Host Tips for Startup Companies
March 23, 2009 by Stephen Kersey
Filed under Business
If you have an online startup business, chances are that you have a web host. Your web host, as the name suggests, hosts your website on a server and makes it available to the world. You pay your web host to keep your site online and accessible at satisfactory speeds.
When selecting a web host, there are many different factors to consider. Here are the top five tips for startup companies on how to best deal with web host decisions:
Web Host Servers (Image: Flickr)
5. Do your research.
You can find tons of information online concerning web hosts. The best information to look for is recent customer reviews. Getting a few recommendations is better than virtually any other potential deciding factor.
4. Start small.
Even if you plan to have a huge online website one day, there’s no reason to not start small. You should easily be able to find something to suit your needs for under $100 a month when you are first starting out.
3. Get a flexible package.
Make sure you don’t lock yourself into a contract that lacks flexibility. If your website unexpectedly grows, you should make sure that your web host can easily respond accordingly. Also avoid getting into any long-term contracts in case you are unsatisfied with the service.
2. Demand backups.
Almost every web host promises that they are backing up your data. But once you have run an online business for a while, you will understand that is not always true. If necessary, demand daily backups and various forms of backup. You should also keep a copy of everything that is online in case of an emergency.
1. Bring it in-house.
Eventually, once your startup company is successful, it will make more sense for you to bring your web host needs in-house. In that scenario, you will purchase the equip, hire the needed IT specialists and get a hold of the needed bandwidth. Some major companies make the mistake of staying with a web host forever … no matter the size of the company.
With Cloud Computing, one should look at the flavors of AWS (EC2, S3, CloudFront), Mosso’s own Cloud Hosting, Sun’s Cloud services etc. They are dirt cheap for such good services and platforms.
The better part besides just being cheap is that they are also acquisition friendly and can just be moved without worrying much about the hardware, software, license (in the case where you have your own hosting).
With our startup oCricket.com we spend just about $75-$80 /mo on EC2, S3, CloudFront and SQS from Amazon. And we’ve never worried if our servers will go down or if we’ll lose backups.