My Favorite Low Cost Web Hosts

Friday, May 6th, 2011 at 11:09 am

I have been asked my opinion of web hosts, and I have to admit I am not an expert. I have had experiences with several, but there are tons of web hosts many of which are very good.

As is usual, it depends on what you want.

My first web hosting service came into my life when I built my first web site. I tried to get by cheap and found a free web site designer. The downside I learned was I needed to host on their service. Each new web site needed another hosting account.

This hosted web service model makes a lot of sense for those businesses and others who intend to have a single web site or just a few in some cases. Each of these systems has their own do it yourself easy web site, and a usually reasonable monthly fee with which you get some level of technical support.

There are a lot of such services, which I tend to dislike for my purposes, but may still be perfect for you if you want to stay away from the mechanics of your site.

The way I do business is to have a lot of sites where I can do much of what I need to do myself. Now that doesn’t mean I don’t use free lancers and others to create material and capacity for me, just that I want to be in control of my sites, able to make changes when I want to without having to wait for returned phone calls or chats.

So for me a key criteria is a hosting site that allows me virtually unlimited number of websites on one account. Ideally, at little or no additional cost.

I am also fond of the C-panel control system. It is used by the majority of major web hosting services and has a lot of powerful features that make life easier for the less techie oriented. That includes me.

The final criteria I feel is important is customer service. I’m occasionally a dolt. And I have done more than one dumb thing online. Such as completely deleting my sales page for my first serious launch just hours before launch time. My hosting service pulled my bacon from the fire that time.

The launch still whimpered do to other problems I may discuss another time.

But I went from horrified to elated as the helpful staff at Host Gator rescued me in the wee hours of the night before launch.

Your hosting service is a critical underpinning to your operations online. Quality customer support and reliability are crucial. I have had other hosting services, and still use a second one today for some of my lists, just for some diversification. If I were to recommend a low cost web hosts it would have to be Hostgator. For less than $100 a years you get cpanel, your get unlimited domains, and you get great customer support.

If you already have hosting with cpanel elsewhere, you probably want to stand pat. If you do not have cpanel, or are limited in the total number of domains you can have for the same monthly fee, you may want to consider shifting to Host Gator for your future web adventures.

They have served me well and I can confidently predict they will serve you well too. They are my favorite low cost web hosts. If you decide to use Host Gator, I recommend you sign up for their “Baby plan.” It offers the most flexibility for the long haul. You can always move up from there if you need more power down the road.