Welcome to the world of web hosting. The basic steps you need to build your web site include: choose a domain name for your site, find a reliable web host that fits your need, design your site to attract your visitors, and promote your site to the proper audiences.

The internet is a virtual world with vast amount of information stored in various physical locations inside some man made electronic devices we called computers that linked together by metal wires or by wireless communication electro-magnetic signals. The virtual world is indexed by domains. A domain name is a unique identifier of your web site. The domain name, typically typed in a form of URL in a browser, is mapped by the DNS (Domain Name System) to the IP address of the computer where your web site is located. So, to be part of the WWW, you need a unique domain name. As an example, the domain name of the site hostwhere.com. The .com is an extension,  most domains fall into .com, .org, .net, etc. categories. ".com" extension ( top-level domains) is most common for commercial web sites.  Non-profit organizations might prefer using .org, net related may use .net, universities would use .edu, etc..

A domain name can be any thing as long as no conflict with existing domain names. But a best domain name should serve your purpose: (1) it should reflects your site's content; (2) it should be easy to remember and to promote your site. 

When you come up with a name, check if it already exists. Simply type your domain name in a browser to check if it exists. You may also use the box below to check the availability. Note, that even it says a domain name is available at sites like nameboy.com, that does not always mean that the domain is available, sometimes it's not up to date, so check it in a browser.

Many web hosts do domain registration for you. But you may want to do it separately, then do a domain transfer (most web hosting offers free transfer). This way, you have full control of your domain, and you may also find cheaper rate than doing it with a hosting provider. Places to register a domain include:Network Solutions,  Domain-Maniac, and  Dotster.

		Search for a domain name:
		www. .com   .net   .org

Search for any Domain Name in the World!

Here are the things to consider for selecting a host.

Disk Space and BandWidth

  If your site contains mostly text pages, you don't need much space and bandwidth. Most of web pages with a few images take between 10KB to 50KB disk spaces. If, say, your web site will have about 30 pages with an average size of 30KB, then the space needed is no more than 1MB. If in average you will have 200 visitors to your site daily with 5 page views, then the monthly transfer is about 30KB x 5 x 200 x 30 = 0.9 GB. You got the idea, and be sure to leave some room for growth.

If your site contains images, sound files, movie clips, etc, you need a lot more space. Check the size of your multimedia files on your system to get an idea how much space you need.

A space of 10 to 100MB and a bandwidth of 1 to 10GB would meet the needs of a small site with light traffic.  Business sites may need 100 MB or more space with 10 to 30 GB or more monthly transfer, depending on the expected traffic. If you have a database for your site, estimate how big it can grow.

Servers and Network Speed

CPU speed and number, RAM size, hard disk type, etc. are the main parameters to check for the servers. Most of the hosts are shared, which means you share the same web server with other web sites. Consider dedicated servers for high-traffic sites, strong security need, or specialized software.

Most servers run on either Unix (Linux) or Microsoft Windows NT/2000 platforms. Unix operating system is more reliable and stable and less expensive. Windows are less stable, and more expensive to maintain.  If you need a lot of Microsoft technology for your web site, you may consider Windows.

Network speed depends on the capacity, but traffic load also affects the performance. A few bandwidth references are list below:

Supporting Features

What features you need for your web site? Do you need scripting languages like CGI, PHP, ASP, etc.? Do you need multimedia support, email support, etc.? What database you will use? Do you need E-commerce support?

Remember some features are only available on Windows, for example, Access and SQL Server databases. If you used FrontPage to build your site, make sure a Unix host has FrontPage extensions installed.

Support and Reliability

It is very important to get the type of support you need when you need it. E-mail support, chat support are common, you may need a phone number in case of emergency. A 24/7 toll free phone service is also an indication of a large hosting company, since there are tons of hosts these days, and many of them don't have phone support. Check out the hour restrictions on support. Also browse the host's web site for technical questions or FAQ pages to determine the support and professional  level of the host.

A web server can go down, most host has 99.9% uptime guarantee, make sure there are some sort of monitoring available, and what are the backup scheme. Also check if the host has security features.

Price

You get what you paid for. There are free hosting, but many require advertising on your site, and don't provide reliable support.  Be ware 'unlimited', that's more a marketing term, be sure to read the term and conditions of the host, usually you will not get unlimited space, for example. Also, remember that quality support is expensive, while disk space are very cheap.  Also, don't overlook set up fee and domain fee. Think how long your site will be hosted with the host, then decide if a setup fee is worth it.

After determining the features you need for you site, find several hosts that fit your need, go to their sites to check the details, get a feel for their professionalism, and check out some of their customers and test customer service if possible. We'd like to recommend a host in the top ten list.

There are web hosts that don't specify space, bandwidth, and all the features, instead starting by helping you to build a web site. For example, BuilderSpot or ReadyWebsites. Those are normally targeted to small businesses that need nice look web sites, but don't need much features like databases, and don't want to go into much technical details. If your business is complex, and will grow bigger, be sure to ask the limitations, while most of the hosts in the top ten list, as well hosts in other categories in our web site, also have online tools to help you build your web sites.

Promote your Web Site

Traffic is what you need for your web site, you need to effectively promote your pages. Visitors to your site come from these categories: Search Engines, links from other sites,  and advertising your site.

Major Search Engines

Major search engines are listed below. The add URL page of each engine is listed. Some of them are free.

There are web site submission services which submit your URL to multiple search engines. Note, only the top search engines are effective, compare how much you will spend if you submit by yourself to the top ten.

 Search Engine Optimization

Use KeyWords

Use Meta Tags
The major META tags that affect promotion include "Title",  "Description" and "KeyWords" tags. Add those meta tag related to your site, to increase the ranks of a search engine search.

Example:
< head >
<title>Most Popular Web Hosting Plans, Top Ten WebHosts.</title>
<META Name="Description" Content="Affordable, and business web hosting solutions.">
<META Name="Keywords" Content="Web hosting, hosting comparison, cheap web hosting.">
< /head >
 

Check Your Rank

Search engines, like Google, create their listings automatically. They  "spider" the web, then add to their indices if they determine that your site provides useful information.  If you change your web pages, crawler-based search engines eventually find these changes, and that can affect how you are listed. .

Directories, such as the Open Directory, depends on humans for  listings. You submit a description to the directory for your site,  a search looks for matches only in the descriptions submitted. Changing your web pages has no effect on your listing.

Search engine sort through the millions of pages it knows about and present you with ones that match your keywords you typed in, the most relevant ones come first. Crawler-based search engines follow an algorithm. One of the the main rules in a ranking algorithm involves the location and frequency of keywords on a web page. A search engine will analyze how often keywords appear in relation to other words in a web page. Some search engines index more web pages than others. The result is that no search engine produces the same results. Search engines may  penalize web pages if they detect  spamming, an example is when a keyword is repeated hundreds of times on a page.

You need to know your position in keyword search. You could test each of your 10 or more key words on each of the top 5 search engines  and compare the results. Modify some of the pages and meta tags, and do it again. Don't spend too much effort on it, enhance your web site is more important than playing ranking game.
 

Promotion Resources

There are many online resources to help you to promote your web sites. Search the web.

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