Websites are made up of web pages that contain text, graphics, audio and/or video, and these pages must be hosted or "located" somewhere on a web server. It is from this web server that different computers from around the world can access your web pages online. So, what do you need and do you really get what you pay for? Let's tackle these two in order:

What do you need?

First, let's understand the three most popular factors of what is offered by a website host provider:

1. Disk space - how much data you are allowed to store on the server.

2. Data transfer - the maximum monthly limit on how much data has to be downloaded to view your website.

3. Email address - the number of email addresses you can create for your domain.

For a basic informational website (like this one, for example), you would only need about 10 Megabytes (MB) of disk space, about 1 Gigabyte (GB) of data transfer, and no more than 10 email addresses to get you going. As your website grows in popularity, the data transfer will need to be increased. Let's do a little math to demonstrate that my recommendations are sound.

From "Intro to Computer Science 101", we know the following is true:

1 Kilobytes (KB) = 1,024 MB

1 MB = 1,024 GB ... therefore, approximately 1,000,000 KB = 1 GB.

The average informational webpage is 20 - 50 KB. Even if all your pages are 50 KB each, then you could post about 4,000 webpages on the server. You shouldn't hit that limit for a long time. But what about "data transfer". Again, let's have the facts speak for themselves.

The average informational webpage is no more than 50 KB. In order for you to hit your 1 GB limit, then you would have to have about 20,000 pages viewed on your website each month. If the average visitor, views 5 pages on each visit, then that means you would have 4,000 people visiting your website each month and all of them just eating up everything you have to say. Unless you know someone on the inside of a major search engine, or have a spectacular marketing campaign, you won't have to worry about reaching that limit anytime in the near future.

When it comes to the number of emails, you don't need that much to get started. You'll need the standard "info@yourdomain.com", "sales@yourdomain.com", and "name@yourdomain.com". You'll have to do a little of your own math to determine the number of emails, but generally speaking you want to have as few as possible to maintain yourself. It will make your job easier. Unless you are starting with a bunch of employees off the bat, you don't need to worry about email addresses.

Do you really get what you pay for?

The answer is "yes"...and at the sametime "no". Sometimes, a big company will charge you through the nose for website hosting and offer you much less than even the most bare bones package out there. Why do they do this? In my humble opinion, it's because they either don't really want your business or want to make people trying to start a new business think they have to pay more to be respected as a business. Until you hit the big time, take my word for it...nobody cares if a well known web hosting company is hosting your website. When you do hit the big time, then you will be expected to host your website and have a website team hired on to take care of you anyway. From this point of view, don't pay a lot of money just because the company is well known, because you will not get what you pay for. You will not get better service, and, in fact, you will be one of their lowest paying customers on the books.

On the flip side of that same coin, you will find web hosting companies that will charge you pennies for massive amounts of disk space and data transfer. Then, after you have paid for the service, you find out that either they worked in some tricky math or they put you on a server based in their little nephew's house running a dial up modem. People who visit your site will notice that your pages fail to load, take 10 times longer than normal to load, or the server will be down very often for long periods of time. From this point of view, you get exactly what you pay for.

Sounds confusing, doesn't it? That's because it is, and this is also why I decided to launch my own website hosting service. I lease servers from AT&T and then pass on the cost to people who want personalized service when they have questions or problems that need to be fixed. Literally, the same servers I lease are the same servers that host Fortune 500 company websites. You get the same exact thing from me that other companies are charging big money for. Of course, I am not the only one who is honest and offers this same thing. Many people do, and you should take full advantage of them.

When selecting a web hosting provider, try to get a feel for how their service will be by simply sending them an email to their tech support group with a question. How long did it take for them to answer your question? Was the process computer driven, or was there a live person helping you out? You can bet that the experience you have will be several times better than the experience you have once the sale has been completed. So, if they send you an automated response saying someone will contact you and it takes them 2 days to get back to you...it will take them a week to get back to you after the sale. If the email looks like a template generated response, expect the same thing when you report a problem with your website. Be smart, and don't fall for gimmicks that are either high or low priced. Put them to the test before you shell out your hard earned money.

About the author: Tony Bryant has been providing website internet services for nearly 10 years, and recently launched his home website, Bobana Website Services,in order to help small businesses and individuals establish a professional internet presence and take full advantage of the internet's money making potential.

Author: Tony Bryant