Cheap & Affordable Web Hosting for Your Online Business
Find the Right Affordable Web Hosting for Your Business Need
When I first started my online business, I was looking for the cheap and affordable web hosting for my new business. Web hosting is one the main cost component for online business. Like in any business startup, we are always looking for the cheapest and affordable web hosting service to keep our overhead low and manageable.
Well, GoDaddy has been one of the cheap web hosting provider out there. I have used GoDaddy before. However, I would not recommend GoDaddy for online business because it does not use cPanel and Fantastico. GoDaddy develops their own inhouse interface for managing your web hosting account. I have encountered that as a major problem because many online application provides manual and troubleshooting for cPanel and Fantastico, but no GoDaddy type of self-developed interface. GoDaddy has their own method of setting SQL server and I have encountered lots of problem in using GoDaddy SQL for many PHP applications.
Recommended Affordable Web Hosting
Some of the cheap & affordable web hosting that I will recommend are:
Why do I recommend these few affordable web hosting provider. If you are serious about doing business online, I will recommend you looking a few key aspect for selecting an affordable web hosting package that can benefit you to lower your overhead in the long run.
Checklist #1: Make sure you have cPanel and Fantastico
One important key feature I always look for is cPanel and Fantastico in the web hosting package. These 2 features are important one to have if you are a programming idiots. You should not compromise this feature against the cost, otherwise, you will find it a pain when you like to install web application. cPanel & Fantastico interface allows you to manage your mail account, manage your SQL server, manage your CRON jobs and even web stats. Most importantly, it saves you tremendous amount of time to install additional applications using Fantastico such as Wordpress, phpBB2, shopping carts, helpdesk… etc.
Many online application or PHP script provides comprehensive manual or troubleshooting guides for cPanel & Fantastico, you can be assured to find a solution when you have cPanel and Fantastico on your web hosting package.
Hostgator, BlueHost & HostMonster all provide cPanel & Fantastico interface but GoDaddy does not.
Checklist #2: Allow Multiple Domain Hosting
When you are starting a online business, likely you will have only one domain. However, very soon, you usually need more than one domain for different niche. It is important to look for one hosting company that allows you to host at least 5 domain on the same server. That will save you some start-up cost to subscribe too many single accounts.
BlueHost & HostMonster all provide multiple domain hosting in their standard affordable web hosting package but Hostgator & GoDaddy only provide multiple domain on their higher advanced hosting package.
Checklist #3: Allow Large Number of SQL Database
It is important to have large number of SQL database because most of the web application will need to use SQL database. It will be good if the affordable web hosting package provide unlimited SQL database. You may not see the need of unlimited SQL database at the beginning. However, I am sure you do not want to have the number of SQL to be the bottleneck when you are adding new application to your site.
BlueHost comes with 50 SQL database and HostMonster provides 100 SQL database in their standard affordable web hosting package. That should be sufficient for your multiple domain need.
Checklist #4: Sufficient Storage Space and Bandwidth
Most of the web hosting service providers currently have big enough web space for you, a 500MB or 1GB space is usually sufficient to start. Next is the bandwidth, start with 20GB or 30GB is also a good start.
Hostgator, BlueHost, HostMonster and GoDaddy does provide sufficient web space and bandwidth for your multiple domain need.
To sum them up, I will recommend HostMonster as the cheapest and most affordable web hosting service provider. Paying only $5.95/month and you have sufficient web space, bandwidth and SQL database to host multiple domains plus it comes with cPanel & Fantastico. HostMonster also provide live customer service to answer your question anytime, 24 hours a day. My 2nd choice will be BlueHost as my afforable web hosting service provider. Both HostMonster and BlueHost provide a Free domain registration as a bonus too in their affordable hosting package.
Jul 24th, 2008 at 9:07 am
I use GoDaddy too and it is true that it has many problems. Specially when it comes to editing your php/mysql installations. They dont have cPanel and it really gives me a headache setting up my applications. Thanks for those very interesting and important info. I may have to go to another hosting to have better management of my account.