choosing a web host

I am starting an online business. I will need professional help designing my website.
There are a couple of local businesses that I have spoken with. I like the idea of sitting down with someone face to face. The one guy I talked to that really impressed me said it would cost around $1200. The other company quoted 3 to 5K. While I want to keep costs to a minumum, I don't want to cut corners where it's the most important.

Getting back on track though, I know I need a very reliable web host. How can I go about finding the best ones? For my business, I need one that is up and running....not constantly down.

I really need some advice on this. The ones I have visited online want to design and host. I have heard you can have problems if you try to switch hosts if they designed it.
Could someone please elaborate on this? Thanks,
Brenda

 

Well, speaking as a designer myself, I'd say that $1200 is a bit low for a medium sized website. $3k sounds too high. Of course, I don't know what your specs are so I couldn't say how I'd quote you on that.

Again, if you can speak with the designers you choose, I would expect that have a host they can recommend to you. The main advantage with hosting it with the comapny that designed it is they have full control over it should you want part of the design to be changed, and you are also likley to get preferential rates for a decent bit of hosting.

My company is going to be buying a dedicated server to host clients websites and web applications on, which will cost us about £80 a month. Once we break this down over the clients who will be hosting on this server, the price of the hosting is very good value for money. The performance for the price paid is very high, in comparison to hosting with a company who has 3,000 or so websites on just one server.

The only problems you might encounter if you want to switch is getting the database backed up, and making sure the environment settings are exactly the same. For example, some of the websites we make include the use of the gd2lib extension for php. In most hosts, this is enabled, however "budget hosts" who need to have their web server running as efficiently as possible to allow them to get as many customers using one machine are likley to have this disabled.

Be wary of "in house" hosting. From experience I know that this almost certainly will have a LOT more downtime than a dedicated server in a hosting facility. Unless the company is big enough to own their own hosting facility, and hire staff to look after it 24/7, then it is likley to be a computer sitting in their office connected to their internet connection, which is probably no better than my personal web server at home.

I would ask for a price breakdown and find out exactly where your money is going. Only a few of my clients have actually asked for a price breakdown, because they simply want to get the website sorted and done, and FAST. But, look before you leap, it would be a real BUMMER to see your vision fall down becacuse a monkey was paid £1.50 an hour for 2 hours to code your back end, while the graphic designers were paid £20 an hour for 40 hours to create the most amazing logo you've ever seen, but you are left not being able to manage the business website as a result.

The most important areas, in my opinion, are the back end. If you find a company who has an off-the-shelf eCart or CMS script, which they wrote themselves (thats important) then they are likley to get the website done and done properly, faster than someone who has to write the scripts from scratch every time.

Interface is important too. Ideally you find a company which will offer your customers an interface which is initutive and easy to navigate. This is where you start looking at the portfolio. Have they suceeded in that in the past?

I would agree that its VERY good being able to talk to the people you're working with face to face. My business is good in that respect, as we always try to meet up with our clients whenever possible.