Web Hosting Tips

Tip #1: Upgrade to an Annual Plan - If you are happy with your hosting provider, consider moving to an annual payment basis. By doing this, you can benefit from a lower prorated monthly rate. If you are looking to transfer to a new web host, you might also wish to consider an annual plan as they often come with no set-up fee. Even better, consider the discount of adding a 2nd year onto that annual hosting plan; sometimes adding the 2nd annual time period results in very little extra cost since you get a web hosting discount on the first year as well. For example, HostMonster offers a 1 year hosting plan which works out to $7.95/month, and a two-year price of $5.95/month.

Tip #2: The Internet economy continues to grow and global Internet traffic is predicted to continue its steady usage increase during 2008. Is your company website ready for an increase in traffic during 2008? With monthly fees for dedicated servers coming down rapidly over the past year, your business may wish to consider moving to a dedicated environment which will offer more capacity for servicing your online customers. You can review 2008 dedicated server specials at our Dedicated Server Showcase. At the very least, be sure that your current plan has adequate bandwidth allowances. Even the shared space now offers close to unlimited bandwidth (considering what the average website actually uses). Take a look at HostMonster - they provide unlimited GB of monthly bandwidth for as low as $5.95/month. Just like a cell phone, if your current website is experiencing traffic overage charges, then it is time to consider a larger hosting package.

Tip #3: Check out your Hosting Service Agreements. These agreements contain the "legal terms" of your hosting contract and may be changed from time to time. The 'New Year' is a good time to review the latest documents surrounding the relationship between you and your web host. For some customers, you may find that you are on a high-end SLA and could lower your monthly service fee by accepting say a 99.8% uptime guarantee vs. a 99.9% standard.