Web hosting is one of the most important decisions you make as you begin the process of building your website. But what is hosting exactly? And how do you decide which host to go with out of the hundreds available? 

Think of hosting as your website’s home. Without web hosting, your website wouldn’t be online and available to users around the world. Hosting companies, like Bluehost, provide space on their servers for customers to store websites, thereby making them accessible through the internet 24/7.

But with the hundreds of different web hosting providers, how do you choose? How do you know you’re picking the right one? Here are a few factors to take into consideration.

Price

This is where most people start when they’re deciding on a hosting provider. But while it’s a good place to start, it shouldn’t be the deciding factor.  It’s important to remember: you get what you pay for. More often than not, the cheapest option isn’t always the best. Take a look at the fundamental needs of your site and compare hosting options that satisfy those needs first. Otherwise you will likely end up spending more in the long run in terms of money, time, and even frustration.

Technical Specifications

Not all web hosts are created equal. Many hosts make similar claims, but there are often big differences “under the hood” that translate into significantly different hosting experiences. And as most websites these days feature a lot of content, it’s more important than ever to find hosting providers with the hardware to back up their claims. First off, find a hosting provider that builds and operates their own hardware. Find a host with enough RAM, processing power, and disk storage space for your website’s needs. Finally, look for information about reliability and server up time. This is important so as to ensure your website is always up and running when visitors come.

Support

This is a big one. If your site ever experiences problems you can’t fix, the fastest way to get things up and running is usually to speak with a real person who knows what they’re doing. Make sure your host provides great customer service. See what contact options are available when you need help (i.e. toll-free phone number, email, chat, etc.) Also consider when are they available and whether their support is in-house or outsourced.

Interface (Control Panel)

Make sure your hosting provider has an interface that is easy to understand and use. If you can’t figure out what you’re working with, it’ll make building a website much more confusing then it needs to be. Tasks such as installing WordPress, setting up email, configuring FTP accounts, etc… should be easy to find. Some hosting providers let you play with a demo hosting account, so take advantage of the opportunity to test their platform before you sign up.

Features

Finally, consider what makes your top hosting choices special. Do they offer extra features if you decided to host with them such as regular backups, a free domain name, etc. Are their tools up to date and easy to use? Do they offer upgrades and add-ons in-house to make it easy to expand your hosting account when you need to?

These are just some of the important factors to consider when selecting your web host.  As you outline your website, you’ll start to understand more about what should matter most to you. We hope you find these tips useful. Let us know if you have any additional questions in the comments below.

Tiffany
Bluehost

p.s. Want to learn more or to see if Bluehost is a fit for you? Give us a call at (888) 401-4678. We’re happy to answer any questions you might have.

If you’re an Apple MobileMe user, you may have heard that several features are being discontinued as Apple completes the transition to iCloud. Come June 30, 2012, Gallery photos, iDisk files, and iWeb hosted websites will be taken down.

But don’t worry! This doesn’t mean you have to lose your iWeb websites or even stop using iWeb. All you have to do is relocate your website files onto a new web hosting server and everything will continue working perfectly. This is where Bluehost can help.

Moving your iWeb site to Bluehost web hosting is easy and we’ve put together a set of instructions on how to do so. Just follow along and your site will be up and running on Bluehost severs in no time!

There are a couple ways to do this, but we find the Publish to a Folder option to the be easiest. There is an FTP publishing option inside the iWeb program, but it results in your website url reading: http://www.example.com/site_name/page-name.html, instead of a much cleaner http://www.example.com. To avoid this mess, we recommend using the Publish to a Folder option.

Publish to a Folder

To get started, you’ll need 1) a Bluehost web hosting account and 2) a FTP Client application. You can get a Bluehost account in minutes at bluehost.com, and if you need to download a FTP Client, there are many free options such as Filezilla, SmartFTP, and CyberDuck. For an easy-to-use interface, our developers recommend using CyberDuck, so we’ll use it for our example here.

Once you have both of these, open your iWeb program and follow these steps:

1. Click Site Name (on the left hand panel of iWeb – iWeb Site in the example)
2. Under “Publish to:” choose Local Folder.

3. Select the folder to which you want to save your website files. Remember this location, because you’ll be moving these files to your Bluehost server in the next few steps.

4. Now that iWeb is configured to save your website to the local folder you designated, select File–> ‘Publish Entire Site‘. This will save the most recent version of your iWeb site to the local folder on your computer.

Next, open your FTP client. As I mentioned earlier we’ll be using CyberDuck, so the instructions will be based on the Cyberduck FTP client, but feel free to use whichever program you prefer.

5. Click ‘Open Connection‘

6. Enter the domain name for your website. This is the URL people use to reach it. If you don’t have one yet, you can create one with the Domain Manager in your Bluehost hosting account.

7. Enter your cPanel Username and password (this is your Bluehost control panel login)

8. Expand ‘More Options‘
9. Enter the Path ‘public_html‘. You can also use ‘public_html/addon’ for a given add-on domain if you have one.

10. Click ‘Connect‘
11. Now that the public_html folder is open, drag the files within your website’s folder into CyberDuck. This is the folder you saved your iWeb site to from Step 3.

And that’s it! As soon as the transfer is complete your website should be up and running on Bluehost severs in no time!

We hope this helped make your MobileMe transition easier. If you have any additional questions or troubleshooting issues, please give our Bluehost team a call anytime at 888-401-4678. They’re available 24/7 via phone, email, and chat to answer your questions.

Tiffany
Bluehost