| Most web users who want a personal homepage can sign up online wth many hosting providers who
provide free-of-charge webpages with the condition that you place text
link advertisements or banner advertisements on your site. There are also plenty of affordable and easy-to-use website creation tools on the
market today that will guide you through the process of building your own
website, even if you have no technical expertise.
What's more, it won't cost you a fortune to have your website hosted, as many
ISPs offer free hosting when you sign up their service and you can purchase
your own domain name for just a few pounds each year.
Hence, do not hastily sign up with any hosts. Think carefully about the
objectives that you want to achieve for your website. There are many websites
that can offer you the things you want to do free of charge. What
kind of personal information do you want to place online for web users to read? If
you want to keep a log book, consider
www.tblog.com, www.ebloggy.com,
www.blogeasy.com and
www.blogger.com
If you want to show some of your projects and art work, you need to use the
right scripts to help you maintain . Go to
www.php-scripts.com to search for some of the useful scripts that can help
you organize your site efficiently. If you want to post pictures online, try
visiting www.ofoto.com,
www.photoworks.com, and
www.familybuzz.com
However, if you insist on hosting your own domain and a personal website
for some reasons, be careful with the number of choices you make. You do
not want to purchase a web hosting plan that cost above £10.00 per month,
unless you want to present your site using database and high end software.
Remember, you are looking for a personal hosting plan that will help to
publish your information easily and present it in a professional way. At the same time,
you also want a personal plan that allows your website to grow
without burning a hole in your pocket. Most personal web pages turn into a
hobby which eventually leads to a commercial site as people visit your site.
Sign up with www.google.com if you want to
earn some cash by displaying Google's text link advertisement at your site. Hence,
you also want to make sure that your bandwidth allowance is enough.
Here is our recommended personal hosting plan for web users who are looking for
new hosts according to their website requirements.
| Basic Website Hosting Plan |
Monthly Fee
From £2.95 to £7.95 for personal websiteStorage
Space
From 50MB to 200MB
Bandwidth
From 3000 MB to 5000 MB
Simply put, bandwidth and data transfer are synonymous, referring to the
amount of data sent to and from visitors and your website. It is
calculated by the size of your web page and includes all scripting and
images on a page. For example, if you have a page totaling 20KB in file
size, then when a visitor loads that page on their browser, they are
receiving 20KB of data.
This means to calculate bandwidth, you need to consider a) the size of
your pages (or website)
b) the number of visitors to your website
c) the kind of files you offer your visitors.
Most personal websites have only a small amount of data transfer, as
their websites are small in file size and they do not have a lot of
visitors. Business and professional sites are larger with more visitors
and therefore use more data transfer.
For example, if 1,000 visitors viewed every page on the
abccompany.co.uk, the total data transfer would be 2 GB (1,000 x 2 MB =
2,000 MB) or a single 10 KB file could be viewed 200,000 times and the
data transfer would be 2 GB. Most professional level websites will use
less than 2 GB bandwidth per month.
Domain Pointers
Ensure that your host provides you with at least a domain pointer free
of charge. In the future, you may think of certain domains that you
like. You can purchase one and point it to this current website. In other
words, for example, if you purchase a new domain, for example, abccompany.co.uk, you
can point it to your current domain name, yourcompany.co.uk . That way,
you can access your website using both domain names. However, you have
to be aware of the consequences that can affect your web page ranking on
certain search engines.
Bulletin Forum and Fantastico scripts
Please check with your host to make sure that your site is equipped
with Fantastisco scripts. These scripts provides free of charge software
installation available to your site. Some of the scripts include Content
Management Systems, Customer Support Systems, Discussion Boards,
E-Commerce, F.A.Q Systems, Image Galleries, Mailing Lists, and Project
Management Systems.
FTP Accounts
A minimum of 2 FTP accounts is recommended. If the hosting company only provides
you with a FTP account, request for an extra FTP account.
Email Accounts
A minimum of 5 email accounts is recommended. This way you can create emails for
your family and friends as well. For example (
yourname@yourpersonalsite.co.uk,
webmaster@yourpersonalsite.co.uk
, friendsname@yourpersonalsite.co.uk
)
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