Most small business owners have found outsourcing web hosting is less of a hassle and more cost effective than hosting one’s own website on one’s own PC. Web hosting is popular and competitive enough to make fees for start-up sites reasonable. Why not let someone else handle power outages, server crashes, viruses, spam, and a host of technical details for your site?

Choice of a web hosting provider becomes less dependent on computer speed and memory space as these continue to improve over time … for decreasing costs. Even once high-end hosting software has come within reach for small business webmasters.

I think the CEO of Google once remarked that by circa 2024, you could turn on a garden-variety iPod and play video downloaded on it for 85 years … nonstop because the memory capacity will be that great.

All that does not mean that the small business owner should necessarily choose the cheapest web hosting available. If your site traffic grows, your hosting service may not be able to handle the load, which is bad for the growth. Plan for a bandwidth cushion and find a company that allows for upgrades.

(And by the way, if you choose free web hosting, remember that with it comes somebody else’s advertisements and site control.)

For small business owners, I suspect that in the future, what will separate the best web hosting providers from the pack will be customer service, reliability, and reputation. Plus possibly environmental friendliness.

In one sense, improvements in technology will make reliability of web hosting common to all. Better power back-up. Better automated house cleaning and troubleshooting. However, with increasing technological complexity comes increasing troubleshooting issues. Reliability will be an issue as long as humans are involved.

If your business depends heavily on Christmas sales, your server is more likely to crash or have down time in the Christmas rush than at other times no matter how sophisticated the hardware and software. (… This is a hint to make sure the web hosting service is 24/7.)

One way to determine reliability is by reputation. Check out the web host’s awards and certificates of recognition. If a provider has them, the provider will display them on site. Also check for customer reviews (unless the review suggests the customer has an axe to grind).

So I think the primary factor separating the best web hosting providers from the rest will be customer service. By customer service, I don’t just mean how accessible and friendly the voice at the other end of the phone line is, but how committed the company is to solving your problems, particularly your technical problems associated with providing your site viewers with fast, functioning, reliable service.

Peter Rubel

P.S. Transfer of your site from one web host to another is possible, but software compatibility and other technical issues are part of the process. It is easier to make a good choice first thing.

See a list of good choices at peters-topwebhosts.com.

You downloaded some files onto your PC that you want on your website.
How do you transfer these files?

(1) You may download some open-source software to your PC for free to do this. For example, go to FileZilla (from Sourceforge) to download the client software–assuming you are doing this for your own website or blog.

FileZilla is file transfer protocol software, or FTP for short.

(2) Once your FileZilla screen is open, note the boxes at the top labeled Host, username, password, and port.

Typically, you would put your website URL in the Host box, minus the “http://” and the “www.” — such as YourDomainName.com. The username and password would typically be the same you use to get into the cpanel of your website.

The port box can be left blank, or the default port “21″ inserted.

(3) Now note the two columns below. The Local Site (left column) is your PC. The Remote Site (right column) is your website hosted wherever the web host server is located.

Find the file on your PC you want to transfer. Also locate the place you want it put, typically in public_html on your site.

Drag and drop with your mouse. Go into your cpanel, and there it should be!

Free Web Hosting

If you have a hobby or want to learn on the cheap, but don’t need too many customized functions or have a lot of traffic, you can still get a “free” site, which is to say, paid for by advertisers who make their ads part of your site.

Shared Web Hosting

Servers are typically powerful enough to house tens to hundreds of websites and handle a lot of traffic. Website owners can inexpensively rent or lease part of a given server’s capacity and receive maintenance service by the staff that oversees many servers. The costs, servers, and staff are all shared between many.

Dedicated Web Hosting

If your website becomes too successful, that is has too much traffic for your shared web hosting, you may need an entire server (or more) dedicated to you. This is more expensive, and various kinds of arrangements are possible.

Peter Rubel