Website Hosting Advice

Kiwi Nutz can provide a web site hosting service to its' clients to ensure seamless journey between web design, implementation and updating of web pages. This however may be something that you would prefer to manage yourself. These pages provide advice you need to choose the right hosting service, at the price that is right.

Which Service should I choose?

If you are a UK resident company or your web pages are relevant to the UK then you should probably be looking for a hosting company that specialises in United Kingdom-based Domains (.co.uk domains). There are a host of businesses that can provide suitable packages for you, it really comes down to your assessment of the prices and the customer care that you receive. Use the next section to review the most popular hosting companies in the UK and read the tutorial notes on this page to help you make the right decision about which web hosting company you should use.

Recommended UK-based Web Hosting Companies

There are several obvious UK-based web hosting services that you should look into, use this table to review each of the main companies that provide a fully automated hosting service.

Hosting Company		Website

One & One		One&One

123 - Reg		123-Reg

Fasthosts		Fasthost

Hostway		Hostway

UK2.Net		UK2.Net

WebFusion		WebFusion

How to choose your Web Hosting Provider

Choosing your Web Hosting Provider and your Domain-Name. Glossary of Terms explained

1) What Features to look for in a Web Hosting Package

2) Which Domain-name is right for me - .CO.UK or .COM ?

3) Which Services do I need in my Web Hosting Package?

4) How much will my Web Hosting Package Cost?

5) What is the difference between Web Hosting packages?

What features to look for in a Web Hosting Package!

Control Panel

Look out for an on-line control panel that allows you to configure your web pages on-line from your home or business office. By configuring we mean an interface that you can log into that allows you access to multiple internet page features. For example: You may wish to view your account on-line, setup email accounts for your new domain, view your page statistics or upgrade your service (hopefully you will!) as your business grows. And then look at the help and customer care that are provided to you as an on-going service.

Out-of-the-Box Web Page Templates

Another area of hosting that you may wish to look for are the out-of-the-box web page templates for producing your first professional looking web page. This is the way that many new web pages start as. Very satisfactory and a very quick solution to getting your site on-line in a very short time. Most web hosting companies provide this service within their control panel. They may even provide an enhanced service for a small monthly fee that gives you access to additional templates and allows you to produce more web pages.

Which Domain Name is right for me - a .CO.UK domain or a .COM domain?

A deliberation that all new domain purchasers will come across at one time or another is whether to purchase a .CO.UK or .COM domain name. Best advice is that as the domain registration process is so cheap (relatively) that you should probably purchase both. If you wish to purchase only one domain name then you should look at where your customers or web page visitors are likely to be arriving from. If your business is mainly UK-centred then you should purchase a .CO.UK domain name, as this is what your customers would expect. If you need to get that global appeal because you wish to attract customers globally, rather than locally then you should probably go with the .COM badge. Try this Free Domain-Name Checker to see if your domain name is available before proceed any further.

Of course there are many more domain name suffixes that you may be interested in i.e. .BIZ - .EU - .ORG - .ORG.UK - .NET and so on. Many businesses that want to maintain their brand image actually end up buying a multitude of domain name suffixes, and indeed a combination of various similar domain names to ensure that their site name cannot be hijacked by a pirate site. For example: www.kiwi-nutz.com, www.kiwinutz.com, www.kiwinutz.co.uk As we have said before this is not an expensive road to go down and may be quite satisfying once you have done it.

Which Services do I need in my web hosting package?

When making your first web hosting service purchase, you will no doubt be purchasing a domain-name at the same time. The point is that it is rather pointless buying a domain-name if you cannot display your pages anywhere, and that is why we need a hosting package. Most web hosting packages are split into tiered categories, for example: A basic home package, a basic business package, an advanced business package, and so on until you get onto dedicated servers. You will be able to buy a basic home web hosting package for a very affordable £5.00 per month, however you will quickly realise that this is a little limiting. Best advice is to go for a basic business package of about £10 per month to start off and then to re-assess afterwards. With this investment you will be provided a lot more features within your control panel and your journey into web designing will be more fruitful.

How much will my Web Hosting Package cost?

You should consider as a start that the cost of your first years' web hosting is likely to cost perhaps £10 - £15 for your domain-names and a further £100 - £150 for your web hosting. Of this you will have to pay the up-front fee for your domain name and perhaps £50 - £60 every six months for your hosting service. So an initial down payment of about £70 and another £70 later in the year.

What is the difference between Web Hosting Packages?

Wherever you go you will find web hosting packages that vary in cost, depending on the range of services offered within the package. The principle differences will be that the basic packages are exactly that (Basic!) You will be able to publish your html web pages, setup an email account (or five), add a counter to the bottom of your page, and maybe have some limited access to out-of-the-box templates (see Section 1: What to look for) Apart from this you will have limited space in which to publish and probably no use of a web database or server script handling for languages like php. Initially this may not be an issue but you may quickly realise that scripted languages are what you need to get your pages to act on your behalf.

You do not have to pay much for the next level of web hosting package from any provider, and the benefits are impressive. Look for a package that allows you to create 20 or more email addresses, gives at least a gigabyte of server space, allows you to upload cgi-based scripted languages and offers a database with a 'php myadmin' interface. This should set you back no more than £10 - £15 per month and will allow you to really make use of your new domain-name by including some clever but simple scripting snippets that make your site come alive.

Choosing the right Broadband provider package.