These days, when in business every penny counts, it’s wise to look at ways we can stretch our web hosting dollars to get the best plans and service we can for the kind of web hosting we require. There are a number of good ideas that can help you accomplish this task, and serve up quality hosting all the same. Let’s look at 5 easy ways to save money on your web hosting services.
1. Use Shared Web Hosting – If your needs are small, you very likely won’t need your own server, or even a VPS (virtual private server). For a small site that doesn’t have a ton of traffic as yet, an account on a shared server can be had for less than $10 a month, and you will be just fine with that. Your site will come up normally, and you won’t be bothered with technical challenges nor a large monthly hosting bill. There are a large number of web hosting companies that can do this.
2. Free Web Hosting – If your needs are truly scant, you may even want to consider a free web host. There are many of these available out there, from the sites that your phone company or internet service provider give you, to free sites on places like Blogger.com, Weebly, Terapad, Tripod, WordPress.com or a slew of other Web 2.0 sites that give you a platform to build a site, in exchange for space they advertise from on your site. If this is okay with you, these sites are easy to construct, and you can have one up in a matter of minutes, with no technical headaches. This is truly for those who are not looking to scale their sites up, for the moment you start getting a lot of traffic, or want to put up your own ads, you may find resistance!
3. Remote Image Hosting – Many times webmasters will host large image files elsewhere other than their web hosting account, such as on Amazon S3. This can solve the immediate problem of your image or video files taking up too much space. You will likely have to pay for remote hosting, and you’ll need to weigh whether or not it’s actually a cost savings, but it’s worth looking into as an option. Another concern is how fast these remote files load from the other server. Load times are becoming ever more important to Google and it would be silly to let a few dollars stand in the way of higher rankings. The bottom line is, do the math!
4. Use a Reseller Account – If you find yourself hosting a lot of your own sites, you may want to use a reseller account. They aren’t just for people wanting to sell web hosting. You can use them for your own virtual empire, and can host a large number of sites for around $20.
5. Cloud Hosting – If you are finding that your server needs are getting more and more out of your control as far as space and bandwidth are concerned, you may be a candidate for cloud hosting. This newest child in the web hosting family has numerous advantages when it comes to better utilizing server resources, and could save you money in the long run.
These 5 tips can bring down the monthly or yearly bill significantly if heeded. Given all the uncertainties in business today, saving a dollar or two on your web hosting is a smart way to go!
