A series of Business Tips from the book: 
Web Hosting For Dummies
By Peter Pollock
(Web or self hosted)… means that you have complete control of how your website is made available to the world.
In the case of a hosted website or blog, the hosting and all its related functions are done by another company. All you get is the facility to build your site, without any access to the powerful tools behind the scenes.
— Peter Pollock
With all the question and concerns about building your own website, I thought I would feature this ‘Dummy book’ on website building.
Etsy and other platforms are great places to feature your products, but nothing, in my opinion, beats having your own hosted website: A site where you have complete control over the content, the hosting options and ownership of your own personal URL.
When I first set up my ecommerce websites in 2004, there was no Etsy. Actually, there was very little options for easy to build websites without using expensive software. Thankfully, WordPress came on the scene when I started my blogs.
So stay tuned as we explore the options with websites …
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The web hosting company you buy hosting from is renting you space on a computer connected to the Internet….website owners only need to contact the web hosting company to pay the hosting charge or to report that the server seems not to be working correctly.
— Peter Pollock
Peter uses common sense language and analogies, such as landlord and tenant, to describe web hosting.
Since web hosting is like ‘renting web space’, it makes perfect sense to consider your hosting company as your website ‘landlord’! Makes everything clear, in my opinion.
So how do you find a good hosting company? Peter suggest asking people who currently use hosting companies.
Personally, I use A2Hosting, but I know there are other great hosting companies available that you can use.
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Your web host will offer support in some manner…. the hosting support desk will work with you to ascertain whether the problem is with your site or the hosting plan.
— Peter Pollock
The web host support desk is the first place I go when I have a problem with my website.
Some of the small problems I have encountered are ….
- Site is down or exhibits some type of error message
- Site has been hacked (rare, but has happened to us)
- Loading speed is V-E-R-Y slow
Not an inclusive list, but some of the problems we’ve dealt with in the past.
But, all in all, I have found the support folks a A2Hosting to be very helpful in directing us to solutions to solve the problem or even correcting it themselves (which is an indication that the problem is on their end).
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The difference between a hosting account and a domain name is an important distinction to note. When it comes time to renew your name registration and hosting account, you must make sure you renew both. Just because you renew your hosting plan doesn’t automatically mean you renew your name registration.
— Peter Pollock
One of the best reasons for hosting your own website(s) is getting your own personalize URL!
When you have a service that hosts your site, not only do you not own your website, but you do not own you URL either!
Examples of this would include:
- WordPress.com (vs. WordPress.org where you set up your own site)
- Etsy.com (or any other similar marketplace)
- HubPages.com (if you post articles about your products)
- Facebook.com (group, company or profile pages)
Once again, the list is not inclusive, but gives you an idea of the difference.
So, when you purchase your hosting service, you also purchase your URL or website address. And the experts recommend that you purchase your URL from an outside company like Domains.com (or one of the many other services) and your hosting from a second company like A2Hosting.com
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Personalized e-mail addresses are part of enhancing your brand image and brand recognition… If you don’t trust your own business enough to have an e-mail address related to it, why should your customers trust you to still be in business next month?
— Peter Pollock
Most hosting company offer you the option of having an email address that is attached to the URL. For example, your web site could have an email like Info@yourwebsite.com (not a valid email address so don’t try it!!).
But, personally, we like gmail.com so well that we use it for all our email addresses — and we have lots of them, including SellingtoRetailerStores@gmail.com as well as GiftRepSandy@gmail.com.
The important point Peter makes is to have an email address that is related to your business.
How would you feel if I told you my email address was SandyDell100@gmail.com. I am not sure many of my readers or customers would trust an address like that (which, by the way, is my personal email address!). Or at the least, my business would not look very professionally!
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