This is a guest post by Emilia of AffiliateTips.com. She has been recently researching web hosting for affiliates, so today she will share some of her best tips with us.
In order to be a successful affiliate marketer, it is essential to find your own home on the web. As you are getting ready to launch your affiliate marketing website, it is all too easy to focus on major details such as site design, content development and search engine optimization. Unfortunately, you might overlook the important process of finding a reliable web host.
While finding a hosting solution is certainly not the most glamorous part of starting your own affiliate business, it is vital to your long-term success. So, what exactly should you look for in a Web host for your affiliate marketing website? A good hosting solution will offer the tools and resources you need as well as reliability and support. However, not all Web hosts are created equal, so carefully consider some of the following tips before choosing a host that is right for your affiliate marketing needs.
1. Look for a Web Host With Strong Developer Support
Whether you are developing your website yourself or hiring someone else, you must have the necessary development tools in order to grow your business in the future. This involves not only providing these tools, but also offering upgrades to newer versions upon release. As you are shopping for a hosting provider, look for those that offer development solutions including PHP, Python, Ruby on Rails, CGI and MySQL.
2. Find a Web Host That Offers Multiple Domains
While you may start your business with just one affiliate marketing website, you may find that you want to expand in the future. Avoid web hosts that limit your number of allotted domains to just one or two. Instead, look for a hosting provider that offers between 10 and 20 domains at the minimum. An even better solution is to find a host that provides an unlimited number of domains.
3. Only Choose a Host That Features Multiple Databases
Every website you run will need to have its own database. Unfortunately, some web hosts offer only one database for each customer. Since this can severely limit your future growth, it is essential to select a host that offers numerous or even unlimited databases.
4. Consider Reliability and Reputation
A web host provider should be able to offer some basic reliability statistics. Ask each host about their typical “up-time” and speed. If your website is slow or frequently inaccessible, you’ll lose customers quickly, and chances are good that they will not come back to try your site again.
In addition to discussing this issue with the potential host, you should also conduct your own tests by accessing sites that are hosted by the provider. Visit sites at various times during the day and week to check overall speed and reliability.
5. Get the Disk Space, Bandwidth and User Tools You Need
If building a large, high-traffic affiliate marketing site is you goal, and then it is essential to choose a web host that offers a considerable amount of disk space and bandwidth. The amount of available disk space dictates how much content you can put on your site. The amount of available bandwidth determines your amount of transferable data.
While choosing a web host for your affiliate marketing site can be a difficult decision, it can also be one of the most important choices that you make for the future of your business. By finding the right web host, you will have the tools and resources that you need to focus on developing your business to it’s greatest potential.
Thanks again to Emilia of AffiliateTips.com for this great guest post!
P.S. After reading this article, I was even more happy with my personal web hosting choice, HostGator! Check out my full HostGator review and see why.
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I think one of the most important features is uptime. I’ve had 2 web hosts in the past whose uptimes were awful! It’s hard to make money when the site is down!
Good one, add that to the list of things to check out
Downtime could lose you a LOT of money if you have a high traffic site, so anything less than like 99.9% uptime could be a problem.
How can I find a host that has zero tolerance for idiots. People who install WordPress into their root directory instead of the public_HTML directory. On bluehost there was one guy running the same broken xmas.cgi script for 2 months creating a server error for every hit to their page, and the host never did anything.
I’d like the hosting company to take sites down after 1 warning. Let the idiots sit on hold instead of the people who don’t crash the server, but lose money from their site down.
I agree with the 5 criteria and I can’t help but think that WebFaction ( http://www.webfaction.com ) nails all 5 of them perfectly!
> 1. Look for a Web Host With Strong Developer Support
It was started by developers and is still very developer-friendly.
> 2. Find a Web Host That Offers Multiple Domains
They don’t limit domains (only diskspace, bandwidth)
> 3. Only Choose a Host That Features Multiple Databases
Same thing : they don’t limit databases (only diskspace)
> 4. Consider Reliability and Reputation
Try WebFaction on http://www.sucks-rocks.com/ : 100% rocks
> 5. Get the Disk Space, Bandwidth and User Tools You Need
They don’t offer huge disk space and bandwidth because they don’t oversell like crazy, but they offer more than enough for 99% of the people. As far as user tools they have more tools than most hosts.
I agree totally on the multiple add-on and multiple database options. Most webmasters start out with one or 2 websites but quickly think of new ideas and start making more. You can save a lot with the multi-domain plans. I also like it when they have the fantastico package because it makes installing and updating many forms of software easy.
I cannot stress enough how much research needs to be done before choosing a web host. I found out to my cost by signing up to a host and getting scammed by them. As well as checking out review sites, just do a websearch for the name of the company you’re looking into.
The main thing I have found is to avoid companies that advertise “unlimited bandwith”. There is no way that they can live up to their promise.