Web hosting question (specific for photography business)

[Jon_Are]

I've been considering my options as to which web hosting plan would best suit me. Here are three options (these are from GoDaddy.com):

1. Economy Plan: $4.99/month, 5 pages, 50MB disk space, 1GB bandwidth, 1 email account, 50 email forwards

2. Deluxe Plan: $8.99/month, 10 pages, 2GB disk space, 100GB bandwidth, 500 email account, unlimited email forwards

3. Premium Plan: $12.99/month, 999 pages, 4GB disk space, 200GB bandwidth, 1000 email account, unlimited email forwards

It's going to be a simple site, so I think 10 pages would be plenty. I'm not so sure about the other parts of the equation, though.

I'd particularly like to have input about the bandwidth, email accounts and email forwards numbers (I'm not totally sure what these even mean).

Thanks,

Jon

 

[Chris of Arabia]

Must admit, I'm a bit puzzled by the 5/10/999 pages bit. Given that it's giving you space on the server 50Mb/2Gb/4Gb, you should be able to put as many pages as you want on there, or at least until you fill the space up. I've not looked at the godaddy site, but I'd be interested in how they describe the specific packages you're looking at - do you have a link?

 

[KmH]

That took 20 seconds.

GoDaddy.com Web Hosting.

 

[Chris of Arabia]

I'm sure it did, which is probably why the detail on that page doesn't match what the OP wrote above and also why I asked what page Jon was looking at, not someone elses best guess.

 

[Jon_Are]

Actually, this is the page I was referring to:

Free Web Hosting Account With Web Site Tonight Purchase

Jon

 

[Chris of Arabia]

OK, the page limit seems to be to do with the tool (WebSite Tonight) being used to help the beginner out. It saves them having to do all the design work and coding on the webspace themselves and provides a limited range of templates to work from, adapting the colours and fonts along the way. You can though code up any additional pages yourself using HTML if you want, but they put a nice little caveat in about that.

Also, WebSite Tonight does not check the validity of the custom HTML. You assume responsibility for custom HTML and any potential conflicts that may arise.

Not unreasonable o their part I hasten to add.

As far as picking one goes, the economy one seems very limited in space and bandwidth, but if you don't want to have that much up there, then it should do fine, I wouldn't want to try and run a business off it though.

For the extra $4.00, the deluxe plan looks a much better bet, especially if you are planning to host a lot of pictures. Bear in mind that the disk space they are offering isn't all yours - within that you have to account for any website management tools, email accounts and so on that you'd need to run the site.

I'd probably only consider the Premium Plan if you were definitely planning on selling from the site and needed the extra security the SSL certificate could offer.

Tell us a bit about what you are wanting to do with the site, as it might help point you in the right direction.

 

[Jon_Are]

Thanks for the response, Chris.

I am going to use the site to promote my (upcoming) real estate photography business. Here are my goals for the site:

• Showcase my work
• Explain why I am "better than the other guy" (HDR)
• Educate a bit about HDR real estate photography, with photo examples
• Provide a method to contact me

That's about it. I won't need to sell anything from the site. I doubt that it will be an effective marketing tool to drum up business - that will come from other forms of marketing. I just need a presence on the web, a method for clients to contact me.

I expect the Deluxe (mid-range) plan will do just fine.

Could you explain exactly what they mean by '500 email accounts' and 'unlimited email forwards'?

Jon

 

[Nolan]

No offense intended but that a awful choice to go with. There are some many other hosts that will give far more for the dollar.

For example Web Hosting by FatCow - Affordable & E-Commerce Enabled
-Fatcow plan
-$4.95 a month ($88 a year)
-Unlimited disk space
-unlimited bandwidth
-unlimited email accounts and forwarding
-75 dollars in free advertising, (adsence and yahoo)
-very fast
-Great customer service, online chat/phone 24/7
-They have been around for over a decade, and every one loves them

I am just trying to help, so please at least consider this host or another one.

 

[Chris of Arabia]

Could you explain exactly what they mean by '500 email accounts' and 'unlimited email forwards'?

Jon

The first bit means exactly what it says - you have the ability to set up 500 different email accounts on it [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], and 496 others to suit your own needs.

The email forwards are just so that you automatically forward emails from those 500 accounts to somewhere else e.g. they could all be set to pass the mail onto [email protected] or anything else.

Both of the above are useful to some extent, but they are largely window dressing on the package. The most important things are the amount of diskspace you have and the amount of bandwidth accessing it.

I do agree to an extent with nolan that this may not be the greatest hosting plan in the world, but it's clearly designed for the starter who doesn't want to get involved in anything too technical, hence the "WebSite Tonight" tool. They give you the templates, you fill in the blanks and change to colours to suit. It's a step up from geocities, but not that far in a way. It really depends on how dirty you want to get your hands.

It's very easy to get a pure webspace hosting plan, but unless you've got the skills or inclination to do something with it, then you'll need to find someone who would do this for you. My own webspace is very much that, but I knew enough to be able to get an open source (read free) blog installed and I tinker about in the back of that as and when the need arises.

What skills do you have, or can you get ready (affordable?) access to?

 

[Nolan]

For the most part fatcow and godaddy require the same level of knowledge. They both have cpanels, with the same features ect. Its just a mater of how you set your site up. Thats where the real know how is needed. Try wordpress, it worked very well for me, www.opticalidea.com. They have pre-made themes so you dont need to know how to write html, css or java script.

 

[Chris of Arabia]

I'm using b2evolution, which has the same b2/cafelog root as Wordpress, but there are plenty of others out there if you want to dig around - some knowledge is required if you want to go this route though.

 

[Nolan]

I'm using b2evolution, which has the same b2/cafelog root as Wordpress, but there are plenty of others out there if you want to dig around - some knowledge is required if you want to go this route though.

Whats the url of your site? I am interested in b2evolution and i would like to see an example of it in use.

 

[Chris of Arabia]

http://www.izdihar.com

It's a mildly adapted version of Andrew Hreschak's 'Vastitude' skin

Like most blogs, it doesn't get updated often enough.

 

[Nolan]

I agree now, b2evolution looks like a great cms.
By the way your sites great!

 

[Chris of Arabia]

I suspect it may be too brown...