You’ve hashed out the different web platform possibilities to build your new website on. You’ve weeded through your RFP submissions and finalized your new webdev team. You’ve even got a staff committee developing the content.

Then it happens, you are on the phone finalizing the project start details and delivery of the first payment when your new web designer asks, “Would you like to host your website and email with us or would you prefer to host on your own?”

As someone that has now been on both ends of this question, I thought it would be best to spell out the differences including the pluses and minuses of each.

DOMAIN:

Idea’s Recommendation – You Own It

First, let’s start at the beginning. Your domain is your web real estate, the letters that follow the www. You either already do business with a web presence and have your URL in place. Or your new business is ready to launch so you are finally putting up a structure (website) on your undeveloped piece of land (domain|URL|web address).

Idea recommends you own your domain and you can do it safely enough at GoDaddy. Be forewarned, the upsell is extremely aggressive and unless you want to host with them (which we will explain later is a bad idea), you don’t need anything but a 2 or 5-year domain name. Buy at least 2 years because the search engines prefer longer-lasting domain names for SEO and hopefully business will be so good this time next year that you won’t have time to renew your domain.

Why not bundle it with the web and email hosting?

Good question. Domains aren’t as volatile as the web or email hosting. It’s pretty straightforward and it gives the business owner control over its own virtual name. If you choose to move to a new web designer or you sell your business, you’ll have immediate access to it.

Email is a bit more tricky. As a business you have a few options, your company’s email accounts can be handled through the same hosting provider as the website or through an exchange server.

Larger companies typically choose hosting their email on an exchange server. The exchange server offers some options not always available with the web hosting option including remote logins from outside devices, larger capacity for storage and added security features.

Shared hosting with your web hosting company allows your webdev team to easily troubleshoot. Asking them to go into the exchange server and fix things is like asking them to cook in someone else’s kitchen. It can happen but it might take some extra time (which ultimately means money).

WEB HOSTING:

Idea’s Recommendation – Stick with Us

Web hosting is an active database for the storage of all the data that a website uses; the pages, the images, the files, the forms, and the emails sent from the website to regular email boxes.

Ask your new website partner if they share a server or have a dedicated server for hosting your website?

You should have your website on your web developer’s dedicated server or on its own dedicated server. This assures you are among friends and that if something happens to a neighbor, your web support team has access to the root of the problem. If they need to make a fix and control the hosting of your site they can more easily troubleshoot the problem, isolate the source and make immediate fixes to all affected sites.

Self Hosting: Yes, you can host on your own. But, price should not be your only factor. There are some important questions to consider:

If you need work done to your site, who will you turn to for support and can they access the info?

Does this hosting company offer top-notch speeds with the platform that your new site is built on?

How often have they had outages, how long did they last, and did they correct the problems?

If you self-host, these are things you need to consider. At Idea, we are committed to customer service and that means uptime on your website and fast speeds to help search rankings. We also do it at a reasonable price. It’s not an upsell for us, it’s a convenience that we provide to make our relationship more fluid.

You leave a lot in the hands of your web developer, but if you’ve trusted them with your web design and development, you might take their suggestion on the web and email hosting. Ask questions until you understand, and hey, congrats on the new website!

 

And if you need any help with web development, Idea Marketing Group can help you with all your web design needs. Contact us today!