How Your Web Page Design Could Dictate Which Web Host You Choose

How your Web Page Design Could Dictate Which Web Host You Choose

Sometimes a web page design plays a role in which web host you choose to go with. The service of web hosting is tremendous and varies from one host to another. For example if your web design on your web page is to be very basic and include a small amount of file hosting (which means “files can be uploaded via FTP or a Web interface�) then you could go with a web hosting service that offers a very basic “beginner-type� value package. In this case files are uploaded to the net basically “as is� and little designing or altering is required. There are a variety of ISP's that offer this for free, an example being a web page hosting service such as GeoCities. However this kind of option is best for personal home websites and is not fancy and unfortunately, not always very professional and therefore not the best choice for any business, even a small home based business. The two characteristics of this type of web page hosting are that it is generally free of charge and full of sponsor driven advertisements.

More complex, business oriented websites require more complicated and intensive web hosting packages. When web page design is to be complex, one needs to find a web host that allows for database support as well as application development platforms (such as ASP.NET, Java and PHP). This type of web hosting services makes it possible for customers to do such things as “to write or install scripts for applications like forums and content management.� If e-commerce is on your agenda then a secure socket layer (abbreviated to SSL) is an absolute necessity and 128-bit encryption is the best way to go. If you choose to get a hosted shopping cart (or online storefront) you will also require a supported gateway because gateways “give shopping carts the ability to connect and securely process credit card orders in real-time.� The most reliable shopping carts will be able to process payments from the larger payment processing companies that exist online such as Paypal and Verisign and therefore you need a web host that will adequately provide you with the e-commerce services you need to run your site.

If yours is to be a “database driven website� then the database accommodation of the web host could play a big role in which one you go with. For example, if your web page design includes SQL scripting language then it will be necessary that it can read whatever you choose to use in the HTML of your web pages in order to gain access to the particular database, for example if you choose to use PHP.

How much space you need on your website makes a difference when choosing a web host and one's web page design often dictates this direction. Keep in mind that a web host basically means that you are buying (or perhaps more accurately, renting) space on someone else's hard drive. Do not back yourself into a corner by purchasing disk space you don't need or else having far too little room on your site if your web page design is to be fancy and elaborate. As a general rule, a disk space of 50MB is sufficient room for twenty plus web pages and this is approximately the size of a medium to small business website. The more images, sounds, applets or animation you decide to include on your web page, the more disk space you will require.

There are three general categories of web site design “sophistication� and they include basic, database driven (as previously mentioned) and multimedia. All websites in one form or another contain elements of basic website design. Regardless of whether a website is classed as a personal website, a hobbyist one, a small business website or an organization driven website, it will partially contain basic components. Plenty of websites are database driven meaning that many websites have a “backend database for storing and dynamically displaying various types of data.� Multimedia websites are glitterier and more fancy than other kinds of websites. They have a “multimedia enhanced appeal� to them. Multimedia sites have sounds and lots of color and flashiness and are more often for entertainment purposes more than anything else. Website designs that need these elements for their success need to find a web host that can accommodate them.