Obviously, websites don’t build themselves. In terms of your time, they need a lot of energy, expertise, and design know-how to construct and launch – to do them well, anyway.
It’s important to remember that building a site is only half the battle too; websites also have to be hosted on servers, ready for, what you hope will be the thousands of people who are wanting to read your content, hire your services and/or book your band.
Here, web hosting is to our creative business; we need you, and we need it to get you to look at us. With online publishing of content, and the marketing of music being two of the most popular things to do now on the web; every musician has more access to fans than ever before, and every artist has a bigger platform to explore at the same time.
The web, of course, has created the type of environment where anyone can write about what they want (just like us), and speak freely, it doesn’t matter who you are, the job you’ve got, or your age; opportunities are equal (mostly). It’s as simple as this, by hosting a site on the net, every musician or young business can reach a massive audience; really it’s all about effort, and using the resources around you, using the website, and the appropriate hosting provider to get what you want out of the creative industries. It takes some time, but it is worthwhile. Quality web hosting companies like 1&1 have a a wide range of both Windows and Linux Web Hosting packages available, and will work to understand the needs of your business, or indeed, what you are trying to do creatively.
Much like the servers that websites reside on, web hosting services are popping up all the time, and it’s important to find one in the many that provides top service at all times. Indeed, while there are hundreds of options to consider, here we take a look at the most important things that you need to examine when checking out web hosting plans.
A good start then, would be pricing – albeit an obvious place to begin. You’ve got to think about what this is going to cost you? All prices that you will encounter are rounded to the nearest pound, and will generally reflect the cheapest options available (that’s good).
Remember though, that discounts, promotional codes, paying up front, and signing-up for multi-year contracts will make these figures rise substantially, again, that’s why you need to connect on a personal level with your provider to discuss the best options for you.
As a creative, you need to be able to access your e-mails at all times (we’d say that’s most important?), and so when considering a host you need to look at whether they offer a service to route all e-mail sent to any address (whether or not that address has been set up) to an inbox, so that you can keep track of everything and respond on time – deadlines and last-minute jobs are the creative’s lifeblood after all.
There’s also the small matter of Static IP addresses to consider as well, and it’s definitely not advised that you overlook this aspect, so you need to ask if there’s an additional charge for this sort service. It gives you a little more certainty and control over your site (and brand) in the long-run. Last but not least, think about phone support around the clock, it’s not ideal if you’re site goes off in the middle of the night (it does happen!), so is there access to this support, and does it come at an extra price is something else you need to be asking about, before you get started.
For more advice and to look at web hosting plans visit 1&1 Domains.
