When you are setting up your very first website, it makes sense to look for a cheap web hosting package. With a cheap, or possibly free, web hosting provider, you can feel free to make mistakes with your web page, and alter it as often as you want. Free and cheap web hosting sites are often ideal for people who need to practice the look and feel of designing a website before going on to more expensive top web hosting suppliers, and they are the ideal sandbox-style page to learn the skills and techniques of running your own website.
Start by looking at what cheap web hosting has to offer. Most free and very inexpensive web hosts require that you have some form of advertising on your site. This is how the providers make their money, so you need to learn exactly what kind of advertising you will have to maintain before you make your decision. If you really hate pop-up screens appearing on your browser when you click on a site, then ones which require pop-up banners might not be the best web hosts for you. While others really hate the advertising frames which often are troublesome in themselves. On the other hand, cheap web hosting sites which do not have banners or advertising are more likely to go under before you get your website underway.
Another issue with cheap web hosting is the amount of space you get. The best web hosting sites will often offer ‘unlimited’ web space (which is usually not unlimited at all), but most cheap sites will only allow you less than 5MB per web space. However, if you carefully design your website, this should allow you to have more than 100 pages, which is more than enough for most requirements.
You should also consider whether you will have FTP access. This is the transfer protocol which allows files to be passed from one computer to another. FTP is the process which allows your web provider to publish your pages through the internet. Cheaper web hosting sites might restrict your FTP to their own page builder, so you might not be able to transfer your pages from one provider to another. This can be vital if you need to move your pages later, or if the web host collapses.
A further factor which can influence whether you choose to have a cheap web host is the reliability of the browser, and the access speed. Free web hosts, and some cheaper hosts, may not be able to provide the uptime you require. They may need to close frequently in order to keep the browser maintained. This can cause you to lose visitors. The same is also true of a poor downloading speed, which can make the visitor click back to the search engine, and find another provider of your services. You should look at other pages hosted by your web site provider, in order to judge the download speed for yourself.
