So you have chosen and purchased your own domain name and your eager to get your first website up and running, its a great feeling isn't it, the choice out there is also exciting, its always nice to have plenty of options, but its also where some of the work can begin because you need to begin working out what type of hosting package you need and how much it will cost you monthly or yearly, if costing you anything at all.

If you are going to be starting a website for your own personal use, maybe just for blogging or a hobby site, you may choose to just have it hosted free at one of the blogging platforms or you may want to use one of the many free web hosting services available.

But if this is not enough for you then you can usually find quite cheaply priced shared hosting to suite your needs if your site needs to have the use of various things like databases and with full privileges.

In order to associate your new domain with your web hosting account you just have to login to the control panel at the registrar where you registered your new domain and enter the name server info from your webhost, if you are unsure where to find the name servers that you are using at your hosting you can check on their support forum if they have one, or look through the FAQ or contact support at your host and ask them to supply you with the nameserver information so that you can make the relevant changes at the domain registrar.

If you receive a free domain from your web host then you probably wont have to do this, but for those with seperate hosting and domains services this is necessary before you go ahead and actually begin to setup your website.

If its your first time purchasing a domain and setting up a website then its unlikely that you will need anything more than a decent shared hosting account, but i understand that although it may be your first website that it could be for something a bit more ambitious than the average first website so you may want to look into VPS ( Virtual Private Server ) hosting, but im assuming that for the majority you probably wont have the need for that yet.

Take your time setting up everything for your website and as your site begins to receive traffic its worth monitoring how much of the available resources that you use, so if you see yourself filling up the available space quite quickly and your getting through plenty of bandwidth within your account you dont want to hit a limit too early in the month and have your website temporarily suspended so if you feel you might outgrow your hosting package quite fast then it would be wise to see how you can upgrade at the host that your with or begin looking around at other hosts who can accommodate your expanding website.

This is less common and for most people starting their first website either for personal use or for a small business its highly unlikely that growth would be this fast, but you never know how things are going to go and some people are suprised sometimes at the popularity that some websites can obtain.

So its a step by step process from domain purchase and web hosting, either seperately or combined, to then actually getting your site setup and then keeping an eye on your use of the paid for services so that you can act accordingly should you need to expand on the services that you need.

Expanding on what you need wont always mean changing hosts as many of them can supply the extras that you need, like additional bandwidth or the ability to request that your package gets upgraded to the next one up from it, or if you wanted to setup an online shop to add to your website and need secure shopping features then you can often purchase SSL certificates from the company that your already with.

I would never advise to take on an expensive hosting package with way more than you will need but at the same time choosing a package with too little storage space and other features could leave you having to switch hosts a number of times.

You cant know in most cases exactly what you will need but if you can gather a rough idea of what you need for your website then you can usually find an affordable and suitable hosting company with options just right for your requirements.

Congratulations on purchasing your domain, your web hosting and wishing you many visitors to your website.

Filed under: General Web Hosting Info by admin Published June 14, 2008