In order to have a public website, you will need someone to host it. You can host it yourself, but you have to know what you are doing. For most people that is not an option. I can host your website on my webhost, right now I am using Liquidweb. I charge $130 a year which includes some website maintenance. If you want the keys to your own operation so to speak, I can advise you on what webhosting companies would be a good match for you, so you won't have to spend time on researching your options of what is within your budget and suits your website requirements. There is no reason for you to pay for something that you don't need and in this line of business, it can be hard to tell what you are paying for, if you don't have much experience. I can also help you move your website and domain name to a better service. Moving a database driven website can be a tedious and long process, if you are not sure what you are doing.
Right now, that I know of, the best offers vary from US$4 to US$10 a month. You can pay a lot more a month, and you may be doing this right now - up to $40 a month. There is no reason to be doing that if you have a small website for a small business. A lot of people have hooked up with services that offer easy tools to build your own website and in some cases, it certainly makes sense, if you are adventurous enough to get into it. In most cases, you end up having an undone site that you are paying a lot of money to have every month. That is a shame. Every business should have a website they are happy with and wants to show to their customers. If you are in this situation, please give me a call and I will be happy to help you out.
One of the best free build-your-own website services I know out there at the moment that makes it really simple to put together a website is : Weebly.com. Yes, I know the name doesn't say much, but I used it for a friend and it is actually not bad. For a fee, you can have your own domain name pointing to the site, but the free version is your own name followed by .weebly.com - e.g. http://cosmicamericanpianomusic.weebly.com
Another option which offers much more fancy and professional template designs is squarespace.com. They take a monthly fee ($8-$24) for their service, however, they offer an excellent shopping cart software and beautiful designs and a lot of customization options. If you are building a complex website, you will have to put in some hours to figure out how to do everything. I have seen people succeed and I have seen people give up. It all depends on your temperament.
Web hosting companies I work with and recommend:
Fastcomet.com - reliable, cost-effective company that offers a great many features. They have excellent support, and offer 1 free domain name registration in their web hosting packages, including a large number of email accounts, databases and more. They offer 1 free website transfer and 1 domain transfer They often run great deals when you sign up for the first year, which means you save up to 70% for the first year. Encryption for domain names is included in their plans.
Costs: $1.00-$19.95
LiquidWeb.com - cost-effective services for bigger companies that need more space, server control and faster speed. They offer cpanel setup, dedicated servers, VPS hosting to very reasonable prices. They have 24/7 support, by email, phone or chat. They offer free transfer of all files from previous server, including mail. Encryption of domain names is included in their plans.
Costs: starting at $19 monthly
Siteground.com - they give excellent support to open source and content management systems like Joomla and Wordpress, their servers are set up to work with opensource. They also offer extra security measures, which is critical as unfortunately website hacking is a pretty common phenomenon. Encryption for domain names is included in their plans. They are an European company and have web host servers in the US and Europe. I highly recommend using them.
Costs: $3.95-$14.95
Ionos.com - reliable, inexpensive company that offers a great many features for very small fees. They have good support, and offer 1 free domain name registration in their web hosting packages, including a large number of email accounts, databases and more. They also have a website building software “MyWebsite”, if you are adventurous enough to take a crack at it yourself. They often run great deals when you sign up, which means you save money in the first 3 months. Their domain name registration fee is good. Encryption for domain names is NOT included in their plans.
Costs: $5.99-$14.99
