What is hosting?

In order for your website or blog to appear on the Internet, it needs space on a 'server'. Hosting companies make a living by renting you space on their servers. There is great disparity between hosting companies and the features they provide you with. Some give you bare bones access, so you need to email their Support in order to do basic configuring. Others give you full access and control through a comprehensive dashboard.

Some 'pre-packaged' artist website builders and blogs host your site for you. This is the quick and easy way to get your information online.

However, in the long run, there are distinct advantages to having your own hosting account:

• Every page on your website or self-hosted blog has a URL starting with your domain name
• You can have an email account that matches your domain name, like you@yourdomain.com
• You'll have access to excellent traffic statistics (provided you've chosen a good hosting service)
• You can upload images, documents, videos etc. and have direct links to them that you can send in email or put on other websites
• You have full control over your website - it's look, function and structure - and can easily add programming for a shopping cart, etc.

While we're not suggesting that you run out and get a hosting account and wade into learning what it is and how to use it, we do recommend that when someone is building a site for you that they put it on YOUR hosting account instead of theirs - if for no other immediate reason than so you can log in and look at your stats. Keep in mind that should you want to switch designers one day, or take over management of your own website, the first thing you'll need to do is move your website to another hosting account.

The hosting service we use and recommend, FineWebsitesHosting.com, is a sub-provider of one of the largest and most reliable hosting companies in the world. Their support is outstanding (24/7 phone support!) and it's very reasonably priced. Most artist websites do well on the Basic plan ($9.95), while blogs generally require more space and the Standard plan ($14.95).

Many artists seem to have the idea that having your own hosting account is a bad thing. On the contrary. If you're serious about your website, then a good hosting account is key because it will give you tremendous flexibility for years to come.

When we build sites for artists, we automatically set them up on their own hosting account. If you want to ignore it for now, that's fine (and most artists do in the beginning). But, everything is there waiting for you when you want to expand your site or add new functions that require the designer to configure options on your hosting account.

Questions? We'll be happy to talk with you about hosting, or anything else having to do with setting up your website.

Click here to contact us.