For my new business, I will need, or want, a web site.

The business will be my home-building business wherein I will be the General Contractor for building new houses on land I own; the houses will be built to be sold.

I have been researching the hosting companies, but there are so many that it seems to be an insurmountable process to select the one that is correct for me.

My plan for the site will be that I will have a cover page telling about my building homes for sale; then, as a house is being built it will be offered for sale immediately, so I will want to post photos i.e. the elevations of the house, floor plan, in process photos of the construction, etc.

Bottom line: Does anyone have a website similar to this, or do you know a favorite web host that you would recommend?

Thanks, Pete

Pete,

We've been using Hostway (http://www.hostway.com/index.html) for about 4 years as our hosting service for National Treasury Employees Union Chapter 45 website (http://www.nteu45.org/)

Hostway has been reliable, fairly inexpensive and easy to use via ftp uploads. We use Dreamweaver as our editor, however, if you use FrontPage, the server-side extensions are available. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions!

Lauri

www.godaddy.com (http://www.godaddy.com) is a really good hosting money and really cheap.

Oki_Man 5,

There are a laundry list of hosting sites around the world that can complicate your shopping experience. Look in to the previous two hosting sites recommended by Bricktown Guy and Lauri101. Keep three points in mind when settling on a hosting service.

1. Cost. This is very important, and since this site is going to advertise your business, monthly hosting costs are a critical factor. Look for what hosting services charge for domain names, or the name of your site. Also, see what deals they offer in the way of monthly hosting. You'll want the most bandwidth and storage space for your buck, and since you are wanting to use photos, the megabytes can add up quickly. Most hosting services offer plenty of storage, but you will still want the best deal for future expansion.

2. Services. See if the potential hosting service offers templates for dynamic websites. You will want a web site that is easy to upload photos and quickly revise information, so these services are critical. For that, you will need a site template that comes with a content management system.

3. Decide between Windows/Linux hosting. Many hosting services charge a bit more for Windows hosting to cover Windows Server licensing costs, something you won't find with a Linux based server. However, if your website was built using Frontpage, ASP.NET, or any Microsoft-based web building software, Windows hosting may be your best options unless you find a Linux hosting account that can support, like in a previous post, Microsoft extensions. Some will tell you that the difference between Windows/Linux hosting means less downtime with Linux, but in all honesty, I have witnessed downtime on both platforms for a number of reasons.

If you haven't built a website, or have little experience doing so, using a template offered by your hosting service is your best possible solution. If you want a custom-built website, it will cost you unless you have a relative that can do a custom site for you. If not, expect to pay at least $400-$900 to set up a website.

I do build websites and coordinate with a number of web hosts (I do not have the servers of financial resources to do my own hosting yet), but I charge a minimum of $300 for graphics, content and hosting costs. The larger the website, the greater the cost.

I went here

http://www.top-10-hosting-reviews.com/index2.html

and it looks like the Start Logic

http://startlogic.com/

is a good buy.

Do you think it is what it says it is? To get the 15,000 GB for $4.95 per month, I think I will have to pay for the two years up front, so I would like to feel fairly sure it is what I can use.

Thanks, Pete

sorry, I was referring to using godaddy.com for your domain name.

totalchoicehosting.com is pretty cheap.

http://www.totalchoicehosting.com/web-hosting-plans.html

I am on the starter plan which has been more than enough for me. I have been using them for 3-4 years now.

IF I remember they are available for tech support help most days of the week via chat or phone, but I am not totally 100% sure. I have used the tech support chat several times. Their tech support agents are fast, friendly and WHEN I did have a problem, they addressed it within 10-15 minutes.

godaddy.com is good for hosting too. Great price (as low as $3.99/mo), good reliability and a ton of disk space and bandwidth allowance.

Oki-Man, are you needing just a webhost or help with your site design also? check my signature.

I don't see a signature.

But I am hoping the site of whomever I purchase hosting from will be ultra easy to use. The main thing I plan to post will be pics of the plat, and then pictures of the houses as they are being built.

Thanks, Pete

Oklahoma Web Hosting, Discounts for OKCTalk Members!!!, http://www.oklahomawebhost.com
Use the coupon code OKCTALK, and you can get $3.00 off any plan. But in all honesty, from listening to your needs it sounds more like you're needing not just hosting, but a simple setup to maintain your site as well. Something simple, and easy to keep updated. We install what we call a CMS (content management system) on all the hosting plans we sell. One that I reccomend is CMSmade simple, which will allow you to easily upload new images to your site, and change the content, etc... I know this isn't exactly what you're looking for, but I recently built this site for a client, http://www.baerhallhomes.com and with this site, he can easily login and change any pictures, content, etc.. He can make updates this 25+ page website in 10mins, and he swears he's not computer literate. I'd be glad to help you get your site going, and although there are a lot of hosting companies out there, who may be cheaper, I really think you're gonna be happy with a company (even if not mine), that will help you develop your site a bit. It'll definitly help alleviate some of the stress you may have getting it going.

I just had time to take a quick look at the site and your site as well, but it seems like what I am looking for. I will look a bit closer at it tonight. Thanks.

Which hosting plan is he buying? It is difficult for me to figure out how much webspace I might need or monthly transfer too. What happens when the monthly transfer for a month is reached?

And the $3.00 off, what does that apply to?

Thanks, Pete

Alrighty, I'd love to help out anyway I can.
To answer your questions, the starter is most common. It really depends on how many images you plan on loading up. If you take high resolution images I'm guessing they could come straight from your camera around 3mb each. Load 20 on your site, you're only at 60MB you would still have 440mb available. usually people who put very very large photo albums, like (such as family vacations for a few years) are really the only one's who need more than 500mb. Oh and also people who upload several video files, or store music.

I have never had a site go over 5gb transfer before. A super super busy forum site could. But I think it would be very very very difficult for a "realty" type site to go over 5gb of transfer. If you do reach the monthly max, email is sent letting you know you've gone over, and you will be billed $5 for each additional Gigibyte of usage.

The $3.00 off applies to the monthly hosting price.

Thanks,
Marrell

Keep in mind that when your transfer limit is reached, and like Marrell said it rarely happens unless you have a high traffic forum, the only thing that would happen is that your site would take a bit more time to access. Some hosting companies will send you an e-mail to inform you that you are hitting your bandwidth limits.

My web site has yet to hit its transfer limit, but then again, I haven't updated it since June due to illness and exhausting job searches.

Maybe it was something I did, but too, I am in a hurry to leave for class, but when I clicked more info on the starter plan, it took me to the Standard plan; how do I get to the more info for the starter plan?

My camera is old, but it takes good pics. The pics I take are about 100K to 150K, so I would guess I could put lots and lots of them on the 500 megs of space; how much space does a data page take---I guess that would be one without pics.

Just so you'll know: my goofy little Web site used 8.44 GB of bandwidth last month.

Hey Pete, I saw that link, it should be working correctly now.

windowphobe, you must have an etremely popular site, or some extremely popular video clips :)

An html page, without pics and other images, averages 2-3Kb. Quite tiny. I'm about 60% complete with my redesigned website, www.okcpulse.com, complete with CMS and other new features. Its new layout is done completely with CSS (cascading style sheet). It will be MUCH easier to update. My current site is all static HTML.

OK! I agree that 500 MB with 5 GB monthly transfer would probably be all I would ever need, and at $4.99 per month ($7.99 - $3.00 OKC Talk Discount), it is in the ballpark.

I am just wondering why, since most people would have a simple site that is hardly used (probably low transfer per month), when almost all other sites offer near 10 times that amount for comparable money, especially if one does not have the $3.00 discount, why do you hold the site to this size?

I know it is your option to make the size as you think is correct, and I assume it has to do with the power of the host computer, but as I said, I am just wondering.

Too, I am viewing this thread as not only helping me to select your hosting, but there may be many people who desire an affordable web site even if just for fun, so all info would be welcome. at least to me, those soundbites on the websites that are there to get me to select them as my host are very confusing, and as I said earlier, there are so many, and that complicates it ever so much more.

I am not trying to be critical here; I hope this will be taken as maybe lots of people have the same q's but do not ask and go away frustrated.

Ahh there's not to be taken critical here. This is an open forum :) so any questions about any web/technology talk is welcome, regardless if it's my company or others. I'm an open book.

I can't speak for all hosts who offer 2GB of space for $4.99, but I do know some who do it just for marketing. They know that in reality a very very small percentage of people would ever really utilize that much space. Also some who offer those deals use linux servers which are just as capable of hosting, unless you need windows specific technologies such as ASP.NET, (at first glance I don't see you needing this technology, but it is available) but windows hosting generally costs a bit more than linux hosting. Some say it's to accomidate for the licensing costs of Windows. I honestly feel that the additional costs comes from the cost of employing people with the skillset to manage a windows server environment securely, and stabily.

Because there are differing opinions, about linux/windows hosting I can't just say that one technology is the the BMW of hosting, and the other is the solid mid sized sedan. Because we can go all day disputing which is which. I honestly belive that sometimes you may be hauling furniture and a rock solid pick up truck may be more valuable to you for the job you need it for than, a fully loaded beamer :)

All that to say I take the more realistic approach, and offer people what I believe is a great service at a great value. Without all the big marketing gimmicks. (not to say marketing's not effective :))

I dunno how extremely popular it is, but I get about 800 visitors a day, plus about a thousand taking my RSS feed.

Hi Pete, I have used CyberUltra (http://www.cyberultra.net/) for over three years and have many clients using them as well. Great uptime and great support. They use CPanel which is the leading control panel. You can also host numerous domains on the same hosting account. Posting images of the plat and the homes is not going to be a problem for even the smallest of hosting plans.

Will you need to update your site and will you be doing those updates yourself?

*edit* sorry, didn't see the dates on these posts. Nevermind.... :doh:

No prob designST, that happens every now and then :)
Welcome to the forums btw!

Thanks for the welcome, ibda12u! :tiphat:

I was just looking around. I will hit the introduction thread at some point. Thanks again.