Building a Group Website, Part 1: Choosing a Host
June 12, 2009 | By
A website can be helpful to get your team or guild known and, if done well, increase its credibility. However, before jumping into building your site, collect your thoughts and research each option carefully. This is an important and risky endeavor that could be very pricey. In my first, of this continuing series on building group websites, I will help to choose a host that is right for your groups needs. Choosing a host can be difficult, but with the right attitude and a hefty amount of planning, you should have all the necessary information on choosing the perfect host for your group.
Space is an incredibly important matter when looking into hosting for your team or guild. Base your hosting choices on the amount of members in your group and what you want your website to be. If you only have 10 members on your team, you will not need as much memory space as a guild with 500 members. Though your group will grow, try to figure out how fast your team has been growing and put that into your calculations. The size of your team is not the only thing that will determine the space you will need. Webpages, pictures, icons, flash-based items, and music all use memory space, so if you are going to have a lot of these, you will need a good amount of memory. If you have already stockpiled some of your materials for your budding website, save them to a folder and check the folders properties to see the amount of space they would take up. After checking the properties, consider how much more space your site would need within its completed stage.
Most web hosts come prepackaged with helpful add-ons, which can make your job of creating a site much easier. Add-ons can be forums, electronic commerce utilities, calendars, and the allowance of different types of scripts, such as JavaScript. Not all hosts come with these extras, so figure out what is most important to have for your team. Also, remember that some of the add-ons can be found and utilized for free on different sites, but electronic commerce features and the supporting of certain scripts depends on the host. Electronic commerce will make it possible to sell items from your website. If your host does not support a certain type of scripting, it will not work even if you try it.
After figuring out what you want in a web host, it is time to compare. To make things easier on you, list your potential site’s needs in order of greatest to least. Once this list is done, compile a list of the best features from each hosting service. Compare all the hosting sites to your list of needs, eliminating ones that do not suit your tastes. When you finally come to a host that meets most, or, if you’re lucky, all of your needs, then you have found your host.
Remember that hosting a site will most likely cost some money so be prepared to pay for the hosting services. However, some hosting sites online cost no money at all. So, stay tuned for next weeks installment: "Building a Group Website, Part Two: Free Hosting".
Photo Courtesy of Sudhamshu
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