Choosing Between a Free Web Host Or Paid Web Host For Your Affiliate Website

A web host is a company that stores your website on their servers and makes it accessible for others to access via the internet. So should you opt for free web hosting or paid web hosting for your website?

My advice is, if you are new to the internet and would like to explore the functionalities of having a website with no business links, feel free to try out the free ones. But if you are intending to set up a business related website, for e.g., for your affiliate business, do think twice about it!

If you have an affiliate business website on a free host, you may risk your website being down for no reasons. As you are not paying anything to warrant their customer support, do you think they will bother much? They might not even attend to your complaints and your website will be down for an unlimited time beyond your control! This will deeply affect your business in this downtime period as visitors who try to click on your page gets an error page instead. Do you think they will come back again? They will just think your website does not exist. You will face loss of traffic and potential earnings for that whole time.

Free hosts can also shut down your website anytime. If you have directed all your promotion links to the web address of this website, it's going to be a big blow to suffer! Imagine if you have written tons of articles with this link and submitted them to many directories, it's a nightmare to even think about modifying all the articles with this old link.

The reason why these companies can offer free hosting is because of the advertising revenue they get from your website. Notice all the annoying pop-ups or banners that are not part of your website? You have absolutely no control on the appearance of these advertising widgets if you are using their free hosting service. If these irritate you already, it would most likely affect your visitors as well. They might feel that your website do not look professional and credible enough for them to click and buy the product you are recommending.

On the other hand, by investing just a couple of dollars a month for a paid web host, you can have a greater peace of mind! Your website will also be more protected against any unnecessary downtime or shut down problems as legitimate web host companies rely a lot on customer feedback and reviews to build their business. A satisfied customer will introduce another customer, so on and so forth, so if they have a reputation of being reliable, it is the best form of advertising they can get.

It is also important to check if the paid web host company has excellent customer support as well. In the event that you have problems with your website, all you want is to get it up again as soon as possible. The best scenario is when you are able to reach their customer service in a very short time, and have someone help you fix the problem immediately. Time is very important in an online business. At the time your website is inaccessible, your potential customers are turned away, not by their choice. You may be losing their business in those precious minutes! It is not worth paying for an unresponsive web host who can't give you the appropriate support when needed.

In general, I always recommend paid web hosting, especially if you are building the website for business in the long haul. If you do not wish to spend the money first, you can consider building your site on free blogging platforms and eventually upgrade it to one that is hosted with a web host when you are more ready.

Authored By:
Angela Tay