It seems there is a misconception about what web hosting means. Many website owners think web hosting is simply the server where your web site is stored for access by online consumers.
A web host DOES provide this service, but web hosting is essentially a provider who makes a variety of services available to move your site from dream to reality. Web hosting is about much more than just hosting your website.
A quality web host will keep up with new technology, monitor website uptime, improve existing hardware and provide the tools you need to launch your website.
Let's see if this makes sense; a web host can provide design services, but a web designer can't always provide quality web hosting.
If the impetus of web hosting is to provide a superior level of services then the common view of web designer as a separate function of web host may need to be challenged.
If a web hosting solution can provide the following perhaps a separate designer is an unnecessary step.
1) Updated software technology.
2) Website monitoring and uptime guarantees.
3) Regular upgraded hardware.
4) Comprehensive design templates with broad options for customization and growth.
These options make a full-service web hosting option a cost effective mechanism of managing multiple aspects of your site design and hosting function. This solution also allows you to operate as the ultimate decision maker in site design.
Web hosting has been denigrated to a separate function of web design, however this need not be the case - it should not be the case.
Web designers are typically thrilled to see ecommerce businesses view the two functions as separate and unique from each other. In most cases the web designer will indicate hosting is free with design services. This may sound like a good deal, but you could pay more in site design and maintenance in the first month than a year of a web hosting package that also provides web design functions in a template rich environment.
Understandably this may be a different way of looking at the role of a web hosting option, but it may also provide a welcome environment for site development and growth in an affordable package.
In many cases a web designer spends the majority of their time designing and maintaining sites and have little time left over for website monitoring, uptime guarantee and regular hardware upgrades. In their defense, this has a lot to do with the workload they are under. In a web-hosting scenario you become the primary site designer allowing the host to make sure your 'cyber creation' is available to a global audience.
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