The Hidden Costs of Website Hosting

Understand the price of web hosting and what to expect as you grow

Creating a website is exciting. In many cases, it means you’re starting or expanding your own business.

But in order for your website to be live on the Internet, it needs to be hosted. In short, web hosting provides storage space and access for websites.

So, you know you need it and you know you’ll need to consider the website hosting costs. Like anything else, the costs associated with hosting your website can influence some of your decisions.

Like nearly every other product and service, there isn’t one set for website hosting. There are even some hidden costs associated with site hosting that you need to be aware of.

Allow me to explain.

If you cut corners initially with site hosting costs, it can end up costing you more money down the road. You could run into issues that are more expensive than you might think.

I developed this guide to help educate you on how much website hosting will really cost. We’ll go through different elements that you need to take into consideration.

Types of Web Hosting

There are three main types of website hosting.

• shared hosting
• virtual private server (VPS)
• dedicated hosting

The costs vary based on which type of web hosting you use.

Shared hosting is the least expensive option. That’s because your site gets stored in a server that hosts other websites too. Dedicated servers are be the top of the line option — one that comes at a premium price. Just as the name implies, your site gets hosted on a single server you have all to yourself. (If you’re a small business, dedicated is likely way more than you need.) VPS hosting falls in between these two options. It’s less expensive than a dedicated server but has additional features and greater flexibility than shared hosting.

Free Website Hosting

What about free website hosting? Is it good? Do I recommend it?

These are questions that I get asked all of the time. For those of you who are interested in this, you check out this guide on the best free web hosting.

While free hosting is definitely an option you can consider, there is an old saying that you should keep in mind: You get what you pay for.

Now, this isn’t necessarily true all of the time. If you buy a $500 designer shirt, is it really that much better than a cheap $5 shirt? Probably not. But when it comes to web hosting, free or cheap isn’t always better.

So why do so many services offer free hosting packages? They are able to make money in other ways.

Some free hosting services make money from the banner ads displayed on your website, or even banners on your own dashboard. Some get paid with ads on forums that they force you to visit and post on in order to receive your free hosting. You’ll see web hosting plans that are offered free but then entice you to switch and upgrade to paid service.

You might even come across a startup company that’s running a web host for the first time, and offering free hosting before they transition and go after paying clients. This is something you’ll want to avoid for sure.

Website Traffic

It’s natural to try and save some money with a free or inexpensive hosting service. But eventually, your site is going to grow. Obviously, this is a good thing.

However, when your site reaches a certain size, the host may begin to throttle your website if you’re on a shared server.

A couple of things can happen from here. None are good news for your website.

It’s possible that website visitors will have trouble accessing your pages and content. They might even see error messages when attempting to connect to your site.

Even if an error message doesn’t appear, the increased load time will cause people to bounce. That’s a major problem. As loading times increase, page abandonment increases as well.

Slow loading times are extremely costly. 40% of people abandon websites that take more than three seconds to load. 80% of people who leave your site because of slow speed say that they won’t return.

This is extremely costly for your website, so make sure you understand the basic principles that boost your website loading time. Upgrading and paying more for your web hosting can save you thousands of dollars in lead generation, customer acquisition costs, and sales.

Security

Reliable websites need to be secure. Safety always needs to be a top priority for your business.

This is especially true if you’re processing payments. Think about all of the sensitive information that your website has on it. It’s your responsibility to protect your site visitors and customers from cybercriminals and malicious attacks.

Here are just some of the minimum security measures that you need to keep in mind.

• spam filtering
• security audits
• firewall configuring
• network protocols
• scans for malware and viruses
• passwords
• multi-level authentication
• user permissions

A popular security option is a secured cloud where you can store all of your documents and manage files. However, all of this costs money.

But if you pay for a reliable web hosting service, you can get all of these features included as part of your subscription. This is much better than having to pay for them individually, or even worse, pay the costs of your website getting compromised or having security problems.

Servers

You need to make sure that your site hosting servers are reliable as well. Read reviews and do your research before you sign up for any hosting service based on attractive pricing alone.

The best servers have updated software, 24/7 monitoring, regular maintenance, and automatic updates.

Earlier we talked about the different types of web hosting. Your server will depend on which option you choose.

It’s worth mentioning that the size of the dedicated hosting market across the world is growing each year.

Does this mean you need to have a dedicated server? Not necessarily.

Your website will perform better if you do, but depending on the size of your site right now, it’s not completely necessary.

But if you decide to upgrade or change your server at some point in the future, there will be additional costs associated with that transition, including some possible down time on your site.

Operational Costs

I consult with lots of business owners who just want to host their website on their own. They have a technical background and don’t think it will be a problem.

But just because you have the ability to self-host, doesn’t mean that you should. I’m not saying this to discourage you, but I don’t want to see you have to deal with hidden or unexpected costs.

You’ve got a business to run. Hosting your own website shouldn’t take away from your daily business tasks.

If you pay for a web hosting service, you’ll benefit from things like servers, bandwidth, storage, automatic updates, maintenance, and data migrations. Do you really want to have to worry about all of this?

Let a hosting provider do all of the heavy lifting for you. Hosting a site on your own can increase your operational costs. It will take time out of your day, and you may even need to hire more people. This is an inefficient use of your resources.

Instead, I’d recommend just finding the right hosting provider from the beginning. Then you can focus your efforts on running your business and avoid unexpected costs.

Renewal and Setup Fees

When you first purchase web hosting, the price might seem great. But that is likely just your initial cost for signing up.

The promotional rates aren’t usually the final price and probably won’t last forever.

Make sure you read the fine print to see what your renewal costs will be. Whether that’s next month, next year, or three years down the road. In most cases, there is no way around the price jump, but you should be ready for it.

Eventually, you should be expecting to pay full price. This will likely come when you renew.

Some services will also charge you for a setup fee.

In the example above, the setup fee is free. But this isn’t always be the case.

For those of you who are paying for dedicated servers, the setup cost is definitely justifiable. That’s because your provider may need to physically add hardware components and set up software that you requested.

Conclusion

Hosting is a requirement for every website. There are lots of different options for you to consider.

The costs vary depending on which route you choose. Some options are more expensive than others. You may even decide to look for free website hosting.

Regardless of your decision, there will be some hidden costs that you need to be prepared for. A plan that saves you money up front could cost you extra down the road with your website traffic, operational costs, and security. Be prepared for additional fees associated with renewals and setups as well.

It’s important to make sure that you’re always using a reputable host.

If you still have questions about the costs associated with website hosting, you can ask me about it in the comments section, and I’ll be happy to help you out.

How much are you planning to pay for website hosting?

Source Quick Sprout http://bit.ly/2CuBhgD

Lights, Camera, Money! Get Paid to Watch Movie Previews (From Your Couch)

Why Internal Solutions Trump External Ones

If you’re reading this, you’re likely a problem solver of some kind, and the problem you identified was likely related to your personal finances. Finding a solution to that problem led you, in some fashion, to The Simple Dollar – maybe it was a Google search or a link from a friend or something else.

Financial problems come to us in various shapes and sizes and they appear in a number of different ways. Maybe you lost your job and are really struggling to make ends meet. Maybe you’re just treading water financially and your debts aren’t really going away. Maybe you’re in good financial shape but you’d like to prepare yourself financially for a career change because you’re unhappy with some aspects of your career. All of these approaches have a central theme in common: we all want to improve our lives.

When a problem presents itself in life, we tend to attack it in a number of different ways, depending on our personality. Some of us turn it over and over in our minds, trying to decipher the specifics of the problem as clearly as possible. Some of us simply try to work around the problem. Others want to quickly face it head on and dive immediately into a search for solutions.

Personally, I tend to stew over a problem for a while, writing it out in my journal and digging into it until I’m sure I understand what the root cause is. Then, I start researching methods for fixing that root cause – I’ll do Google searches and read books and even talk it over with friends who have handled that problem.

Sometimes, if I’m lucky, a solution will just fall into place. Someone will give me the key to fixing the problem and suddenly everything’s better. At other times, I have to figure it out on my own, make changes to my own behavior, and put in a lot of work.

External Versus Internal Solutions

The first type of solution is what I call “external solutions.” External solutions are solutions that come from an external source that we have no control over. Maybe your great uncle Winthrop suddenly leaves you $200,000. Maybe you buy a lottery ticket and win a price. Maybe a friend says, “Hey, I have an extra freezer in my garage and you can have it.” Maybe your boss suddenly comes to you and says, “Your hard work has been noticed and so here’s a ten percent raise.” These types of solutions have varying degrees of likelihood – there are steps you can take to somewhat increase the chances of external solutions, but they’re really not solutions that can be relied upon.

External solutions, in my mind, are in the land of daydreams and luck. They’re things that are wonderful if they happen, but you can’t really rely on them. That doesn’t mean that it’s not worthwhile to cultivate them and increase the chances of their occurrence (here are some real ways to increase your “luck” and a discussion about how hard work complements “luck”), but if a real problem is pressing you, don’t expect an external solution to save the day.

My interest is in the other kind of solution to problems – the “internal solutions.” Internal solutions are ways in which you can solve a problem via personal action, but you have to make the decision to take that action. These usually involve some sort of personal effort and typically a significant amount of it.

For example, if you observe that you’re just treading water financially and you decide to solve this problem by changing your own spending habits and using that surplus to get rid of debts and start saving for retirement, that’s a prime internal solution to a problem. If you observe that your career isn’t going anywhere and you decide to solve this problem by getting some certifications and polishing your resume so that you can move to a new position, that’s an internal solution. If you observe that you’re overweight and you decide to solve this problem by counting your calories and learning how to naturally consume fewer calories during the day, that’s an internal solution. Internal solutions are all about actions you take to cause a particular outcome, whereas external solutions are actions taken by others that cause an outcome in your life.

Often, when people say that something is hopeless, they believe the only route to success is either an external solution – outside of their control and usually among the high-benefit but low-likelihood end of the spectrum – or a prohibitively hard internal solution – radical frugality, working four jobs, etc. Because external solutions are out of our control and many internal solutions are very difficult, we often buy into the notion that change is basically impossible.

High Intensity Versus Low Intensity

While people sometimes find success due to an external solution falling on their lap and people occasionally find success pushing through a high intensity internal solution, I’ve found that most of the success I’ve found in my life in terms of solving life problems comes from low intensity internal solutions.

A low intensity internal solution is one where we are directly taking action to cause the change we want, but that action isn’t an intense life change in and of itself. Low intensity internal solutions are things we can pull off in our life with relative ease. Often, low intensity internal solutions come off like common sense – when one occurs to you, it feels like a “why didn’t I think of that?” idea. They feel like common sense.

My belief is that low intensity internal solutions are almost always the best solutions for life’s problems. They don’t rely on others to “save” you, they don’t require major life changes, and they’re not complicated, either. They just work. They might not individually create an enormous change in your life, but they nudge the trajectory you’re on in a meaningful way and that really adds up over time.

Why Doesn’t Everyone Use Them?

So, why don’t we automatically solve all of our life problems with low intensity internal solutions. There are a lot of reasons, but four of them bubble to the surface.

First, low intensity internal solutions still require effort. They’re not effortless. They usually require a burst of up-front effort or a small amount of ongoing effort to implement. You can’t just sit on the couch and watch it magically happen with zero effort.

Second, people believe that the only way to really change is either an external solution or a high intensity internal solution. People often buy into the idea that they can’t change their life without a huge windfall coming in or a radical shift in their life in which they give up tons of things that they actually value. They don’t even consider low intensity solutions.

Third, people feel like low intensity internal solutions are just common sense and blow them off. I can’t tell you how often I’ve been told that the solutions I used to turn our financial life around were “common sense,” as though that somehow invalidated them. They might be “common sense,” but the vast majority of Americans aren’t actually doing them… so maybe they’re not as “common sense” people think they are.

Finally, they’re often not very glamorous. People want to hear the story of how someone lost 115 pounds in a few making major life changes. They don’t want to hear the story of someone who lost 25 pounds over several months making a straightforward life change. They watch “The Biggest Loser,” not “The Moderate Loser.” Low intensity internal solutions usually don’t feel like the big splashy life change that attracts people, so they get overlooked.

How Low Intensity Internal Solutions Turned Around Our Finances

Let me make this very clear: our financial turnaround wasn’t a high intensity solution, at least once we got past the “honeymoon” phase; rather, we just used a handful of low intensity solutions that stuck around. Our solution wasn’t a radical life change, but a lot of small tweaks. The basic flow of our life didn’t really change at all, honestly.

For example, I used to spend a ton of money on books. Instead of going to the bookstore frequently, I just switched to going to the library to browse books. Instead of hitting Amazon when I hear about a great book title, I just switched to using my library’s online book reservation service.

Sarah and I used to eat out a lot. Instead, on a night-by-night basis, we made an effort to eat at home. Simple change: unless it’s really really difficult, we’ll just eat something we made at home. Often, it was something really simple – a pot of spaghetti with some sauce on top or some scrambled eggs and toast. Over time, cooking at home got easier and easier and now I’d honestly rather make a meal at home than eat out regardless of the costs, and eating at home is way cheaper.

We used to go out with friends a lot. Our only change here was that we just started hosting stuff at our house – potluck dinner parties followed by a movie or a board game or something like that. Over time, we started accentuating friendships that were really on board with this and de-emphasizing friendships that weren’t.

We used to buy name brand everything. Rather than buying the name brands, we just started buying store brand everything and only switched back to name brands if there was a problem. This is the definition of low intensity change.

The thing is, each of these low intensity solutions alone wouldn’t bring about big financial change, but none of them were really very hard, either. What we did was simply do a bunch of them at once and, because they were pretty easy (especially with a bit of practice), most of them just stuck as new normal life behaviors.

That’s really the secret of low intensity internal solutions – they usually just end up feeling like the natural way of doing things if you do them for a while. It feels normal to buy everything in store brand form. It feels normal to cook almost all meals at home. It feels normal to have our social lives revolve around dinner parties at home and community events. It feels normal to get almost all of my books from the library. I could list a lot of these things – they’re just things that have become normal for me now, but they cost a lot less than my old, bad way of doing things.

For me, whenever I’m wanting to make changes to my life, I look at low intensity internal solutions first. I might want to make big radical life changes to see big results immediately, but I’ve witnessed time and time again that it’s the little low intensity solutions that really stick and really add up to meaningful change over time.

Low intensity internal solutions have helped me fix a lot of relationship problems. Low intensity internal solutions have helped me navigate career changes and put my career on a great path. Low intensity internal solutions have helped me improve my health. They always come through when I see a problem and I want to make changes.

My Process for Finding Low Intensity Internal Solutions

Over the last decade or so, I’ve developed something of a process for taking a problem I see in my life and solving it via low intensity internal solutions that eventually just become my normal process of life. Let’s walk through those steps.

The first part, of course, is noticing and identifying the problem. Something’s not right in my life. I’m unhappy with something. What is it? I usually spend some time thinking about this, because I don’t want to go off making changes to things that aren’t really the source of the problem.

What I usually try to do is look for specific things I don’t like, then ask myself why those things are the way they are. I repeat that “why” question five times, and then that fifth answer is usually very close to the core problem.

This isn’t a snap judgment kind of thing. If I notice some things that are out of place in my life, I try to evaluate each of them and see if they lead back to a common core problem.

When I’ve identified a core problem that i want to solve, I try to identify all of the choices in my life that I’ve made recently that are leading to this problem. I focus on my choices. I don’t worry about external events. I don’t worry about other people’s behaviors. I worry about what I chose to do.

If I don’t feel like my relationship with Sarah is going well, I start to look at how I’ve behaved recently in relation to her. How have I been acting as a husband when we’re together?

If I feel overweight, I start to look at every situation in which I consume food. What am I doing in each of those situations?

If I feel like I don’t have enough money to go around, I start to look at every situation in which I spend money. Are each of these decisions wise?

What I’m trying to do is identify all of those little choices I’m making in my life that have led to this problem. Then, I try to look for patterns in all of those choices. What little decisions do I make over and over again? What situations come up over and over again?

For example, what do I do each day when Sarah gets home from work? Maybe if I adopt a better routine when she gets home, like maybe greeting her with enthusiasm and giving her a kiss and asking how her day went, I might be able to connect with her.

What do I do when I feel hungry in the afternoon? Maybe if I eat an apple instead of grabbing some chips or something else unhealthy, I might reduce my calorie intake with little effort.

When I’m getting food for a meal, maybe I can just put half as much food as normal on my plate and eat it a little more slowly and then decide if I want more rather than piling on the food. I don’t have to put some sort of huge restriction on my eating – just be a little more mindful of it.

The goal here is to look at all of the decision points during the day that led me to having this problem and ask how I can tweak some of them in a low intensity way to produce a better outcome.

I don’t want to go from eating 3,000 calories a day to eating 1,200 calories a day. That won’t work in the long run. Rather, I want to go from eating until I’m basically uncomfortable to eating until I’m sated.

I don’t want to go from spending money on every frivolous idea I have to basically spending no money at all. That won’t work in the long run. Rather, I want to find ways to channel some of my interests down a path that doesn’t require as much spending.

Most of these solutions are common sense. If you see a pattern in your life and you don’t immediately see a solution for it, don’t hesitate to go hunting for an answer – that’s what Google is for – but don’t be surprised if the solution feels like utter common sense.

The trick, then, is to maintain this low intensity behavior tweak over time. Usually, it’s not a matter of effort but a matter of being mindful; you’re so used to doing things in the bad way that the good way doesn’t even pop into your mind.

For me, two approaches really work here. One is a “thirty day challenge,” where I try to make one or two of these changes and keep that change front and center in my mind. Here’s a great guide for utilizing meaningful thirty day challenges in your life. The other is simply keeping a list of the changes I’m working on, reviewing it each morning, and then asking myself honestly whether I tried my best to adjust each behavior in the evening by literally sitting down and giving myself a score on that behavior. I found this concept in the wonderful book Triggers by Marshall Goldsmith; the key element is to ask yourself “Did I do my best today?” and not focus on results, but rather on effort.

Final Thoughts

Don’t spend your energy wishing upon a star and hoping an external solution will fix everything. Unless you’re extremely lucky, this won’t happen, so don’t devote your time and energy to daydreaming about it.

Don’t try to make enormous radical life changes, either. Again, unless you’re extremely lucky or extremely self motivated or a massive external change has happened in your life to force some of those changes, radical life changes probably won’t take, either.

Instead, focus on finding those smaller changes, ones that over time can become your normal behavior. Look for the tons of decision points in your life that have contributed to the problem at hand and look for how to tweak those decisions, then focus on maintaining those tweaks until they feel normal.

You won’t notice a radical change overnight, but you will notice that your life trajectory begins to change for the better.

Good luck.

The post Why Internal Solutions Trump External Ones appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

Source The Simple Dollar http://bit.ly/2MkoG4g

The Average American Spends $798/Month on Their Car. 3 Ways to Pay Less

You love your car. It’s your ride. It fits your needs as well as your style.

But have you thought about how much you actually spend to have it? According to the U.S. Department of Labor’s report on Consumer Expenditures in 2017 (released in September of 2018), the average cost to own a vehicle — including purchase, insurance, gas and other expenditures — is $9,576 annually.

That’s $798 per month, folks.

If you spend nearly $800 on your monthly car expenses, you’d probably like to shave that number down a bit. You’re in luck. Use these three tips to save some of that money for the drive-thru window.

1. Get a Better Loan

When you bought your car, you probably got a loan to do it. No problem.

But you probably didn’t get the best interest rate, either. That means you’re paying more in interest that you should. That’s a problem.

With auto refinancing, the biggest hurdle is the process of re-titling your vehicle, which involves dealing with your local DMV. And, oh my god, who wants to mess with that?

Never fear — MotoRefi’s digital platform handles all that technical stuff so you don’t have to. In a matter of minutes, you could qualify for a lower monthly payment, lower interest rate or both.

MotoRefi partners with lenders — like community and regional banks — that can offer you the best rates. Once you choose a lender, MotoRefi handles all the paperwork, including the cumbersome re-titling process.

MotoRefi says it’s saving the average customer $100 per month or more. Checking for potential savings won’t impact your credit score.

MotoRefi is available in California, Connecticut and Michigan.

2. Kick Your Overpriced Insurance Premium to the Curb

If you have a car, you probably need insurance, right? Right. But that bill takes a big chunk out of your bank account each month.

For many, car insurance is just one of those things where we cave in and pay. Because, just like the electric bill and phone service, we need it, right?

Yes. There’s no getting around car insurance, unfortunately. But one way you could save money is by shopping around and comparing rates at least once a year. Less than 50% of us do that, according to this survey from The Zebra, though 81% of us report wanting lower rates.

So, just like you compare the prices of flights, shoes and laptops before purchasing, why not compare car insurance?

The Zebra, an online car insurance search engine that offers “insurance in black and white,” compares your options from 204 providers in less than 60 seconds.

Here’s how it works:

1. Head over to The Zebra’s search platform. Enter your car’s year, make and model, and your zip code. Continue on to answer questions about your driving habits, your car and your life.

On the right sidebar, you’ll watch rates increase or decrease based on your answers. For example, if you’ve gotten into an accident — that was your fault — in the past three years, your rates will kick up. It’s interesting to see what effect your answers might have.

2. After answering some questions, it’s time to compare. The Zebra gives you an “Insurability Score,” which is similar to your credit score except it’s for car insurance, and it  teaches you how to get better rates. The site also gives you different options for coverage.

Seriously, it only takes 60 seconds and you could save up to 50% on your premiums. If you’re paying that average of $118 per month, that’s $59 back in your pocket. Nice.

3. Pump the Brakes on High Gas Prices

If you’re a savvy saver, you probably already use GasBuddy to help you find the cheapest gas station in town. It’s an easy — and free — way to avoid overpaying.

But once you pull up to the pump, here’s something else you can do: Get a discount card from GasBuddy to automatically save 10 cents per gallon on your first purchase (and 5 cents per gallon after that).

The free discount card is tied directly to your checking account. It works at 95% of gas stations throughout the country, so you don’t have to drive around town just to find “your” station. Plus, you don’t have to wait for a rebate — it’s immediate savings.

Simply and securely sign up through GasBuddy. Connect your bank account, enter your address, and GasBuddy will put a card in the mail.

It’s time to put the pedal to the metal on your monthly car savings. Step on it!

Tyler Omoth is a senior writer at The Penny Hoarder who loves soaking up the sun and finding creative ways to help others. Catch him on Twitter at @Tyomoth.

This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.

The Penny Hoarder Promise: We provide accurate, reliable information. Here’s why you can trust us and how we make money.

source The Penny Hoarder http://bit.ly/2sw8xPN

How Friendship Is Helping These Women Crush Their Combined $70K in Debt

Citi Rewards+℠ Card: Earn Up to 10% Back on Small Purchases