Thinking where to host your web site?

1st Identify what you need from a hosting company. For the next 18 months. You can always switch providers if you build that into your plan (highly recommended). Web hosting is the equivalent of renting your home. You do not need to find the ‘perfect’ place for all your needs forever, and their job is to maintain the property.

If you are planning on looking at their templates (for simple sites) – as someone who understands, where the limitations of templates are, before you try to box yourself in. If you need big closets and the apartment is only 1100 sq ft, you are going to be disappointed.

Just like landlords that can only effectively meet the range of a renters and not the needs of everyone need cheap, secure, location, size…., hosting companies specialize in a range of hosting needs. Those outside that range will be frustrated.

There are a few other steps after identifying you needs and goals, but reviewing other hosting reviews is a solid step.

Building a Quick and Easy Website on GoDaddy – Can It be Done?

I had a couple of clients that were going to create their own websites.  So since I have recommended Go Daddy for domain name registration for years, it made sense to not dissuade them from trying the concept of one stop shopping.  I was wrong.

I knew that the site builder would be simple to use. Generally, site builders on domain name registration sites are easy to use, being designed for novices. They are designed for simple sites that are ‘quick and dirty’. Not complex, not hard for a beginner to create, not easy to get into trouble.  So my expectation was, it should be simpler to create a site on Go Daddy than on WordPress (this blog is created in WordPress).  It should have a variety of templates to give a basic look and feel. But most importantly, it should be easy to use.

So the people using this tool have advanced degrees.  One has been using computers for marketing for decades.  The other gets all the latest technical gadgets – early iPods, GPS, Prius, smartphones, palm pilots.  In others words these are not techno-phobics.  These are smart people that are willing to work hard to get technology work for them.

Both clients ended up in extreme frustration, calling me for help on something I was hoping would be easy for them.  One said ‘even their technical support admits the product is bad.’  This just seems wrong.

Of course, parts of the company are great.  I had a domain and site hosting for another client that auto-renewed. While I would have preferred an email the week before the auto billing, they did send me an email once it did renew. But here is where they excelled:  a few days after it renewed, an American sounding person called me.  Not a robodialer, but an actual person. It was nice to have someone that I understood easily on the phone. It reminds me of a recent visit to Dunkin’ Donuts. The person behind the counter was Indian, and the customer was Hispanic.  English was both their second language, they spoke with a thick accent and were having a hard time understanding each other. It was nice to have someone on the phone understand me, and someone I could easily understand. And the person seemed to understand my product.  He even found out that I could cancel (the project had ended, so I no longer needed the site hosting).  He was just providing really good customer service, on less than a $100 sale.  I was impressed.  So impressed that I gave some honest feedback I had received from my clients.  He seemed attentive and asked for details to follow up. He also did admit that the quick and dirty site creation are bad, and that corporate is working on improving it.  Unfortunately, they are ruining their reputation selling  junk in the meantime.

Conclusion – GoDaddy is good for domain, ok for hosting and email, and poor for web creation/templates.

What exeriences have you had with GoDaddy?