This is a guest post by Tom McFarlin.
Coming up with a unique, creative, memorable domain name is tough. Luckily, checking its availability is not.
Of course, registering a domain name is only half the battle.
Once you’ve got that squared away, you have to find a place to actually store your stuff. You need a web host. And selecting one can be a challenge. There are a lot of terms associated with hosting – bandwidth, databases, sub-domains, file-transfer prototcol, analytics, logging – and you’re trying to make sense of this stuff so you can spend your money wisely.
No worries.
It’s completely possible to get an affordable web host without breaking the bank that is your offering plate and without getting bogged down in all the terminology.
All you really need to know is what makes up a cost-effective hosting platform and what to look for in a good host.
Ready to get started? Learn more after the jump…
What’s a platform?
In terms of web hosting, a platform refers to the software that powers the website behind the scenes. For those that are interested, two main types of hosting platforms that you’re likely stumble across are those based on Microsoft Windows and those based on some variation of Unix or Linux.
I’m not endorsing either of these two options. But I do know that, as a church, we’ve got a budget.
On top of that, it’s not at all unlikely that the people that will be managing your website won’t be actual web developers. They need tools that are going to help them get stuff done without having to write a bunch of code.
Ideally, you need an inexpensive, reliable host that supports many of the popular, free frameworks on the web today (and that we often discuss on ChurchCrunch).
What are you looking for?
There are a lot of web hosts out there. I mean, running a Google search for “web host” returns something like 180 billion results. Come on. Few of us actually have time to sift through 12 results.
As such, we’ve narrowed it down to give things to consider when selecting a web host.
The Must-Haves
PHP. Simply put, PHP is an application that runs on the web server and is what allows developers to write powerful, dynamic applications. Making sure that your web host supports PHP is important as many of the popular, free content management systems and blog platforms – such as WordPress – are written in PHP.
MySQL. MySQL is database software. It allows applications like blogging platforms to save and retrieve infromation. Whenever you publish a blog post, write a comment, or save preferences on a website, the data is stored in a database.
Email Server. In most cases, you’re going to want to maintain an email address (or addresses) associated with your site. There are two ways that web hosting services usually distinguish their email functionality (though many offer both in their plans):
- Forwarding is when email sent to an address at your domain – say [email protected] – is sent to the person’s actual address. This is important to note because it means that if I were to respond to the email, the response email would not be sent from [email protected]. It would be from my actual address.
- POP, SMTP, IMAP are three protocols used to send and receive email on the web. This is different from forwarding in that all mail sent to an address – again, like [email protected] – will reside on the web server. This mean you can send and receive email from any email application (think Thunderbird, Outlook, or even Gmail).
The Nice-To-Haves
Subdomains. Say you’ve got several ministries at your church and you’d like to give them all a custom web address. That is, you’d like to have BreakingBread.YourChurch.com or DrinkingWine.YourChurch.com. “BreakingBread” and “DrinkingWine” are subdomains and most hosts offer them. Subdomains are worth considering if you’re looking to segment your various ministries across your site.
cPanel. This is an application that makes it incredibly easy to manage your web host. You can administer email addresses, subdomains, FTP accounts, databases, and so on from within cPanel. Some installations also have the ability to setup WordPress, Joomla, and other applications with a single click. If a host doesn’t have cPanel, it’s not a deal breaker; however, it’s a huge win for anyone that may be responsible for maintaining your site – it makes certain tasks incredibly easy.
Got any recommendations?
Obviously, there’s a lot to consider when looking for a web host. There are many more options that various hosts offer, but we’ve tried to outline some of the core features you should consider when shopping around.
Of course, talking about web hosts is one thing, but making recommendations is another.
This is where the ChurchCrunch community can help: If you currently maintain a website (Church-affiliated or not) and are happy with your host, share it in the comments!
Hopefully we can get a nice list of reliable hosts for people that are getting started with their site.
Once you’ve got your domain and host setup, it’s time to determine how you’re going to build your site. Are you going to hire someone, use a content management system, pray for an HTML miracle, employ a blogging platform, or utilize some other framework?
Next, we’ll talk about some of the free tools that are available to help you develop and launch your site.
[Image from Dario]
human3rror says
ian, thanks for that link! i've heard of vine hosting. i'm going to check them out.
in other news, love to talk to you about something cooking…
Andy says
For inexpensive and good hosting take a look at http://www.hostek.com – they have several different types of hosting and they have pricing just for non-profits and ministries. They do both Windows and Linux and have great customer service support. I have placed several church sites with them.
@chaselivingston says
My church is currently on a CMS powered by E-Zekiel. While I'm mostly happy with them, in hindsight I think we should've switched to Dreamhost, which offers free hosting for non-profits, and more ability to customize the site.
Kyle Reed says
Love me some TomsFoolery
Tom says
This has nothing to with web hosting, but if I could thumbs this up a hundred times, I'd do it.
Bill says
We use 52bucks.com. which costs $52/year and has all the essentials you list, and more.
Gunnard says
I'd recommend dreamhost (www.dreamhost.com) Im just switching over from another hosting provider that ive been struggling with for years. Dreamhost has great up time, nice panel and for the geek at heart full ssh access to your site. This means that if you're in a bind and need something fixed, you can get "someone in the know" access to your files without much hassle.
Scott Magdalein says
I second that. I've had dozens of clients that were already setup on Dreamhost and it was always the easiest to deal with. Very simple control panel.
I personally use http://1and1.com. They're huge, which is good and bad. All the options you'd find anywhere else on the web, pretty good phone support, but documentation and help site is crap. But, the main thing for me is managing domains and 1and1 makes that super-easy.
To the author: Only recommending PHP? No ASP? No Python? No Ruby!? Oooooo, you're going to make some snobby RoR fanboys mad. 😉 (Just kidding, I prefer PHP myself. Almost everything we build at LifeChurch.tv is PHP on the Kohana framework, so it's in my blood.)
Tom says
I've been using HostMonster for a couple of years and have been really happy with them. They are Linux based, affordable, have got great customer support, and also offer accessibility from cPanel all the way to down to SSH access.
austinklee says
I will give a big THUMBS UP! TO Hostmonster! They have been really great to work with!
Postscript says
I'd ditto the THUMBS UP for HostMonster. I have been very pleased.
Simon says
I think all churches should run their emails with Google Apps. http://google.com/apps
@cyberentomology says
Simon, for small churches, I agree. Google Apps is a bit more of an administrative nightmare when you're a big church. Some of us are looking at it, and it's not nearly as simple as it sounds when you start dealing with 300+ users.
Kyle Reed says
What is a look place to buy domain from?
Tom says
I usually buy my domains through my host (which I previously mentioned being HostMonster). They have good deals (like $10 if you're an existing customer).
Yahoo and GoDaddy are some other registrars.
I'm always hesitant to register a domain separate because if I want to transfer it to my new host, it's just a little bit of extra effort. Nothing too bad, but I like things to stay relatively simple.
Kyle Reed says
Ok that sounds good. I bought my domain name through wordpress and liked that. I guess I will do that again.
@mtthwphlps says
My pastor found Lunarpages (www.lunarpages.com) several years ago when we were working on moving the church website off one of those free services. We use the basic plan, which at just under $5/month gives us everything we need, including Fantastico (1-click script installations in cPanel) and unlimited storage (we are using about 2GB now). I have all my clients using Lunarpages as well. They do offer Windows hosting, but I prefer Apache.
Paul Steinbrueck says
Tom, since you specifically asked for web hosts, I'll throw our company, http://OurChurch.Com into the ring. Our hosting is all Linux/PHP/MySQL/cPanel. We've been providing hosting for 13 years, we place an extremely high value on service, and as Christian organization we view ourselves as not just a vendor but a ministry partner with the organizations we serve. It would be an honor to serve more Church Crunch readers. </sales pitch>
Tom says
Paul, thanks for throwing your business in here!
I don't think anything is wrong with a sales pitch as long as it's not done by some sleazy dude with a cheesy smile. No worries 😉
Yohan Perera says
I started my blog in 2007. However I was not so experienced about hosting companies, and after one year I had to transfer my domain to a different host who is able to provide better service and help.
I think you are doing a good job by blogging about choosing a good web host.
If any new bye to blogging or web developing made a mistake in selecting a suitable web host, he/she would have to go through the headache of transferring domains, like I had to.
I would like to host with dream host or host monster, but payment method became a problem (I don't have a credit card… fortunately we still have web hosts in Sri Lanka who can compete with giants in the hosting industry)
Finally I believe it would be very helpful if Tom can explain how to setup Google Apps with a domain when it comes to talk about free tools as he has promised. I am using it too and personally, I love it!
Tom says
Yohan, thanks a lot for your thoughts.
I also really appreciate your thoughts/requests for future articles. I've got a list of stuff I'm hoping to cover and will definitely add this to the list.
Rob Lombardi says
I'm redesigning Veritas Community Church's website with Expression Engine (http://www.expressionengine.com) and hosting with EngineHosting (http://www.enginehosting.com). Expression engine is an awesome, extremely flexible CMS with a huge community of developers supporting it. Enginehosting is set-up to support dynamically driven sites and fine tunes their hosting for CMS's like Expression Engine and are known to be very reliable. I host my own site on them too. They don't provide tons of storage, but that's how they keep a reliable, fast service. So I plan to integrate Amazon S3 for storage and Vimeo for Video.
human3rror says
Rob,
thanks for these thoughts. we use EE for some of the northpoint properties.
Rob Lombardi says
No problem. They have EE2.0 coming out in Dec 1st. The whole thing has been redesigned and built on the CodeIgniter framework. This will ease add-on development for EE2.0. I've got some add-on ideas for churches that I plan to develop. 🙂
WKevinG says
We've set clients up on JustHost.com, which has great pricing and all the must haves and nice-to-haves, but they are constantly popping up ads for other services which has really gotten on my nerves. We've used BlueHost.com also and they are in the sweet spot for pricing and support. I've also heard great things about HostMonster.com and their site has a lot of similarities to BlueHost.
Tom says
Thanks for tossing these in! I was hoping others would chime in with their thoughts and opinions of other services so futures readers would have a pretty good list of options.
ROGER says
a prophet of YHWH will come to your church or a assembly to teach on the hebrew name of the CREATOR and SAVIOUR of the world all so anointed to lay hands on the sick if you like to call ROGER MIDKIFF you can at 336-879-8643 or E_mail at [email protected] or wright him at po box 4491 asheboro nc 27341 thank you all my YHWH BLESS YOU —- numbers – 6- 23—27—- shalom
LEONA says
YHWH LOVE YOU TO
Gladson says
I have 25+ demanding sites running on the 100% Uptime guarantied server provided by http://gospeljunction.net
They use the servers & data centers of wiredtree.com. I never faced a downtime for the last 2 years. Support is great even their price is very cheap for Churches and non-profit organizations. You may contact them at [email protected]
human3rror says
hmm. thanks for this…
James T Hinkle says
Dear Church,
BRAND NEW SITE – Y O U R C H U R C H W I T H O U T W A L L S . C O M ( explains who we are and our goals )
I recently came a crossed your website.
I have experience in taking churches to a whole new level. I have been working with churches now for a number of years, and I have been helping them get a website, so that others around the world will find your church online, and start becoming members online. My goal is to make sure that others hear the word of God. Your church can be online and streaming the word of God to not hundreds, but thousands of people every day.
Recent Church Projects
Gospel Lighthouse Assembly – Marshall, OK USA – http://www.gospellighthouseassembly.com
Living Word Fellowship – Woodward, OK USA – http://www.lwfchurch.com
I started my business “Oklahoma Computer Repair” in May of 2003
Today I still work with computers, networks, hubs, switches, routers, hardware, software on many different systems. I also work with customers, churches, businesses, and home users on computers. I am also DELL Certified with Desktops & Laptops. I have been working with a number of systems for years.
God gave me a vision to give small churches like yourself a opportunity to reach the world online… by giving you the tools, and resources to get your site, and its contents, and media… online. This will also give your current members in the church a great resource. God has asked me to start to contact churches, and for a very small cost… I can help your church grow like every church wants to be able to grow for the future. I have been talking with my wife, and she told me with my skills and knowledge I can help others spread the word of God. I believe that God will open new doors, and help me make extra money to provide for my family. I pray that God will touch your heart to contact me to help your church grow online.
I am currently building my website, and it should be online soon @ http://www.yourchurchwithoutwalls.com ( Oklahoma Computer Repair Corp. Company )
If you are interested in pricing information, please contact me by email or phone.
You can reach me anytime night or day by following information:
James T Hinkle
722 Madison Ave.
Woodward, OK
73801
Oklahoma Computer Repair
[email protected]
http://www.rdptechs.net
580.399.8511