Before you choose a hosting plan, there are many things to consider. Two of the most important are the Web Server Space and the Data Transfer Allowance (also called bandwidth) that you will need. Web hosts will usually try to lure you with either a large amount of Web Space or monthly Data Transfer Allowance. Though the best case scenario would be to have plenty of both, most hosts tend to offer more of one and less of the other, so you will have to find the right balance.
To decide how much Web Space and Data Transfer you need, you must first decide what kind of site you will have. Small business sites generally fall into one of three categories:
Each of these sites has different web space and bandwidth requirements.
Here are some expamples of how you can estimate and calculate your web space and data transfer requirements (we will assume that the average size of a web page, including pictures, is 50 Kilobytes).
One-product Site
If your one product site has just three pages, it will just need 150 Kilobytes of web space (a drop in the bucket considering that basic packages nowadays offer upwards of 50 Megabytes of space). However, if it receives 150,000 page views per month it will require approximately 7.5 Gibabytes / month of data transfer.
Company Brochure Site
If your company brochure site has 10 pages, it will only need 500 Kilobytes (aprox. 0.5 Megabytes) of web space. If it has 5000 page views per month, it will need 250 Megabytes (aprox. 0.25 Gigabytes) of data transfer per month.
Theme Based Site
If your theme-based site starts off with 50 web pages of content, it will need 2.5MB of web space. However, if you add ten pages of new content per week, you will need 26 Megabytes more in your first year. After two years, you will need 52 Megabytes, and so forth. As you see, your need for space may add up pretty quickly. If we estimate that your site will have 30000 page views per month, its monthly bandwidth consumption will be 1,500 Megabytes (aproximately 1.5 Gigabytes). This figure will most likely grow as you add more pages.
Your space and data transfer needs will also grow dramatically if you offer large files for download. For example, if you give away a 1 Megabyte PDF Ebook and 1,000 people download it in a given month, you will need 1 Gigabyte of data transfer just for that one particular download (and you still haven’t accounted for the data transfer consumed when users access and browse your site!).
Since web hosts will usually charge you fees if you use more than your alloted web space and bandwidth, you must carefully monitor your consumption of both. However, you should pay extra attention to your bandwidth.
The reason is that it is easier to control your web space use (after all, it is you who decide how many files to load up to your host’s server). Data transfer, on the other hand, is not as easily controlled. For example, your site may suddenly get a good search engine ranking for a popular search term and receive a traffic boost, which will consume more bandwidth than you had originally planned. Or, unscrupulous webmasters may “steal” bandwidth from you by linking directly to images on your server, instead of saving them in their own web server space.
Therefore, it is wise to plan for the unexpected, by making sure that your host doesn’t charge unreasonable fees every time you exceed your web space and data transfer allowance, and that it offers a free and easy way to upgrade to a better hosting package whenever the need arises.
Mario Sanchez publishes The Internet Digest ( http://www.theinternetdigest.net ), an internet marketing content site packed with useful articles and resources, and SEO Tutorial (http://www.seotutorial.info) where you can learn the basics of search engine optimization in four easy steps.
