Domain names must be registered and websites must be physically hosted on a server.
Domain Name Registration
Domains should be registered in the business owner’s name, under their email address. You own it, you control it.
We use Namecheap for most of our domain name registrations, based on the low cost and reliable service. We are an affiliate for this provider. We also recommend Hover for low-cost domain name registrations and free whois privacy service. Many other options are available, including Google domains (in beta).
To track availability of a domain name that has already been registered, use GoDaddy’s Backorder service, that will track a domain until it becomes available; the cost is very reasonable.
Website Hosting
High Peaks Media offers free hosting to clients on a shared hosting account with solid state drives and Turbo servers that perform up to 20x faster (with size and bandwidth limits). The free hosting is fast, reliable, and adequate for most small business sites (a surcharge is added for large websites).
For individual business accounts, we currently recommend A2 Hosting, Site Ground, Digital Ocean, and WP Engine (in roughly increasing cost) (all with CDN-based hosting options).
The hosting services above are highly acclaimed among WordPress bloggers; e.g., see the 2016 WordPress Hosting Review from Shoutout, WhoIsHostingThis hosting reviews, and reviews on Web Hosting Geeks. Some bloggers suggest that you avoid hosts owned by EIG.
We are a reseller for A2 Hosting, Site Ground, and Hostgator.
Hosting packages are tiered, and include (from approximately least to most reliable/quick/expensive), products such as:
- Shared
- Shared cloud
- VPS
- Dedicated
- SSD
- Dedicated cloud
- Private virtual cloud
See the post, Varieties of Hosting Products: Shared-VPS-Dedicated-Cloud-SSD.
Domain Management Posts
[catlist id=35 orderby=rand excerpt=yes excerpt_size=30 thumbnail=yes thumbnail_size=150,150 template=div]