| Product: |
Fasthosts.co.uk |
| Date: |
26/06/06 (354 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Fairly easy to use, efficient and good support
Disadvantages: Quite expensive, especially if you want to add features
Have you ever looked at a website and been impressed? Have you ever had an idea for a website but didn't know where to start? Have you ever looked at a website and thought 'I could do better than that?' Do you want a source to get information to a wide audience or maybe sell something?
That was our situation. We had an idea; in fact we are writing a book and thought perhaps a website would be a good way to promote it.
Problem.
Neither of us knew where to start when it came to web design. Neither of us knew much about HTML which is the language web sites are written in. Neither of us had access to any very expensive web design programme.
Solution.
A web hosting company. There are many available on the net, all offering a mind boggling array of services for a wide range of costs.
We started with a free one but soon found that you get what you pay for in the world of web hosting.
The limitations soon became obvious as we struggled to get the site we wanted.
Of course if we were going to be paying for it then we were going to have to come up with ways of covering the cost so what started as a simple site to promote a book has grown into a full scale commercial site.
It was not long before we decided that it was not going to work that way and so after a brief interlude with another web hoster we turned to Fasthosts.
Fasthosts.
So who and what are they? Fasthosts.co.uk is one of the largest web hosting companies offering a wide array of solutions to cover any web design needs. Whether you want a single page blog or if you have a dream of challenging one of the big boys for internet supremacy then they have a package that will help you to your goal.
Of course the more you want, the more you are going to have to pay for it as you might expect.
Fasthosts offer a wide range of services including Domain name registering; hosting websites, E mail hosting and you can even get your broadband through them.
In fact the range of things to talk about is so vast that it is going to be easiest if I relay our experience with them.
We started about three months ago on a journey of discovery.
After trying other hosts we finally decided on Fasthosts. We had some queries about what we wanted to do so I phoned their customer services to get some answers before we parted with any money. They were very helpful, even going so far as to test a couple of things on their PC's to make sure they would work and they answered all my questions plainly and patiently, giving me a good first impression of the company.
Satisfied we decided to sign up. First decisions to be made. There were four packages to choose from.
Home.
This package costs £3.99 a month and offers you the use of their sitebuilder (more on that later), 750MB of web space, graphical visitor statistics and virus, spam protection and 200 mail boxes, 3 of which offer advanced features.
Developer.
This package costs £7.99 a month and offers all of the above plus a rise to 2GB of web space and 600 mail boxes. Many other technical advances are included or available as add ons.
Business.
This package costs £15.99 a month and offers all of the above plus a rise to 5GB of web space and unlimited mail boxes including five with advanced features as with the developer there are a host of technical add on's either included or available as add on's including various scripting packages.
The one we chose, the professional doesn't seem to be available at the moment but it cost £110.00 for a year including domain name but it fitted in between developer and business and has all the features of developer plus more web space and mailboxes.
If you pay yearly on any of the packages you get one month for free.
The first thing we did was sign up for our domain name and get that registered. For a co.uk address it cost us £2.95 p.a for a .com address it would cost £8.89 p.a.
Sitebuilder.
After we had signed up the next thing we had to do was sign up for the sitebuilder. This cost £52.88 and gave us access to, for us one of the most important bits.
Sitebuilder is a service that allows you to build a website using templates and a whole host of tools to enable you to design a website without the need for knowledge of HTML.
It is a bit mind boggling to start with but it does not take long before you have a layout and design for your site. Everything is changeable should you change your mind.
I am very impressed with the sitebuilder. It is easy to use, once you get the hang of it and has very few limitations.
The screen tells you what to do using icons at the bottom of the page to let you do all sorts of things like add a page, add text or pictures, move or delete items on the page or create links to name but a few.
It is possible to upload your own pictures or use some from the included gallery. Once you have uploaded your pictures they are kept in a file so that you can use them again and again should you wish.
Adding text is simple, once you have designed the layout of your page then it is just a case of choosing where you want to add it and write or copy and paste your chosen text in the box provided. There are also options to change the appearance of your text with all the usual word processor tools.
There are a wide range of add ons such as forms, picture galleries and tables, all of which are fully customisable. You can also add sound or video to add interest to your site.
Those are the basics; of course once you get the hang of what you are doing it is possible to add virtually anything. It is possible to add your own HTML code and/or alter any code that is already in place. This lets you add such things as buy now buttons to enable you to take credit card payments or with the setting up of an account make use of paypal. This is what we did and to my surprise HTML is starting to become less of a closed book to me and we have achieved things that we never thought possible. This also allows you to insert advertising banners with ease, just copy and paste the HTML code into the page code.
Once you have got your site to the stage where you think it is finished you can publish it to the web for all to see. That is not the end of it though; you can revisit sitebuilder at any time to change, add or remove items and republish your site as many times as you like.
One good feature of sitebuilder is that you can try it for free in demo mode, create your site and then if you want to proceed you can purchase a package and post your site to the web.
Mail.
You are supplied with a huge amount of mail boxes. Some of them are fully secure and come with advanced features such as virus scanning and make use of forwarders etc. I must admit that we have only so far used a half a dozen of the thousand odd that are available but it is nice to know there are more should we need them. Setting up mail accounts is a relatively painless exercise as is using them.
Access to mail accounts is through your personal control panel as is access to all other features that you may install either at the time of purchase or at any time afterwards.
Options.
There is an add on called matrixstats which is a programme that tracks usage of your site, giving detailed information on numbers of visits to your site and a whole host of statistics as to how your site is performing. It is interesting to use and also extremely relevant if you are a commercial project because it allows you to see which pages visitors to your site are using allowing you to change things if some pages are not as popular as you would like.
If you are going down the commercial route there are other things you are going to need. Unfortunately they are also things you are going to have to pay for. There are add ons such as traffic driver which is a means of adding your site to search engines using optimised keywords and carefully selected Meta tags. These are added to your pages in site builder. There are different levels of Traffic driver, of course at different costs. The one we chose cost £112 per annum. As well as adding your site o the search engines and sorting out your meta tags you also get detailed reports as to how your site is ranked in the search engines and which search engines your site is submitted to Of course there again if you choose the cheapest option you are not going to be submitted to as many or as big search engines as you are if you go for the higher packages, nor do you get as many features.
Other commercial options are available such as getting a sponsored spot on Google or joining the Amazon affiliates programme. Commercial shopping carts can be installed too.
Support.
Support is available by either phone or E mail. Both require pin numbers and account numbers for security so have them ready if you need to contact them.
I have found them to be very good, The E mail seems to take a little while to be answered but when the answer came it was succinct and to the point and solved my problem. Phone support seems to be better and quicker. Isn't it always the same when you can actually talk to someone? Anyway I have been satisfied with Fasthosts customer support on the couple of occasions I have needed to contact them.
Summary.
All in all we are very satisfied with what fasthosts has allowed us to achieve. Of course it is not a cheap thing to do but hopefully we are going to reap the rewards of our hard work.
If you just want a single page site or something to show off your family photo's then I would say maybe this would be an expensive way to do it but if you are looking to own a larger site then I would say this is the easiest, if expensive way to achieve your goal.
There are many more technical features to look into and use on fasthosts particularly if you are looking to start a commercial site. These can be read about in the details of the various packages that are laid out plainly and are easily read and understood.
So if you have always fancied being a webmaster, do like we did and live the dream.
©Docpov June 2006
Summary: Good but expensive web hosting with a package to suit most needs.
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