Web Design Question – What’s The Best Web Hosting For This?

Question:

So I’m creating a web site for a co-worker. This will be my first website for an actual company…

Anyhoo-she is already paying for her domain annually through a company called Domain Discover. I am trying to find her a web hosting company that doesn’t charge too much. Any suggestions?

And in the real world, would I be the one finding the web hosting company or would that be up to her?

Also, the site will be mostly informational with 5 pages. One of them a mini photo gallery. It may have videos in the future. Roughly, how much webspace would I need for this? I want to leave room for the company site to grow…

If it helps, the “company” is a ranch.

Answer:

She needs to buy the web hosting because the account needs her information on it, including her credit card.  I recommend iPage or WebHostingHub for hosting.

Same thing with the domain name.  I recommend buying the domain name at NameCheap.  Use the coupon code on that page.

Do you know how to build a website?  Any idea what tools you’ll use to do it?  If not, I suggest doing a WordPress blog and a great starting place will be the default Twenty Eleven theme that’s used when you install WordPress.  You can modify that top header image to have a nice panoramic picture of the ranch.  Or, you can make your own WordPress theme with an easy to use program called Artisteer.

You said she’ll just have some information pages at first.  By using WordPress you can create those informational Pages.  Pages are static pages where the information stays the same like Contact Us, About Us, etc.  For updates to the blog like recent activities on the ranch, you’ll use Posts.  The most recent post will appear on the home page of the blog with the previous posts below it in descending order.

In the WordPress Dashboard, you can install plugins for photo galleries.

Both iPage and WebHostingHub already have the WordPress software in the control panel in the script installer.  In the iPage control panel (vDeck) you’ll find it in SimpleScripts.  In the Hub control panel (cPanel), you’ll find it in Fantastico De Luxe.