A self-hosted site is one of the cheapest and easiest ways to build a stronger brand image. If you want a professional web presence, you must have your own domain and web host. For just a few dollars per month, you give your site credibility and recognition.

What should you look for in your web host?

1. Close to 100% uptime
   You don’t want your site to be down when potential customers want to view it.
2. PHP 5
   You want new PHP scripts to work flawlessly.
3. Enough storage space
   Try to determine what you plan on putting on the server. If you want to use your space for backing up important documents, make sure there is enough space, and make sure you can password-protect a directory.
4. Enough bandwidth
   Try to find as much bandwidth as possible so you can upload enough to your site at a time. Downloading, which includes each page view, also counts as bandwidth.

So far, the best option I’ve seen for web hosts is 1&1. Right now you can sign up for just $6.99 a month, and get the whole first year free! This includes 150GB of storage and unlimited bandwidth. I recommend the 1&1 Home plan, but you may determine one of the other plans better suits your needs. They also offer vouchers to save you money on Google Adwords, Citysearch, Spreadshirt, and other external services. It’s really an unbeatable deal.

The worst paid host I’ve worked with is GoDaddy. They advertise frequently, but their services are terrible. Their support is of no help, and then they try to sell you support. They also lose websites from time to time. The interface is restrictive and it is difficult if not impossible to set up a decently functioning WordPress blog due to all of the restrictions they put on your site.

Please do not even consider one of the free hosts. They often put ads all over the site to generate revenue, and offer extremely limited services (no email, no FTP, no PHP, no domain).

1. Excessive ads- This nonprofit can’t get hosting without the unprofessional ads? I would even volunteer to host them for free.
2. Missing images- What is supposed to be in this box? A logo?
3. Boring and repetitive text- Two blocks of text without any images scare away visitors. I actually read the text and saw that each paragraph essentially said the same thing

Honorable mention: The site is translated into Spanish underneath the English part. Would anyone know to look down there? Probably  not.

Give your organization a professional face on the web. Hire an expert who has experience with user interface design, and knows how to draw visitors to a site.

Have you seen any bad websites lately?