Website Hosting in Nigeria
Your site has been designed to your heart's content and it is ready to open for business. You need to store your pages on a computer/server that never sleeps, that is always up 24/7 and connected to the internet, so that visitors can access it round the clock.
As a webmaster starting out, the size of disk space you require depends on the number of pages in your site.
Lets assume you 20 pages of average size of 30KB (say 50KB including graphics), then you need a disk space of about 20 x 50 which amounts to 1MB. However, to make allowance for future expansion, you can decide to start with a starter package of 5MB or 10MB, and upgrade as your site becomes bigger. Your best bet is to start with a reseller (guys that buy from the main web hosts (normally based abroad), and then retail it to webmaster of small sites. Almost all webhosts in Nigeria are resellers.
There are advantages of using a Nigerian based reseller. For one, if you do not have a credit card, you can pay in Naira. Also buying 5MB or 10MB works out much cheaper than buying 1GB of disk space you don't need. Also, you have someone you can run to if you have problems. With an overseas host, you only have e-mail, life chat and maybe telephone (if you are ready to bear the cost), if your site has problems. With a reseller host in the same city, you can pop in if all longe range speaking of grammar does not solve the problem.
As a starter, getting a good host is important. The easiest way to go is through word of mouth. This is the down side of going through a reseller, as you don't know who the main host is, and hence cannot check them out through web host reviews on the internet, to get feedback from existing clients. Some webhosts are a nightmare, with freequent down times putting your site out of business for long spells of time. That is why word of mouth is critical, getting feedback from an existing client. If you do not have a friend to recommend on, you can try Domain Standard www.domainstandard.net. They come highly recommended by us, after having used them for more that 3 years, and are quite satified with their up time and customer service.
Whatever webhost you decide on, make it a practice to design/update your pages offline and then upload to your site, so that you always have a backup incase anything happens to your website, you can get it back up within hours. Apart from a back up on your hard disk, it is also advisable to have another back up on an external hard disk or flash drive dedicated as a backup storage, incase your hard disk crashes.
As your site becomes bigger, you can upgrade to a bigger account. Also having starting small with a webhost, you will gain more experience as you go along, to determine if the present webhost meets your needs, or you need to move on.
