Shop online in Nigeria

Home | Blog | ( 1 ) | Subscribe

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links which may earn us a commission when you click on them.

Posted by on June 20, 2010 at 22:27:23:

Introduction
While there are quite a lot of web hosting companies in Nigeria, not all of them actually have their servers located in the country, however, the more important thing is that there should be able to provide reliable and satisfactory service to their customers

Web hosting is a web service that is offered by web hosting companies. It is a form or service that provides an online space for domain owners to publish their web to the world. The world wide web is a huge place and it involves a lot of websites which are hosted on constantly working web servers across the
world. What a web hosting company does is to purchase and configure servers to be able to allow webs to be hosted on them.

Web hosting has been a big business in the US and other developed countries since the start of the internet and had become bigger business with the dotcom
boom era. It is equally a growing business in Nigeria, a country which has been having a rapid internet growth thes past few years, brought about by the
growth in the telecoms market. Equally, more and more people are getting on the web for both personal and business reasons. Companies as well as NGOs all see
the need for having a website and you cannot have a website without a web hosting service and so you see that web hosting, in Nigeria, is certainly an
important part of the future. Students need websites such as those of Jamb, WAEC, Universities and so on. Lecturers and equally graduates need websites of
govt ministries and employing companies. Corporate businesses also need websites to reach a larger online market to display and sell their products. The web
industry in Nigeria is just growing and the need for web hosting service is equally growing. Web hosting in Nigeria is definitely an important service that
ought not be overlooked.

To have an online presence(a website), whether it is for a company, celebrity, small business or just for personal use, these 3 basic things are essential:

Web design --->Domain name --> Web hosting --->

You get a web designer to design your websites and then get a domain name related to what you want and then pay for web hosting. You will have to pay for
these three things in order to get your website available on the web. Web hosting happens to be the last and without it, you just can't be on the internet.

Benefits of being on the web
There are quite a number of benefits a company or an individual can derive from being on the web using a web hosting service. These are:

- Having a 24 hr open office on the internet
- Ability to reach a wider market without physical expansion
- It gives your business and person a befitting personality
- It creates a good impression to your connections or clients
- It gives people the ability to reach you or your product at anytime
- It gives higher return on investment
- It offers the cheapest form of advertising compared to results
- It is the way of the future and everyone should get on it


Qualities of a good web hosting service
While there are quite a lot of web hosting companies in Nigeria, it would be wise to deal with only those ones that can offer your the proper and reliable
service without hurting your public image or minimizing your income. Here a re a couple of things you should consider:

- Does your web hosting company have a registered office?
- Can you pay in local currency or is it just by credit card?
- How long does it take to get customer service to attend to you?
- Is there an online chat service or reliable phone line provided online by the hosting company?
- Does the cost of hosting your web justifiable to the service your receive?
- Is your website always available for the whole 24 hrs?
- Does your web hosting company offer great customer service?
- Consider also the numerical strength of their staff
- How much does it cost to host your website there compared to others
- Does your web hosting provider offer discounts or rewards for your loyalty?
- Does your web host do a periodic back up of websites on their servers?
- Is your website fast enough or has it slowed down since you moved to a new host?

How to find a web hosting company
Finding a good web hosting company is quite easy since most of them have a website and you may decide to host your company with a Nigeria company and pay in naira or decide to host it in the US or Canada and pay in dollars using a Nigerian credit card. All you need to do is do a Google search for web hosting companies in your preferred country using Google custom local and global search. The good thing about Nigerian web hosts is that they offer you the ability to pay in cash and you could easily contact them at their office if you run into problems but there are also disadvantages such as offering you plans which may be cheap but unreliable and your website may have lots of downtimes or inability to run as much cgi scripts as you may want. The advantage of hosting with a US web host is that they have more reliability and your website would be much faster and you get a lot of deals and discounts for hosting with them, the disadvantage may be that they may terminate your account if they suspect any foul play on your side and the issue of higher costs on hosting but they are much more reliable.
All you need to get you web online is to find a good web hosting company of your choice, view their plans and terms of service, mode of payment which is acceptable to you and then pay for the service before hosting. If you can, try paying for a month plan first in order to test how your website will perform before going for the one year plan. Some people make that mistake of going for a one year plan straight when using a new web hosting company and they later find out that the web host doesn't work well for your website. Also if you run into problems, try to see if you can get the problems solved using your web hosting provider's online forum or blog if there is any. Web hosting forums can help give you a hand and provides tips on how users like you were able to solve similar problems you may be encountering.

How to get your website up and running with a web host
Once you have subscribe for a web hosting service with your provider, you are given a quick set uo guide either by email or immediately on how you can forward you domain to that web host assuming you purchased the domain from another provider. You will be given a set of nameservers in the format ns1.webhost.com, ns2.webhost.com to which you should point to from your domain account and within 24 - 72 hrs, your website will be live and you can be making changes and publishing to your new web host from your computer using FTP, uploads or other channels allowed by your web host.
If you encounter any problems on setting up your website with your new web host, you may still contact them by email or the channels provided such as tickets or phone.

Cheap web hosting vs Standard web hosting
While web hosting is the most important action that will keep your website online, getting a web hosting service of your choice will also depend on if you want it to be cheaper of just the right price. At times, getting a cheaper web hosting plan could have its side effects such as lower quality service, lower disk space, lower monthly bandwidth, lesser scripts for cgi-bin, bad customer service and maybe other hidden charges, a standard web hosting price may just about bring the opposite for you by providing you with much better service, higher disk space, variety of templates and softwares, good customer service, constant uptime and more rewards. One should be able to consider the importance of his website and decide on how much it is worth before knowing whether to choose a cheap web hosting service or a much more expensive one. I think choosing a well priced web hosting service for a website that you consider to be the long run should be considered else you may just choose for a cheap one.
However if you are choosing a cheap web host, then it will be good if the website is expected to have few repeat visitor in a month (maybe 1000), if it not constantly updated(brochure type), and does not have a large file size(e.g. 50 - 100MB). But if it a website that will be constantly updated and has hundreds of thousands of visitors (like the JAMB or WAEC website), then going for a much more standard prized web hosting service should be the option. So, don't just go for web hosting deals that are way to cheap without considering the nature and future prospects of you website

How much should I pay for web hosting?
Really how much should one pay for web hosting service in Nigeria? Well, for a standard website, I think paying NGN10,000 - NGN15,000 should be just the right prize for reliable and satisfactory web hosting. However for new websites that doesn't have much content like a blog that is still growing or just brochure type websites, one can choose a cheaper web hosting plan like N5000 a year. Web hosting companies in Nigeria have a range of prizes and some are just using their prizes to win the market to themselves. The prize range for average web hosing services in Nigeria by various companies is from N3000 - N5000 a year.

Who needs web hosting?
Everyone who is interested in putting a footmark on the Nigerian online community really needs web hosting. Web hosting is what connects you to your fans, readers and customers. Every Nigerian company should at least have a brochure type website on a web hosting plan even if it just to tell people about their products and services. Politicians and even students can keep websites.

When to quit your web hosting provider
It's simple. if your provider is not giving you what you consider satisfactory, then you should not renew any plan with them. If you have a problem with them, try contacting them and if they still fail to rectify it, it's probably because they can't, so just leave them. The problem with certain web hosting providers in Nigeria is that some complaints by customers are beyond their ability to handle since they mostly use reseller web hosting to sell their service and so it is not within their control. Some web hosting companies in Nigeria may also be affected by the Nigerian factor called epileptic power supply and they most times lack fuel to power their generator and if they are the ones hosting your website, you find out that your website is unavailable. If you find out that your website is unavailable at certain time, it has not right to be so since you paid for 24 hrs service for a whole year, i think it's time you quit since it loses you money.

Obstacles to web hosting in Nigeria
There are quite a lot of obstacles to web hosting in Nigeria for both customers and providers. For the customers, it may be:

- Inability to find a reliable web host that will be in business for the long term
- Poor customer service by most providers who have little or single staff
- No clear regulation for web hosting providers by the govt
- No place to seek redress for poor service by providers
- Poor delivery of service due to downtimes and lack of backup by hosting providers
- Unavailability of help or support portals by web hosting companies

Some Obstacles being faced by web hosting service providers in Nigeria are:
- Poor electrical power supply by the govt
- High cost of running on generators
- Lack of experience or expertise in running a web hosting company
- Low level financing of activities
- Multiple taxation by the govt

Web hosting is really an essential service and if you want to host you website, I recommend you view the packages of 3 or 4 online web hosts before making a decision and don't just choose for the sake of the prize, consider its merits also.



Comments:
Re: Web hosting in Nigeria Posted by Thomas on July 14, 2010 at 04:34:13:

I host with qservers and they are quite ok.

Re: Web hosting in Nigeria Posted by Emmanuel Okaiwele on August 11, 2010 at 07:27:22:

Gone are those days in which web hosting service are quite difficult and hard to find, these you can get a hosting service for as low as N2,000.yr and maybe you want to start your own web hosting, you, that you can get for as low as N10,000.yr.

If you doubt this visit www.vbhostnet.com

Re: Web hosting in Nigeria Posted by nweke jude on August 28, 2010 at 11:41:16:

please i begging you to make my website for asking question. thanks

Re: Web hosting in Nigeria Posted by Felix Okoli on Monday September 27, 2010 at 19:59:18:

If you want to create a website for asking questions, then there are softwares already available for that which you can just install on your web host.

Post a Comment

Required fields are Name and Comment.


Name:

Email: (Optional)

Comment:


Shop online in Nigeria


Multidox .:.:. Blog ©
Powered by KoliBoard V.3