I’m currently hosting with a friend. Who are some other webhosts that are reasonable and will work with me to build my site?

That’s a great question! First of all its okay to host with a friend if that friend is a business.  I have seen many people start this business part time and either get bored or realize there is more customer service than they want to manage. They either go out of business, drop off the grid or simply stop serving people. When that happens many website owners find themselves out of luck. The first thing I would do is make sure you have regular backups to your website that are NOT hosted on your current host. Have them backup to a “cloud account” that will keep your site secure AND accessible should you ever lose your web host.  Carbonite, UpdraftPlus and BlogVault are three such services.

As for hosting, there are several choices available.  Three of our favorites are:    IX Webhosting, BlueHost and HostGator. WE use BlueHost for some of our sites and our clients like their customer service.  The site WECAIDomains is a personal branded GoDaddy site good for hosting, url sales and more. If you buy your URL from WECAI Domains it is easy to have them also host the site as you don’t have to get your webdesigner to change Domain Servers. Redhead Marketing is a domain seller with them and an affiliate of IX, BlueHost and HostGator. They all have a variety of “plans” from which to choose. One is sure to fit your pocketbook. Building your site is another topic entirely. It all depends on what services you need and what software will be most compatible with your user experience.