Lie #2: You should host your site with us because we do design, marketing, and hosting

Many of the companies that do Bed and Breakfast web site design and promotion also offer hosting services. Hosting means they actually have the computer that your web site is on and are responsible for keeping it "on" the internet. In other words, hosting is providing a place for your web site to reside on the world wide web. Many web design and promotion companies encourage you to host with them because it gives them steady income to help balance their design and promotion services which may come in less regularly. It also gives them a bit of control over the computer (server) that your web site is on.

Why avoid hosting, designing and promoting with the same company?

There are several reasons I recommend keeping design and promotion services separate from your hosting.

1. Breaking up is hard to do - Web site design and promotion are both creative and artistic in nature. Being creative, there is a possibility you will have a falling out with your marketing person or your web site designer somewhere along the line. If it ends badly, you don't want the same person in charge of whether your connection to the internet is still reliable. If you fire your designer and promoter, your new designer or promotion specialist will have to work with your old company in order to make changes to your site. That can be a recipe for disaster. It is certainly not always the case, but in my mind the risk is too great. You simply can't afford to have your website caught in some kind of power struggle between those you have hired and those you have fired. Keep the creative separate from the technical.
2. Specialists are worth it - All servers and their connections to the internet are not created equal. When you look for a company to host your web site you want them to be reliable, responsive and reliable. Did I mention that reliable is a good thing? Companies that just do web site hosting are usually able to create more reliable connections to the internet and employ methods which make sure your site is backed up daily and with redundant systems so that if something on the server fails, it is replaced immediately and automatically. Quality hosting companies offer constant monitoring of your server and are staffed 24/7. Most design and promotion companies that also offer hosting simply do not have the ability to be staffed and monitored 24/7.
3. Dedicated hosting companies are less expensive - A company that only offers hosting is not only more reliable, they are usually less expensive than the hosting offered by companies that try to offer design, promotion and hosting. Many times the hosting companies are half the price of the companies that try to offer all three.

With all this being taken into account, you still have to be careful. There are many hosting companies that are not reliable and create more problems than they solve. Through experience I have dealt with bad companies and excellent companies. Personally, I recommend Hostway (www.hostway.com) and 1and1 (www.1and1.com). They are both industry leaders, offer a good value, and their service and reliability is outstanding. I have a longer history with Hostway but 1and1's packages offer an excellent combination of value and services. I use them both for all my own hosting and recommend them to anyone who is using my services.

I will point out (before somebody points it out for me) that I receive a small commission for any hosting accounts that get created with Hostway or 1and1 on my recommendation. This commission is not the reason for me recommending them. I do that, because they are the best I have worked with. As a designer and promoter, I have to work directly with the hosting company, so there is no way I would recommend a company that was unreliable or difficult to work with.

If you are having your bed and breakfast website designed or promoted, make sure you have someone else host it. Just because the design or promotion company offers hosting, doesn't mean you have to take advantage of that service. If they try to pressure you by saying your design work or promotion work will have an added charge because you didn't host with them, walk away. If they are strong-arming you from the start, imagine what they'll be like down the road.