Managing Bandwidth Costs

Posted by Faizan Shiwani / at 3:23 AM / /

Bandwidth costs are a major part of the expense related to any webhosting program. Bandwidth is simply the amount of data that is downloaded over one billing period from one server. In most cases, sites use far less bandwidth than they tend to think. Only very large sites or those from which people typically download huge amounts of data need to be particularly concerned with having a large amount of bandwidth allocated to their webhosting program. However, as the site grows the bandwidth usage will inevitably increase and, if one does not plan ahead for this, this can result in some unpleasantly high bills.

One can think of their bandwidth costs the same way as they think of their minutes on their cell phone. If one buys enough minutes ahead of time, the cost is generally very low on a per minute basis. However, if they purchased too few minutes and go over, the cost of each individual minute goes up severely. The same applies to bandwidth. One generally wants to purchase a bit more than they actually need but not so much that the purchase constitutes an outright waste of money. One must monitor their usage to determine the correct amount.

Most webhosting companies will offer various packages where bandwidth is concerned. In most cases, webhosts do not sell bandwidth in incremental amounts on demand. Therefore, one should purchase a package which can accommodate their projected usage with a bit of overhead included in case the business enjoys a particularly successful month. One can get this estimate from their IT department or, if one hasn't an IT department on hand, they can hire a professional designer to give them a ballpark estimate of how much bandwidth they should be purchasing every month.

Remember that a company can reduce its bandwidth usage by simply reducing the size of their site. This is often the reason that it's worth it to hire a professional designer. Professional designers understand how to reduce the size of every page, including images, so that when one visits the site they are downloading a significantly smaller amount of data. The navigation structure of the site will also play into this. Generally, the better organized the site, the fewer clicks it takes for any given visitor to reach their intended destination and, therefore, the less bandwidth is consumed by the average visitor when they peruse one's website.