Need More Bandwidth? Find Out How Much It Will Cost First!

By Author: Peter Barker
Total Articles: 3
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If you're already running your own website, you know how much web hosting can cost when you need additional disc space or bandwidth. But if you're running a site that has a lot of pictures and videos, or you've just uploaded so much content onto your site that you're running out, you're going to need more. If you don't purchase additional bandwidth, your website could shut down altogether. That's something you don't want, making the purchase of extra bandwidth a necessity. But bandwidth can be expensive; and how are you supposed to find out how much it's actually going to cost you? By following these steps!

First, start by collecting web page analytics. These stats will tell you how many people are visiting your website, and how many pages they're viewing while they're on your site. A few tools to use are Google Analytics, Yahoo! web analytics, and Clicky web analytics. Write the numbers you find down, as you'll need them later.

But while analytics will tell you how many people are visiting your site and therefore indirectly, how much bandwidth is being used, it won't tell you exactly. But there are steps ...
... you can take to find that out. If you have a WebHost manager in your control panel, you can find the “Account Information” menu bar. Under this you can click on “View Bandwidth Usage.” Under here it will tell you exactly how much bandwidth your website is currently using. Not all sites have a WebHost manager and if this is the case for you, you should be able to contact your web host and ask them how much bandwidth you're using.

Once you have the numbers of the bandwidth you're using and the amount of page views your site gets, you'll need to divide the number of page views into the amount of bandwidth you have. The number that is returned to you will tell you how much bandwidth one person is using every time they visit your site. Use these numbers and plug them into an online bandwidth calculator; you can find them free online in many places.

Once you've completed this step, it's really just a matter of playing with the numbers and increasing the numbers to see how much extra bandwidth would cost you. Increase the number of users that you received from your analytics; and enter the size of the new content you'll be using. Then you'll need to add the number that was on the calculator to the amount of bandwidth usage you had before adding any more. Using the amount of page views you currently have, divide that into the number of user page views. Once you have that number, that's the amount of bandwidth that you're going to need. Then all you have to do is contact your web host and ask them how much it would cost to add that additional bandwidth.

Don't become intimidated by the amount of calculating you have to do when trying to determine how much bandwidth you need. While you will need to play with numbers a little bit, it will be worth it to you in the long run when you have all the content you want on your site and your site doesn't get shut down because you don't have enough.
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