A2 Hosting has some pretty awesome hosting plans. For less than $8/month (if you pay 3 years in advance), you can get unmetered storage and bandwidth. They do not mean unlimited. No using your account for offsite backup, for example. But still, pretty good. No worries if you get hit by BoingBoing, for example.

But a word to the wise: when buying things online, if a “coupon code” line pops up, always Google for coupons. As it turns out, you can get 20% off at A2 Hosting with the following coupon code:

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Self-explanatory, eh? Happy hosting.

Website and e-mail hosting are services for which you can pay a little or a lot with little difference in service. And sometimes you actually get more when you pay less.

For example, I pay $10/month for hosting for my firm website, three blogs (this blog, Caveat Emptor, and Lawyerist), and unlimited e-mail accounts. I get 2 GB of storage—more than I need at the moment—and plenty of bandwidth.

You can find cheaper hosting or more storage for less money, but I like my hosting provider and do not see any reason to move.

On the other end of the spectrum, I know of attorneys who pay $250 per month for hosting from “specialized” hosting providers like LexisNexis/Martindale-Hubbell and Findlaw. These services supposedly offer more traffic, but I am dubious. Basically, they offer a directory listing and a few web site templates, but little else that I can discover.

For about $1,000-2,000, or four to eight months of Martindale hosting, you could instead hire a professional website developer to build a beautiful, dynamic, search-engine optimized, and easy-to-update website, probably with some new stationery to match your new look, as well.

From time to time, take a good, hard look at what you are paying for, and make sure you are getting your money’s worth.

Okay, so you are comfortable with online privacy issues, you have spent some time on Wikipedia and Google learning about the “geek stuff,” and now you want to get going and market your law firm online. Obviously, you want to start with square one: a website. And a website is the logical next step in online marketing, so let’s get to it.

When I say “static website,” I mean a normal website: a set of web pages with content that rarely changes, and could be described accurately as a sort of dynamic business card and resume rolled into one. Many people will throw in a brochure-y article or two, but the bottom line is that a static website rarely changes. (A “dynamic website,” by contrast, could be a blog, wiki, or other frequently-updated website.)

A static website is online marketing 101. Every firm should have one, almost without exception. Most Americans have internet access in one form or another. Many will get referrals to more than one lawyer, who they will try to find online. The ones they find will get phone calls. The others probably will not.

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I use HyTekHosting for a web hosting provider. They host my e-mail, this blog, Caveat Emptor, my home page, and my fledgling law wiki, Minnlawpedia.org.

On Christmas evening, I sat down to make some changes and, due to a series of stupid missteps, lost first Caveat Emptor, and then every web page on my home directory! (Seriously, I need to be more careful.) HyTekHosting had me back up and running with backups in just a few hours. They respond very quickly to problems and are very helpful, even with software they did not develop.

If you are looking for a hosting provider, give HyTekHosting a look. Their rates are great, their service is great, and I am a very happy customer.