Choosing a great web hosting provider is an important decision for any entrepreneur. There are so many providers to choose from, but how do you know which one will be best for your company? It’s important to know that not all web hosts will guarantee you success.
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Steps to choose hosting provider
The first step to choose a great web hosting provider is by assessing the needs of your business. In what ways does your company's website need and use the internet? If you are in search of an affordable service that has all necessary features, then you need to spend time to make the right choice. This will be by evaluating the available options along three main criterias; reliability, price and customer service.
In this blog post, we shall outline the external and internal factors to consider when you are deciding on a great web host provider. These two factors will be important to help you determine which service will work best for your business.
1. Consider The Reliability and Uptime.
Uptime is one of the important criteria to use of how great a web host provider is. It refers to the amount of time that a server hosting your website has been up and running from when it goes on. It is the element that makes your site available to visitors, it is expressed as a percentage. A great web host should have an uptime of 99 percent and above.
It is not a good experience for your visitors to go onto your website and click only to get the response as, “web page not available…. or server not found.” The business gets a reputation for ‘not being reliable’ and you lose potential business. Therefore, choose a web host that provides an uptime of close to 100 percent to keep your customers on your site making decisions to buy. Great Web host providers duplicate their servers in several data centers to ensure reliability. These hosts can also compensate you for all the losses in case of unexpected failure. Examples of the most reliable providers internationally include BlueHost, Hostinger, HostGator, DreamHost, and GoDaddy.
2. Evaluate the Speed
w fast your website uploads and displays content is very critical in eCommerce. Customers often get annoyed when pages take too long or fail to display features. A great web host provider will always endeavor to maintain high speed for the sites they host. Google in turn displays pages with high speeds to offer a wonderful experience to its customers on its first page on search results.
Web host providers with the highest speeds include Host Armada, InterServer, and Fastcomet.
3. How About Your Data Security?
Data security is a critical aspect that you should consider when choosing a web host provider. You don’t want your business to fall prey to hackers who’ll start sending SPAM to your customers and taint your image! Entrusting someone with your website isn’t easy, so a great web hosting provider should guarantee the safety of your website. Some of the methods incorporated by great web hosting providers to protect sites include automated malware scans, intelligent firewall management, and Cloudflare integration.
An automated malware scan monitors your site daily, reports any suspicious activities, threats and malware found. These tasks help keep your customers’ data protected. Great web hosting providers have a running firewall to protect data and facilitate customers to install their own.
Examples of secure web host providers include Namecheap, Hostinger, iPage, eUKhost, and FatCow.
4. Is The Monthly Traffic Limited Or Unlimited?
This is the number of visitors that are allowed to access a site in a month. We are all aware that massive traffic is intertwined with the thriving of digital business. Whereas traffic matters in eCommerce, some web hosts regulate the number of traffic that you can have in a month. Any extra visits are charged while others simply fail to display the page. Great web hosting providers should not place any limits on the number of visitors allowed to access your site in a given month.
Web hosting providers such as Bluehost, InMotion Hosting and DreamHost have unlimited traffic that can access a site.
5. Customer Service Support
Quality customer service support is essential for the smooth running of your website. A great web host provider has a customer support team that is well trained on how to handle customer concerns and queries. An active customer support team should quickly respond to your queries and be able to fix all problems in case your site crashes down.
For instance, HostPapa provides multilingual customer service support.
6. Prices of the Web Host Services
Price is also an important factor to be considered when choosing a great web host. Though the price is not a quality indicator of a web hostage service, a great web host provider should provide the services at an affordable rate.
A great web host provider allows you to enjoy the economies of scale – the longer the contract period, the greater the discount offered. It is therefore a good idea to buy a plan of 1 or more years to enjoy better prices.
If you’re looking for an affordable host, you should consider BlueHost.
7. Storage Size Capacity
The amount of space you need is an important factor to keep in mind when choosing a web host provider. If the purpose of your business website demands a lot of space, then it’s wise to select a provider who has the capacity to meet your needs. If your business requires a smaller space, you should go for a smaller space and save the funds for other uses.
Additionally, a great web host provider offers unlimited disk space, which caters well for future expansions.
8. They Allow for a Free Trial
A great web host provider should allow you to do a free trial for a certain period to determine the suitability of the service. During the trial period, you can discover the goodies and hiccups of the service, so you’re able to make an informed decision by the end of the period.
Examples of web hosts that allow for a free trial include NameCheap, AccuWeb Hosting, Cloud Ways, Liquid Web, and Flywheel.
9. How About Your Domain Privacy?
Without domain privacy, your details such as name, address, and phone number are open to all internet users. Such a situation exposes you to fraudsters and spammers. Having domain privacy hides the contact details attached to your website domain from the public.
A great web host provider replaces your personal information with that belonging to your domain registrar. Hostpapa is a web host provider that offers domain privacy.
10. Data Backup
Having a backup is one of the safety precautions for fixing problems in your website. We saw earlier some methods that providers can employ to ensure your data security. However, the chances of your site being attacked will never get to zero! In case your site is attacked and some files are deleted, a backup will always help you restore them.
A great web host provider should be able to back up your website in case you forget this important task. HostGator can help you backup your files every week.
Internal Company Factors to Consider for You to Choose a Great Web Host Provider
As a company, you need to evaluate how you want a host server to meet your needs before you make the choice. This is what you need to consider:
1.Estimate Your Hosting Needs
The types of hosting available are:
- Shared hosting is great for websites that small to medium size. Shared hosting means that several websites share a single server. In shared hosting, you are more likely to be experiencing tradeoffs when other websites get huge traffic. Folks visiting your page will experience delays or the page may fail to load completely in such a situation. Moreover, sharing a server is insecure since a site is open and not blocked off from others. For beginners, it’s advisable to start with a shared host, for example with BlueHost.
- VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting is an upgrade of the shared hosting that should be considered when your hosting needs increase.
A VPS server means that you still share a server but you get a portion of your own, so it’s as though you have a dedicated server. HostWinds is a good example of a VPS. Here, your site cannot be affected by traffic nor insecurity issues for it is shielded from other sites. - A Dedicated Server- If you have greater hosting needs, you should opt for this. Here, a server runs your website only, providing space and resources to your website alone. The web host only maintains the server with a dedicated server, but the power to control how it’s used is in your hands. A dedicated server example is A2Hosting.com.
- A managed dedicated server is a form of a dedicated server, whereby the hosting provider provides efficient technical support. This means the provider takes up roles such as maintenance and security provision.
- Cloud Hosting is where a company has servers that tap into a network of many physical servers. It is more reliable because the rest kick in if one server goes down, so there’s no uptime interruption. Additionally, Cloud hosting is more scalable for it involves pulling from many different servers. Cloud hosting is used by giant companies such as Amazon and Microsoft Azure that have got maximum space and resource needs.
Therefore, it is wise to consider your needs so that you get the right hosting service for your business.
2. Consider The Type of Site That You Want to Build
Before signing a contract with a web provider, consider the type of site that you
want to build. Some providers are specialized in e-commerce promotion, others in SEO (Search Engine Optimization), while others do better with blog type of websites. Therefore, decide on your website type and choose what’s best for your business. Our recommendations- If you’re a business owner who wants to start an online store, go for e-commerce hosting providers such as Wix.com and iPage. If you aspire to be a blogger, choose a WordPress web host such as InMotion Hosting.
If you want to develop an online resume, choose providers such as HostGator or Wixi.com.
3. Be Careful with Unlimited Offers
Web host providers use “unlimited offers” to make their services attractive to customers. If you understand the features you need, you will save yourself from being lured by these tricks. Some providers promise unlimited storage and bandwidth. However, this isn’t true and you might regret it in the long run. This is because they can give you low performance after a while or difficulties in accessing your page.
4. Ensure Your Domain Name Is Well Registered
Ensure you own your domain name. Your domain name is your website’s address. Owning a good domain name improves your flexibility – that is you can easily change your provider if need be. It also gives you SEO (Search Engine Optimization) benefits. Your potential customers can also easily find you.
Great Web Providers offer free domain hosting for new clients for about one year or two. For example, iPage offers free domain registrations and transfers.
5. Consider Your Business’ Future
When searching for a web host provider, it’s good to have the future expansion of your business in mind. The growth of your business doesn’t imply that you have to shift from one host to another. A great web host provider should be able to cater to your future expansion. HostGator is an incredible hosting provider that allows you to transition smoothly to a VPS if a need arises in the future.
Final Thoughts
Finding a great web host does not only mean success to your business, but it also gives you peace of mind. It can save you headaches from issues such as your page being down for several days. The most important thing to consider is your needs and the critical features that you need for your site. By following these tips, you will be on the way to making a great web hosting provider choice. Good luck!
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