Every online marketing strategy for a business starts with a website. How good a website performs depends not only on how well it was coded but also on its host. Your hos…
Every online marketing strategy for a business starts with a website. How good a website performs depends not only on how well it was coded but also on its host. Your hosting company plays a vital role in making your website a favorite for your website visitors and search engine crawlers the same. When you are looking for a web hosting company, you need to make sure you know all the important things that matter. A wrong decision can be disastrous for a startup company, and so such mistakes have to be avoided. Here are some of the top things that businesses should be most concerned about before paying a web host.
Type of Hosting Plan
There are many different types of hosting plans available for you to choose from. For any business that is just making a start on the internet, shared hosting is always the most recommended option. Shared hosting is when they host your website on a server that is shared by many other websites. The most important concern for you with shared web hosting is security. However, hosting companies have made this plan quite secure using the modern technology. Two important reasons to go for shared hosting are shared hosting suits any startup perfectly, and it is an extremely affordable form of hosting.
Downtime/Uptime
The next most important concern when choosing your web hosting company is uptime or the downtime. Most hosting companies will talk about their uptime to remove the negativity from their statements. When it comes to the uptime of your website on their server, you would want nothing less than 99.99%. Anything less than this mark will translate to a huge downtime when you calculate it over a period of a year. Choosing a host offering 98% of uptime should be out of question. Do not be lenient on this particular factor since it can make or break your website.
The Prices
When it comes to web hosting, you have to be extra wise with the pricing factor. You will notice that with most of the hosting companies the price of any package is affordable. However, the big surprise for you lies when you have to renew your package. Some hosts will charge you a fee that is the double of what you signed up for. However, there are still hosts that renew your hosting contract without raising a dime. It will really help you big time to do a proper research and then make a well-informed decision by comparing the first signup and renewal fees of all companies.
The Domains
Whether you are a new business or an established one, chances are that you either have multiple domains in your ownership or you are looking to get some. Maybe you want the extra domain to create a separate website for downloadable material on your website or for some other purpose. However, when you need some more space for another domain, does your web hosting company really offer that luxury?
Ecommerce Compatibility
You have to be extra careful when you own an ecommerce website. This is because a regular host will not be able to provide you with a platform that really boosts the performance of your ecommerce website. On the other hand, a web hosting platform designed specifically for ecommerce websites will allow easy integration of many different types of shopping carts and payment vendors, etc. They will also have various other plugins available to be integrated to enhance the functionality and conversion of your ecommerce website. When you are searching for a web host for your ecommerce company, look more specifically for ecommerce web hosting companies.