When you want to bring your business to the virtual world, the first thing that needs to be done is getting a website built. One of the most important parts of getting a …
When you want to bring your business to the virtual world, the first thing that needs to be done is getting a website built. One of the most important parts of getting a website ready and making it available to internet users is selecting a web hosting company. Most business owners would make a mistake when picking their web host. Due to lack of knowledge or in an attempt to save money, they will pick the host with the cheapest packages. What they don’t realize is that price is one of the least important factors of web hosting. Here are some other important things that need your attention when selecting your web host.
Downtime/Uptime
The most important thing and the first that needs your attention is the downtime or uptime offered by your web host. The last thing you want from your newly built website is to be unavailable when people open it. This can throw people off and they might not return to your website ever. 99% up time promise is quite a commonplace thing in the world of web hosts. Do not settle for anything less than 99% when it comes to uptime. However, it is best that you check online reviews from customers to confirm that the promised uptime is really what the host has delivered to its customers.
Focused Hosting Type
There are different types of hosting plans available. You can choose from shared hosting, virtual private hosting, dedicated hosting, cloud hosting, reseller hosting etc. The important thing here is to pick a web host that specializes in the type of hosting that you want for your website. Most new websites start with shared hosting because it is affordable and fulfills most of their needs. Therefore, you would want to pick a host that specializes in providing shared hosting. Once again, the online expert and customer reviews will help you decide which shared hosting service will be best for you because there are many out there.
Technical and Customer Support
When you start a new website and come across hosting related issues, they are all new to you. You want someone to answer your questions and guide you properly so you can take care of the matters in future yourself. This is only possible when the customer and technical support of your web host is friendly, helpful and polite. With some companies, you will be fortunate to even have your call picked. You don’t want to be in a situation where you need technical help and all they do is put you on hold forever. This is another area where customers can best tell you the type of experience they had with the customer support of their web host.
Security
You want to be really serious about this particular factor. First, see if your web host offers SSL certificates for your website to make it secure for your website visitors. Most web hosts will have multiple SSL certificate options available. They might provide you very basic security and encryption for free. However, you can pay more to get more protection. A free or the most basic protection plan might include your SSL certificate for just one domain. An expensive one will provide protection for your domain and all subdomains too.
Miscellaneous
Other important factors that you need to look at include bandwidth. If you are confident about your marketing campaign and expect a sudden spike in traffic volume, you want enough bandwidth to accommodate the traffic on your website. You should also consider the number of free emails you are getting with your package. Last but not least, you want to know how safe their datacenters are, how they protect them and what security measures they have in their datacenters to back up your site data.