Choosing a Web Host
Some people may not realize the importance of teaming up with the right web hosting company. It is just like a partnership. When businesses decide on the wrong web host, they could have difficulty in getting support, suffer from downtime or even worse. The loss on the initial capital investment is nothing compared to the damage resulting from bad web hosing. However, choosing a hosting package does not have to be a daunting task since businesses just have to consider the following points when searching for one and they will discover that the plan to be chosen becomes a lot clearer.
Type of Hosting
- Does the company need its own infrastructure?
- Does it need more access or control over its website and server/s?
- Are they not too technical?
- Would it be advisable for the web host to maintain the website?
They should ask these kinds of questions. No matter what type of hosting: shared hosting, dedicated hosting, managed hosting or VPS hosting, the pros and cons should be considered. They should know the purpose of their site and not be afraid to seek advice.
They can ask themselves if they will build their own website. This requires more skills than basic HTML. Those who are new to designing websites can use website builders such as Shopify, Squarespace, Weebly or Wix, among others. There are web hosts that offer them as a bundle in their standard package.
Support
What are the support channels available: email, live chat, forums, telephone and are these 24/7 or just during office hours?
Where are they based?
In case something happens to their website/services like technical errors and DNS attacks, they need to address the issue right away. The gravity of the situation depends on the type of website. For instance, if this concerns an ecommerce site, the business could lose money during the time that it is offline. Therefore, they have to be sure of the support that will address their needs.
Communication is critical when it comes to problems that need to be quickly solved. A web host that is based in the US knows how it is to work with their business, customers and time zone. This hosting provider can give a personal touch in terms of customer service and success of addressing their problem.
Features
What are the features that the web host offers?
Does this provider make use of cPanel for single click installations of chosen software?
What is the available storage and bandwidth? How many domains can one account host?
Functionality is crucial to all websites and future-proof. When a website further develops it requires more space so, do the web hosts’ capacity and features allow growth?
The web host that businesses decide on should be able to move them smoothly to the following plan and storage space capacity to answer their needs and that of their website. Scalability, upgrade and downgrade, is another essential feature often overlooked. They should be capable of downscaling when they use the wrong hosting produce that is very big for their website. They should see to it that they would choose a hosting provider that lets them be free in moving to the right plan.
