Choosing the right web hosting provider for your website is a crucial factor to make your business successful.
There are so many web hosting companies out there offering so many different options, picking the right one can be a daunting task. Not only do you have to consider the amount of actual bandwidth you’ll need, but you also have to think about the type of hosting that will work for your website. Keeping the following considerations in mind should give you a little more confidence when choosing a web host.
“Free” Web Hosting Providers
When comparing your options for web hosting providers, pay close attention to the types of services available. Free web hosting comes always with a catch. Most free hosting providers come with limitations. In some cases, you could not use your own scripts or the hosting provider would insert advertising banners on your website. If you are planning on starting a serious online project, no matter if it is just a small personal blog, you should stop to seriously ponder paying your web host for getting full access. You can get a quality web hosting service only for €3.40 EUR (≈$4.30 USD) a month. This should be fit for everyone’s budget.
It may be also difficult to transfer your website elsewhere if you built it by using “free” website builder provided by the service. It is always good to have an exit strategy in case your web hosting services goes under or is not working as expected, so you won’t waste the time you already spend on building your website.
Choose a Reputable Hosting Provider
Numerous web hosting business are born and dying every day. Unfortunately many times when a hosting provider decides to quit, it happens unannounced. This means that your website may die with the provider.
You want to make sure that your site is hosted with people who actually know what they are doing. A good idea is to use Google to find unbiased customer reviews of your service provider candidate. If you’ll find praising reviews for over years of time, your website will be probably in good hands.
Safe Guards for Your Domain
If you are anyway about to choose an unreputable hosting provider for some reason, it may be a good idea to register your domain with a bigger registry service. This saves you a lot of stress, in case your hosting provider stops answering your emails when you wish to renew or move your domain elsewhere. Make sure you will have full control over your domain so you can unlock it and transfer it out whenever you want.
Also, beware of the “free domain” gimmick. A free domain certainly sounds nice, but this typically means that the hosting company retains ownership of it. In this case, you’re either stuck with the company forever or you have to buy the domain later for a high price. Ask questions during the research process about ownership and renewal fees so you’re not taken by surprise down the line.
The Level of Support
Most of webmasters need help of the customer support every once in a while. This is where you see the difference between sour apples and sweet oranges. Before signing up with your service provider, try to contact their support. See how quickly they respond and whether the answer is with the level of professionalism you expect. Consider only choosing a hosting service that has 24/7 support available (including Level-2 and Level-3 support).
Backup
You’ve probably asked yourself whether you can trust web hosting companies to back up your files. Weekly or daily backups are available with most of the hosting providers. But keep in mind that even though the host needs to perform regular backups, it’s unwise not to do off-site backups as well.
Any web hosting company will allow you to create a website, but a good one will help you avoid headaches in maintaining it. Considering these few aspects of a company before you jump in should provide some solid footing in making your choice.
If you’re still not sure which direction to go for your web hosting provider, contact us. We will be happy to answer your questions and help you any way we can with this process.
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