After spending valuable time and money designing a website and choosing a catchy domain name, things can go seriously wrong if you choose a poor web host for your hosting needs. A plethora of web hosts are currently available in the market; both big and small making it more and more difficult to know which one offers the best web hosting services.
The problem is compounded by the fact that many new website owners are in a rush and too eager to get their websites published and up on their feet. However, by careful considerations, research and testing, you can come up with a company with the best web hosting services to catapult your website to great heights. To help you out are the following tidbits on how to choose the best web host
Factors To Consider in Choosing the Best Web host For Your Website
1. Consider The Requirements of Your Website
Not all websites are the same and so they have varied requirements. The nature of the website will determine the kind of host services you will need and in extension the right web host to work with. This will also decide whether you will go for a free or commercial web host. In case you are creating a fun website, which friends and family can use, a free web host will be the best choice. However, for a more serious website such as the one you would use to make money online, you need to be ready to spend some money on commercial web hosts.
2. The Reliability and Speed of The Access
For a website to attract traffic and perform its intended functions, it must be fast and reliable. Generally, many web surfers will shun any website that takes too long to load and display results. This is why you will have to choose a very reliable and fast speed webhost that will ensure that your website does not bore visitors. Besides speed and reliability, you should look for something called uptime.
The uptime defines when the web host is functional. The best webhost must guarantee its uptime, which must be well over 99 percent. The company should be able to offer some refund should it fail to honor its uptime and the figure falls below the agreed percentage. Remember that enforcing such guarantee can be difficult on your side. Nevertheless, most reputable web hosts will guarantee you some sort of security from downtime and ensure they are up most of the time.
3. What is The Right Disc Space
One thing that confuses most new webmasters is the disc space requirements for their websites. You will be seriously shocked to learn that you do not need much disc space if you do not intend to host videos or audios in your website. Disc space as slow as 20MB can adequately take care of your hosting needs. It is unnecessary to focus your search on those web hosts that guarantee you unlimited disc space and charge exorbitantly for them. Even if your site will host audios and videos, you will not need the so-called unlimited disc space and 100MB would just suffice.
4. Data Transfer or Traffic / Bandwidth
Data transfer can be defined as the amount of bites usually transferred from your website to your visitor’s browser as he or she browses your site. Usually the host has to pay for the bandwidth consumption and the higher the transfer rate the better is the surfing experience by the visitor. The cost of the bandwidth will actually be transferred to you. In your search for the best web host, you need to watch out for the companies that advertise “unlimited bandwidth” because you will pay unnecessarily high amount of money for the services.
5. Consider The Technical Details
In case you are a web design savvy, you will understand what FTP, PHP, Perl, SSI, .htaccess, SSH, MySQL, crontabs mean. A commercial website must have all these in order to operate well. If you do not have such knowledge, then you may want to find a web host that must be able to provide all kinds of assistance to you at no cost. The customer support should also be available 24/7 to ensure that all your questions are promptly responded to at any time of the day. This will give you easy time when you want to update new features that will affect the performance of the website.
6. Type of Hosting
Different types of web hosting options are available namely Shared Hosting or Basic Hosting Service, Virtual Private Server Hosting, Cloud Hosting, dedicated hosting etc. For Basic or Shared Hosting, different websites use the same servers while in VPS hosting, different websites use the same server but that server is partitioned. For Cloud Hosting, a website relies on a virtual network of cloud servers. If you have a blog that receives just a couple of visitors each day, then you can make do with basic hosting service. However, if you have hundreds of persons visiting your website each day, then go for VPS hosting. Large companies with significant website traffic should consider cloud hosting or dedicated hosting.
7. Pricing and Value for Money
There is no need to break the bank just because one wants to obtain web hosting services. However, when choosing a web host, one shouldn’t just go for the cheapest option. Webmasters should compare different plans offered by different companies and see which company’s package offers the best value for money. Also, getting a long term plan can be a good idea as they tend to be more cost effective.
8. Speed, Performance and Reliability
It goes without saying that people should consider speed and performance when choosing a web host. It is important that the web host has a fast server so that websites can load quickly. This will leave the visitors happy. Slow loading times will frustrate visitors. It is also important that a web host has as little downtime as possible. Frequent downtimes will discourage people from visiting a website. Thankfully, there are server monitoring tools that can be used to track the uptime and downtime of each web host. Those looking for the best web host should utilize those tools to confirm downtimes and uptimes of each web host services provider they intend to patronize.
9. Security
A good web host must provide adequate security for your website to reduce incidents of hacks, data breaches, data theft, etc. When choosing a web host, look out for companies that offer free SSL certificates and have multiple layers of firewall in their system. Also, go for a web host that regularly updates their server. This helps them stay one step ahead of malevolent actors and actions. Your web hosting company should also have a backup plan so that lost data can be easily retrieved and restored.
10. Storage and Bandwidth
When purchasing a particular web hosting plan, it is important to consider the available storage capacity as well as bandwidth. Bandwidth dictates the amount of traffic your website can handle in a specific period of time while storage capacity determines the portion of your website’s file and data which will be stored. If your website typically has a couple of visitors to their site each day, 25GB storage or less is okay.
11. Customer Support and Management
Even the best laid plans may inevitably run into one issue or the other. This is why Webmasters should choose a web hosting company that has multiple customer support channels (Live chat, emails, phone numbers etc.) that respond quickly to complaints. A web hosting plan with dedicated support is also good if one can afford it.
12. Ease of Use
Life is already stressful enough so there is no need to add on unnecessary issues. Go for a web host that offers a hosting control panel with a user friendly interface which you can easily navigate. It is also a good sign if the web host has helpful articles or video tutorials which give detailed explanations to members of the public on how to navigate their services.
13. Scalability and Future Growth
If you start out as a small business with a minimal online presence, your web hosting needs will be easily met by a basic web hosting plan with limited bandwidth and limited storage capacity. However, if the online aspect of your business booms, you would need to add on more bandwidth and storage capacity. It is good to therefore go for a web host that has the ability to provide you with the enhanced bandwidth and storage capacity you need. It is also important that they do not give you these add-ons at an outrageous price so do keep this in mind. You need a web hosting company that can grow with you.
14. Useful Additional Features
Some web host companies go out of their way to offer potential customers perks like free domain name, customized email, free SSL certificate, etc. Such perks help customers to save some money. So, it is always a good thing to go for a web hosting company that offers such add-ons.
Conclusion
If you follow the above-mentioned tips on how to choose the best web host and carryout even more research, you will get your website up and running flawlessly. In case it is a money making website, chances are that you will start seeing returns sooner.