A business is only as strong as its weakest link, and this can often be the web host for its site. If you know nothing about programming, the terminology and numerous directories can be very confusing. Many people cave in when confronted with a decision and just take what comes first. While that may be the easy way out, this article can help you make an informed decision.
Ensure the hosting service you choose has a long history of small amounts of downtime, if any at all. Anytime a website is down means no traffic or sales are occurring. Downtime also guarantees that your account information is inaccessible, making it as unproductive as it is frustrating.
Keep backing up your site’s content. Some hosting services may offer to backup your information for you, but you still want to make sure to back it up yourself as you can lose all your SEO work if you don’t.
Do you know how much bandwidth will you need? What about disk space? This depends on your site and what your future plans are. If in doubt, estimate on the high side. Some hosting companies sell packages that provide unlimited storage and bandwidth. If you’re short on either space or bandwidth, your business site might not work as well as you would like.
Think twice about going with a free web hosting provider. Sure, you can’t beat free, but that price means you suffer some pretty serious limitations. If your website is expanding and you are on a free host, there could be a problem when trying to grow your site. Switching web providers can be a hassle, so going with a free host in the beginning can cost you a lot of problems in the end.
Some web hosting services will charge you by how much traffic your site gets. Figure out what a host will cost you. Some hosts will charge you a flat rate, and this will increase as your site gets more traffic. There are other hosts that will charge you according to your traffic.
Find a host with low down times as these downtime moments can be very frustrating to visitors. If your website is not functioning properly, this takes away from the traffic you would be receiving.
If you’re considering moving hosts, be sure you investigate if your domain name can transfer with you. You will find some that do and others that do not. It is unfortunate, but it can create a lull in your business as clients need to be acclimated to your new site.
If you possibly can, always choose paid web hosting. For a modest website, free may be okay, but if you have a business or attract a lot of traffic, you may want to go with a more professional host. This is in large part because of the many advertisements that a free hosting service will place on your site. You have basically no control over these ads, meaning you can’t fully direct the overall appearance of your site. These advertisements can be intrusive and annoying to your visitors. They may steer away from your site if they find them too annoying.
Good web hosts allow you to cancel at any time. Even signing a monthly or yearly contract, you should be able to cancel at any time and be returned the money for your unused time on the contract. You want to feel that you have the freedom to leave a hosting service without the penalty of paying for service you will not use.
You should consider carefully the frequency and schedule of the web host’s downtime. Be aware of their maintenance times and how many days they perform this function, so you can decide if you can live with it. If their down times include high peak hours that last for several days each month, then this is a host company you want to avoid.
A good suggestion is to be sure that you can accept popular payment methods for your website. Payment services like PayPal can ensure that they can’t charge you without you knowing about it first.
Have a list of several possible hosts that you like before you pick a single web hosting service. If you only have two on the list, then their levels of experience and competence may be so far apart that there is no way to make a middle ground decision.
Take the time to call and email the customer support team for a web host before making any decisions. You have to know that they will help you in a pleasant, professional way. Understanding the type of service to expect will be useful going forward.
Your web host should have an excellent reputation. Check out a few user reviews and you will quickly find that there are some web hosts that have a stronger reputation than others. A company that does not offer quality customer service and innovative services will be easy to recognize as well.
Hosts that provide virtual servers give you the tools to allow you to test software, have better control over your site and many other benefits. Unlike the more common shared hosting plan, a VPS allows you to control virtually every aspect of your web server, including installing and deleting software and creating accounts, as if you are running your own server. Remember that you need to know how to run a server if considering this plan.
The host you decide to choose should provide support for all programming languages you are currently utilizing, and plan on using in the future. Not having this proper amount of support for all your languages means, you won’t have the ability to launch your own site. Also, you want to know any languages you intend to use in the future because you want to ensure that your hosting company will be able to support you down the road as your site grows. It can be a big hassle to have to change web hosting companies.
By gaining an understanding of the information provided in this article, you should now be able to review hosting plans, and decipher the confusing language in order to determine which plans are better. Even if you’ve already signed a contract, you can still use this information when you upgrade or switch companies.