What would happen if you had your websites go down for five or 10 minutes? No big deal, if it happens one time. If you buy hosting for your sites from an unreliable provider, however, site outages could become an ongoing problem. This means lost revenue and readers for you, and a time to look for a new web hosting service. Start by reading the following tips that can help smooth the process for you.
If you’re just building your first website, opt for shared hosting. There are two main types of hosting on offer: shared, which is cheap, but has fewer options, and dedicated, in which you get the works and lots of customizability, but you pay for the privilege. Good shared hosting plans can be had for just a few dollars a month.
Particularly if you are considering using a web host that is small or unknown, always ask about their reliability in terms of infrastructure. Find out if the servers they utilize have redundant power, whether they have generators in case of power failure, and what kind of security is in place. This would include both online and in their physical location.
Register your domain name through a separate service than the web host you choose. This will protect your domain name if something should go wrong with the relationship you have with your web host. You do not want to lose the name of your site because of less than stellar hosting performance.
Find a host that offers customers a lot of web space, especially if you have a blog or a site that you are constantly adding information to. Every time you post something new to your site, it takes up some of your web space. If you have limited web space, you will only be able to post a limited amount of information.
Think about your long-term budget before you commit to a web hosting company. Some companies offer discounts if you commit to a 1-year, 2-year or longer contract. Choose a company that offers a low fee for long-term hosting, but make sure the company you choose offers all the options you need.
Read the terms of service when dealing with a web host who offers “unlimited” services. Many times web hosts will offer unlimited bandwidth or sometimes hard disk space. Read the terms carefully, as they may reserve the right to ask you to upgrade your plan, if you are a higher profile customer, that has increased usage.
Uploading new content to your site should be easy. To be successful, you will have to add more content regularly and fix mistakes quickly: choose a web hosting service that allows you to make changes easily and to upload your content to their servers quickly. A good host should also make new content available within a few hours.
If you plan to change your web host, make sure that your new host offers at least the same features and service as your current host. Changing web hosts is not difficult, but it does require some preparation and work. So if you make the change, be sure that you are changing to a better plan to make it worth your while.
While you should definitely try to obtain the most cost effective web hosting package that you can find, the one area that you should absolutely not sacrifice in is reliability. The success of your website will depend on the reliability of your web host. Your website cannot be successful while it is offline! In fact, even your most loyal visitors will eventually stop coming to your website if it is frequently offline. Although it might be slightly more expensive, the comfort of knowing that you can depend on your web host will be well worth it.
Weigh your web host’s customer reviews in your decision. Customer satisfaction is the best way to tell how well a host performs. You can get an ideal of how their customer support operates and performs, how manageable their downtime is or any amount of other information. Do not make this your only deciding factor, as sometimes, less scrupulous companies will self-create customer reviews.
If you’re going to use a free web host, make sure that you know all of the restrictions about site content, as different hosts have different rules about what you can post, especially in the areas of music or video, as streaming those can take up bandwidth. If you know the rules, you won’t be in for any surprises.
Always get a pricing breakdown for you hosting package. You will need to include hosting fees as part of your website’s budget. By knowing exactly what your monthly fees are covering, it will allow you to budget any factors that may be relevant, such as time, bandwidth and data. Inspect the terms closely for any fees that may be incurred and should be budgeted as a precaution.
If you are looking into a host, check out the host’s up-time percentage. This means find out how often they are up and running and how often they deal with downtime and have system updates and issues. The higher this percentage, the better the host will probably be and the less problems you will have with your own site, staying up and running.
Be sure to pay for your host by the month. Avoid being sucked into a discount plan where you would have to pay for several months in advance. You never know what could happen with the host or what issues you may encounter. By paying on a monthly basis, you will be able to switch hosts quickly if needed.
That’s really all there is to it. Reliable web hosting is a critical element of your online business plan, so don’t be afraid of switching around if necessary, to find a more reliable web hosting service that provides quality service 24/7. Follow the information in this article and you will surely find a web hosting provider that fits all of your needs.