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If you’re new to the game of finding the best web hosting provider for your site, you may be overwhelmed by the choices available to you. Should you spend extra money on the theory of “you get what you pay for”? Should you try to save money on your web hosting so that you can spend more elsewhere in your budget? The truth is somewhere in between. If you do some basic research, you can find a reasonably priced web hosting company that will provide you with everything you need to successfully run your website. Here are the four qualities you need to look into when choosing your web host.
1. Services. A good web hosting provider will offer you standard features like a web-based control panel so that you can tweak your site via the Internet, enough sub domains to fulfill your needs, sufficient bandwidth and disk space, and enough email addresses and scripts to allow you to develop your site to its full potential. Some hosts offer search engine submission services, which can help build traffic to your site. One note on disk space: most sites do just fine with the typical 1 to 3 GB offered, but if your site is to be used to download large files, such as music or movie files, you will want more: 10 to 15 GB should work. 2. Speed. Hosting services generally have climate-controlled warehouses full of servers, which are the actual hardware on which the web sites are hosted. You want your hosting provider to have at least a T3 speed connection to the backbone of the Internet. If your host has a slow connection, and your site’s visitors have to wait more than half a minute for your site to load, they may well give up and go elsewhere. You can get a clue to this by simply visiting the web hosting provider’s own website. If it is speedy and efficient, chances are that users would experience your site as speedy and efficient, too. But if their own site takes forever to load, don’t write them off just yet. Try back again in an hour. If it’s still slow, then that particular hosting company may have slower connections than what you need. 3. Security. It is important that you not compromise when it comes to data and web site security. Read all the material your candidate hosting providers have on the subject. Security covers not only website security issues like Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) capability (for encrypting credit card numbers and other sensitive personal information), but also regular server backups, and redundant protection against fire or other natural disasters. If a company you’re considering has user forums, try to read up on what its customers are saying. While one or two negative reviews shouldn’t dissuade you from choosing a particular host, a pattern of problems should prompt you to look elsewhere. Another security issue you should be aware of is whether your hosting is shared or dedicated. Shared hosting is less expensive, but it means that you will be sharing server hardware with many other clients. If security “walls” between these shared sites aren’t robust enough, that means that a problem with one website on the server could slow down all the sites on the server. Worst case is if another site you’re sharing a server with manages to crash the entire server. You can’t afford for your site to be down at all, or you will lose potential customers. 4. Support. You don’t want a web hosting provider who sells you a hosting package and then disappears. Particularly if you are establishing an online business, you need a guarantee of at least 99.8% uptime, and you need so-called 24/7/365 user support. Make sure that you know exactly what your host provider means by 24/7/365. You don’t just want someone to take your call and deliver a message outside of normal business hours; you want to be able to easily reach a real human who is ready to tackle your problem regardless of time or day. This is another thing you could gauge by reading a host company’s user forums. If there is a pattern of frustrated customers unable to reach technical support services, perhaps you should try another company. You should be able to find numerous hosting companies that will fill your needs at a range of prices to suit most any budget. Web hosting is a very competitive field, and there’s no reason for you to be anything less than totally satisfied with the service you receive, and the price you pay for it. Don’t just jump on the first inexpensive hosting provider you find. Take the time to compare several of them, and you’ll be assured of getting the best services for the money.
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