A company is only as good as its weakest link, something that is often its web server. Unless you are a programmer, all the technical jargon and directories that web hosting providers use can be confusing. When things become too mixed up, you may decide to just buy whatever you see first. As easy as this may be, it’s not really a good idea, so keep reading for great information on how to choose your web hosting company without all that confusion.
What types of sites does your hosting site offer? A lot of free services will only provide you the tools necessary to build your own pages or let you use their templates, but not add overly dynamic personal scripts. You may have to search for a pay service if you need, or want, to create dynamic pages.
Choose a web host that does not have constant outages. Companies with many outages generally make excuses, and show that they aren’t reliable, since they don’t do anything about them and don’t intend to. Frequent outages are an indicator of an unprofessional service you should not commit to.
Do not use identical services for both your domain name registration, and your web host services. In the event one should fail, the other will still be accessible. This will make recovery on a new server go more smoothly. Do not put your technological faith into one web entity. If only your host controls your domain registration, you will not be able to use it any longer.
Target Audience
When trying to choose a web host, choose a provider that is located where your target audience lives. If your target audience is Americans, stick with a hosting provider that’s located in America.
Write down a list of your own priorities before you start shopping for a hosting service. Figure out your wants and needs beforehand and see how the potential hosts meet them. Making a list should help you make a good decision based on different factors instead of focusing on the price, only.
Figure out how large your website will be within the next year and choose a hosting plan that gives you enough hard drive space. A single HTML page doesn’t require a ton of space; however, if you add items like videos and photos, you’ll need more space quickly. You need about 100 MB to adequately develop your site.
Service charges coming from hosting providers could be correlated to the traffic your site generates in some time period. Will it be a flat rate? A rate dependent on the amount of traffic you get?
Invest in an SSL certificate for both your and your customers’ peace of mind. This will add an applet to your website that will inform your visitors that they have reached a secure area of the site. This is important in areas that collects personal information, like addresses and credit card numbers.
The majority of website hosting providers stipulate that you are responsible for backing up your own content. This is absolutely necessary to ensure your data is safe besides complying to what your server’s requirements. In case your website or host goes awry, you have all of your data secure and poised for quick relaunch.
Now that you have a better understanding of website hosting and what they do, you can now read their contracts, and have a much clearer idea of what options will work best in your favor. If you already have a hosting plan contract, it is still possible to get ready to make the switch when the time comes.