Finding the web hosting service that’s right for you

With so many webhosting companies all vying for your business, how can you be sure the one you choose is the best one for you?

When looking into webhosting services for your website the first thing to do is to assess your own personal needs as they pertain to those hosting services you’ll want to consider. Small homepages will have vastly different web hosting criteria from the website of a large company for instance. It is also important to take into consideration anything you are planning on hosting in the near future as well and to take any potential growth into account so that you are not caught off guard by unexpected costs.

The next step in finding web hosting services for your needs is to compare the rates of different hosting companies. While many companies will offer temptingly low rates it’s crucial to know how much the prices will grow if your services and customer base expand.

Good technical support from your web hosting company is also critical to success. The ability to solve any problems quickly with the least disruption possible is key to the growth of your website. The best technical support you can hope for from a web hosting company is an in house 24 hours a day, seven days a week, phone & email, based in your home country service. It’s also worth finding out if the technical support is free or comes with a charge. Also, make sure the hosting company clearly defines «consulting» versus «technical support» as technical support will most likely be free while consulting may have a price tag.

You also need to know how fast your internet hosting company can provide access to anyone visiting your website. This is easily researchable, with the most obvious way being to visit other websites hosted by your potential web host, perhaps varying the time of day you visit the website and focussing on the times when you think your target audience will visit your website. The best webhosting services will offer high levels of uptime which should be a guarantee to motivate the company to keep servers up all the time, while providing impetus to act quickly if anything goes wrong.

You should also ensure that any web hosting companies you are considering doing business with offers the services your website will need in order to run smoothly. You may require services such as visitor counting, e-mail forwarding options, real-time chat and shopping cart functions among others and it’s a good idea to make a full list of your needs so as to not forget to ask important questions during your research of web hosts. You may also want to consider webhosts which offer unlimited bandwidth, in case you have a website with a lot of visitors daily. Also ensure that any potential web hosting company offers some sort of control panel to allow you to make changes to the way your website is hosted so you won’t have to work through customer service every time you need to modify a password or change an e-mail address, which can be an inconvenient and time consuming pursuit.

In many cases, particularly in business, your website can be your only opportunity to make a first impression and, as such, your web hosting company should be reliable, both for you and your customers. Once you have a detailed list of web hosts that can take care of the basic needs of your website, contact each of them for a more detailed discussion.

After all, careful consideration can save you a lot of time and money in the long run.

Paul McIndoe writes for a digital marketing agency. This article has been commissioned by a client of said agency. This article is not designed to promote, but should be considered professional content.