What to expect from a good web hosting company
What is web hosting?
Web hosting is a service that enables organizations and individuals to upload a website, webpage, or files onto the Internet. A web host, or web hosting company, is a business that provides the technologies and services needed for the website, webpage, or files to be viewed on the Internet. These websites are hosted or stored, on special computers called servers. When Internet users want to view your website, all they need to do is type your website address, or domain into their browser. Their computer will then connect to your server and your website will appear on their screen.
It’s important to choose a good web hosting company because a bad one can cause your website to crash, be slow, or even get hacked. Based on our experience a good web hosting company will always have covered the following 6 aspects.
Table of contents
1. Reliability
Your website needs to be up and running 24/7, 365 days a year. When choosing a web hosting company, make sure to find out about their uptime guarantee. This is the percentage of time that their servers are up and running. Most web hosting companies guarantee 99% uptime, which means there could be up to 43 minutes of downtime per month. While this may not seem like a lot, even a few minutes of downtime can have a negative impact on your business. For example, if your e-commerce website goes down during a busy holiday shopping period, you could lose out on a lot of sales. Keep in mind, no web hosting company can provide 100% uptime but as long as it’s at nothing under 99% your with a decent host.
2. Server speed
Server speed is a crucial aspect to any website owner as people just won’t wait for your website to load if it’s too slow. There are plenty of factors that go into a website’s speed but it all begins with the hosting company. If the servers of your hosting company just aren’t fast enough then regardless of any speed optimizations you may make on your website you won’t see much of a change in speed by those optimizations.
Make sure the hosting company you go with has a good track record in regard to its speed. You can check company reviews from previous clients on their website but take it another step further and search google or particularly Reddit to see what people are saying about the company. Reddit is great because you can usually find answers to questions you have and you’re able to get a general consensus as to any complaints or praise users to have for that hosting company.
3. Security features
Security is everything for your website, If users don’t feel safe on your website, chances are they won’t be back and they won’t be recommending you to their friends. Since July 2018 Google had begun to start listing websites that didn’t have SSL certificates as “Unsecure” when someone visited the website. SSL certificates are a domain feature that encrypts the data going to and from your site — from personal info to credit card numbers. It also allows users to know what organization or who owns the website.
Today many hosting companies will offer you a FREE SSL with your purchase of a hosting plan to get started. Beyond an SSL you’ll also want to make sure that your hosting company has other security features like Site lock, Automated backups, DDoS attack prevention, Password protected directories, Fraud, and virus & spam protection. You’ll also want to make sure their tools are using the latest and most stable versions of their software.
4. Customer service
If you are not the most tech-savvy person then when something goes wrong with your website, you want to be able to reach customer service 24/7/365. Really good hosting companies will have customer support for dedicated categories such as hosting, domains, email, Cpanel, etc. The hosting company you choose should have at least 3 main methods of customer support. 24/7 phone support, live chat, and email support. Being able to get in touch with your hosting company at any time is of the most importance. You should also be able to find information about their average response time.
There are some hosting companies that only provide live chat or email support and have incredible service but once again if you’re not the most tech-savvy you’ll want to stay away from those providers.
5. Server scalability
Maybe not at this moment but as your business grows, you may need to add more features to your website or increase your storage space and bandwidth limits. Choosing a hosting company that doesn’t scale well can be a nightmare as it can keep you out of business. Make sure the web hosting company you choose can accommodate these changes without any interruption in service or additional fees.
6. Pricing
When it comes to pricing, you usually get what you pay for—so don’t go with the cheapest option just because it’s the cheapest option! At the same time, there’s no need to overspend on features that you’re not going to use anyway (like unlimited storage space if you only have a few hundred MB of data). Find a balance between price and features that makes sense for your business needs.
Most hosting companies provide at least three types of hosting. Shared hosting, Dedicated hosting, and VPS hosting. Shared hosting is exactly that, you share a server and its resources with thousands of other clients. This is usually the cheapest option with plans under $10/month, and the most common for someone just starting off building a website. Dedicated hosting is like Shared hosting although the difference is you have your own server. This setup tends to be way more expensive starting at around $20/month and is usually suited for someone who’s looking for more security for their website. VPS hosting is the most expensive option but also the most powerful. With VPS hosting you control your own server and its resources. Depending on the company this type of hosting setup could run you more than $100/month.
Conclusion
There are hundreds of web hosting companies but a good one will be able to provide you with reliability, lightning-fast speeds, industry-standard security features, exceptionally fast customer support, and the ability to scale at a reasonable price point. Keep these six factors in mind when choosing a web hosting company for your website!
If you need some help finding a good web hosting company for your website, contact us for a free consultation.
Article by:
You might also like these articles.
