Selecting the most optimal hosting service for your blog
- Knowledge Base
- January 15, 2020
All web developers searching for new hosting companies get slightly confused when choosing a web hosting company. There are so many choices available! And there are so many fake reviews, which only complicates the task: you can’t trust every word written, and have to do all the research on a particular host on your own.
This step cannot be avoided: the choice of web hosting directly influences the way your site will work, and whether it will be successful. The research performed by Small Business Computing shows that most frequently people tend to complain about poor customer support, web-site downtime and hidden payments.
- Making the right choice
- What do I need?
- What is the duration of the contract?
- What is the renewed cost?
- May your account be suspended, and why?
- Is there anything extra with hosting plan?
- How refunds are made?
- Is the hosting simple in use?
- Does the company help with Site Migration?
- Is email hosting available on a server?
- Can you get a back-up in case of crash?
- How effectively does the technical support work?
- What is uptime record the provider has?
- Is the site easy to upgrade?
- What is the company reputation?
- Does the provider have E-commerce software?
- Conclusion
At the same time, incorrect choice of web hosting provider may cause far worse problems like:
- Loss of income. If your site goes down, people cannot visit it and, consequently, buy your products. That means you lose gaining or even your potential customers to competitors.
- Slowing of website loading speed. Site loading time directly depends on the quality of web hosting. And that, in its turn, impacts all the important metrics: search ranking, conversion rate, bounce rate, etc. According to research, even 1 second improvement of speed loading results into about 7% rise in site conversion rate. Thus, the faster your website loads, the more often it will be observed by the customers.
- Security features. Hacking and malware attacks are the problems even of the most secured sites. No provider can give 100% warranty that your site will not be hacked. But a good web hosting company provides enough safeguards to prevent hacking and reacts immediately to security problems, while a company with inefficient customer support would be able to help you within weeks only. A bad provider does not fix the problems quickly (if it deals with security features at all), which means that in the case of any problem you will have to restore your site starting from scratch and try to find a new server to solve all the issues.
Now you are aware of the problems which may arise if you choose a wrong provider. But it may still be uncertain how to choose a suitable one. If you still unsure whether you can select a hosting company as it should be, here are 15 questions that will help to clear everything up and make an informed decision.
1. What do I need?
This is one of basic questions that needs to be answered to make the right choice of hosting plan and provider. Make up the list of essential features of web hosting and required hosting plan. You’re your site will be like? What its type is (blog, online store, e-commerce, video sharing, etc.)? Will it contain text files mostly, or a lot of video and other heavy files? If your website will require high bandwidth, shared hosting may appear insufficient and weak for your project. In this case, a dedicated server may be a great alternative. As the same time, if security is number one priority for you, a VPS may appear to be more suitable solution.
Does you site require Windows technologies? If you need ASP, Microsoft Access, Microsoft SQL and other stuff like that, Unix-based hosting might appear exactly what you need, because it allows working with as WordPress, PHP, Perl and MySQL. Many beginners are advised to order an account on a Unix-based server, because it is much more comprehensible. Whatever your needs are, check whether the host provides options to grow and develop.
2. What is the duration of the contract?
In some cases, you may be offered a considerable discount in case if you pay for 1 or 2 years in advance. But what if you want to terminate the contract before it expires? There might be problems with the compensation of the funds you have paid out. Thus, the most optimal option is monthly payment or at least a quarterly plan. You will have enough time to evaluate the company services and products and decide whether you want to work with it for the long term.
Cheap hosting providers often use tricks, attracting new clients to sign up by low prices, and then all of a sudden raise the prices. To avoid such situation, ask the provide what the new prices will be like, and note it when you dp the research on the new website host.
If you see a company offering “unlimited” hosting, don’t rush to order a server. Every “unlimited” host has limits, no matter what is claimed. Don’t forget to ask what bandwidth limits are, otherwise, your site may be slowed down or even suspended. If this information is not clearly stated anywhere, address customer service and ask them to explain what is the point at which “unlimited” plan truly ends.
Even after that you still should read customer some customer reviews to uncover the truth. Some hosting providers use the word “unlimited’ to cover the fact they suspend too active accounts with TOS violations.
The support of FTP, PHP, Perl, SSI, .htaccess, SSH, MySQL, and Cron Tabs is essential. And if you are a starter, some simple environment like CPanel will be enough, while more technologically advanced users prefer installing their own software on their websites. Anyway, in both cases you have to make sure you will have enough support to accomplish all the tasks easily.
Practically every host guarantees refunding in case something goes wrong, and you are not satisfied with the services. But when it comes to the real problem, the situation might be completely different. If your site is out of order during one week out of four, will you be given credit for these seven days? And what if space and uptime guarantees are not complied with? Will the company compensate you according to the contract, or will it violate its conditions, keeping the unused money to itself. Ask all these questions, because it matters in long-term partnership.
A good idea is to ask for a demo to show you how everything works and check how simple it is to connect a new domain to your site, to create new folders, upload content and files and perform everyday tasks. The assignments will depend on the type of the site you develop, so you will need to make sure that the hosting service is easy and understandable for you and is suitable for your exact project.
If your web- site is a ready one, and you are searching for a new provider, ask if it will assist you in migrating your site to their server, and whether this service is free. Such a facility saves your time and effort, because all you will have to do is just to change the ISP for the domain without the need to move the entire site, database and content.
Although the vast majority of providers do have this feature, it is not obligatory. If you make a decision in a hurry, one day you might be surprised by finding out that your new hosting plan does not presuppose email hosting. This feature allows receiving and sending e-mails from the addresses you’re your domain in their name (it looks like info@nameofyourserver.com). First of all it eases work, secondly, it helps your business to acquire more professional appearance. So if your hosting plan has this facility, that’s good.
Even the fact that you are provided backup service is already reassuring. And if anything happens, you will know that force-majeure events will have minimal impact on your site, or ypu will prevent negative consequences at all. Besides, if a hacker attacks your site, you will be able to restore it to the initial point, before the intrusion was performed.
As a rule, bad things happen when least expected: your site may go down at the moment of hosting the largest amount of visitors. And if your provider is not available 24/7, working with the customers only during business days and hours, you and your end-users may face serious problems. Except checking the availability time, observe the means of contacting with tech support: e-mail, tickets, live chat, Skype, phone, etc. Select the provider who has multiple ways of contacting with its clients.
Remember that uptime value under 99.5% is not acceptable. And don’t believe what the provider says right away. Search for customer reviews to learn some more uptime reviews and track your site uptime by implementing such services as Uptime Robot and Pingdom.
If you expect your project to grow and develop greatly, search for a provider who allows moving from shared hosting to VPS, and from VPS to a dedicated server in the future. You should make inquiry about this possibility right from the start.
14. What is the company reputation?
Perform a little investigation on the company you are going to work with. Try to partner with a provider who has proven to be stable and has a long and clear history. Note that the older the company, the better and visible its track record is. Of course, working with a new hosting provider may be beneficial, but if you elaborate serious projects, you are better to stick to something more serious and reliable.
If you are going to promote your own products and services, you will have to implement E-commerce on your site. Common software required in these cases includes OS Commerce, SoftCart and CubeCart. There are many other variations, but these appear to be comprehensible and easy to use. Learn the details of what is provided, and if you have no information about the brand, ask for a demo-version.
To realize what the basic features offered by a provider, ask these simple questions. Thus, you will understand whether this or that plan has everything for your site to work properly. Besides, use some other methods of getting the information: read customer reviews, observe form discussion and contact clients personally, if you need some specific details and information.
And elaborate an exit strategy just in case you will be dramatically disappointed in the chosen provider. But if you follow the recommendations given above, you are likely to find the one who will comply with all your demands entirely.
Things to consider before choosing Web Hosting
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