| Choosing a web hosting provider
is different for everyone. Every website has a specific
set of needs and you have to find a web host that provides
the needs that are specific to your website.
However, there are certain things to look for when
choosing a web hosting service. In this article we will
give you the ten most common things people should be
looking for. These are not necessarily in the order
of priority, because every website has different needs
and your priorities might not be the same as the next
website owner.
1. Tech Support: Tech support in any
business venture is always important. As a website owner
though, the tech support that your web hosting service
provides is going to be crucial to your business. If
your website is offline or not working properly it will
cost you sales.
If you have been buying traffic to your website and
it goes offline, you are still being charged for all
of those visits to your website, which they never saw.
The money you are spending on your ad campaign, AdWords
program or other traffic sources is going right down
the drain. You cannot afford to choose a web host that
does not respond quickly when you have a problem.
2. Feedback Forums: A web host that
provides a forum, message board, or chat room to discuss
hosting issues or to get help in is more likely to get
a user to use their web hosting services. The reason
behind this is people feel more comfortable with a web
host that gives a personal touch and one that cares
enough to provide a higher level of service.
3. Room to Grow: If your web hosting
service only offers one package, it’s a bad sign
in most cases. What happens as your web business grows
and so do your web hosting needs? If they offer upgrades
to dedicated servers, larger storage and bandwidth plans,
and a lot of other options, then you can feel confident
choosing them as your web hosting provider. You don’t
plan to stay small and your web host shouldn’t
plan for you to stay small either.
4. Storage Space: This is usually
only an issue with websites that will be offering users
a lot of downloads such as music or software. The average
website can get by with about 10 megabytes of storage,
but again you want room to grow, plus you can actually
use your storage to back up files from your computer.
Don’t backup secure documents there, but a lot
of your files can be backed up online. You have storage
so use it. The more storage space they offer, the better.
5. Bandwidth or Transfer: This is
the size of every file visitors to your website download
automatically to their computers each time they visit.
The average webpage is around 30k and then you add the
graphics and other files that are displayed to the user
and you get your bandwidth or transfer usage. The average
website can get by on less than 10 gigabytes of bandwidth
per month. However if you are offering downloads like
software, music, and movies, or you are going to be
driving a lot of traffic to your website, you may want
to choose a plan that offers you more bandwidth. Make
sure your web host provider has options that give you
room to grow here as well.
6. Easy to use Control Panel: Cpanel
is one of the most popular control panels for web hosts
to offer, but there are others. Ask what type of control
panel your web host is offering to provide you with.
Again, this need is different for everyone and this
is based on your level of expertise. Some advanced users
would rather not have or don’t care about control
panels because they know how to configure everything
in the server by themselves. Less advanced users need
to be sure they pick a web hosting service that provides
an easier interface so they can feel comfortable making
the alterations they need to their website.
7. FrontPage extensions: A lot of
people that do not know HTML still use FrontPage or
other programs to design their websites with. If you
use FrontPage, you need to make sure your web host is
set up for FrontPage extensions.
8. Type of Servers: An example of
this is websites that will be built using the .NET framework
or ASP. For your website you will need to make sure
your web host has a windows based server. Most web hosting
providers are on Linux or Apache and ASP websites will
not function on them. A better choice is to stay away
from building a website that requires a windows server
in the first place.
9. Added Features: Instant Install
is a feature offered by most web hosts these days even
if they call it another name. It’s an automated
process for installing databases and database driven
features you can add to your website like photo galleries,
forums, blogs, content management systems, calendars,
guestbooks, and more. It’s just as easy to choose
a web hosting provider that gives you these features
in case you need them as it is to choose one that doesn’t.
Again, room to grow is important.
10. Is your web host a good neighborhood:
This one is a little more difficult to explain and find
out about but it is important. Some search engines punish
websites who are in a bad neighborhood. They do this
by banning websites that come from a particular set
of IP addresses due to previous problems with websites
on those IP addresses. You need to see samples of other
websites that are hosted by your web hosting service.
If a lot of them are warez websites, porn websites,
file sharing websites, or other websites whose activities
do not seem to savory, then you may be looking at a
bad neighborhood and may want to find another web host.
That’s our top 10 tips for choosing a web hosting
service. We hope you find these tips helpful when you
look for where to host your next website!
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