4 Things to Consider When Choosing a Web-host Company

When shopping for a web host, it is best to know what you should look for in your website hosting company. Most companies will have similar claims, such as unlimited disk space, unlimited bandwidth, and email. You also want to be sure that the company has a high percentage of being up and available (99% or higher), 24-7 support, site and store builders, and more. Therefore, it is up to you to do your homework before selecting your next website hosting company.

The features you should look when Choosing a Web host

• Unlimited hosting (Bandwidth + Storage)
• North American phone support
• Bonus features
• Enhanced malware protection
• Secure site certification
• Malware and spam protection
• Free domain
• Easy site builder
• Online store and selling tools
• Money back guarantee
• Google tools for websites – including AdWords, sitemap, site search, etc.
• Scalability – so you can customize your site
• Dependability – your company should have a reputation built over several years for consistent service and staying power
• Multiple servers to ensure that you and your site are protected
• Powered by Green energy (many companies are becoming more and more environmentally friendly and obtain most if not all of their power from wind and solar sources)

Factors you need to consider when choosing a Web hosting provider include:

Price–

You want an affordable provider, but you also need reliability. Remember the old adage, you get what you pay for. You need to ensure that their support department is in-house, not outsourced. In-house support and quality, reliable hardware is expensive. You must ensure that you get the best provider for your money. You should compare each provider’s features with the fees before deciding.

• Read: List of Cheap and reliable WordPress hosting

Focus Areas or Specialties–

your website will have its own needs, and not every hosting provider will be able to meet your needs. Therefore, you need to assess your needs: is your company well-established, growing, or just a small blog? Knowing your current and future needs is vital to make the right decision in choosing a web host provider. Each provider will have its strengths and weaknesses. If unsure, do not hesitate to contact the provider and ask questions. Make a list of your questions and note the answers. As you go through this process, the chances are that you will have more questions to ask. Do not be afraid to contact a provider more than once to ask additional questions. A good provider should be more than willing to take the time to answer all of your questions.

Features and Limitations –

what do you want and need your site to do? A simple blog will need fewer features than an e-commerce site. Site features require plenty of RAM, ample processing power, and disk space to function well for you and your customers. Many inexpensive sites are unable to meet those requirements. Make a list of your requirements and consider your future needs as well. Make sure that any provider you consider meets or exceeds your needs. Remember your needs for additional domains, support, backups, and more. Make sure your provider can grow with you.

Technical Support –

this is very important. Your provider should have a good, solid reputation for their support department. You should be able to speak with a real person 24/7, no matter what. Most providers offer multiple levels of support, such as email, toll-free phone, live chat, and more. Ensure the support department is in-house and hasn’t been outsourced to another company or country. Make sure that your provider has made customer support a priority.

For example, Hostgator and Bluehost offer live chatting, whereas many web-hosting companies offer support via Email and support tickets only. If your next hosting company offers support via Twitter and Facebook, it will be added advantage.

There are other things to consider in addition to the four items above. Once you have found providers that meet all of your criteria mentioned above, the items below will help you narrow your choices even more.

Features and Add-ons 

Now that you have the list of your main choices, you need to decide what makes one provider stand out from the others. What extras do they offer? Does their site make it easy for the novice to set up a site? Do they offer credits for advertising with Google Ads and Yahoo!? Do they have multiple data centers, use Green energy, and offer regular data backups? Is your domain privacy free, or is there a cost for that feature? Sometimes your choice might come down to a gut feeling or a recommendation by a friend or business acquaintance.

Hardware –

once you have gotten this far, you will want to have some idea of the hardware that your potential provider uses. Your provider should have good-quality servers designed to work together. Many small and new providers use used equipment that they cobbled together. These servers cannot guarantee that your site will always be up and working as expected.

Reputation/Satisfaction/Customer Review –

this is where you will need to do your homework. Check out each provider you are considering on Twitter or do a Google Blog search. This will give you insight into their current and former customers’ feelings about the company. Here is where you will find the information about their customer support department, such as ease of contact for support, average time for a ticket response, and how good they are about following up to ensure that your issues have been resolved. You can use the following websites to obtain more information.

Email Features –

What email features does your provider offer? Do they provide spam protection? Is your site and email address or addresses protected from viruses and malware? These are important issues to consider. You will most likely have to ask these questions of your potential provider to obtain the answers.

• Read: How to create Free Email with your own domain using Google apps

Control Panel and User Interface 

 not everyone is tech-savvy, and the last thing you want is to be constantly contacting customer support to do the least little thing. You should be able to easily install WordPress and set up your email and your FTP (File Transfer Protocol) accounts. You should be able to easily update and modify your site without having to take a bottle of aspirin and block out several hours of your time. The best providers use cPanel or Plesk to make updating and modifying your site easy.

Room to Grow –

as mentioned before, you want to be sure that your provider is capable of allowing your site to grow. You need to have the ability to upgrade your account. While many providers offer that ability, many make upgrading easier than others do. While it is possible to transfer your site to another provider, it is often time-consuming and requires additional effort from you.

Read:

• Best WordPress hosting services
• Bluehost Vs Hostgator vs Dreamhost

Well, in most cases, choosing a web host won’t be that tough, and depending upon your hosting requirement, you can select from unlimited web hosting options available online. Personally, I recommend Hostgator, Bluehost for shared hosting, Knownhost, MT, and Linode for VPS hosting. Do let us know what points you consider before selecting your next web hosting company.

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