If you’re going to have a website — and you should — you need to have a reliable web host. How do you find a web hosting company with the features, support and price that serves your needs? Here are some tips that will help you select the right web host.
Your domain name should be registered with an outside company. If you register it with your web host and the company goes under, you could end up losing your name. This leaves you with no domain control, only your host will have it.
If you are looking for a hosting company for your business, avoid going with free web hosts. A free web host will likely place ads on your site, which causes you to lose valuable traffic. A staple of any good online business is the amount of visitors you get to your site. The last thing you want is your free web host to steal away all your traffic.
Purchase a web hosting plan that offers you more disk space than you currently need. Anticipating this as your business grows is essential. At a minimum, you should get 20 percent more space than you need so that you can improve or add to your site in the future without running out of space.
To get the most out of a free web host, you’ll need to back up any data and files related to your site. Because free web hosts don’t generally offer any guarantees about backing up your data, if anything disappears, it will be on you, and not on them.
Select web hosts who provide a money back guarantee of around seven to thirty days. This type of guarantee is beneficial for both the user and the web host. For the users, they can check out a host without any fear because they know they will be compensated with their money back if they don’t like the service. For the hosts, they can demonstrate just how competent they are in their hosting capabilities. If a web host you’re considering doesn’t provide this service, you may need to find another host.
If you want to have an e-commerce website, look for a host that offers this specific kind of service. Other services might not have the same security features. E-commerce features might be a little more costly, but they will allow you to create a site that looks professional and can support the kind of traffic you need.
Look for a company that offers an “uptime guarantee.” Uptime is also known as the amount of time that a server is online for, as opposed to down, for service or maintenance. A reliable web host should be able to offer some sort of guarantee that your site will be available at least 98 percent of the time, with superior web hosts able to offer 99.9 percent uptime.
Find out what happens to your content in case you wish to cancel your subscription. You should be given a few days to save everything if you wish to switch hosts and you should not be charged any cancellation fees. You should also beware of signing for a contract that specifies you cannot cancel your plan.
If you read or find out that a service as a low up-time, this could be a sign that they are filling their servers with too many websites and cause them to crash often. This means your site will be down regularly and loading your pages will take a lot of time.
There are many web hosting companies to choose from, but not all will be suitable for your site. Take the time to compare hosts, and put these suggestions to use as you assess your needs, make comparisons, and ultimately select the right web host with the service and features you need.