* Looking for the best hosting provider for your business can be overwhelming in the least. Any wrong choice or hasty decision could result in lost sales and revenue leading to heart-ache in an ever competitive market. Thus, the first and most important question arises: What type of hosting do you need?
For business purposes, free hosting is usually ill-advised. It can be unreliable and slow. Many free hosts also bog down your website with advertisements which would detract from your business.
Shared hosting services, on the other hand, may be effective for some small and medium sized businesses. Even some larger enterprises can do well on a feature rich shared hosting plan. Shared hosting may be an affordable way to get your website online; but at times your website may run slower than you desire as there will be multiple websites on one server.
Collocated hosting is where the business buys its own server. The hosting provider will then maintain the network but nothing else. You will need to hire or outsource for someone to maintain the server and take care of any problems that arise. This adds an even greater expense, but the hosting experience is usually reliable and secure.
Dedicated hosting is a cheaper option. Think of it as leasing a server from a website. Your website and yours alone will be on this server. There is unmanaged dedicated hosting which comes with limited support, or managed hosting in which your hosting provider will now provide extensive technical support, maintenance and management of your server. With dedicated hosting you can depend on high levels of reliability and security.
* What is the ‘uptime’? For a business website the highest possible uptime is critical. Do not even consider a host that can not guarantee an uptime of at least 99%. Ask the host if they keep tabs on their server uptimes. A particularly good web host should do so. If they monitor their servers properly they can quickly identify and solve problems. It is also a way for you to learn how reliable their services really are. You do not want to be paying for hosting only to find that your website is often offline.
* How much bandwidth is on offer? You do not want to select a plan with too little bandwidth for your website. On the other hand, you do not want to pay for an abundance of bandwidth that you do not need or will never use.
The amount of bandwidth will essentially tell you how much data can pass through the network during the month. The more bandwidth you have with a hosting package, the more website traffic your website is able to receive and handle each and every month. It may also be worth considering an ‘additional bandwidth’ option. This will give you some leeway on months when your website has even more traffic than usual. Having some extra bandwidth will help you to avoid having to pay overage fees in any given month.
Estimate how much bandwidth you will need before you start shopping for hosting. For example, multiply your estimated number of visitors X page size X expected number of views X 30 days. If your website offers downloads, factor this in too, as well as your own uploads and emails.
* What are the additional features available? E-Commerce is perhaps the most important for an online business. By using ecommerce hosting, you can easily sell products and services online without the need for any extensive technical knowledge.
An SSL certificate is an essential ecommerce feature. It is a method of protecting your customers’ private information. You do not want the possibility of their personal data or payment information to be accessed by anyone else on the Internet. By protecting your clients and offering them a secure ordering process, customers will be much more inclined to buy from you.
Some web hosts will provide ecommerce packages that can be customized. You can select the features that you need for the website (shopping cart, website statistics, secure logins, email accounts, etc.) In doing so you can increase the productivity of your website and will hopefully be able to make even more sales. However, always distinguish between those services that are provided for free of charge and those extras which you have to pay for.
* What support is available? You should always look for a host provider offering 24/7 customer support. If you ever experience problems with your hosting, you will want them solved immediately. Should your website ever be offline this is time that you may be losing customers and revenue.
What experience does the hosting company have? Before signing up with any host, it may be a good idea to give them a bit of presales test. This is an opportunity to see how friendly their support team is and how long they take to respond to your inquiries.
Take your time to search for a host that offers you with the bandwidth, disk space and applications needed for your website. Make sure that the host has been in business for awhile and appears stable. Ask them about how many workers they employ and how many websites they are currently hosting. You do not want to host with a company that will disappear in a few weeks.
It might be a good idea to tell the host a little bit about your intended website. What is the purpose of the site and how are you looking for the site to perform? You can also ask a host some questions about their hosting equipment. Find out if they own and operate their own data center. Ask for some information on their data center and the specs on their servers. What type of software do they use? What is their operating system? Questions like these can tell you more about the hosting services and help you to see how knowledgeable the staff is about the hosting services.
It is important to realize that a hosting provider, who may be ideal for one business, may not be suitable for yours. Most people make their final decision based on cost. However, I warn you to take your time and carefully consider what is available. Always remember the adage: ‘you get what you pay for.’ Happy hunting for your business host!
Paul Buntrage
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