Having a website is now a necessary part of any business because technology has changed the nature of the business world. If you have no online representation, it indicates that you are allowing your competitors to take over easily. A business website is needed for the smooth functioning of your business, regardless of your industry or specialty. To ensure the maximum uptime of your website, you need a reliable hosting company because downtime to your website is an invitation for competition to take over.
Before choosing a hosting company for your website, there are several factors to consider. Let’s explore.
- 1. Know Your Needs
You will have a plethora of server types to choose from. So, before signing up for any plan, make sure you choose the right plan. Many hosting companies offer several types of virtual servers, shared servers, and dedicated servers along with cloud hosting. We recommend you to choose a shared server initially. As your site grows, you can opt to upgrade to better options depending upon your needs.
- Maximum Uptime Guarantee
Would you stay on a website if it shows as a blank screen or an error message when you open a web page? Absolutely not! In the same way, visitors don’t stay on your website if they see a blank screen or an error message when they go to your website for the first time. Search engines offer users a large number of alternatives and they don’t want to waste their time on a broken site. Frequent downtimes have a very negative impact on a website both in terms of user experience and search engine rankings. Make sure your host give you more than 99.9% uptime guarantee. In addition, multiple backup locations are a plus, so you may have another live option if the main server crashes.
- Excellent Support
Disasters may strike your website anytime because no one can stop them from happening. It’s also possible to face a minor issue like broken email services or installation of the add-ons. At this stage, all you need is good support personnel who can troubleshoot the issue instantly and provide you with the best possible solution. For this reason, make sure the hosting company you are choosing has a professionally trained support department equipped with a 24-hour customer care. Phone and live chat support in your language is a bonus if you are lucky enough to get it.
- Backup and Restore
The web host must have a daily or weekly backup routine, because in many cases, you may lose your data, either by a mistake or as a result of a hacking attempt. Most reliable hosting providers take backups as part of a routine, and you may not suffer any data loss because you’ll have the option to restore it.
- Add-ons
I have been a witness of several cases where my friends signed up for a low-cost hosting package. But, they had to pay an extra amount for some basic add-on services like email accounts, email forwarding, and SSL certificates. Before signing up for any hosting plan, first read their documents, list of features and add-ons. Some hosting providers offer extra add-ons for free, but make sure your website’s speed doesn’t suffer on the cost of free add-ons.
- Refund Policy
Sometimes, the hosting services are not up to your requirements. In such a case, your money may go waste. If you have signed up for the whole year, and the company does not have any refund policy, you might have lost that money. Usually, many companies offer a free trial or 7 day to 90 day money back guarantee. The refund policy can be found on terms and conditions pages of the website; some companies have a dedicated page for it. If it is not found on the website, contact their sales department to learn about their refund policy. So, in case the hosting plan is not up to your expectations, you may switch to another web host. Many companies also offer a monthly payment cycles; instead of choosing a yearly payment plan, you may opt for a monthly payment plan initially.
- Domain Parking Service
Many companies prefer to register domain names for their website. This practice normally occurs when they have several businesses under one umbrella or they want to improve their presence on search engines. Domain Parking facility allows them to divert all the traffic from the parked domains to the main website in real-time. Therefore, it is better to choose the hosting that gives you the ability to add parking domains through your hosting control panel.
- Customer Reviews
After checking for all features, costs, and other important details, here comes one of the most important phase. Yes, check for customer reviews either on the hosting provider’s site or another online review platform. It is the best way to determine the reliability of web hosting provider’s services and their customer support.
The list doesn’t end here; there are several other factors to consider before deciding the hosting provider company for your site. I’d rather say that never compromise on quality for some quick savings because the competition is very tough and a foolish move can result in a disaster.
