Many small online businesses tend to choose cheaper website hosting providers in order to keep costs lower. Unfortunately, a cheap, low-quality web host is likely to cause many problems, and cost you more money in the long term. Keep reading below to learn some solid advice and hosting tips for those with small businesses.
Should you consider dedicated hosting? What about shared hosting? If you have a huge and complicated site that receives tons of visitors, you may discover that shared hosting is curtailing your advancement and limiting your ability to serve your customers. A dedicated host may be an optimal choice in these situations.
Different hosts may have different features and add-ons like website builders or one-click installs of third-party content managers. Stick with the companies that offer the services you need. A cheaper host may not have the same level of features as one that costs a bit more but has a more robust plan.
Create a list of your needs ranked by importance before you start your web host research. If you have a clear idea of what you want and need, it will be easier to compare your available options. This list can help you avoid bad decisions that you might base on just one or two criteria.
Choose a web host that does not have constant outages. Companies that have many outages, but make excuses for each outage are not reliable, as they have obviously not made any plans to prevent or shorten lengthy outages. In addition, it’s not professional to leave outage problems unaddressed. Don’t make any agreements with such a company.
In order to keep hosting fees minimized, comparison shop for a web host that can meet all of your needs, but also charges reasonable fees. Web hosting costs vary from $2 to $50 a month or more, and many times, the cheaper services have better reliability. While you will often see bandwidth increase if you pay for a higher priced host, the lower priced options might not mean any increase in downtime, which should influence your final decision.
If you aren’t happy with the hosting services you are receiving, start checking out backup hosts. In case you decide you need a new service, you will be able to change to a new host quickly, because you know to which one you want to subscribe.
Be very clear on what an unlimited service package actually offers. For instance, there could be limited file types allowed for hosts that offer some unlimited limitations. Also, it is possible to interpret unlimited bandwidth as a payment plan that is tiered. Try to get complete information on these different plan types. Don’t just automatically assume unlimited actually means unlimited.
Is free hosting looking good for your needs? If you do choose a free web host, make sure all important files are backed up. Keep in mind that since they are free, these types of services normally do not offer extra features like backups. Therefore, if your data is lost and you do not have your own backups, there will be nothing you can do.
Don’t join a free host just because they’re free. They typically require you to advertise on your site. You cannot choose the advertisements that you will need to post. Also, these random ads placed on your site give it an unprofessional look and feel.
Hosts Charge
Having a good reputation is highly valuable to any great web host. Reading the reviews and the articles about web hosts will help you quickly realize that with different hosts come different types of reputations. Find one that you feel you can trust to do business with. This will also help you sort out the ones that don’t have a good track record.
How much traffic you get will affect the size and price of the website hosting plan you need. Find out how your host is going to bill you: some hosts charge different flat rates and your site progresses from one category to the other as it gets more traffic, while other hosts charge you a different amount every month in function of your traffic.
The hosting company that you choose should be able to support all programming languages you use, or plan to sometime use on your site. You can’t put your site online, if your host does not support the languages you use. In addition, if you decide to use a programming language in the future that is not supported, it is very likely that your web host will not be able to accommodate. Keep in mind that switching hosts can be extremely difficult and time consuming.
A high-quality hosting service should provide you with a wide range of useful site statistics, such as how much traffic your site is receiving. Get a visitor counter on your site, and compare this number to the statistics given to you by your web host. This information will help you tailor your marketing schemes to your target audience and gauge the success of your changes.
Consider using a dedicated server rather than a shared one. Using a dedicated server can give you access to more bandwidth, space for storage, and website security. This can give your customers a better experience on your site. As with any business, customers that leave happy come back.
Be aware of your web host’s guarantee policy and whether they offer money back if you’re not satisfied. During the first 30 days of service, you should be afforded the right to cancellation and a refund based upon your relative satisfaction or dissatisfaction. Some hosting providers make promises they cannot keep.
A host that has a SEO feature can help you increase the traffic coming to your site. This type of host feature registers you with multiple search engines. You may need to register the site yourself as this allows you more control.
Many hosting services actually rely on a major host of their own. These company buy a large amount of server space at a discounted price, and then make a profit by renting it to host smaller websites. You should check out different web hosts under the same company, as you may find a better deal this way!
Understand that certain hosting services are based on Linux, while others are based on Windows. This can mean that you get access to various features and need to get comfortable with these features. Linux generally is cheaper to use when compared to Windows, so it may mean lower prices when hosting your site.
Your web host should have an excellent reputation. Research web hosts to see which have a trustworthy reputation and a long record of good service. Companies that don’t provide good service should be identifiable online based on reviews.
A web host should have several back up connections in case their primary one goes offline. Make sure the web hosts you are looking at have this. A host with only one connection can easily go offline, which means your site goes down also. Make sure the company has redundant connections and that every one of those connections is capable of supporting your site.
Programming Languages
If your web host provider has an outage, it may refund you for the time that your site was down. This monetary refund policy is often just a few cents even if you lose a lot of money while the site was down. You should look for web hosts that offer reliable services over refunds for downtime.
The company you select should be able to meet both your current and future needs of programming languages on your website. If your host doesn’t support your languages, it could mean a costly rebuild of your site. Also, you are not going to have the support you need in the future if you choose to start using one of the programming languages that your host does not accommodate. Switching hosts can be tedious.
Do not let low prices dictate your choice of a web host. Finding great deals is always nice, but you usually get what you pay for so don’t make your choices solely based on a cheaper price. You may end up giving up quality service and/or support when you just choose the cheapest host.
It is probably clear to you now that many factors go into choosing a web hosting company and just how important it is for your online needs. For small business owners, it’s crucial that your website is online as much as possible in order to generate profits for paying the bills. If you don’t, your business will quickly fail. Take the advice you have learned here and apply it to your search for a web host. Knowing what to look for and what to avoid is half of the battle.
Look through web hosting directories. You’ll find all the hosts available which meet your particular needs when it comes to pricing, features and size. You can also check out the prices of all the different companies, especially any ones you are most interested in. The directories also provide a variety of reviews.
