How to Choose Right Hosting Provider For Your Website [CHECKLIST]
In our previous article, we discussed about web hosting basics. To host your website & make it available on-line, you need a web host or hosting provider company. There are thousands of web hosting companies in market. So how does a business owner decide if a web host is right for his business?
This article will give you answer for some questions like “how to know if a web host is right?” “How to protect your website or business from wrong web host?”
1. Determine Your Hosting Need
- To choose the right web host, you must know your website need.
- Look at your website. What your website do? Is it personal website? Is it Blog site? Is it a business website?
- Now you need to make sure which type of hosting service is good for your website. We‘ve discussed different types of hosting in previous post.
- While choosing a web host, always keep the future in mind and plan accordingly.
- So choose the best company which can provide relevant hosting service, applications & software for your website.
2. Cost or Price
- Price is the first thing most of us will look when choosing a hosting provider.
- Look for a hosting provider which provides reasonable pricing. You must avoid free hosting programs.
- Make sure that there is no hidden cost.
- Pay attention to the refund policy of web host. Will you get money back if you are not satisfied with service? Read your contract very carefully.
- Choose the plan which best suits your need.
3. Website Speed
- Website speed is main concern for every website owner.
- Google penalize websites & give low reputation that are slow in loading speed.
- Now a days competition is very high, so no one can afford to get penalized & bad user experience.
- Your web hosting company must take care of this and for this you must make sure the best plan suiting your needs so the website open with least latency time.
- Before you choose a company, you need to consider – the location of data centers of hosting company.
- All in all you need a brief technical study before deciding to buy the resources from vendors.
4. Compare Features
- Before purchase a web hosting service, always perform some comparisons between web hosting companies.
- Compare plans & features of some hosting companies.
- Pay attention to uptime guarantee. Many host guarantee 99.9% uptime or more.
- This comparison would help you to save more money & Find those that fits your needs.
5. Storage and bandwidth Allowances
- Be aware of the storage space you get from your web hosting provider.
- If your website is content heavy which contains lots of videos, images, web pages etc, you will require more storage space.
- Bandwidth is the amount of data that can be transferred at a given moment to a server. To handle large amount of traffic, your website need higher bandwidth.
- Make sure that hosting provider offers you sufficient bandwidth.
6. Customer Review
- Customer reviews of company is an excellent resource in evaluating web hosts.
- You must search for current or old customers reviews on the company’s service.
- You can also check on-line reputation of company.
7. Customer Support
- Customer support is one of the most important factor while choosing a web host.
- Customer support is the place where you ask for help about their services and issues on their platform.
- Every business owner want a trusted customer support behind hosting service to handle down-time & technical issues.
- Look for companies that provide 24/7 phone support, email support and online chat.
- You must test these support mediums by sending e-mail during your free time.
10 Quick Tips
1. Check comparisons of web hosting services & web hosts. There are many websites which provide these type of comparison.
2. Check out the company history & Always consider old companies in this industry.
3. Look at pricing. Make sure there is no hidden charges.
4. What is uptime guarantee & refund policy of company?
5. Check domain age of company(WHOIS) & avoid new companies.
6. Don’t trust unlimited offers.
7. Always check customer reviews.
8. There is no such thing like “Unlimited”. Never believe unlimited storage & bandwidth.
9. Test the customer support.
10. Read carefully your contract & Terms of Service (ToS).
In our previous article, we discussed about web hosting basics. To host your website & make it available on-line, you need a web host or hosting provider company. There are thousands of web hosting companies in market. So how does a business owner decide if a web host is right for his business?
This article will give you answer for some questions like “how to know if a web host is right?” “How to protect your website or business from wrong web host?”
1. Determine Your Hosting Need
- To choose the right web host, you must know your website need.
- Look at your website. What your website do? Is it personal website? Is it Blog site? Is it a business website?
- Now you need to make sure which type of hosting service is good for your website. We‘ve discussed different types of hosting in previous post.
- While choosing a web host, always keep the future in mind and plan accordingly.
- So choose the best company which can provide relevant hosting service, applications & software for your website.
2. Cost or Price
- Price is the first thing most of us will look when choosing a hosting provider.
- Look for a hosting provider which provides reasonable pricing. You must avoid free hosting programs.
- Make sure that there is no hidden cost.
- Pay attention to the refund policy of web host. Will you get money back if you are not satisfied with service? Read your contract very carefully.
- Choose the plan which best suits your need.
3. Website Speed
- Website speed is main concern for every website owner.
- Google penalize websites & give low reputation that are slow in loading speed.
- Now a days competition is very high, so no one can afford to get penalized & bad user experience.
- Your web hosting company must take care of this and for this you must make sure the best plan suiting your needs so the website open with least latency time.
- Before you choose a company, you need to consider – the location of data centers of hosting company.
- All in all you need a brief technical study before deciding to buy the resources from vendors.
4. Compare Features
- Before purchase a web hosting service, always perform some comparisons between web hosting companies.
- Compare plans & features of some hosting companies.
- Pay attention to uptime guarantee. Many host guarantee 99.9% uptime or more.
- This comparison would help you to save more money & Find those that fits your needs.
5. Storage and bandwidth Allowances
- Be aware of the storage space you get from your web hosting provider.
- If your website is content heavy which contains lots of videos, images, web pages etc, you will require more storage space.
- Bandwidth is the amount of data that can be transferred at a given moment to a server. To handle large amount of traffic, your website need higher bandwidth.
- Make sure that hosting provider offers you sufficient bandwidth.
6. Customer Review
- Customer reviews of company is an excellent resource in evaluating web hosts.
- You must search for current or old customers reviews on the company’s service.
- You can also check on-line reputation of company.
7. Customer Support
- Customer support is one of the most important factor while choosing a web host.
- Customer support is the place where you ask for help about their services and issues on their platform.
- Every business owner want a trusted customer support behind hosting service to handle down-time & technical issues.
- Look for companies that provide 24/7 phone support, email support and online chat.
- You must test these support mediums by sending e-mail during your free time.
10 Quick Tips
1. Check comparisons of web hosting services & web hosts. There are many websites which provide these type of comparison.
2. Check out the company history & Always consider old companies in this industry.
3. Look at pricing. Make sure there is no hidden charges.
4. What is uptime guarantee & refund policy of company?
5. Check domain age of company(WHOIS) & avoid new companies.
6. Don’t trust unlimited offers.
7. Always check customer reviews.
8. There is no such thing like “Unlimited”. Never believe unlimited storage & bandwidth.
9. Test the customer support.
10. Read carefully your contract & Terms of Service (ToS).