If you want people to find your business online, your website must be on the internet. A web hosting provider will do this for you. Because it’s their job to get your site online, picking a good web hosting provider is exceptionally vital.
However, it’s not relatively easy looking for a hosting web service that will work for you on your own. You probably want to look for a web hosting provider that offers WordPress. At the same time, you want to pick a hosting solution that does its job. Good hosting providers offer 24/7 customer support and virtually no downtime.
Here are some handy tips to finding the best web hosting for your site:
1. Know what your website’s needs are
Before getting started, you need to sit down and list your needs. Creating a list allows you to prioritize your needs based on the specifics of the web hosting that you are comparing.
At Sytian Productions Website Design Philippines, we tell clients that if their site has a specific niche, for instance, you need to consider that.
Let’s say you’re building a photography site. You might have to prioritize web design, speed, and storage features. Some hosts offer Content Delivery Options for content-heavy areas.
Meanwhile, if you’re an e-commerce site, then you might want to focus on things like bandwidth and security. Several hosting plans are specific to e-commerce. You also need to consider how much and what kind of support you need.
2. Consider your website-building and bundling options
Do you want to build your site or opt for a DIY website builder like Squarespace and Wix? It would help if you also thought about whether or not you want your services to be bundled.
- Web hosting and website builder combined: Many website builders also provide web hosting. This offer allows you to build your site and receive hosting as part of the package.
- Web hosting that’s separate from a site builder: Similarly, you can opt for a host that doesn’t offer web building if you’re creating a customized site or using a specific website builder that doesn’t include hosting like WordPress.
3.Compare the features
When it comes to comparing features, check how your data is stored. Most budget providers use a hard drive, which is cheap and prone to mechanical failure.
More and more hosting providers are switching to solid-state disks, which are a lot more reliable and speed up your site because of data transfer operations.
Another thing that you might want to check is whether or not the hosting plan comes with automatic backups. Having a backup for your content and static pages is vital if you’re quickly recovering from server failure or a hack on your site.
4. Choose a portable CMS to avoid lock-in
Although most hosts are quite good, things quickly change, which may affect your web hosting plans. So, ensure that your site isn’t locked and you have a backup practice in place.
Also, make sure that you have an open-sourced content management system. Make sure that you do backups and updates regularly. That way, you always have access to your site’s data, media, and structure.
This approach means you might need to load your backup in another provider service and then point your domain name to that provider.
5. Know the bandwidth and traffic
Bandwidth is the number of bytes downloaded from your site to site visitors.
Although some hosting companies claim they have unlimited bandwidth, there’s a limit that can be exceeded and may incur additional charges.
You should watch out for bandwidth if you think that your site will bring in high traffic levels.
6. Look for scalability
Scalability is also another essential thing that you might want to consider. If there’s a change in your need, you don’t want to switch to another web host. A great hosting company will provide you the option to upgrade or downsize your current hosting package if needed.
Ideally, it’s best to start with a shared hosting account and then upgrade later on to a dedicated server. However, most web hosting companies offer a reasonable allowance for the bandwidth on their shared hosting packages.
7. Learn about the server locations
You might also want to ask yourself the following questions:
- Is the location of the data centers vital for you?
- Do you want to gather your customers’ personal data on your site?
- Are you compliance-led?
If your answer is yes to most of these questions, you might want to look into your server location. Some web hosting providers allow you to pick your data center location.
Now, the advantage of choosing your data center is speed and performance. Elements like large scripts, WordPress themes, and resource-heavy sites can impact how fast a site loads.
These factors all play a role in site performance and load times.
8. Ensure transparent pricing plans
Your sites, content, design, and programming needs will all affect the cost of the hosting web package you need to get.
Make sure that the web provider you choose lays out all the costs. Try to avoid businesses that give misleading prices and hidden fees that add up to the costs.
Let’s say that a web host says they charge for as low as $5 per month, and they throw in a mandatory charge of $5 during checkout. So, make sure that you choose providers that don’t charge you hidden fees.
9. Look for reliability and security
Trusting someone to host your site can be daunting. Ensure that it will keep your site secure provides an information redundancy system and constant backups.
That way, if ever you undergo any natural or unforeseen problems, you’ll still have a site that’s fully operational and online.
Over to You
So there you have it. You’ll have more confidence in choosing the best web hosting provider by considering these tips. Choose a provider that you feel understands your needs and pick the right plan that suits your profile.