When you have a business and plan to jump online, there are many critical decisions—the website’s design, logistics, strategy for promoting, and of course, choosing the best hosting solution.
There are a large number of hosting providers. You must know the objectives correctly and, therefore, your business’s real needs. The needs of a blog or portfolio site are very different from those of an e-shop. One will require so much more resources to manage more traffic, media files, etc.
Here you have some useful tips for choosing the best web hosting solution.
Choose the best DNS for your business!
Look for the right kind of server
Shared servers usually offer the cheapest rates for hosting. Your website shares resources from the server with hundreds of sites.
Cloud servers are big shared networks of computers, and they are the easiest to scale when your traffic and needs grow, without rebuilding or migrating processes.
Virtual private servers (VPS) work on virtual machines with guaranteed resources. Different websites can run on the same device but with better performance than shared servers. Users need knowledge for managing and maintaining servers.
Dedicated servers are the choice if you don’t want to share with others. It’s located in a data center. It is more expensive, but it has better performance.
Check the uptime
No host fulfills the promise of 100% uptime. The highest rate some of the best companies offer goes from 99.0% to 99.9%.
Every website owner, but especially the e-commerce owners, know that downtime can mean a disappointed audience, a significant loss of traffic and money.
Choose a host with a high uptime rate, 99% and higher but not lower. If you have an e-shop, don’t miss a sale.
Bandwidth is a factor
It involves the amount of uploaded and downloaded data from a site. It also means how fast users can access your site. The wider bandwidth, the more users can visit your site simultaneously.
Choose a fast host
Users leave websites that take, for loading, more than 3 seconds. There are different ways to optimize sites and make them faster. But if your host (server) is slow, there won’t be a way to overcome the slowness.
Think about the future. Choose a fast host that can offer high speed now and later when your business grows. That includes fast servers with SSD storage, good connectivity, and location.
Look for a secure host
The Security features that web hostings offer you matter. SSL certificates, IP deny services, firewalls, malware surveillance, servers monitoring, frequent website updates, and backups (if your website gets compromised, to restore it fast once the threat is fixed).
Check customer support availability
It’s so much better to get hosted by a company that takes responsibility for possible failures and efficiently fixes them. Check the support channels web hostings offer (chat, phone, email) and schedules (some cover you 24/7, others work just working days and hours).
Research prices aligned to your budget
Most hosting providers offer their services through different plans. Some include initial discount prices. Always check the regular price to know if you can afford it normally. Some go high after that introductory time. Don’t get dazzled with extra or “unlimited” features you won’t need. Check what the plan includes with the base rate. Some charge you extra for basic services like email. Always be sure there’s an option for you to upgrade in case your business grows.
Conclusion
Choosing the best hosting solution, it’s a critical task. Take a well thought out decision and avoid changes or migration that will cost you extra time and money. Different factors must be considered but take as a starting point of your research hosts that offer good speed, support, and security.