Buying a cheap hosting plan because you need to save money may sound like a great idea. The truth is that in time, you may end up paying more for fees or downtime than you would have with a better company. Read the following article to get some good advice that your small business will benefit from when it comes to web hosting.
Evaluate the types of sites that your web host offers. You need to be concerned with the ability to create dynamic pages. Some free sites don’t allow you to do this. If you can only create static pages, you won’t be able to add scripts you coded yourself, and you will therefore be severely limited in what you can do. A paid host account will entitle you to more flexibility.
While it’s common for web hosts to offer add-ons with their packages, the actual features and packages vary widely between hosts. When comparing web hosting companies, be sure the packages you’re looking at have similar features. For instance, one host can have a lower price advantage, but the feature you need may only be in a package that is higher priced.
Web hosting services charge you based on the kind of traffic your site is getting. Be sure to ask about your host’s billing strategy, so that you can budget accordingly for the price that you will end up paying.
Customer Service
If you are a novice in web design, go for a web host that offers great customer service rather than a lot of bells and whistles. As a beginner, you will find that you have many questions as to how to utilize certain features of the web hosting package. You may find that web applications are helpful, but having full customer service with technical support makes a world of difference in ease of use.
Your web host should be the recipient of plenty of hosting awards. This is a great method for evaluating the available service and support. Visitors and customers often choose the winners of these awards. While sometimes these awards are not legitimate, most are, so they provide a good way to judge a hosting company. Look for a host with a lot of awards requiring votes from their clients.
If you want to get more traffic on your site, search for a host that provides a SEO feature. This feature can help your site get registered with the search engines. That said, submitting your sites manually has some advantages, particularly that you can enter a site description that will entice visitors to click on your link.
Be very cautious if you are going to use an inexpensive web host. You may be tempted by the low price, but remember that it may indicate a lack of service. You cannot afford to host your site on a server that is not properly maintained, or that might not exist anymore in a few months.
There are a few hosting services that will generate a refund for you to offset site downtime. Generally, the refund is not much to speak of, but the loss of potential sales can hurt your business. Your focus should be on the hosts uptime rates, and not on their refund policy.
As your website gets more visitors, you may want to upgrade your service plan. Find out how the service handles upgrades. There should be a specific process for upgrading that minimizes problems and allows upgrades to occur quickly. When you need additional bandwidth, your hosting company should be able to accommodate your request quickly. Switching from a shared server to a dedicated one should also be a quick and painless process.
See if a prospective web host is a new startup or has been around for years. Try to avoid ones that have only recently started. And when a problem does occur, chances are the web hosting company will have dealt with it before, thus providing the experience you need. They will have fast and efficient procedures in place for common problems. This can increase your confidence that the provider is experienced and capable of offering support and other resources.
Control Panel
Before choosing your web host, you should get a good idea of what the control panel looks like. The ideal control panel should offer step-by-step tutorials, customer support options and other valuable resources. If the navigation panel appears too technical or complex, you may wish to pursue a more user-friendly option.
There are many choices when it comes to choosing a web hosting company, but you shouldn’t let that overwhelm you. There so many web hosting companies nowadays it is ridiculous, you just want to be sure you look around and find a reliable one. So check into every web host you like, and see what they have to offer. Narrow your selections to a number that you can manage, and compare the services that they offer.
Choosing low prices over service and features is not a good solution. If customers cannot get to your website, you will quickly lose your customers and then your business. Use the information that was provided to help you make the right decisions as you choose your website host.