Have you ever set up a new website with a hosting company? These days, websites are much easier to build, and more people are setting up their own sites and getting them hosted. What happens, though, if you get stuck? It is critical that you choose a reliable web hosting company that offers great technical support. Read on for some tips on other important things to look for when choosing a web hosting service.
Select a web hosting provider that has a record of few outages and downtime. If a company faces frequent outages and is constantly making excuses, it is a red flag that they are unreliable, or they would have made plans to remedy the situation. Beware of those companies who have a lot of downtime. Refrain from long contracts with them, if any at all.
If you are going to have a website that mentions products and services that you offer, you need to have e-commerce hosting available in order for the customers to make purchases. You do not want to push your customers, but at every opportunity, they need to have the ability to make a purchase at their disposal.
Resist the temptation to accept free domain registration from the same company you will be using for web hosting. There are many start-ups out there who may – or may not – be around for very long, and they probably will not give clients advance notice if they are going out of business. You will need to have immediate access to your domain registration if this happens, but may not be able to get it if they are out of business.
Call the customer service number and ask about SSL certification and shopping carts. If the technicians are helpful, you have found a web host that understands e-commerce and will be able to meet your needs. On the other hand, if no one is able to answer your technical questions, look for a different host.
To get the most out of a free web host, you’ll need to back up any data and files related to your site. Because free web hosts don’t generally offer any guarantees about backing up your data, if anything disappears, it will be on you, and not on them.
Pick a web host that can give you room to expand. Static HTML pages make only take a few kilobytes of space, but if you decide to add a photo album or a lot of videos, your disk space requirements will grow quite a bit. Make sure that you have access to at least 100 MB of storage, which should allow you plenty of room to grow and develop your website.
You now know how to differentiate between the good and the bad web hosting companies. Keep the above tips in mind as you shop around for a hosting company, to make sure that you find one that offers high quality for the dollars you spend. This is one of the best investments you can make in the future of your online business.