Selecting a hosting for your site is a very important decision as it is a key foundation to guarantee the success of your company or website. With the right hosting, you can truly enhance the performance of your site. But if you choose poorly you will end up with a headache and with unnecessary expenses.
Long gone are those days when you basically had to take into account disk storage and bandwidth when choosing the right web hosting service. Nowadays you need to adopt a thorough analysis of the hosting company and the features offered when making a decision on the ideal hosting provider for your project or site.
You need to keep in mind that different hosting providers are differently equipped to host different types of websites. There are a number of common yet very essential factors you need to think through before going ahead and committing to a hosting provider.
It can be truly hard making a decision on which cPanel server administration provider to pick. With all those providers out there each promising to have almost 100% uptime, limitless resources, and thorough support, there must be a way to cut to the chase and make an educated and informed decision.
Your hosting choice is key because it will influence your site’s security and performance — eventually reflecting your brand. However, with so all of those hosting providers to select from, how can we make the right decision?
Throughout the following lines, we are going to go through some of the main factors that you should keep in mind when picking the perfect web hosting service for your project.
Keep the needs of your website in mind at all times
A simple online search will show you there are several hosting providers out there. Before you consider any of those, you need to identify the actual needs of your project and site.
The very first step towards picking the ideal web hosting provider is to understand the actual needs of your website. Go ahead and ask questions like “what sort of site am I going to be building?”, “Shall I use WordPress or not?”, or “What is roughly the amount of traffic I should be expecting?”. Now, all these questions probably sound very basic, but they are very important. Simply because the more detailed you are, the easier it will be for you to decide which hosting company will be perfect for the job. Thinking of WordPress? Then consider a managed WordPress hosting service. Are you creating an online store? Then look at hosting services that are expert in eCommerce.
In case you are a complete newcomer, this is a great tip: go ahead and choose a shared hosting plan with a trustworthy provider.
Security, uptime and server reliability
Poor network connections and weak servers may push your website offline more frequently than you might want. This not only leaves out potential viewership or actual sales for an e-commerce online shop but it eventually also leads to lower rankings on search engines. A hosting provider with trustable uptime scores is fundamental to your website’s success. Simply avoid providers that report an annual uptime score below ninety nine percent.
Apart from ensuring that your website and data are always accessible, it is very important to make sure that you also have a secure hosting solution.
Pricing
The number one aspect that pretty much all of us will look at initially when picking a hosting service; however, this should definitely not be your deciding factor. When you see significant differences in pricing, remember that we usually get what we pay for.
Jumping on the cheapest deal you come across is most probably not the best idea, particularly if you are planning to use your website to earn money. Take a very close look at all the features and conditions that each hosting service provides, and then go ahead and compare offers and prices.
Support
Another major factor to keep into consideration is the customer support. Having access to helpful support actually means you will be able to deal with problems faster and more efficiently.
Hosting providers typically provide chat, telephone or ticket-based support. However, the aspect that truly matters is how fast they are able to respond and how knowledgeable their support team is.