Website Hosting – The Ins and outs of selecting the best hosting solution for your business.
Selecting the right web hosting for your business is crucial because it directly impacts your website’s performance, reliability, and security.
A reliable hosting provider ensures high uptime, meaning your website remains accessible to customers around the clock, fostering trust and preventing potential revenue loss from downtime.
Fast server response times enhance user experience by reducing page load times, which is essential for retaining visitors and improving your site’s search engine ranking.Additionally, the right hosting service provides scalable resources, allowing your website to grow alongside your business without experiencing performance issues. Robust security features protect your site from cyber threats, safeguarding sensitive data and maintaining customer trust. Efficient customer support ensures any technical issues are promptly resolved, minimising disruption to your online operations.
With the top providers out there giving you amazing deals and packages to help secure you as a new customer, choosing the hosting provider that is best suited to your needs can be challenging. Below we look at the top things you should be taking into consideration when it comes to hosting your website online and helping your business get seen.
Reliability and Uptime
- Uptime Guarantee: Look for providers that offer at least a 99.9% uptime guarantee; this will mean that your website will only be down for at most 43.8 minutes a month. While you can find providers that offer 99.99% and above, this will result in higher pricing for your hosting.
- Reputation: Check reviews in multiple places online; don’t take the reviews that are on the hosting provider’s website as your only guide. Many companies will select only the best reviews to be displayed on their website. Choose a site like Trustpilot for the best chance of finding reviews that show you what the company is like. However, do be aware that people are more likely to leave a review for bad service than for good.
Performance and Speed
- Server Locations: Providers with servers closer to your target audience can reduce latency. Look for a company that uses servers in your country or nearby; using a company that is in America for a website that has an intended target audience in the UK will probably experience slower loading times than if you chose a hosting provider in the UK or Europe.
- Resources: Ensure the hosting plan offers adequate CPU, RAM, and storage for your needs. Make sure that the hosting provider is upfront with potential costs relating to the upgrade of items like these.
Security
- SSL Certificates: Ensure the provider offers free SSL certificates to encrypt data.
- Security Features: Look for features like firewalls, DDoS protection, and malware scanning.
- Backups: Automatic, regular backups are essential for data recovery; make sure your website is backed up on a daily basis.
Support
- Customer Support: 24/7 customer support via multiple channels (phone, chat, email) is ideal. Look for a provider that has a ticket response time, as some companies will take a couple of days to get back to you, and when you have a major issue this can be detrimental to your company, also take into account that smaller hosting providers will not offer 24/7 support so make sure you take this into account when you are choosing the best option for your business.
Pricing and Value
- Transparent Pricing: Avoid providers with hidden fees. Look for clear pricing structures.
- Money-Back Guarantee: A satisfaction guarantee or trial period can help you test the service risk-free
- Included Features: Compare what features are included in the price (e.g., email accounts, domain registration, SSL)
Ease of Use
- Control Panel: A user-friendly control panel (like cPanel or Plesk) can make managing your hosting easier
- Website Builders: Some providers offer website builders that can be helpful for beginners, companies such as GoDaddy and 1&1 offer services like these
Additional Features
- Email Hosting: Integration with email services can be beneficial, allowing you to keep all your data in one place.
- Specialised Capabilities: For online stores, look for hosting that supports e-commerce platforms like Magento or WooCommerce. For websites only using WordPress make sure to look for providers that are either WordPress only such as WP-engine or are leaders for WordPress hosting. This will give you great support as they will tailor their packages to suit your website.
- Developer Tools: Features like SSH access, staging environments, and Git integration can be extremely helpful for developers.
Environmentally Friendly
- Green Hosting: Some providers use renewable energy or offer carbon offsets, companies such as Kualo let you see how your services have contributed to the rainforest rebuilding so you can see how many trees you have helped to plant via your hosting plan
