What to Consider When Choosing Your Web Host

Are you ready to introduce your business to the world wide web? Taking those first steps to launching your website can be so exciting, but also somewhat confusing. Have you found yourself asking questions like, “Which domain name should I choose?” or “Which web hosting service provider is best?” - you’re not alone! With so many options and complicated terms floating around, it can be difficult to ascertain the right course of action for your business let alone where to start in the first place.

Partnering with an experienced and knowledgeable web host can help to demystify the entire process. In addition to providing the server space and technical support needed to ensure that your website is visible online; a great web host can give appropriate advice and recommendations based on the website you have in mind. To assist you in making the correct choice, here are five factors to take into account before you take up the services of a particular web host.

1. Your Website Needs

Your needs will vary greatly depending on the kind of website you are building. Is it a personal blog or online store? Will your website have a variety of pages and modules or do you plan on keeping it simple? First establish exactly what kind of website you’re wanting to create, then determine what kind of hosting that website will need. For newbies, you may consider starting with a good shared hosting account. However, there are other options at your disposal which include virtual, dedicated or managed web hosting services. At the end of the day, it may come down to your budget and the kind of control you’d like to have over the server your website is hosted on.

2. Technical Capacity

Your web host should be capable of offering storage space and bandwidth that meets your website’s needs. It does take a fair bit of ‘guesstimation’ to determine this but, to give you an example, a website with 100 pages using 2MB per page, will likely require 200MB of disk space and 6GB of bandwidth. With this, you can get up to 3000 page loads in a month or 100 page loads in a day. As you can imagine, it’s important to give careful thought as to what kind of traffic you expect your website to receive so that you can allow for adequate bandwidth.

3. Up Time

Think of all the time and resources that have gone into designing and developing your website, ensuring that it’s the best it can be. This will all be for nothing if your visitors are unable to get to your site to see it all! Which is why it’s vital to find out what kind of ‘up time’ the web host offers. Anything less than 99% is unacceptable, while an up time of 99.9% is the sweet spot to aim for. Unfortunately, some hosts may stretch the truth a bit, which is why its also good to take a look at the host’s customer portfolio and reviews to confirm their credibility.

4. Security and Reliability

Perhaps the most important of all, your chosen web host needs to provide a secure and reliable service. They need to take the necessary steps to protect your site from hackers and keep all your data safe through daily back-ups. Even though you may not want to think about it, technical issues can arise at any time – and when they do, it can take a big load off if it’s quick and easy to contact your web host. Before making your choice, be very clear as to what kind of support service they offer, from the medium you can use to contact them to their promised response time.

5. Additional Services

In addition to the abovementioned points, it’s worthwhile to look at all the extra services a web host can offer you. For example, does the web host also offer email hosting, website design and development, SEO or digital marketing services? Keeping everything with one service provider can help to streamline the entire process and give you peace of mind knowing all your online interests are taken care of by someone that fully understands your business needs.