Perhaps you’re looking to host your first business website, or websites, or maybe you’re dissatisfied with your present web hosting provider. Alternatively, you may feel it’s worth surveying the web hosting landscape: you’ve heard about cost effective dedicated cloud hosting and wonder if you’re still getting the best service.
Choosing a web host needs careful thought and a systematic approach.
Your web hosting needs
What type of websites do you presently run or are likely to? Assessing your current and future needs is very important. You’ll want a service that can accommodate your future growth demands without being disruptive.
The uptime record
The figure given for how good the hosting provider is at keeping your site online. Under 99% is considered unacceptable these days.
Upgrade options
A vital consideration as you don’t want the upheaval of moving a stable of websites to another provider if your chosen one cannot meet your changing requirements.
When the time comes to upgrade, the next step up from shared hosting is ideally VPS hosting where you have your own dedicated virtual server minus the expense of your hosting company actually providing a full hardware server for your sole use. For this reason companies with good cloud hosting experience and facilities such as UK Best Web Hosting are worth talking to.
Cloud computing is on the rise – see here for more information on this and other related technology.
Prices
An obvious consideration but quality of service is clearly paramount. Check the pricing scale – in particular the cost implications of upgrading and adding enhancements to your service.
Contract terms and refund policy
Check how long you’ll be committed for and how you extricate yourself from a contract if needs be. Some companies – especially those who major on cloud hosting – will sometimes not have fixed contracts so you can leave at very short notice if necessary.
Terms and conditions
Check these carefully especially in terms of the penalties and implications if you overuse your permitted bandwidth and capacity. Don’t risk your websites suddenly being taken offline for exceeding your allowances.
Check the obvious
Make sure the host offers proper email domain facilities, multiple add on domains and the various standard software interfaces and auto script installers such as Fantastico.
Support
Very important. Does the hosting company offer telephone support? What hours? Is it freephone or local rate? Is there live chat? Do they provide the support themselves or outsource it?
Interface
Is the control panel for your sites easy to use? You don’t want to be calling support every time you want to do something – the easier and clearer it is the better.
Environment
Hardware servers use a lot of power and thus emit CO2 gas. It’s one reason why a company committed to cloud hosting is worth considering as less hardware is used.
Sum up
It may seem a minefield, but keeping your requirements and expectations uppermost will help lead you to the right web hosting company. Networking is useful: perhaps people you know with similar website hosting demands can give you feedback on what their company is like.
