Top Tips on Choosing a Web Host
The online world continues to attract many aspiring entrepreneurs to fulfil their desire to start their businesses. Gone are the days when you had to draw on a large amount of capital to start a business.
Now all you need is a working laptop or desktop and a reliable Internet connection to run a successful business. Regardless of the product or service you want to offer to start an online business, you need a website. Your website should be convenient and easy to use to attract potential customers to buy from you.
It should also make it easy for your customers to come back and make repeat purchases or refer your website to their friends or social media contacts to spread the word. The simple truth is that your website can make or break your business.
This is the reason why it is extremely important to find a reliable web hosting company that can meet all the hosting needs of your online business. Here are some general tips to consider when choosing a web host to get started:
1. Consider your needs. The two most important factors to consider are bandwidth and storage capacity. There is the potential for multiple transactions to occur at the same time once your website goes live and your customer base grows. You should also consider whether you will be storing a lot of files and data on the back end of your site.
If so, you should choose a web host that can provide you with high bandwidth and storage plan. Otherwise, getting a great hosting plan is just a waste of money. If you’re still not sure what your needs will be, get the cheapest plan first, try the service for a month, and then make a few changes.
Tip: Many hosting companies offer unlimited storage and bandwidth for a large number of their base plans. That is why you must review as many as you can.
2. Do Your Research. There are a lot of web hosting companies you can search online, but be sure to do your research before making a final decision. Read reviews of different companies and try to find as much information as possible. Do a comparative study of some of the companies and choose the one that best suits your needs.
3. Consult customer service. If this is your first online business, there will probably be times when you need help. Because of this, you must choose a web host that offers good customer service and support. Try to contact them to ask about their services.
If they are quick, give simple, easy-to-understand answers, and are easy to talk to, you get a pretty good idea of whether you can count on their technical support when you need them.
4. Site Builders. Unless you are an experienced web designer, you probably know very little about building a website from scratch. This is the reason why many web-hosting providers offer their plans to website builders. Site builders are great for beginners as they make building your site as easy as clicking and dragging.
Tip: Be sure to verify that a site builder is included in the plans, as some hosts offer their site builders for an additional fee.
5. Avoid free web-hosting. While free web-hosting may seem like a good idea to start with, you should reconsider as there are several major drawbacks. Did you ever know that many things in life are free? I do not. And that’s a good example.
Free web servers need to generate income somewhere, and they usually do this by placing advertisements on your website. “But I’ll still have ads on my site,” I hear you say. The problem with ads from a free web host is that you have no control over what appears on your website. This creates a credibility problem as your customers see these unnecessary ads. The other problem is the domain name. With a free host, your domain becomes a subdomain of your company. For example, http://www.yoursite.theirsite.com or vice versa instead of http://www.yoursite.com. See the difference Customers will likely not take your business seriously if they don’t choose a dedicated domain name. So if you are serious about your business and making money, choose a professional web hosting company and a dedicated domain name.
Tip: Many hosting companies offer free.com domain names with their hosting packages. We hope these tips help you start finding a reliable host for your online business.
