Websites are no longer a luxury for businesses but a necessity. If you own a business and do not have a website, you are in a disadvantageous position compared to competitors. A website serves as a communication and marketing tool for all organizations. It can also be used for Customer Service through chatbots and AI tools.
So, if you want to increase your reach and expand your business, launching a website should be the first thing you need to do. For that, you will need a Web Hosting provider.
In this blog, we will see how to select a Web Hosting provider for your business website in order to drive sales and broaden your horizons.
Let’s get started!
What Is a Web Hosting Provider?
When you want to launch a website on the world wide web, you need to upload your website content onto a web server. This web server connects the website to a user from anywhere in the world.
In short, a company that hosts websites on their servers, and provides the connectivity and other necessary services for a fee, is called a Web Hosting provider. They have a wide range of hosting plans to suit the needs of small, mid-sized, and large businesses.
Criteria For Selecting a Web Hosting Provider
Load Time
Load time is the amount of time it takes for a web page to load. This directly affects the amount of traffic you will get, as visitors do not like to wait until the page loads.
A study by Google revealed that 53% of mobile site visitors leave if the load time is more than 3 seconds. So, you need a web hosting service provider who can provide a faster load time.
Up Time
You probably know about downtime, which is the total amount of time for which a website is not working.
And the longer your website is down, the more business you will lose to competitors. This means that your website uptime should be as close to 100% as possible. If your average uptime is below 99%, then you need to look for a different web hosting provider.
Support
After-sales support is one thing to look for in any product, and Web Hosting is no different. Good support means your technical snags and downtime is resolved quickly.
Generally, Web Hosting providers provide phone, chat, or on-site support, but the most important thing is how fast they respond to it. The other important factor is how knowledgeable the support team is.
Bandwidth and Storage
Web Hosting bandwidth is the amount of data a website can provide visitors over a certain period. So, the higher the bandwidth you can get, the better. Similarly, the more storage you can get, the better it would be.
Storage means the amount of site content you will be allowed to store, including text, images, databases, code, or emails.
Security
Oh! This word rings alarm bells, isn’t it?
Security is something you want everywhere, including on your website. Your web hosting provider should provide you with security features like DDoS protection, RAID, LetsEncrypt SSL, etc.
Your and customer data should be safe; therefore, you need to inquire about security features before choosing a Web hosting provider. Some provide an extra layer of security to your website.
Server Location
It is simple logic that the closer your servers are to your target audience, the faster your Web Pages will load. So, you must be sure about where your host’s servers are located and whether you will get multiple server locations.
If you have a global audience, you should choose a host that provides you with Content Delivery Network (CDN). This will enable faster page loading as a CDN store a cached copy of your site on servers located across the world so that visitors get the page from the closest server.
Type of Hosting
If you have recently launched your business and do not expect too much traffic initially, you should go for shared hosting. However, if you already have lots of traffic, and need more bandwidth, then go for Cloud hosting or a Virtual Private Server (VPS).
The other category is managed hosting or unmanaged hosting. You don’t have to worry about software updates and security with the former.
You should also consider whether your web hosting provider allows upgrading to a higher plan without any downtime.
Backup Options
You need to prepare yourself for situations like hacking attacks. For this, you need a backup to store all your website data on a periodic basis. So, you need to ask your web hosting provider how frequent the backups are. Ideally, you should take backups on a daily basis.
Pricing & Plans
Different Web Hosting providers have different plans, each with different pricing. You need to figure out your requirements and your monetary resources.
But be careful!
Don’t go for a web hosting provider just to save some money.
The renewal charges should also be known to you, as sometimes the cost of renewal is more than the initial subscription.
Cancellation & Refund Policy
It may happen that everything looks good about a Web Hosting provider, but after a few months, you realize that you are not getting the service you expected.
This makes it essential that you know clearly about the cancellation & refund policy of your Web Hosting provider. So, read the fine print well to be clear about the cancellation & refund policy.
Read More: Why SEO Is Important For Your Website?
Best Web Hosting Providers
Here we have mentioned some of the 5 best Web Hosting Providers below.
Hostinger:
This provider offers dependable hosting at an affordable price. Hostinger uses its own control panel, which is called hpanel, which is user-friendly. You can manage several tasks, including activating, deactivating plugins, and updating the core WordPress version.
Bluehost:
It is considered the best for WordPress websites, with a beginner-friendly platform. Bluehost also offers great analytics and SEO tools to check the rankings of your website. This helps you in optimizing your site to have the best rankings.
It provides upgrade options like managed WordPress, VPS, and dedicated hosting.
DreamHost:
This Web Hosting provider has month-to-month pricing, which offers huge savings along with solid hosting performance. It also offers managed WordPress hosting, DreamPress, a hassle-free way to host a WordPress website.
HostGator:
You get a web hosting service with all essential features at a great price and a 4-5 day money-back guarantee. HostGator provides a list of How-to guides for technical support along with phone, live chat, and email support. It is one of the top choices of every customer because it also offers the Hostgator coupon code which gives you the biggest saving on the bill of any Web Hosting Plan.
GreenGeeks:
As the name suggests, it is an eco-friendly web hosting service provider. Sounds interesting!
How do they do that?
They make use of renewable energy to power their web hosting services. GreenGeeks offers fast speeds, superb uptime, and solutions for WordPress Hosting, WooCommerce Hosting, Virtual Private Servers, Reseller Web Hosting, and Shared Hosting.
Wrapping Up
Selecting a Web Hosting provider requires a lot of analytical thinking, and the process should not be hushed upon. You need to take into consideration all the features you want and then select a Web hosting provider accordingly.
So, get in touch with 2 or 3 providers and then decide on one, based on which one best fits your needs.
You can also get in touch with us at One Dollar Web Hostings. We can help you with your Web Hosting service needs.