Sunday 20 October 2013

What To Look For When Choosing A Web Host

By Jack Thomas


If you're just starting your first business website, opt for shared hosting. There are two principal different types of hosting on offer: shared, which is low-priced, but has less options, and dedicated, in which you get the works and lots of customizability, but you pay for the privilege. Beneficial shared hosting plans can be had for just a couple of dollars a month.

Web hosts offer a whole range of hosting space, from 1GB to unlimited. It's vital that you check how much space you'll be getting with your web host and that you have some idea how much traffic of space your website or sites generate in order to select the best plan. Remember if you start using more space than the host allows you then you'll have to start paying for it.

Once you've chosen a web host then you need to ensure it has been performing satisfactorily. Give it a few months and then check the overall availability of your website. A 99% availability means that your website has been accessible all the time which is a great result. If the rate is distinctly lower than 99% then perhaps look at jumping host - or at least complaining!

Pick a hosting service that lets you to immediately and readily look at your web facts and figures. You will want to identify things such as how many people are going to your website and what pages they are viewing. You can even understand how long they remained on your site, and what search keywords they used to find you. These can be important in the long run, so use a server who has these tools.

Do your research and look at review of the web host that you're considering, try and find genuine user reviews instead of affiliate spam and see what they have to say about the pros and cons of the service. Try to know as much as possible about the company as you can before you sign on the dotted line.

You must look for a web host that supplies a great FTP application. An FTP software assists you to upload new content to your site promptly and safely. If you have to go to your host's site and log in to post new content, you are wasting a lot of time.

A reliable internet host ought to supply good support. If your site goes down suddenly then every minute lost could be triggering huge damage to your traffic, your fans and your salary. It's important that your web host can determine the issue swiftly and more notably, fix it. Take a look at the manner of support that your internet host offers - is it an email ticketing system? An in-hour telephone support. A simple FAQ or is it a live-chat facility? There's countless means of doing it and to my mind I've only found one web hosting service that does it correctly and that's InMotion Hosting. I've been with these guys for a year now and their customer support system is what retains me a satisfied patron. Not only is it a live chat service but it's also 24/7 - absolutely fundamental when you're desperately tearing your hair out. In fact the success of InMotion's customer support was what triggered me to write my InMotion Hosting review video blog. I'd never been so delightfully surprised by the support of a digital organization as I had with InMotion.

Finally, a good test is to see whether the web hosting company has a decent website themselves. If it's shoddy and thrown together then it may be that they a leaching company that is trying to capitalise on quick, easy fixes and they don't plan on being around too long. A quality and robust website at least demonstrates they know the arena they're operating in.




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