If you are a blogger, an e-commercialist, or any other web hosting user, it’s essential that you understand the nuances of this kind of service. You may have all you need for a good website: perfect images, excellent content, etc. yet still lack sufficient understanding of how web hosting works.
Often, in the beginning, website owners are focused on the content. To learn a little bit about hosting, they use Wikipedia or other publicly available sources that provide basic information. This type of sources do not offer deep insight, and website owners often end up choosing the web hosting that offers the lowest price. The majority of novice website owners are not interested in the pros and cons of a web hosting service.
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Imagine a situation. You have noticed an interesting article on Google, Facebook, or Twitter feed. You click on it wanting to read more, and you have to wait forever to open it. Finally, you can see that images are broken and the text is a mess. Annoying, isn’t it? And you know what? This could be your website, too, and your visitors could be feeling as frustrated as you. And this could be your web hosting company’s fault.
On the other hand, you can boost your website and make some changes to improve the website loading speed. Even your web hosting provider will tell you to optimize the website from your side. However, you cannot even begin to imagine how web hosting provider can operate the server’s configuration settings and speed up your website. How much do you really about this possibility?
What is Web Hosting?
Wikipedia provides quite inadequate a definition of web hosting. Mainly, it is a service that allows making websites visible and accessible on the internet (World Wide Web). Host companies are organizations that provide space on the server to lease to clients. Web hosts also assure internet connectivity worldwide, mainly from their data center.
This definition is very basic and gives no information on how to choose a provider and what the nuances of the web hosting business are. Also, there is no information regarding how one provider differs from another.
Qualities of a Good Web Host
A good web hosting company will always provide some additional bonuses to its customers for the same price. You should choose a provider that meets your needs the best.
The most important thing is the server speed that can be controlled by the service provider. You need to keep in mind that slow server access speed may cause slow website loading. This type of situation can end up with the “I tried to open an article, and it’s still loading” scenario.
A hamster will take a look at some features that you need to pay attention to when choosing a web hosting provider.
A Website Speed Guarantee
Not all web hosting providers can guarantee website speed. Some of them will offer you to upgrade the cheapest package to get a stable rate so that at an additional cost, you can order some speed features. Do not expect to get high speed with the cheapest packages as it is technically impossible. Features require additional investment, so naturally, the price will increase.
Usually, you will end up with an upgraded shared hosting package, or VPS hosting with a speed guarantee.
Excellent Reliability of Web Hosting Service
The best web hosting providers will offer you an almost 100% server uptime. This is not a surprise. Nowadays, good internet network connections and qualified work of server administrators are as usual in the web hosting business as having a glass of water every day.
This means you need to claim 99% or more of service reliability as you do not want your website to be down most of the hosting time. This feature is necessary so that you can offer a quality experience to your visitors. Even 0.05% downtime in a year equals two entire days.
User-Friendly Interface
Imagine this – you order a package, pay for a year or more, and finally realize that you are lost in a jungle of interface. It is essential for you to see how you will manage your service and how friendly the environment is on your website. Make sure you understand every detail, and you like the interface. Before ordering, check how to add a domain, check your backups, resources, etc.. If you are a WordPress user, you need to know how to access the admin panel, etc.
Support
Nowadays live support (not internet chatbots) is vitally important for the business. If there are any questions, check if online assistance is available 24/7 and what the quality of help is. Also, do not forget to check out if the web hosting provider supplies a knowledge base, FAQ, or any other additional information regarding services and the setup procedure.
What about The Price?
If you’re new to web hosting, you may see that many providers offer cheap packages with unlimited resources. You will probably think: “If all the providers are the same, why not to go with the cheapest one?”
Hamster agrees that a higher price does not always mean better quality. However, there is something you should know about the cheapest service providers. They cut their costs by not providing a full 24/7 support or updating servers infrequently. This may cause serious security issues or even hacks into your website. Is that something you want to avoid from happening?
Do not get upset; you can get a cheaper yet still valuable shared hosting for less than $3 per month with excellent technical support. Before you make up your mind, check the company’s history, reviews, and articles.
Some key elements that you need to pay attention to:
- Overloaded Servers
- Limits on MySQL Database Access
- Hidden Costs
- Unnecessary Software Recommendations
- Blacklisted IPs
Making the Right Web Hosting Choice
Small websites’ owners, startup businesses, etc. who are not planning to receive a large amount of traffic, should always start with shared hosting packages from a reliable provider. First, contact the support team via any channel that the provider offers and see how they will answer you. It says a lot about the web hosting company.
Take a look at trustworthy real customer experience reviews sites like Trustpilot or Hostadvice. Some reviews will be negative, do not be surprised and analyze them thoroughly, as they may have to do with a one-time situation that was resolved in the end. Also, read longer articles that discuss the pros and cons to stay informed about features.
Many hosting providers offer a trial period to test their services, use it. Make sure it includes a money back guarantee and see how the company will provide it in case its service quality does not match your expectations.
Hamster wishes you good luck in finding the right provider!
