What the best pro website hosting company is a question that should not be taken lightly, getting a substandard service or slow service could finish your website literally before its even got off the ground.
Just what do people want from a website hosting package? We asked around to find out, then compiled a list of the most common things, unsurprisingly cost was the most common issue for new website owners, but people who had build website for any period of time were more concerned about speed and reliability
Cost
Competitive web hosting is a big issue for most of us when it comes to deciding which package, the cost should be an issue, but not the only thing to think about, generally when it comes to a pro website hosting package or service you get what you pay for, so a cheaper so called competitive website hosting service may have hidden costs in terms of performance for your site
by all means look around for a cheaper competitive web hosting package , just make sure its not the cheapest in terms of what it offers, as it could mean a sub standard service, which does not give you everything you need in terms of email, databases or even enough webspace.
After Sales Support
Having a decent support service after you’ve paid for your pro website hosting package is vital, especially if you are in the process of setting up your very first website
It really makes no difference as to the size of the hosting company when it comes to after sales support, its all a question of how much the company wants to invest in this side of the business, one feature worth looking for though is live chat.
Downtime, reliability
We’d all love to have the next great thing in terms of websites, maybe the next eBay, Twitter or YouTube, but without a reliable service it simply won’t happen, visitors will just go elsewhere. One thing I have learned about visitors from website statistics is, if they don’t find what they need, and quickly they will go elsewhere, so when choosing a pro website hosting service it must be reliable, as even an average site will beat even the best website if it’s using an unreliable service.
Website extras
Before signing up to your pro website hosting package decide on exactly what you need, this could mean a backend database such as MySql, other website add-ins, large amounts of email space and multiple addresses, or even a complete package that allows you to have multiple domains if you intend to run multiple sites, all of which will save money.
Easy to use admin
When deciding which pro website hosting provider think about how easy it is to administer and manage everything provided by hosting company, this is a big thing especially if your new to web hosting and how everything works, rather than getting bogged down with complexities.
Do you think you’d prefer Windows Hosting? You might be surprised
The percentage or Windows versus Unix users is very large, so of course most of us will naturally select a Windows as opposed to Unix when choosing the server type, this is what I did, but only after reading about PHP, MySQL did I realise my mistake, luckily though the hosting provider was able to move me over pretty quickly. If you want to create a dynamic website or blog firstly determine which technology you will user to build it, if like myself you choose PHP, MySql then Unix is the way to go. The actual Unix side of things is pretty hidden from you, as you only need to know about what your actually running.
Auto domain & hosting renewal
ok so you’ve built your site, then you’ve never quite had the time to do anything else with it, so you just forget all about it, 11 months later you notice a charge on your credit card from the hosting company who have charged you to renew your hosting package with them, but they never contacted you, just charged and renewed. This is a pretty common story as some hosting companies do not give you the option to renew, they have conditions such as you have to contact them around a month before the hosting comes up for renewal, or they are will renew. So if possible make sure you have the option to not auto renew and they should then contact you prior to this.
Add-ons, ability to grow
If you start small like most websites make sure your hosting company offers you room to grow, by this I mean the amount of space or database size might be fine for today, but what happens if you have the next Twitter or Facebook on you hands? Having the facility to grow your site quickly depending on the amount of visitors is a must.
Email
Just about every hosting company offers email today; it’s a great way to keep customers, as changing an email address is very difficult if you have lots of people such as friends, visitors or customers who know it.
Make sure the email is a standard type such as POP3 so you can access the email offline and are not limited by the hosting companies’ storage or other email policies.
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