Not sure which web provider to choose from?
There are many to choose from offering all manner of things, but what do we actually need, bells and whistles or a fast reliable service you can rely on.
After conducting a local survey to find what the average user wants from a hosting company we put together a list of the top items to give an idea of what to look for in terms of hosting packages, likes and dislikes, and how important it is to get it right to begin with.
$$ The Price
Cost effective web hosting what’s the catch? There is nothing wrong in looking around for a good price when deciding on which web provider , but remember generally the cheaper the web hosting, the less you might actually get in terms of quality of service, this can include speed, bandwidth ( as very cheap hosting might include bandwidth limits and additional costs if exceeded)
Be prepared to pay a fair price and get exactly what your looking for rather than saving money and compromising on what you need, it may seem like a saving and it will be initially, but in the long term you might end up having to spend more money when the package does not suit your needs.
Support Services
what do you need from your hosting service in terms of support? Someone to help each step of the way, or someone to speak to when your website is down?
Whatever you need when choosing which web provider a good after sales service is really a must, its one thing to have website downtime, but not being able to contact anyone to find out what is going on makes the situation much worse.
Reliability & Downtime
You need your website to be up and running 24×7, any downtime due to your web hosting company not only costs you potential visitors and revenue (if your site makes money), but what happens if one of the major search engines is trying to spider your website and it can’t find anything? It could be viewed as a black mark against your site and get it penalized in terms of pages indexed or even your whole site.
Extras & addins
Planning before you decide which web provider is right for you will pay huge rewards in the long term. If the hosting company cannot provide exactly what you need don’t be prepared to compromise on this, after all they provide a general service, its only you that knows exactly what you need to build your site and blog to your specifications.
Ease of use
When deciding which web provider , how easy to use are the website tools, admin interface etc, how easy is it to create a basic website if your new to web design, use the email interface or FTP upload facilities, this may not sound like such a big thing, but all of this helps and when your creating your website, changing it around, checking emails etc you will be very pleased everything is quick and simple to use.
Type Unix or Windows
When I first started out of course I went Windows like most people, I just assumed (wrongly) that it would be easier, luckily the ISP was able to move me over to a UNIX based system, from a front end it made no difference, but as I wanted to create a dynamic website one of the easiest routes was the CSS, PHP and MySQL which was not fully supported under windows, which meant I would have to go and use a pay solution.
If you want an easy to use solution for your blog or dynamic website choose UNIX, I did and have not looked back.
Automatic domain & hosting renewal
Having your hosting company automatically renew your domain means it will be renewed just before it expires, this can be a good and bad thing, if the website attached to the domain is doing very well then that’s great and I’m sure you will want to renew, but unfortunately most website never make it, but of course if the domain is still set to auto-renew you will still be charged and you won’t have a leg to stand on as it will be in the small print of the hosting contract.
Just as a safety measure it can be worth making sure your hosting company will contact you before this and actually giving you the option.
Expanding your web empire
Starting a website, costs can be kept to a minimum, but what if your website begins to grow very quickly and the traffic increases at a rapid rate, your current hosting package just might not be enough, for example you might find as your probably on a shared server the extra traffic load might can cause slow downs for your visitors as the server struggles to cope, thinking about this when deciding which web provider and ask them how easy it would be to upgrade if necessary.
Email accounts
If your setting up a website make sure you use the email provided, it will be associated to the domain name and it makes your website look much more professional than using one of the free services.
What would you rather user..
Webmaster@computer-adviser.com or webmaster2221@hotmail.com, the first appears much more professional, rather than using an address, generally associated to home users.
Other tips to help choose which web provider is right for you