If you have a website then it follows that you will have to give some thought to hosting, unless your site is on a platform like WordPress or Blogger etc. This is all the more so if your site is a business website rather than simply a personal project or blog. So what are the most important considerations when choosing a web hosting company for your site?
Downtime
If your website s down because of service interruptions at your hosting company visitors will not be able to reach you and you could potentially be losing out on income. Not only that but if you have spent a lot of time and energy in optimising your site to rank well in the search engines all your good work could be undone because of downtime issues. Accordingly when you are considering web hosting services you should be looking for companies that can guarantee almost 100% uptime.
Price
If you make enquiries with several prospective hosting companies you will notice a significant variation in prices. Price in itself is not necessarily an indication of quality, professionalism or reliability but is a consideration for most if not all business owners. You may refer to pay for your hosting monthly or would rather get the cost out of the way for a year at a time. Good providers will offer a variety of plans and payment options
Support
No matter what type of site you have problems will inevitably occur with your hosting at some time. What is important is the level of support you can expect from your service provider. In other words, how quickly can they resolve problems when – not if – they arise. Ideally, you should look for web hosting providers who offer telephone as well as email support. The latter may be sufficient if you encounter a problem which is not a major issue, but in the event you are unfortunate enough to experience a serious issue with your site, it can be reassuring to know that help is available at the other end of the telephone
Location
As well as the above considerations, the location of a hosting company’s servers is also worth taking into account. There is a suggestion that the location of servers may play a part in ranking, albeit that there is no concrete evidence to support this theory For instance, if you have a UK based site there may be some merit in using a host located in that country. Take, for instance, Blue Sky Loans, a firm of payday lenders located in the UK. When it came to choosing a hosting service they opted for a UK based company. Certainly you should experience quicker loading times for your site by using a locally based provider and this is something which should help with your visitor’s engagement. One other advantage of using a local host is that if you have problems and need to contact support, you will not have to put up with delays in receiving a response caused by time differences.