How to Select the Right Web Hosting Solution
Much of a website’s speed, scalability, and security rely on the hosting service you choose. While choosing a web hosting solution, you may come across boastful advertisements like 100% uptime but it’s important to verify it in detail.
It’s important to pay attention to the price and quality ratio while finalizing a web host. There are many other aspects to consider. Today, we will explore how to choose the right web hosting solution for your website. If you hire a trusted website development company, the professionals will also recommend some popular web hosts. Nevertheless, there’s no harm in going through this blog and staying a step ahead. It will help you to make an informed decision.
Things to Consider while Choosing a Web Hosting Solution
- Uptime
Uptime indicates how often a website will be online and accessible for visitors. It is a crucial aspect to look for should you want the site to remain available 24/7. If your website is down while visitors are still on the site, it will deeply affect your conversion rate.
Frequent downtimes will impact your brand. Customers may not trust your site and stop visiting the site.
To prevent it, you should pick a web hosting solution that guarantees a significant amount of uptime. These days, reputed hosting solution providers have the policy to pay the site owners a fee if they fail to maintain the claim. It’s better to opt for those.
- Scalability
Every small business starts with an aspiration to grow. Therefore, it’s better to keep provision for your website to grow. The hosting solution you pick must be scalable enough to support your growth.
For instance, as your inventory grows or more traffic visits your site, you may upgrade your package to a higher plan. Migrating from one service provider to another is possible but it takes more time and upgrading the package is more convenient.
You can start with a shared hosting solution or a virtual private server and as you grow, you may need to upgrade to a dedicated server that powers only your website.
- Loading Speed
Don’t confuse loading speed with uptime. Both are significantly different.
A slow loading speed results in an increased bounce rate. And this means loss of income. Further, Google prioritizes page speed as a crucial search ranking factor. Therefore, only engaging digital marketing services to improve your website rank on the SERP will not sprout results unless if you have a speedy website.
And your hosting provider has a lot to do here. Before choosing a solution, assess how much traffic your site may host. Now, check the bandwidth of the package. A high number means the website can host lots of traffic without affecting performance.
Sometimes, the hosting provider claims to offer unlimited bandwidth – verify if it is a fact or simply a marketing gimmick.
Further, check the disk space and processing power. For instance, you need lots of storage and high-power RAM for featuring lots of media files and user data. For a small business website, limited storage and processing power are enough.
Caching greatly helps in enhancing loading speed. Therefore, it’s better to look for built-in caching. It will let the users’ browsers cache some data after they visit the site for the first time. When they return, these elements will be shown without downloading every time.
- Backup
It’s important to select a company that offers a backup service. It will assist if your website data gets lost.
With a backup at hand, you need not build your site from scratch. You can get back your website in a short time span.
Find out a web hosting service provider that performs automated backups regularly and you can restore your previous site without any hassle. This will also give you respite from backing up the site all by yourself.
- Security
With cybercrime rapidly increasing, keeping your site safe and secure should be your top priority. And your hosting solution has much to contribute to that. Pay attention that the hosting provider offers the following:
An antivirus scanner that will identify and remove any malicious software that can affect your website
DDoS (Distributed Denial-of-Service) mitigation that prevents hackers from exhausting the server resource and take down the website.
A firewall security system that filters and protects your site from cyber attacks
SSL certificate that helps in encrypting data transmitted between the web server and your visitors’ browser. It will help you to keep the sensitive information of the users from hackers.
- Alert
If you are just starting out, you may need some guidance. Let your website hosting solution provider monitor your site and notify you in case of any error. It will make sure that your site offers an unparalleled user experience at all times.
You can be notified about performance issues, security concerns, or bandwidth left. These make sure to keep your site optimized at all times.
- Cost
Pricing is indeed an important factor while choosing a web hosting solution. You can compare the packages along with the facilities offered by different hosting service providers. Based on the analysis, pick the one that is value for money.
The phrase value for money is important here. It’s better not to settle for the cheapest one. You may face trouble in the long run.
- Customer Support
Look for a trusted hosting solution provider that offers impeccable service 24/7. Make sure that you can reach out to them anytime and they fix the issues within a short time period.
These days, many service providers are available over call, email, or text. They may also have a live chat facility on their website.
We hope you are now ready to make an informed decision. Pick the right hosting server and witness the difference it brings to your website performance.