How to choose the right web hosting provider for your business

You know what isn’t fun? Getting a call from a company saying “We need help ASAP, our website is down!!!”

This is what I had to deal with this week.

Turns out that this company’s IT manager decided to save the company tons of cash by choosing a really cheap hosting provider for their website.

Turns out that you do get what you pay for.

After a really popular promotion, their website was inundated with customers which promptly crashed their site. Since they were on the cheap package, they had no priority support so for four days, their website was down resulting in loss of revenue amounting to thousands of dollars in sales.

Why the Right Web Host is Vital for Businesses in Today’s Digital Age

It seems our transition into a digital world has been completed. Today it is expecting to be able to perform tasks and queries right from our computer or phone just by accessing the company’s website. Need a job? You can apply on various job portals. Want to study? No problem, you can enroll in courses. Want to know who is calling you? Just do a reverse phone number search. We use the internet for all sorts of things.

Our reliance on the internet makes it important for businesses to ensure they have a strong and reliable online presence. Therefore it is vital for all businesses to ensure they choose the right web hosting service. With the right provider, you can ensure your site is up and running for your audience to access as and when they wish to. This can affect your reputation, your customer numbers, website traffic, and ultimately your bottom line.

What your web hosting service should be able to offer

When it comes to choosing the perfect web hosting service, you need to check that it offers the right benefits and qualities. I look at these key elements:

1. Reliability: Is your website hosting provider going to be able to ensure that your website and services are always operational? Does your hosting provider have fail-over facility in case one of their systems experiences a catastrophic failure? A good provider will have an excellent uptime percentage and excellent maintenance schedule which means you won’t have to worry about continual server problems that could see your site being taken offline.
2. Price: Cheap is not the best. It is important to ensure you keep your business budget under control, but you also don’t want to find the cheapest option just to save some money in the short term. Find a provider that has different price plans so you can migrate as your business develops and needs more resources.
3. Service: Things are going to go wrong with your website. You need to find a service provider with excellent customer service and support. Ideally someone you can communicate with across multiple channels such as email, telephone, and even chat. This will ensure that any issues and problems can be addressed no matter what time they occur
4. Suitability: Do not host your site with a provider who doesn’t understand your technology and can not help if your website crashes. If you are running a WordPress website, ensure your hosting provider is a WordPress hosting specialist.
5. Backup and Security: The hosting provider should be able to backup your website daily so in the unlikely event that your website does crash, it can quickly be recovered and operational ASAP. It is also critical that your provider understands security to ensure that their infrastructure can no be attacked and thereby taking down your website.

Finding the right hosting provider is not a simple task as there are many components that come into play and yet, so many businesses simply chose one that is based purely on price.

If you would like to de-risk your online business in 2018, it is wise to spend some time and research your website hosting so that you aren’t left with a hacked site or with stolen information or with an unusable website.