Before you get started with your internet marketing career, you’ll obviously need a domain, but after that, you need to pick your web hosting. The key is to choose the right one the first time.
What does every successful Online Business have in common? A great product or service? Yep. A large traffic and excellent conversion on their sites? Right again. But what else? Well there is something behind the scenes too that ensures your sites are up and accessible on the web all day long.
Hosting is the word I was looking for, and here’s why.
You can have a fantastic, world-changing product and you can have millions of people jostling with each other to reach your site and buy it, but if your host decides to go offline frequently taking down all the sites on its servers with it, you can kiss your product’s success good bye.
If I have hopefully convinced you to view hosting as a crucial investment for your business, let’s see how you can choose a great hosting provider-one that keeps your sites up at all times and provides an excellent service.
First thing to check is of course a host’s uptime record, which means how consistently the sites on their system have remained online. Of course, every company will have some downtime including for periodic maintenance or upgrades, but shortlist those who have the most uptime rate.
Also check out their server infrastructure on their websites. A good host will have more than one data center and preferably in multiple regions. This ensures continuity in their services even if one location or data center faces some issues.
Equally important is a host’s customer service. Absence of 24/7 live chat or telephone support is a big no for me. And if their staff keeps me bouncing from one department to another to resolve my issues, I am not impressed. Do check a host’s response rate and technical know-how before signing up with them.
A company with several hosting packages means you can make an informed choice based on your business needs and upgrade your account to a different package down the line seamlessly. Its not easy to change hosts, so you’d want to keep your account with a good hosting provider that has a range of hosting packages.
Hosting features such as a universal cPanel for easy managing of services and unlimited bandwidth and hard disk space are a given in any good host these days. If the company you are exploring doesn’t provide these basic features, turn away and look at other hosts. Also, if you are running a very specific business, for instance an E-Commerce store, you would definitely want your host to provide SSL pages and integration with several shopping carts.
And finally, a good host provides value for money. If a hosting provider is charging exorbitantly for shared hosting, don’t sign up with them. A shared hosting package should be economically priced and still offer excellent services. Likewise, a good host offers different payment plans, say, monthly, semi yearly or annually. This helps new customers who would like to take a few months trial from them or established clients who want to maintain a longer relationship with them.
While there’s no perfect or foolproof way to select an ideal web host, the above tips will help you choose a great hosting company and run your online business successfully.