Published on April 16th, 2021 by Rahul Kumar Singh
Today, having a website has become a business necessity. Businesses nowadays can’t afford to have downtime where their clients lose access to their site. This necessity of a business to keep their website running needs a reliable web hosting company service.
However, choosing the best option is not simple as there are various options to consider. To help you come up with a decision, here’s a list of important things you need to look for in a web host.
Check them out below for more details.
1. Security
Ensuring that the web host has enough security features is crucial regardless of how you want to utilize it. Usually, good providers offer a wide selection of security features and you’ll need to decide which are the most important for your website. But as a rule of thumb, you’ll need to ensure that you have access to spam prevention tools.
SSL certificates, on the other hand, are also vital nowadays as they can help you boost your website’s trust score. It’s responsible for a more secured entryway for websites to go from HTTP to HTTPS. Also, if you plan to integrate a financial transaction on your website, you’ll need to look for a web host that helps mitigate DDoS or distributed denial of service attacks. This solution may help in extending protection.
Nevertheless, if you’re looking for a secured yet affordable web host, you may want to check out Hostens’ basic guide and browse through other web host sites for more guides.
2. Email Accounts & Features
Some web hosts are offering email accounts on their clients’ domains. So, don’t forget to inquire how many accounts they’ll allow you to set up. Moreover, find out their options for obtaining that mail. Check if the web host provider has a webmail interface or you can obtain mails in your customer of choice through an Internet Message Access Protocol or IMAP.
3. Access
When signing up for a web hosting. You’ll have a control panel where you can manage your hosting account. Aside from that, you’ll need a file transfer protocol or FTP to gain access to your files. When transferring files as well as web pages from the computer to the computer of the web host to be hosted.
When choosing a web host, look at the maximum file size since it will restrict your capability to upload files. A lot of web hosting providers offer online file managers that are helpful especially if you’re away from your workstation and need to perform a quick update to your site even from your phone.
4. Bandwidth
Bandwidth refers to the level and quality of traffic as well as data permitted to transfer and travel between your website, the internet, and users. Every company offers various levels of bandwidth. Remember, it can be a sign of which a web host has the best system, networks, and connections.
If you’re running a small business with less than 5,000 visitors every month, bandwidth shouldn’t be a big deal on your part. It’s because the majority of the web hosting companies will offer the bandwidth you need. But if you have a bigger business, you should opt for a web host with higher bandwidths.
5. Speed
No one wants to wait to get whatever they ordered. The same goes for your websites. If your website is loading since it’s on a slow network or overburdened server, your visitors might leave and go somewhere else. To prevent this from happening, it’s best to invest in a fast web host. You can test the website of the web host and some of their client’s websites to have an idea of how fast they load.
6. Support
Dealing with any technical difficulty is not easy, thus you’ll need to have a quick backup support. A good and reliable web host provider offers an around-the-clock support. This will enable you to get back your business online when something goes wrong.
When it comes to support, there are different methods available like live chat, email, and telephone. You can check your SLA (service legal agreements) for information regarding the support you can receive. Some service providers have specified the anticipated run time in the agreement. For instance, a 99 percent of uptime means that the website is expected to be down for 3 ½ days every year. That is down to less than an hour on a 99.99% uptime agreement. But usually, the costliest options promise 99.99% in which the maximum downtime is only more than five minutes.
7. Storage
Some web hosting packages come with unlimited storage capacity. However, it is bound to come with limitations. But for the majority of small business sites, an affordable shared hosting plan is enough to handle their storage needs. In fact, it’s unlikely you’ll need more than one gigabyte of space unless you’re planning to upload lots of music files and videos on the side.
The majority of web hosting providers won’t accept users who only utilize them as a file server service. If that’s the case you can utilize online services such as Google Drive and Dropbox in which your files will usually be hosted for far less than you would expect.
8. Number Of Subdomains and Domains
If you’re already running a website, there’s a possibility that sooner or later you’ll make more websites. It would be a hassle on your part to manage a hosting account for every website you own.
Most of the time, there’ll be a restriction on the total of domains you can have on a single account, so make sure it can accommodate you. Typically, there’s a section in the admin panel designed for adding domains and picking which sub-folders each one will direct to. The same goes for sub-domains.
Also read – 10 Best Domain and Hosting Provider in India
Conclusion
There are lots of good and reliable web hosts that could be your partner in building your business’ website. You can use the above-mentioned list to determine which of them are the best and which are not.
Nevertheless, in addition to the aforementioned, you should also consider reading some customer reviews. From there, you’ll be able to get an idea about the type of service you can expect if you choose the provider. Also, get recommendations from the people you can trust or have already tried using a web host.
