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Yes, there are a LOT of companies happy to host your websites for you. Your website can be a critical part of your business and marketing plan. Down time, slow responses, and poor service can be a huge blow to your online presence and bottom line. Below is a list of items to look for, and things to consider when looking for a good host.
- Falling for the price trap
The price trap is frequently the most common element in the search for your new host. Yes, many different companies offer web hosting services at little to no cost. However, a common setback is most of these web hosting plans do not offer sufficient features you need for your website and/or most of them force you to place advertisements on your website. In addition, and at times more importantly, the support your receive is difficult to reach, outsourced, and limited in their capability to assist.
- Inexperienced reseller
Hosting with a reseller is not a bad thing. However, you need to do extensive research – sometimes a reseller is very good all around but inexperienced when it comes to scripts and server environments. Find a host with the skills you’re looking for, that is not focused on sheer volume.
- Not clearly defining your requirements
You should keep a list of what resources your website needs and add to that list as it grows. This will make it easier when you need to upgrade your web hosting services in the future, or to lay down the correct platform in the beginning.
- Forgiving a host’s bad or limited website
Although “the cobbler’s kids go without shoes” at times, if a web hosting provider cannot or would not take the time to put together an informational website for their own business, most likely they won’t be too concerned about yours either. Look out for cookie cutter websites and flashy landing page “easy signups”.
- Not keeping a record of their contact information
Many of us are satisfied with email, forum and live support. But when your web hosting provider is down for days, including their own site, you won’t be able to contact them at all if you don’t have any records of their telephone number. Test this number to make sure you can actually reach someone BEFORE you are in a position where ability to contact is urgent.
- Relying on host backups
Always keep your own backups, even if your web hosting provider performs backups as well. It happens far too often – a customer’s website goes down indefinitely and they couldn’t bring the website to TechnicalRx because they didn’t have any backups of their own.
- Trusting your host to have the latest software
New software or latest patches are meant to plug security holes. Check with your web hosting provider what versions they are running and how often they make updates before you purchase web hosting services from them.
These are just a few of the things to look for in a host, but I hope they provide a good basic platform in looking for your hosting choice. We hope you will consider TechnicalRx as your hosting provider.
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