Is your company putting up a website? Don’t neglect the importance of choosing a great web hosting company. Lots of companies put time & effort into thinking about the design of a site, what it will look like. But what really matters is that your site is “live,” available and can handle the high volume of traffic that comes its way each day.
Before you sign on the dotted line, you’ll want to consider exactly what a cheap web hosting company has to offer you. We’ve chosen some of the most important factors to keep in mind when you’re looking at web hosting for your company. Do remember, that every business is unique and your specific needs are going to be what matters the most. So always consider those first as the primary factor when making your choice.
Here are some critical things that you’ll always want to look for, when searching for a terrific web hosting company.
What business is your business?
Before you start calling or e-mailing web hosting companies, start thinking about your own business. Are you an entrepreneur, a small business, medium sized business or a start-up business? Where do you see your business headed within the next 6 months to 3 years? This is actually one of the more important things you’ll think about. If you’re expecting significant growth then you want a web hosting company that can handle that too. No business owner wants the troublesome task of going out to look for yet another web hosting company to handle their business just 6 months from now. It’s better to find the right company in the first call.
Look at their customer service. Any business you choose should have customer service at least available during office hours by telephone and then 24/7 support by text or e-mail. It is ideal if a web hosting company offers you several options of how to reach them, but most often it is not necessary – as long as you can always reach them.
Response Times and Customer Services
Check out their average response time & quality of customer service. Now this isn’t always easy to do. But start by checking out the company’s reputation online. Unhappy customers are likely to company on social media. A few negative reviews do not mean a company is a bad one, sometimes it simply means a customer interaction was hard to resolve in the exact way a customer hoped for. But what you are looking for is patterns – complaints that say that customer service did not call back for a long time, or that they were rude or that they focused on trying to sell more services instead of solving the problem. If more than 10 customers mention the same problem over and over, you are starting to see a pattern that is a cause for concern.
What is the location of your servers?
This is something you really need to know, before you sign on the dotted line. If they won’t be specific with you about where the servers are then this is not a vote of confidence for the company. When servers are not close to your company, it means that your website can have lags and run very slow. Now, if they put you on a server that is far from your company – sometimes you can request to be moved to one that is closer by. See if this is possible as this can help you to make your choice.
What are the hosting packages?
You want to be sure that you have at least 2 choices when it comes to hosting packages. Sometimes there will be even more than that. Not every company is the same, they have different needs. So hosting packages should reflect this.
Check out the tech support. No one likes to think about needing tech support, but it should be there. You really want it to be available 24/7. At some companies, you have to pay an additional fee for any repairs. Some companies it is just part of your services. Double check to see what type of hosting package and how your tech services are included in it.
What is the price?
Every business owner needs to look at the bottom line. But this should not be your only determination. Remember; you get what you pay for. If you pay a really cheap price then you probably are not going to get a lot of premium services. So first consider what your needs are. Then you can shop around, to see what web hosting company would be best to work with.
Web hosting is a critical service that every successful business needs today. Your website sells your products and services around the clock. It is like having a salesperson always working for you, who just never punches out on the time clock! But without great web hosting, you are making it quite difficult for that website to work for you. So choose the very best web hosting you can afford, as it is guaranteed to pay off in the long run!
