Finding yourself a place on the web requires dedicating a place for your website on a server or a whole server for your business if it witnesses high traffic.
But for those who are just taking their first steps in the field, how to decide which hosting service is worth it and which is not.
Here are some points to bear in mind before making up your mind about hosting service.
What to look for in a hosting service?
Finding the right hosting service for your website can be overwhelming with all these options on the market. However, there are some features to look for in a hosting service, including scalability, security, support, and price.
- Scalability: You will definitely need to scale up at some point when your website witnesses more traffic and needs more resources. A good hosting plan is scalable and fits all types of businesses with different needs.
- Security: No one wants to risk his personal data on an insecure website. Once visitors notice that your website isn’t marked as secure, it will probably be their last visit to your website. In short, an SSL certificate, two-step authentication, and backups are the essential security features to look for in a hosting service.
- Support: The best hosting services provide decent and responsive support options available 24 hours to answer customers’ questions and assist them when needed. Support via phone, live chat, and email are the most helpful ones.
- Price: How much you’re going to pay for a hosting service depends on the type of hosting you choose and the reliability of the service in terms of speed, security, bandwidth, and eCommerce options.
- Uptime: A frustratingly slow website will guarantee one thing: a noticeable drop in the number of your website’s visitors. That’s why a good uptime is a must-have feature when you pick a hosting service.
Why to Avoid a Free Hosting Service?
When there’s a free service, you’ll probably be the product. Right? According to Several.com experts, a free hosting service will definitely make use of your own space to promote theirselves. In other words, a free hosting service means that your website will have a lot of advertisements that leads to the hosting service. Of course, you could find it okay, but believe us, a website with many advertisements is pretty annoying to visit.
Besides the limited features that will make it impssible to scale up later, or to find features that will steer your website to success. In other words, free hosting will definitely compromise a necessary feature for your website, such as security: Most free hosting services won’t provide an SSL certificate or don’t provide backups.
Let’s not forget that some websites can receive or send sensitive information for financial transactions, like credit card information, bank account numbers, and email or physical address; that’s why you need to make sure that your hosting provider can maintain decent privacy and offers what is necessary for eCommerce.
In a nutshell, define your needs and the type of business you want to run and expect the amount of traffic on your website. Altogether will help you find out a good choice for your website.