Choosing a Web Hosting Providers for your Website
If you want to create a website, you’ll need a web hosting provider. Web hosting is one of the most important decisions you make as you begin the process of building your website. But what is hosting exactly? And how do you decide which host to go with out of the hundreds available?
Think of hosting as your website’s home. Without web hosting, your website wouldn’t be online and available to users around the world. Hosting companies, provide space on their servers for customers to store websites, thereby making them accessible through the internet 24/7.
The problem here is you need to choose between hundreds of hosting providers, How do you pick the right one for your needs? Here you have some tips that will help you to narrow your selection.
There are a few critical factors to take into consideration in this decision-making.
1 — Define your website needs
As a starting point, it’s a good idea to list down your needs. After that, you can more easily prioritize them as you compare your list to what each potential host is offering.
You will need to take into consideration all critical requirements from your list, for example, If your website has a specific niche, lest say you’re building a photography website, you might need to prioritize speed and storage features if you are considering selling online, then you might need E-commerce capabilities, or let's say you are content creators you would like hosts services that offer Content Delivery Network (CDN) options for content-heavy sites.
2 — Think about how to manage your future site.
Think about the content management system you’d like to use for your site. It defines how you will manage your site configurations, updates, and maintenance. WordPress proudly claims over 60% of the CMS market, but there are dozen other systems competing in the other 40% of the market. So many web hosting companies offer services specifically tailored to the platform.
3 — Think about maintenance capabilities
Hosting can sometimes be the most technical part of running your website. However, there’s no need to feel intimidated. Most web hosting provides a user-friendly control panel or dashboard. This is where you can configure different parts of your website’s setup and software.
The Interface (Control Panel) offered by the hosting provider is key. Make sure your hosting provider has an interface that is easy to understand and use. The interface to choose should make tasks such as installing WordPress, setting up email, configuring FTP accounts, uploading files, etc… fairly easy to carry out. Some hosting providers let you play with a demo hosting account, so take advantage of the opportunity to test their platform before you sign up.
4 — Check for Server Reliability and Uptime Guarantees
You’ll want to investigate what your potential web hosting provides in terms of uptime guarantees. “Uptime” refers to the percentage of time that your website is online and available to internet users without any issues. This affects how reliable you can expect the hosting service to be, so it is key four your business continuity.
You might also want to find out how the host handles any downtime issues. Having your site frequently unavailable is obviously not optimal when you’re trying to build an online audience. To know what you’re getting into, it’s a good idea to look for reviews that indicate how reliable the host has historically been.
5 — Understand What Your Scalability Options Are
Before you sign on with a hosting plan, it’s important to make certain you won’t be either penalized or restricted for upgrading it later on. With that on your radar, you’ll need to make sure your hosting plan can move up with your project growth, instead of holding you back.
6 — Assess Technical Specifications
Not all web hosts are created equal of offer exactly the same services. Many hosts make similar claims, but there are often big differences “under the hood” that translate into significantly different hosting experiences. Knowing this, you need to find a hosting provider that complies with critical characteristics: The web hosting service provider must build and operate their own hardware. Find a host with enough RAM, processing power, and disk storage space for your website’s needs. Finally, look for information about reliability and server uptime. This is important so as to ensure your website is always up and running when visitors come.
7 — Verify the Host’s Primary Features and Add-on Products and Services
Once your website is up and running, you might run into situations where you’ll want to add new features. With that being said, scoping out what your host offers in terms of “extras” is worthwhile at this stage.
If you want to start small and work your way up as your site grows, you’ll need to make sure you can efficiently bring in new functionality without having to jump through hoops or move your entire website. Having the ability to pick features “a la carte” means you can design a plan that provides everything you need (and nothing you don’t).
So, when exploring the web hosting provider’s website, you should be able to tell pretty quickly if what you need is a part of its offerings. If you have to dig for that information, the host might not be truly focused on the features that meet your primary needs.
8 — Price
This is where most people start when they’re deciding on a hosting provider. But while it’s a good place to start, it shouldn’t be the deciding factor. It’s important to remember: you get what you pay for. More often than not, the cheapest option isn’t always the best. Take a look at the fundamental needs of your site and compare hosting options that satisfy those needs first. Otherwise, you will likely end up spending more in the long run in terms of money, time, and even frustration.
Many web hosts also offer a renewal discount. With that being said, you’ll want to be vigilant on that, you don’t want to encounter an unexpected rate increase when you least expect it. It’s not uncommon for initial discounts to quietly give way to higher costs after the first few months or years of service.
9 — Support
This is a big one. If your site ever experiences problems you can’t fix, the fastest way to get things up and running is usually to speak with a real person who knows what they’re doing. Make sure your host provides great customer service. See what contact options are available when you need help (i.e. toll-free phone number, email, chat, etc.) Also, consider when are they available and whether their support is in-house or outsourced.
So it’s vital to review the customer support options each hosting provider offers. These can often differ between individual plans. Lower-level plans tend to be more “hands-off” in terms of support, while managed plans and more expensive options often offer premium support.
10— Choosing from Hosting Services Available
Now that you are aware of what is needed to ensure high-quality hosting for your web, I present you with the top 10 web hosting providers available in the market today. You can explore their offers pros and cons and choose the services based on your needs. Do not forget to take into consideration the previous 9 steps in the selection process.
Hostinger — Most Affordable Hosting Plans Overall
Bluehost — Best Web Host for Beginners
DreamHost — Most Affordable Month-to-Month Plan
HostGator — Best for Lean or Minimal Needs
GreenGeeks — Best Eco-Friendly Hosting
SiteGround — Best for Making Your WordPress Site Speedy & Secure
A2 Hosting — Fast & Reliable Shared Hosting
InMotion — Best VPS Hosting
WP Engine — Best Managed WordPress Hosting
Nexcess — Best for scaling and growth
