Choosing the right webhosting company plays an integral part in the success of your online business. For one, your business website is the place by which people can learn about your product's information when they go online, not to mention that it can be utilized for business transactions to gain more profit. Let's face it: more and more people are finding the internet useful, and you will most likely fail in your business if you don't use it to your advantage.
If you are not sure what to look for in a webhosting company, here's a simple guide that can help you out.
It's always better to start small, most especially if you are setting up a niche website. Choose a plan that offers the smallest space available and start from there. You can always upgrade your plan once the demand for it increases, anyway. No need for you to subscribe to a high-end plan if you won't be able to maximize what you are paying for.
You need to ensure that you find a reliable webhosting company. If server crashes become a regular occurrence or if it takes a long time to get in the site, your site's visitors are more likely to move on to another one. Not even loyal customers will stick around if this trend keeps up. To put it simply, a non-reliable web hosting company results to a non-reliable website. No two ways about it.
To avoid this from happening, here are simple tips to ensure that you get a reliable web hosting company.
1. It's a good idea to look for reviews on webhosting companies in order to find non-biased opinions about them. There are a plethora of review specific sites that you can use. Examples of these sites are Epinions and Zagat. Forums or message boards catered to web hosting companies are another good option. Be careful though; some of the reviews or comments you'll encounter might just be a disguise by the companies themselves in order to gain customers. To filter out the authentic reviews from those that are contrived, you'd do well to find as many sources as possible and assess each one carefully.
2. Contact the web hosting company's support department and ask some questions. I'm sure you'll agree that nobody wants to stick around with a company that doesn't give you helpful information when you need it. More often than not, a trial call should tell you whether you'll be getting reliable service from a webhosting company or not.
3. Determine if they oversell their services. Some companies are aggressive in offering a lot of cap space and bandwidth even if their server is ill-fitted to handle the strain. In a situation like this, server crashes can occur when you use the bandwidth presented to you at its full capacity, even if you have paid for it.
As a final advice, it is better to go with a dedicated host rather than a shared one. Having your own broadband pipeline removes the possibility of speed issues and outages. Technical issues can cause major problems if they occur at critical times.