Despite being mostly hidden, your web host provider can be quite influential. It is even the first impression of your site to your visitors. When talking about web hosting, there are different companies that provide either affordable or expensive plans. But hey, the price is not the only deciding factor here.
Also, a web host is not just a space that you rent for your website – it is more than that. As a matter of fact, it is the vehicle responsible for delivering your site to the world. And without it, people across the plant would not know that you and your company exist.
Sure, it is not easy to choose the right hosting company given the fact that there are tons of them out there. But you can only sleep peacefully if you know that your site is watched over and being taken care of. With that said, here are the top qualities that make a web hosting great. Watch out for them before hiring a provider.
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1. Website Performance
Your web host, in most cases, is the largest contributor to the overall performance of your site. Common metrics that need to be considered are uptime, bandwidth, and speed. And in case you did not know, at least 40 percent of visitors tend to abandon a site when it takes more than 3 seconds to load. This only means that the performance of your web hosting provider can negatively affect your site’s bottom line.
There are ways to tell if a provider is able to provide a great hosting performance, one of which is reading reviews. Let’s say you are planning to put up an e-commerce site using the Magento platform. You can search and read Magento hosting user reviews, so you will know which hosting providers have deemed the best ones for the said platform. You might think it is a tiring task, but it can actually help you greatly.
2. Hosting Support
You already know that web hosting, in one way or another, can be technical and confusing. These are most especially the case if you barely deal with it on a regular basis. This is where your hosting’s support could be of huge help; hence, it must always be a significant factor to consider when hiring a web hosting company. What you really need to know in this part is how you are going to get assistance whenever technical problems arise. And mind you, these issues happen in the most unexpected way.
How are you going to get support from your hosting company? Ask these questions yourself.
- Do you have to make a phone call?
- Can you drop a support ticket via email?
- Are you allowed to visit them in person?
- Are you assigned to a specific account manager?
- Do you have access to a chat system?
While it is possible for you not to need support in every way possible, you should not deny the possibility of needing it at some point. Plus, you need to feel secure and confident that a hosting company’s customer support will be there to meet your needs and address your concerns. When the inevitable of things happen, you usually get what you pay for. So, in this case, it is usually worth the few extra dollars just to obtain a higher level of support when you need it.
3. Backup
When you grow up in a world where people are fond of Microsoft, you certainly need to important of saving and saving often. It is even likely that CTRL+S is your go-to keystroke. Why is that exactly? It is due to the fact that you have already experienced the pain of redoing everything after forgetting to save your work. There is always this frustration when you lose so much progress, something that can be really, really crippling.
Take this concept with you and bring it to the world of web hosting. Imagine putting up a lot of work to your site, uploading content from articles to videos to images, and updating tons of plugins. However, your site suddenly went offline or you have to restore its backup because the plugin you placed is incompatible. Now, imagine the horror upon knowing that your site does not come with a backup feature. Ouch!
It is imperative to ask your hosting provider if the services come with a backup feature. Not only do you need to know if your site is being backed up, but you also want to determine what is being backed up. Rebuilding lost progress on your entire site is easier said than done.
Sure, you might have to spend a bit in order to have access to a backup feature, but it is totally worth it. In fact, you should not sacrifice backups for the sake of saving a few bucks. And while it can sound like a simple commodity, you would not really need it until you need it. In other words, it is better to have one in place.
