A little research before committing yourself to a web hosting provider can save you a lot of headaches.
1. Type of hosting offered
• Will you need your own infrastructure?
• Will you need greater access or control over your server(s) and website?
• Are you not very technical?
• Would it be easier to let the hosting company take the lead in maintenance?
Ask yourself all these questions and more. Whether it be shared hosting, VPS hosting, dedicated hosting, or managed hosting, look at the pros and cons of all. Ask yourself what you need it to do and don’t be afraid to ask for advice.
2. Support
• What are the available support channels: email, forums, live chat, telephone, 24/7, or office hours?
• Are they U.S. based or overseas?
If anything happens to your server or website, from technical errors to DNS attacks, you need to be able to remedy the situation quickly. This becomes more pressing depending on your website. For example, if you run an e-commerce site you’ll be losing money every minute you’re offline. So make sure the support is right for you.
3. Features
• What features are on offer?
• Does the host use c-Panel for one-click installations of selected software?
• How much storage and bandwidth is available? How many domains can be hosted on one account?
Functionality is important for any website and so is future-proofing. As your website grows and with it, the amount of space you need, does the hosting company have the capacity and the features to allow for growth?
4. Server locations
• Is the location of the data centers important to you?
• Do you collect personal data on your website?
• Are you compliance led?
If the answer is yes to any of these questions you may want to look into the location of your servers. Some web hosting providers even allow you to choose your data center location. The benefit of selecting your data center is speed and performance. Resource heavy websites, large scripts, and even WordPress themes all influence how fast a site can load. These factors play an important role in website performance and load times as well.
5. Areas of specialization
• What specific platforms do they specialize in?
By far and away WordPress dominates the internet. Several hosting providers have packages and plans dedicated to WordPress hosting. If your website’s content management system is WordPress then you should look closely at managed WordPress hosting plans. That said, there are several other content management systems (CMS) besides WordPress, and if you’d like to keep your options open look for hosts that offer more than one CMS.
6. Security
• Depending on the nature of your business you may have higher standards to meet in terms of security. Will this hosting company meet these expectations? Or would another be better equipped?
• Our SSL certificates included as well?
7. Price & general feedback online
• How much do they charge and how does it compare to the other hosts on your shortlist?
• Is price a factor or do you not mind paying that little bit more for a more complete service?
• What are the renewal costs? Do they offer long-term subscriptions?