If you are going to get your website hosted what we refer to as web hosting, some things can be overwhelming for you. The good thing is that different web hosting services provide different hosting plans. If you have a small business to manage, you may be tempted to go for any plan. However, this is not a good approach to follow, as you still need to consider a couple of important factors when making a choice.
There are three primary features of an ideal web hosting service that is security, support, and speed. As your audience continues to grow, you need to scale your website as well. This is quite important if you want to handle high traffic without having a negative impact on the user experience.
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Web hosting services come with different price tags. If you go for a cheaper option, you may only have to pay a few bucks per month. On the other hand, if you go for a dedicated or cloud server, it may cost you thousands of dollars per month
In this article, we are going to shed some light on some 8 important factors that you must consider before purchasing a web hosting plan
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1. Know about different Web Hosting Types
First of all, you need to understand the difference between different hosting plans. Primarily, there are six major types of plans that you can choose from. They are known as shared web hosting, business hosting, WordPress hosting, virtual private servers, dedicated servers, and reseller hosting.
If you are just getting started in the world of business, we suggest that you go for a shared hosting plan. On the other hand, if you have expanded your business, you may consider a dedicated server. But it is important that you keep in mind that shared hosting plans are the least expensive on the list.
2. Customer support
If you go for basic customer support, it will include phone, ticket, and email support. However, the turnaround time can be different based on the service you choose. For example, you may get 24-hour phone support from some providers, while others may answer requests through email only.
You may go for a managed service if you want a specialist to take care of the management of your website. These professionals will ensure your website is properly configured based on the amount of traffic you get.
3. Consider your traffic volume
Most web owners ignore two important factors when it comes to purchasing web hosting. They are known as disk space and bandwidth. What they think is that their website won’t get a lot of traffic. They forget that the new website will continue to get traffic as your business expands. Therefore, we suggest that you go for a plan that can cover your traffic needs.
Generally, web hosting service providers charge for their services based on the bandwidth and storage requirements. Bandwidth refers to the amount of data that is uploaded to or downloaded from the server in a given period of time. If your website does not get more than a few visits per day, your bandwidth requirements will not be so high. On the other hand, if your website is ranked on the first page of Google, your bandwidth requirements will be high. In this case, you may have to shift from shared hosting to a dedicated or cloud-based service.
4. Server types
Shared services are the best choice if you are looking for the cheapest hosting service. On this machine, hundreds of websites are hosted. The performance of your website will be dependent on the load on this server. Another disadvantage of shared hosting is that you will have limited access to the power and features of the server. You will only be uploading required files through SFTP or FTP.
If you want the best performance, you may try out a dedicated server. In this case, you will be renting the entire machine. But at the same time, you will be paying more per month
5. There is nothing like Unlimited
Purchasing a website hosting and domain, you may have read the term unlimited. The fact of the matter is that you won’t actually get unlimited bandwidth space. And the shocking thing is that they claim to offer these services for a few dollars per month. But the problem is that the performance may be throttled after a specific degree of usage. So, this may not be a great choice if you have a website that gets plenty of traffic. The thing is that the bandwidth is limited by the power of your hardware. For example, if your server comes with a 10 MB per second port, you won’t be able to transmit more than 10 MB of data per second.
6. Timely Website Backup
If the web hosting server crashes for some reason, you may lose your valuable data. Therefore, we suggest that you go with a web hosting service that allows you to backup your data on a daily basis. You may also consider off-site backups just to be on the safe side.
7. Domain name
If you have a business website, make sure it has its own domain name. You can change the web hosting later on, but you should not change your domain name, as it will have a negative impact on the amount of traffic and the ranking you have earned on search engines.
Long story short, these are just some of the primary trips that you may want to consider if you are looking for the best hosting service for your website.
8. Website Security
Nowadays, nobody can ignore the importance of website security. Your website will be prone to hackers if you don’t care about its security aspect. Therefore, you may want to go with a hosting service that offers strong security.
To cut a long story short, these are just some of the 8 primary trips that you may want to consider if you are looking for the best hosting service for your website. With these tips on your mind, it will be much easier for you to avoid making a bad choice. After all, you don’t want to waste your hard-earned money on something that won’t be useful for you. Are you looking for a good web hosting service and web design services in Kenya? If so, you can try out Mulan Technologies. We also provide web development services.