Whether you operate a site for personal or commercial purposes, a reliable web hosting service is an absolute must. With so many different options available, however, it can be difficult to find a web hosting service that meets your needs.
Fortunately, this article offers a variety of tips and advice that can help to demystify web hosting.
You can almost always save money on your web hosting by paying in advance. Discounts for multi-month and yearly packages are common. However, you don’t want to lock in with an unreliable host. Try out a new host for a month or two before you lock in a long-term commitment, and check out the cancellation and refund policy beforehand.
When choosing a web hosting service, always check their record for down time. If you are conducting business through your website, you will almost certainly lose customers if they cannot access your website at all times, day or night. Check not only how many times they have outages weekly, but what the duration of these outages are.
When selecting a web host, consider how much the host costs. Some hosts charge on a per-year basis while some may be month-to-month. Look for a host that costs an average of about $5 per month as this will most likely give you a great value for your money as opposed to a free hosting site that may not offer as many options.
Make sure that you understand the difference between managed and un-managed web hosting. Those that are managed can be invaluable to you if you are not an expert yourself on the intricacies of maintaining a website. You will want to choose a managed one who has excellent availability of technical support teams.
Consider how much downtime the web host will have when looking for one. These downtimes vary from 10% to .000001%. This means that there could be hours of downtime per week or as little as seconds. Select a host with the lowest amount of downtime that you can find.
You want to find a web host that has a good reputation. These web hosts are more likely to be able to meet your needs. Some companies have an excellent reputation and are well-regarded in the field. You will be able to easily pick out the companies that’s efforts are lax, and don’t live up to claims that they make.
If you are getting started with your website, you should look for a web host that allows you to use 30MB of storage space. This is the average size of a new site, but you should expect it to grow as you add more content overtime, at least up to 100MB.
The information you have just read will make it easier to make your website and content available to your target audience. The right web hosting provider can make a world of difference in the speed, quality and efficiency of your website.
Keep these tips in mind as you explore your different options.