A Strong Online Presence is more Important than ever Before
Making your online presence stronger in today’s highly competitive world has become more important than ever before. And to do that, you just can’t ignore the importance of building a powerful website.
The options and opportunities available today are endless. From some of the most premium website builders and tools for online business to the budget-friendly options, there is something for everybody.
Getting your business website developed by an intuitive developer is just the first step of the process. You will have to choose the perfect web hosting partner to eliminate all your backend website hosting and management hassles.
The importance of web hosting services keeps growing every year and by 2027, the market for web hosting is expected to reach $171.4 billion.
But amongst the sea of available options, how do you make sure you take full advantage of the best web hosting services and choose an ideal web hosting partner? Don’t worry, we’ve done the work for you!
Here are some important features that you should look for while choosing a web host.
Let’s begin!
1 The Support for Your Database
Database support is one feature you just can’t compromise!
You need to use the particular type of database that is required for your website. Though the available database support options are extensive, most of the web hosting service providers offer the MySQL database option.
Some of the best web hosting providers for small businesses organizations offer MySQL as the integrated database option and most of them are satisfied with it. In case if you are not comfortable with MySQL, other options like Oracle, SQL Server, and PostgreSQL are equally amazing options.
Web hosting providers like Bluehost or GoDaddy also have well-built databases and that’s one of the main reasons why they remain at the top of the competition.
As a business organization, always remember that if the service provider does not advertise the service, they’ll most probably not offer it as well. So, make sure you ask for it before investing anything.
2 Good Storage Space
“How much website data can I store?” has to be one of the first few questions you’ll need to ask from the web hosting service provider. This is especially important if you’re planning to start an online store, as your products will take a lot of space.
Also, it’s not about big storage space but the perfect one as per your demands. Even some of the smallest websites today have several GB of data at the backend which allows them to store a good amount of data easily.
You will also find taglines and offers that say “Unlimited Storage”. With such offers, make sure that you go through the “Terms and Services” section as most of these unlimited data storage offerings are only unlimited until you go over their defined “Normal Site Usage” limit.
Make sure that you know how big a data space you can use before choosing your ideal web hosting service provider.
3 Amount of Bandwidth Offered
You will probably notice the terms “Data Storage” and “Bandwidth” hand in hand while looking for the perfect web hosting service provider.
For those who have no idea how bandwidth helps you, let’s take a quick overview. Bandwidth is the total amount of data offered by your web hosting service provider which lets you and your visitors upload and download data in a given period, mostly in a month.
Let’s say your website has 1 MB of data and your monthly bandwidth is something around 10 MB. At the very beginning of the month, you will upload the complete website of yours on the host’s server, and now you’ve used up an MB of the total bandwidth.
Now if anyone visits your website, they will download an MB worth of data. This means that you are now left with bandwidth worth only 9 visitors for the rest of the month. Post reaching this limit, your web hosting service provider will not allow any more visitors to your website.
You can pay the web hosting service provider for more bandwidth in case you need it. They’ll charge you for every added MB of bandwidth.
Similar to the scheme of “unlimited data” you are offered for data storage, here also a number of different web hosting service providers offer plans like “Unlimited Bandwidth”.
The story is the same here as well. Do check out the past reviews as well as Terms and Conditions before choosing your ideal web hosting service provider.
4 Secure Website Backup
Not to any surprise but modern websites are more prone to complete wipeouts and data loss than the data stored offline in your desktop computers.
If your web hosting service provider is not offering powerful backup options, you should probably not invest in that, even if it offers any “unlimited” coupons.
There are even some free web hosting service providers available in the market who offer secure website backup. However, the paid ones definitely have better security and features. Even when the big picture shows ‘free’, it’s not always applicable and you have to switch to premium to use their best services.
To run your websites safely for a long period, you would want to backup both your website files and the complete database. If you have no idea about taking backups for your website, do ask for auto backups feature from your website hosting service provider.
5 The Numbers of Domains and Subdomains
There’s a very strong chance that you will need a second website or a subdomain when you are up and running with your first one.
Creating a website is fun but to manage different web hosting accounts for every website is a huge hassle and budding businesses just can’t afford them. Make sure to ask for options to enable and manage multiple domains from your web hosting service provider.
As per your business requirements, you will have to make sure that the number of domain and subdomain hosting options offered is feasible with your business requirements. In some of the most popular web hosting solutions, there are sections available in the admin panel for adding domains and subdomains to the website.
Make sure you get multiple domain and subdomain accessibility features from your web hosting service provider.
6 Supportive and Quick Tech Support
Tech support is another very important feature you should ask from your ideal web hosting service provider.
You will have to dig in and look for all the prospects and channels. Ask questions about the phone and calling medium. Ask about the timings for customer technical support. Will they offer complete support via the email address provided? Is there a ticketing system available? And if there is one, how quick the tickets are resolved on average?
Most of the top web hosting service providers offer a live chat option that is very easy to use and much faster than traditional support mediums. Do ask whether the live chat feature is available or not.
Also, you can ask whether there is an article library available with detailed tech articles or not? Issues like slow loading websites and backups are quite common these days. Technical support is very important in modern times, especially for small business organizations around the world. Make sure you are offered tech support second to none.
7 Email Account and Related Features
There are a lot of web hosting service providers that offer dedicated email accounts for your domains, included in your hosting package. As a customer, you must be aware of the number of email accounts the web hosting service provider will let you sign up to.
Also, never forget to check out their selections for the purpose of receiving the emails. Learn if they have a simple or complete webmail interface? Are there any options for selecting any other interface for webmail?
What about the integrations with the major Google Apps? Is the Gmail interface offered in the webmail? Also, you must ask whether you can get emails redirected to your preferred client via IMAP or they can only support POP?
Bottom Line
Starting an online business doesn’t mean making easy money. It takes your time, dedication, hard work, money, and technical know-hows. From creating a website for your business to marketing your products and services, web hosting plays an important role. The more efficient your web hosting, the more customers you can reach!
The key to opting best web hosting services is that you should first know what your business demands? What are your future goals? Where do you see the website created by you heading after a few months? And if you need a subdomain or not?
The number of available options in the market of web hosting service providers could easily overwhelm any level of business organization or budding business owners. Make sure you get nothing but the best in the business!
