Finding the right web hosting provider to create your website has been one of the most primary concerns today for businesses. From the creators all the way to the web hosting companies and the industry or parties themselves need the website on there.
Well, there are many out there that claim one hundred percent uptime, fantastic security, the highest speed, unlimited traffic, etc. – we could go on and on with the marketing ploys and sub-platforms like dedicated hosting and more. They all offer spiels like “free domains” and our personal favorite “Only so much per month.” Whatever you do, don’t ignore the asterisk, though. This means they’ll bill you for the entire year at once, and you only get the discount for your first year most of the time. Either way, let’s get into how you can find the best web hosting no matter what your needs are.
Table of Contents
Step Number One: Know How Much Flexibility You’ll Need
Choosing the right web hosting service to host your site will depend on many factors based on your business and the reach you want to achieve.
This is a crucial factor. Of course, you can generally get excellent customer service when you pick the right host, as well as email support or phone support and good turnaround. You do, however, want to know just what you’re needing. If you’re going to have a managed website or have the flexibility to do your own thing, this is extremely important to consider. Do you want a hosting-managed WordPress site? Or are you wanting to download a manual install and have a web design team do it? Do you want a custom HTML website? All of these factors, when discussing what you want in your web hosting choice.
Step Number Two: Be Honest About How Much Traffic You’ll Need.
If you’re a small local business, you won’t need to purchase the enterprise web hosting package. On the flip side, if you’re an enterprise, you wouldn’t want to buy the web hosting package for SMBs.
Of course, if you’re designing a new website, you need to know that you’re going to have a small amount of traffic, sure, but if you are paying for too little, then you’ll be expected to pay for more bandwidth over time. If you want to have a basic site, you may need to know about the different servers you can choose. On shared servers, you’ll end up having to worry about bandwidth being exceeded, whereas, on dedicated servers, you’ll have a little heavier bandwidth allowed and a lot more freedom since you’re not sharing with others.
Step Three: You Need to Know Your Servers
It’s essential that you know your servers and how much bandwidth and storage you’ll need for web hosting.
If you’re serving a local area, then you’ll know that you’re going to have to share that bandwidth. Therefore, you need to know just what other websites on the server are doing. If you’re worried about things like page load speed, etc., and have a little bit less flexibility on what exactly you can do, then you want to avoid this at all costs. However, we will say that many small businesses and entrepreneurs benefit from shared web hosting as well, so don’t shy from those if you’re on a beginner’s budget!
Next up is the VPS hosting, a virtual machine (out of many) on one server. While it’s essentially similar to shared hosting, there are fewer competitors, and you can get higher performance rates. Dedicated servers are one of the top tiers of hosting to allow you flexible options. It’s you paying for your whole server. Of course, you can always also opt for cloud servers. The last two are often higher priced (a LOT higher than shared hosting), so you need to consider it.
Remember Those Unlimited Offers? Stay Away!
Unlimited bandwidth and storage web hosting teaser offers rarely work out, and we suggest steering clear of hosting services and plans that do this.
Some web hosts say if you pay so much, you can get unlimited bandwidth. Don’t fall for this trap. You’d rather pay for a service that you have to pay a little for extra bandwidth compared to one in which they’ll just cut you off after you’ve met your bandwidth threshold. Other sites will lower your website and server performance if you go over.
As a Business, Always Get a Backup Host
To keep your website up 24/7/365, you’ll want to look into backup hosting. Failure to do so could lead to your site being down, and it’s always better to be safe than sorry.
Many people often have their web hosting plans on one server, but believe it or not, many people have “offline” versions of their website on backup hosts. This is how they always maintain uptime.
Some of the Best Hosts
HostGator is our choice for web hosting services, but many other choices are almost as good as HostGator.
Of course, you need to register your domain (which you can choose when you sign up). Your best bet is to get one that isn’t used, of course, so that you can own it. Once you do this, you’ll want to set up your web hosts. We won’t get into that here, but you can choose some of these top hosts that can provide the highest-rated services out there:
What We Think
While many web hosting companies, as we’ve mentioned and provided some of the best ones on the market out there, you also have to know the prices vary. Always consider the bandwidth as what you’re going to need when it comes to your server because it generally varies and what you are going to pay for is what you are going to get, except in the case of HostGator and IONOS, who offer some very exceptional deals when it comes to bandwidth and flexibility.
Whatever host you choose for your company’s website, you also want to ensure that you incorporate the right tools, as this matters as well. To make sure you’re not missing out on any critical tools, please send us a message.