Choosing the web hosting provider is the crucial step for making a subtle existence in a web. While choosing a web hosting one should consider the customer’s perspective. According to an analytical blog, 40 percent customer leaves the site if it takes more than 3 seconds to load and even one-second delay can affect end-user conversion to 7 percent. So along with website uptime, the times took in loading also take effect. The three most important features to be asked by a novice user are speed, reliability, and support. Further, the size of website and traffic volume also plays a crucial role in affecting loading time negatively. For small businesses shared hosting is provided as a tempting option but here the size of your website and the future incoming traffic also matters .if your website is attracting huge traffic or having a huge size over disk than you may have to choose a bigger plan.
Some quick things to assess are:-
- Aware of a business budget: – Price plays a crucial role in the selection of web hosting provider. One has to give concern to budget if you are spending a huge amount of preparing business promoting website. Then it is not recommendable to go cheap on a selection of hosting provider. On the other hand, if your website needs low bandwidth, less size over disk then bigger plans are of not much importance to them .rather it could flounder your budget.
- Bandwidth: – It should be asked from hosting provider that how much bandwidth is allocated or is there any limitation over-use? And if it is then, what cost could occur if limit trespasses? Some provider charge customer with hidden prices in order to run more profit.
- Space on disk: The size of the disk should also be considered and flexibility must be maintained. If your website is offering videos, music audios, images then it may require a huge space. If one is uncertain about the disk space then allocated disk size must be flexible enough to accommodate future business needs. So that you won’t have to run into problems.
- Email: the email specific to your business may be able to build strong business relations. A hosting provider which provides email solution along with its hosting package should be chosen. A business-specific mail is more effective than an email provides by a common email provider. Always focus must be on choosing solutions which strengthen business relation and communication.
- Website statistics: Website statistics give your insight to the success of online business. With these statistics, you can analyse how many visitors have gone through your website? Where are they from? And you may also know if your website is encountering errors. By knowing the all aspect of errors occurred you may mitigate them and prevent them from occurring frequently satisfying the needs for an end user.
- Customer review and social sentiments: – you can’t know what type of service company is providing unless you hire that provider’s service. So to take an insight without spooling unreasonable amount one should opt for user reviews and social media comments about their services. This can save you from making a wrong decision in long run.
- Security concern: if you are holding e-commerce business and then data security may be the biggest concern for you. You must ask the provider about the security measuring it is using and what further tools it is using to prevent an illicit attack. They also provide some add-ons. These add-on include frequent malware and virus scans providing an extra security layer.
- SSL: SSL certificates are the most common technique to exchange data with encryption technology. SSL (secure socket layer) is just a handshake between two servers that ensure data is transmitted privately. One can determine if any site is using SSL or not through its URL. If its Web address starts with HTTPs then SSL is used otherwise not. Some SSL also adds a green padlock icon over address bar that shows if a site is safe or not. Recent Google trends are now emphasizing over those websites for indexing who are using SSL certificate. The reason behind is that these sites are considered more reliable and secure.
- Firewall Protection: if your website is running on your own server then along with other security measures a proper firewall mechanism is also essential .the firewall keeps you server intact from outer world ’s potential intrusions.A firewall protection deployment which secures your server from unauthenticated users may be the crucial step in the long run as it can save your data to be fallen into wrong hands. A proper backup solution is also necessary to save data if any mishap occurs and data is lost.
Selection of hosting type:-
According to your business/Service type and the above-mentioned criteria, you may choose one best plan for various hosting types. Every company provides a different hosting plan under the different package. But generally, it can be classified into following types:-
- Shared server: In sa hared server, all resources are allocated to multiple clients. This is cheap hosting and beneficial for a user who holds website which needs fewer resources and size because shared hosting allocates bandwidth between multiple users allowing them to use a limited share of network bandwidth.
- Virtual server: This type of server is up-gradation of shared servers because here the resources are allocated but with proper limitations. Each user does have its own space to expand and if the business expands more than extra resources can also be appended to it. It costs a little more than shared hosting and here a user can manage its server and can manipulate server configuration according to needs.
- Dedicated server: This is the most costly server which assures a user that only he will be using the entire server. Server configurations are configured by a user holding the server so he must have technical knowledge. Many of companies also provide managed hosting where provider keeps concern of proper backup, protection, and other configuration.
There are many web hosting comparison companies comparison of web-hosting provider companies. They collect report on uptime analysis, social sentiments and provide statistics on their services. It is useful for a novice user and technical savvy use as well.