Web hosting has been an important necessity in today’s online business world. Choosing between good and bad, free or paid, is not as easy as it was before. There are so many factors that we have to be looking at to make a well informed decision, that most of the time we tend to incline ourselves with choosing the “free” ones or the “cheapest ones”.
The fact that there are so many web hosting providers, basically offering the same “services”, makes it even harder to make a quick decision, as to which service would be the right fit for your hosting needs. In my case, I started from a free service and then shifted over a “shared-hosting” service. Today, I am again considering to change services as my current needs have changed. Like me, as time goes by, your needs change, due to a number of reasons, and for this, a proper analysis and research is always a wise move.
So the question is, what should you be looking for to help you make a decision?
The obvious would be to ask people that you know. This is a good method as they already have the experience with their services and can give you a heads up of whether they are satisfied or not.
Some will go for the cost of web hosting services. Why will I pay an extra $2, if the other one is cheaper, right? Wrong. This is what I call a false economy and incorrect assumption. Cheaper can in the long run cost you more than just the small difference. Obviously, price is an important decision factor, but here are more “things” you should be looking at too:
- Support & Technical assistance
- User interface (friendliness)
- Tutorials (preferably video)
- Upload time
- Reliability
- Technical & Customer Support
- Software
- Disk Space & Bandwidth
That being said, what if company A has exactly the same offer as company B? Maybe you’ll say, A is cheaper so I’m going for that. Cheap is not always synonym to reliability and going this route quickly could be proven wrong at the end of the day. When you are not satisfied, you will most likely change providers and at this point a lot of things can go wrong. As I said above, you can always ask for people you know, to give you some suggestions, but they too might not be satisfied with their service. At the end of the day, you end yourself with three or four to look at. When you come to a standstill, there are other ways to seek for information.
1) Do a thorough research, OR
2) Use a company that reviews and rates web hosting providers
Independent web hosting review directories like WebHostingClue, features in-depth information on just about every major web hosting providers that exists. After all, this is what they do, offer a neutral site for comparing and purchasing hosting products. Their objective is to help you find the solution for your hosting needs.
Searching for the right and best web hosting solution can be a long and arduous task and on WebHostingClue, these services, makes it easier for you to research relevant plans and make an informed decision. In addition, some of them provide really good guides for all levels of experience. If you are thinking of using WordPress for example, you might want to consider searching for the best WordPress hosting solution. Are you going “green”? Yeah, there is also the so called green hosting, and if you don’t have a clue of what you want, these guides can come in handy.
This post brought to you by WebHostingClue dot com.
MagicMembers
This is really a great idea. It is really very difficult sometimes to find good web hosting. Thanks for sharing these tips. Very useful
You are welcome. Glad you found this useful
Dana
In my opinion, the first step will be to decide what we needs about web hosting. After that, we can find the web hosting that fulfill our needs by using the way that you mentioned on this post.
Hi Dana. yeah, that is the most important part of choosing a web host. First plan for your needs, then apply some of the tips above and, then go over agin everything once more, and the finally decide 🙂 Thanks for your input. All the best
For a lot of clients who are just starting out to blog I am using hostgator. I found the reliable for the price regarding server performance and support.
Hi Andreas. You are not the first that recommend Hostgator. I myself have been thinking of moving to another provider soon as my current server is giving me too much issues about “CPU Throttling”. I am getting that a lot and still trying to figure out the best way to solve it. We’ll see
I have to agree with the fact that choosing a cheaper hosting plan can sometimes cost you more money then if you choose a more expensive plan.
Also, what is more important is that your business can suffer if you choose to be cheap when choosing the right hosting platform for your business. If you have a sudden traffic spike, your website might go down or the hosting company might even close your account, which will definitely affect your credibility and success.
I know that people already know this, but also, expensive doesn’t mean better, it just means it’s swallowing more money, but rather the companies with the best reviews and reputation are the ones that will most likely be the most professional and reliable!
Bill @ Earn Money Online
Ah, that’s an interesting idea: The best hosting solution for WordPress. I’m only using WordPress blogs for my websites, but I didn’t know that there are specialized hosting solutions available. Can anyone recommend a great hosting solution for WordPress?
waqar
You share usefull information and I am agree that price (or cheap) is not always better for web hosting we have to consider some other factors like upload time etc.
Ricardus
Upload time, reliability, support and technical assistance are really important factors for end users’s website to function properly to keep their organization or business point to be on constant ongoing
I agree Ricardus. Those factors you mention are indeed the most important aspects of good web hosting providers.
BTW, I have heard good things about your hosting company, way to go…
Ricardus
Thanks a lot DiTesco. We are constantly growing and hope we can provide an optimum services to people out there.
Michael Aulia @CravingTech.com
I’m still in love with my hosting company, HostGator. One of the best support available and they also have powerful servers 🙂 Can cater my 3,500 unique visitors a day blog on a shared account just fine