You will need to choose a web hosting provider in order to host a website. But, the question remains how to find one and what all aspects to consider while searching for the right one. In today’s time, there are numerous web hosts available which differ considerably in the services and packages they offer. Also, finding a home for your website means finding the provider which offers features you require to build a website, keep it completely accessible for clients and visitors, and prevent it from cyber attacks. In order for you to decide which web hosting service you should opt for, here are three questions you need to ask your service provider and why they matter.
1. Do you require a do-it-yourself (DIY) website builder?
With DIY website builders, you can create professional looking websites without investing much time and money in hiring a web designer. Most DIY websites utilize a simple drag and drop interface, without requiring any coding or programming skills. You can choose a template and modify it to fir your company, products and services and hence easily create and launch your website.
DIY website building is a very robust service which is not offered by many website builders. Mostly, service providers offer services where there is a need for coding and using third party softwares in order to build a website. So, you need to be vigilant about which service you want to choose.
2. How much space and bandwidth do you require?
It all depends upon the type of business you are in. Space is the amount of storage you will need and the bandwidth is the amount of data transferred and downloaded when people visit your website. For example, an image heavy e-commerce website and a multimedia and content heavy website will require more space and bandwidth than a simple website that only comprise of few pages entailing the details of the company, its products and contact information. Also, a website that attracts tens of thousands of visitors in a single day will require more bandwidth than one with hundreds visitors per day. At last, it is important to know how much space and bandwidth you require as it is directly linked to web hosting subscription costs.
3. Does your web hosting service provider meets uptime, security and recovery standards?
When you are launching a website, you are trusting your web host to keep the website up and running. Your web hosting provider should offer the security, uptime and disaster recovery your website needs. It is important because cyber crime is on the rise. As a business, it is your responsibility to safeguard not only your data, but the data of your customers as well. Hackers can not only steal information like credit card numbers and confidential information but also knock your website offline, rendering your business out of clients reach and if you are an ecommerce website, this could result in great loss.
So, look for a web host who meets security standards like SSL certificate, PCI and data encryption at rest and during transmission. Further, your web host must have at least 99.9% uptime, 24/7 support and a backup and disaster recovery plan which can get your website back and running again after downtime.
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