Picking the right web hosting service is a total nightmare. If you type ‘which web hosting service’ into Google Search Engine you get one hundred and one different ‘Top 10 web hosting service’ articles and links.
If you like ‘Top 10’ lists this is all well and good.
You need to remember though that most of the info on these top 10 lists is totally made up. Most of these lists are actually sponsored by a specific company in order to place their services at the top.
There are, however, some good web hosting companies out there that have been around for a while and have a good reputation. These include BlueHost,GoDaddy and JustHost to name but a few. These three pretty much provide the same services, so what it is often best to do is find which one which is currently running a discount service like BlueHost’s current coupon offer.
Alternatively, if you want to be more analytical about exactly which serviceyou want to host your website, you should go through this check list and work out for yourself which criteria is more important to you and your site.
The price of the web hosting service
The price is the thing that, let’s be fair, we all look at first. Although price is important it shouldn’t be the deciding factor. You should always be cautious about picking the cheapest service simply because of the old quote, “You get what you pay for.” Automatically getting the cheapest service may appear great at face value but without additional services like outsourced support and a 24/7 helpline you may find these services more hassle than they are worth. You need to look at the features each web hosting service provides before you make a decision about cost.
Features the web hosting service provides
This really should be number one above price – but at the end of the day we’re only human and price always dictates our decisions. Things that you’ll want to look at include: regular data backups; technical support; average downtime; maintenance; whether they charge for additional backups, emails, domains, etc. The best thing to do is to make a list of included features for each web-hosting provider and decide for yourself.
Tech support
Technical support is a huge factor to take into consideration. For most people the level of support a web hosting provider includes makes or breaks the deal. You need to think that if your site goes down, for some unknown reason, can you make one phone call – to a real person – and get it fixed?And more importantly, are their technical support services manned 24/7 or do they outsource all their support services? It’s also worth finding out the different ways you can contact the web host service provider if and when you need support (i.e. email, phone, instant chat,etc.).
You need to be able to trust your web host provider that if anything goes wrong you’ll be able to contact someone instantly to find out why and how to fix it. A good thing to do to work out whether or not their technical support services are good is to go online and investigate their customer support reputation yourself.
