subject: The Steps Of Picking A Good Hosting Provider [print this page] One potential problem you can avoid by doing some homework up front is ensuring that you get the perfect web hosting provider that fits your needs and your web sites requirements. It can be difficult but if you follow these simple steps you can be assured that you did your due diligence which should result in a good situation.
5 Steps to a Great Host
Affordable Pricing - This is subjective based on your budget, but what you want to do is compare the packages which meet your needs from the different providers. There will be some differences in the packages to be sure. Some may offer more features and some better service. You need to make the decision at this point based on what is most important for your particular situation.
Technical and Customer Support - at some point even the pros run into problems that they need support with. You should check with any host on their technical and customer support teams. Search to see if there are excessive customer complaints and ensure that they will be available at any time you may need them. There is nothing more frustrating than having your site go down Friday evening only to find the hosting support staff will not be back until Monday morning.
Uptime - Most hosts out there automatically guarantee a 99.9% uptime. What you should do is search to see how many complaints there are on this issue and if they are ringing the same tone. Any large company will have some complaints but what you need to judge is to what degree are they present and is there one common theme to them.
Backups - If the host you are considering does not offer the ability to back up your site then you should find a new host. It really is that simple and that big a deal. Backups should occur daily in order to keep all your data safe and any changes that have been done protected.
Plan Flexibility - This allows you plan to grow as your needs change and grow. Your site may not need a large amount of bandwidth when just starting out but over time as traffic grows your needs may change and a good host will change with those needs. Not locking you into what you had but allowing you to change into what you need over time.
These are some of the basic requirements to look at when choosing the right host for your online business or presence. When speaking with prospective hosts, ask questions like do they offer a money back guarantee if you find the service unsatisfactory. Will they allow your plan to change as your needs change. Is support available 24 hours a day 7 days a week? You need to know they will be there when you need them.
In the end you need to make a list of the things which are most important to you concerning hosting service. Whatever matters most to you make sure that you ask the question of each host you consider. The more research you do up front the more apt you are to avoid problems later and with hosting it is much better to get it right the first time than have to change providers later.
