There is More than Just Price to Consider when it Comes to Hosting

Many people make the mistake of thinking only about price when trying to find a new hosting company.  Do not just sign up for a company because they offer the lowest prices.  You may live to regret your decision.  There are many more things you need to take into account when making the decision about hosting.

First, you will want to consider how much your website will actually stay online.  Most companies will announce an expected uptime % prominently.  Always remember; the greater the percentageof uptime, the better for you.  Websites rely heavily on repeat visitors and will not want their sites to go down often since people would get tired of it going down frequently.

When it comes to hosting, you also need to think about the level of customer service provided.  This is especially important if you are not technologically proficient.  If you do not know how to upload files or connect to your website using an FTP program, then you will need all the help you can get.

Your web hosting company should have a Frequently-Asked-Questions(FAQ) section and knowledge base to help less-experienced users.  For people with minor problems, they should be able to contact the company via email.  Having access to phone support will be important if you are ever having an emergency.

Virtually every hosting company gives users the ability to create standard HTML and CSS pages.  However, you may need a more advanced website that requires database or programming capabilities.  Not all hosting companies offer support for ASP, mySQL, or PHP.  If you need these abilities, then make sure the company offers it.

You want your websites to be as secure as possible.  Therefore, make sure you sign up for a website hosting company which takes security seriously.  They should also backup all users' files on the servers as much as possible.  The best companies do this on a daily basis, but weekly backups are better than nothing.  There should also be ways for users to make backups themselves, especially when using content management systems such as Wordpress.

Speaking of Wordpress; you may find it necessary to install certain scripts on your website like Wordpress, shopping carts, or a community forum.  The best companies will give customers the ability to install popular scripts with the push of a button.  Once again, this will be very useful if you are not that technologically proficient.

When it comes to website hosting there is more than just price to consider.  Make sure that you take some of the aforementioned points into consideration too.