Once you have started to look at website hosting and the multitude of plans being offered, you’ll probably have some questions. You may wonder what you need in a host.
You don’t want to get a plan that doesn’t fit your site and causes it to be slow and terrible to visit and use. On the other hand, you don’t want to overspend on a plan and have a lot of extras that you don’t need.
These are common issues – almost everybody encounters them when first looking at hosting plans.
In order to assist, we’ve put together three categories to help you decide what you need and how to find a plan that fits your needs.
Storage (Have Room For What Matters)
Web hosting is the process of storing your website’s data on a server. Depending on the plan, you will have a certain amount of storage space that your site can occupy.
What you need to do is determine the size of your website. There are many ways to do this. You can check the cPanel for the disk space usage or you can Google an online tool that will give you each page’s size, then add that up to determine your site size.
Look for a plan that is a little bigger than your site. You will need this to accommodate for traffic increases, as well as any future upgrades you may want to do.
Security First Approach
While storage is a very popular factor in hosting quality, it may not be the most important. While each of these categories is very important, security is the only one that actively defends your website.
Most hosts will have, at the very least, basic security measures – a firewall, for example. However, your site may need more than that. If you have a static website with no contact forms, ordering, or payment needs, you can probably get away with the normal security that your host offers. If your site does have any of these options, you will need more security.
The most common additional security is an SSL Certificate, which makes your website secure. You can tell if a website has this by a little lock picture in the address bar.
Another way to improve security is to choose a dedicated website hosting plan. This ensures that only your site is on a server and therefore eliminates the threat of an inside attack that comes when using a shared hosting plan.
SSL certificates, firewalls, and any other security measure offered is a good start. If you see something you aren’t sure of, just do some quick internet research to be sure it is something you need.
You Need Support
Support should always be an important part of your decision-making process. Why? Well, there will come a time when your website goes down. This can be caused by a bad update, a hacker, or something else out of your control. When this happens you will need somebody to help you out.
With a good support team available, chances are that your host will already know about the issue and be working on it. Live support is also not the only thing to consider. What about if you want to DIY something? Having a host that offers a database of how-to’s and walk-throughs allows you to do it yourself if that’s what you want.
24/7 support should be an absolute when it comes to getting help quickly. Having the ability to research issues, techniques, and directions on your own will improve your ability to run your website.
Your Web Hosting Priorities
While there are other aspects involved in website hosting, these three are absolutely necessary to consider. When it comes to choosing a plan, the price will be the price.
However, storage, security, and support can vary greatly and make a huge difference in your website’s customer experience.
If you want to learn more about how we feel on these topics and more, take a look at our different web hosting plans. We are serious about hosting and want to provide you with the best product for your website.
