If you are going to set up a work-at-home business, it is always a good idea to have an online presence, whether is it to display your goods or simply to promote your services. The importance of having your own website cannot be overemphasized. It is the window through which people get to know you or your company, and an avenue where many business interactions are initiated.
Your website can either be in the form of a simple blog or as elaborate as a full-fledged e-commerce site. Whatever it is, you need a good, reliable, and cheap web hosting company to host your site. With thousands of web hosting companies out there, how do you choose one that meets your needs?
Personally, I have done a lot of research into web hosting companies for my own websites. There are many criteria which I evaluate before narrowing down my search to three or four companies. I have listed down a few of the criteria (in no particular order) which I deem to be the most important to consider when looking for a web hosting company.
Technical Support
A good, responsive, 24 by 7 technical support is a must for anyone serious about hosting a business website. Whether you program your own site or hire someone else to do it for you, it is downright frustrating when troubleshooting your site to find that your support ticket doesn't always get replied and sometimes get responded to after waiting for something like eternity.
Before choosing a hoster, find out more about their technical support. Check out their 24x7 live chat support, dial their technical support hotline and post in their support forums. Ask some pre-sales questions and find out how responsive their support is. Also, try to ask some difficult questions to see if their technical support is really up to the mark, and that not any Tom, Dick or Harry is manning the hotline.
You also want to make sure that the company has a thriving technical forums page, which has very active participation from both clients and support staff. This will ensure that you have an avenue to turn to when you need help.
Reliability and Uptime
This criteria is absolutely critical for business sites, where time is literally money. You website cannot afford to be down for extended periods of time. However, there is really no such thing as 100% uptime as hardware may need to be replaced or software patched once in a while. Nowadays, web hosting companies typically advertise an uptime of 99.9%, which works out to be less than 45 minutes of downtime per month. A good place to check out the uptime for a hoster is webhostingstuff.com.
You can also browse through the company's forums page to see if there were any complaints for downtime and how quickly the issues were resolved. Another indicator of reliability and reputability is how long the company has been in operation. Typically, you want a company that has been around for at least three years and has a large client base. This means and that the level of service provided is good enough for it to survive in a highly competitive industry, and that the company is here to stay.
Disk Space and Bandwidth
Don't believe it when a company advertises unlimited disk space and bandwidth. The truth is if you are using shared hosting, the bottleneck is really the CPU and the RAM, not the disk space and bandwidth. Your hosting company will typically have a cap on the amount of CPU and RAM resources you can use. If you exceed the limit, your site will be kicked for using too much resources. It has NOTHING to do disk space or bandwidth!
Notwithstanding, you can expect anything from 1GB to 50GB for disk space and 10GB to 1000GB for bandwidth.
Price and Affordability
For shared hosting, the price can range from $4.95 from a starter plan to more than $70 for a premium plan. Take into account the disk space, bandwidth and features you need and choose a plan that fits your requirements.
The important thing I feel here is don't get locked into a one- or two-year contract. Although many companies have a one-month money back guarantee, it is not in your best interest to lock yourself into a contract however enticing the offer is; there may not be any problems during your first month, but what about two or three months later?
Most respectable companies will have a monthly payment option, and this goes to show that the company is confident of what it is doing and is likewise confident to retain you as a customer. If the company does not have a monthly payment option, avoid them like the plague! They have no idea what they are doing, and they simply want to tie you down with a contract.
My advice is don't stinge on a few dollars because it is not worth it. Pay a few more dollars for monthly payment and it will save you from countless hours of frustration later on.
Scripts
Most websites make use of either PHP (4 or 5) or PERL, and use GD for manipulating images. Most hosting companies should have them installed. Check with them if you are not sure. They also normally come with other scripts which can be installed via their Control Panel. Scripts that may be useful include content management systems (Drupal, Mambo, etc.), forums (phpBB, SMF), blogs (Wordpress, Movable Type), and e-commerce carts (osCommerce, ZenCart).
Others
A few more things you may want to check before clicking that order button.
How fast do the websites hosted by the company serve out their pages? As you are using a shared hosting plan, it means that you are sharing the CPU, RAM, and bandwidth with many other people. A slow speed probably means that the hoster is squeezing every cent out of their servers by cramming as many customers as they can into a single server. Therefore, you want a fast speed. Use this tool to check the speed of the website.
You want a company that manages their own data centers. Reputable companies will generally have an "about" page where they will list the data centers they manage, while resellers do not. Normally, I prefer to go "direct" and not to go through resellers, because when things happen (server crash, etc.), I would be able to obtain information first hand rather than through a third-party. This will make troubleshooting much easier too.
Conclusion
The above are the most important criteria which I use to assess the web hosting companies, before I make the decision to sign up. It takes time and effort to research and find a good hosting company, but be assured that it is time well spent. It will save you a lot of frustration later on.
Walter Tang is a student who is documenting his journey in building an
online business so that he can work at home when he graduates. His trials
and tribulations are documented in his blog. His collection of
useful resources can be found at his website.
