E-Commerce Hosting - Factors to Consider
So you have decided to take the plunge and take your business on
the web. This most likely means you will need a reliable hosting
service to host your e-Commerce website. What are the key
factors that you should consider when considering various web
hosting companies?
When considering a web hosting service you should consider at
least three factors, how reliable the service actually is, how
knowledgeable and prompt are their support staff and what is the
actual cost of using this service. Let's break down each factor
and really consider this situation in depth.
The reliability of the web hosting service is perhaps the most
important to your business as a unreliable service can seriously
hamper the reputation of your business. So how do you determine
if a host is actually reliable? The first and perhaps the
easiest way is to join a public newsgroup of web developers and
simply ask them who they use to host their websites. For
instance if you should want to use a ASP/ASP.Net hosting service
I would go to asp.net and simply ask who is the most reliable
hosting service. Also, searching through these newsgroups will
reveal quite a lot of information regarding how knowledgably and
helpful the support staff is as well. Simply stay away from
hosting providers that have a poor reputation as those service
companies most likely are only concerned with separating your
money from your wallet and not actually helping you grow your
business.
How do you determine which service has the most knowledgeable
and helpful staff? This one is again fairly easy to determine.
If the staff of the company takes the time to answer questions
on public newsgroups and is willing to share their time and
knowledge to help out others then this is the company you should
utilize. For instance I have noticed that on some public
newsgroups or forums many of the questions being answered are
from various web hosting services. This not only reinforces
their reputation of being really knowledgeable and helpful but
it allows the company to get some "free advertising" as well.
Lastly is the cost factor to consider. There are many low cost
web hosting providers out there. All you have to do is a search
on Google and you will obtain potentially millions of hits on
that key term. However, even low cost web hosting services can
turn out to be expensive when you consider the various add-ons
that you may have to attach to your website to make it truly
useful to you. So therefore when considering a web hosting
service write down your exact requirements you need to make your
website run. Also consider the amount of growth that you
anticipate when using this website. A website that may work for
you now may not work for you in the near future if your business
should really take off and you have not factored that
consideration into account. Also take into account any cost of
upgrading your service should you outgrow it or you need to move
to a high end hosting solution.
When considering a e-Commerce hosting service or any web hosting
service these are the key factors to consider before making any
purchase. While certainly not an exhaustive listing of
everything you need to consider this should get you on the right
path to narrow your choices down to at least three or four
services.