Finding the best host for your company's needs
So your business has decided that it is time to make its
presence felt on the internet. You have your all your
information ready, and you may even have created your website
and it is ready to go live on the internet.
The next step is to find a web hosting provider, but how do you
evaluate web hosting, and then make a choice on which provider
to pay your hard earned money too?
Choosing the correct host for your company's needs is a very
important step, if not the most important step when taking your
business online. The host you choose is responsible for placing
your website online, and keeping it there 24 hours a day, 7 days
a week. There is nothing worse for a business to have a website
that is not accessible by your customers, if your site is not
online it has the potential to cost you a sale, and also sales
in the future, if a prospective customer attempts to go to your
website only to find it offline, the chances of that customer
ever returning again are very slim.
Ok, so what should I look for in a web host?
There are several factors that you will need to evaluate before
making your short list of hosting providers, below I will
outline the most important aspects that you will need to cover.
1. Firstly you will need to evaluate the requirements of your
website. Will you need shopping cart facilities, what type of
content will your website be providing, what methods of payment
will you offer, you will also need to think in to the future as
well, will you need the ability to expand the site, taking a
business online is a very big step and should be a long term
step as well so you will need to think long term with your
planning. Write a short list of what your website will require
to properly function.
Details you will need to account for. Disk space and bandwidth.
Disk space refers to the amount of storage your web host will
provide you to store your website. You will need to account for
the current size of your website now, and also allow for what
disk space you will require in the future as your website grows.
Bandwidth refers to the amount of data (pages, files) served
from your website to your customers, if your website will be
subject to high traffic, you will need to take the amount of
bandwidth the host provides.
Also you will need to check what programming languages your
website will require, languages such as PHP, Perl/CGI, JSP, Cold
Fusion and ASP may be used on your website to perform certain
functions, your chosen web host will need to support the
programming languages that your site requires.
Now that you have a list of your requirements, it is time to
narrow down your list of providers that support all the features
required.
2. Contact each of the hosts you have on your list, confirming
what they offer and if it meets your requirements, also ask for
a list of references you can contact, some of the best
information about a web host can be gleaned from its customers,
the question you should ask an existing customer is; "how
reliable is the host?". This question is the most important; it
refers to two things, reliability of their hosting when it comes
to serving of your website, and also refers to reliability of
their mail system. Reliability of their mail system is just as
important as serving of your website.
3. Technical support, test it out, call the web hosts technical
support line at various times of the day and check how long it
takes to get through to support staff, also send technical
support an email to test how long it takes to receive a
response. If you are on hold for 30 minutes waiting to talk to
support about a problem with your website, that is 30 minutes
that your site is offline, and also 30 minutes of your own time
wasted with which you could be performing more productive jobs.
Finally you should choose a host that meets your expectations
and with whom you feel comfortable with, approach choosing a web
host the same way you would any other major business decision,
because after all it is your money paying for the service.