Factors Every Business Should Consider Before Choosing Web Hosting

A website is one of the most important assets most businesses possess. However, the importance of a fast, reliable website is not always understood by business owners. The web hosting company you use plays a huge role in the effectiveness and success of a modern website and there are certain things you should consider before you partner with a particular web hosting company. Below are the main factors you should be aware of.

Support

When you buy web hosting from a web hosting service provider, you are essentially adding a new member to your business team. Like any team member, it is important that your web hosting provider communicates properly with you. If there is a problem, it should be easy to contact the company’s support department. Most reliable hosting companies such as Planet Hippo Web Hosting allow their customers to contact them in different ways. Live chat, email and knowledge base facilities should be available and your query or concern should be dealt with in a friendly and efficient manner.
It might be a good idea to test a hosting company’s support service before you become a customer, by asking a simple question about the service provided. If the initial support experience is a good one before you become a customer, it is more likely that you will continue to receive excellent support. Plenty of review websites and blogs will also guide you in the right direction and give you information about other customer experiences with a specific web hosting company.

Reliability and Speed

Your website is one of the main ways you can showcase your business to the world. More businesses than ever are also using their websites to sell their products and services. Every time your website is down, you could be losing customers, shoppers and subscribers. This is why researching your web hosting company is so important. Ask their support staff questions about the technologies they use and talk to similar businesses who have the same type of website as yours.
As well as always being available, a modern website should load quickly too. Unfortunately, many businesses don’t monitor this aspect of a website and could be losing visitors and shoppers, simply because a website is too slow to appear on a computer screen or mobile device. A range of website speed tools make it much easier to identify the performance of any website.

Costs and Hidden Fees

Make sure you know what you are paying for. The website hosting industry is well known for adding hidden fees for services and products you don’t need. As a business website grows, you may need to upgrade your account to a different type of hosting, so it is important to understand what fees will be involved in this process too.