Finding a perfect hosting provider can be a really hard and difficult task. People believe that “you get what you paid for”. But, in the hosting business, it is actually a quite different situation. Not only that a cheap hosting service can be an extremely efficient one, but on the other hand, an expensive one does not guarantee high quality of service. There are many technical details that you must know before going deeper into the forest of hosting providers. Things like uptime, storage capacity, number of emails, malware scanning and the duration of trial periods must all be taken into account before choosing. So, let’s start from the basics.
Finding out your needs
You should know what you are looking for. A different hosting plan is required for hosting a blog, or for posting videos or pictures online. Maybe disk space is really important for you, but on the other hand maybe bandwidth isn’t, as you don’t expect many visitors. If you want a site that is rich in content, than you probably should pick a host more carefully. You want enough RAM, disk space and processing power to be there for the needs of your site, so your visitors can be sure that there are no imposed limitations.
Price
We’ve mentioned that price isn’t everything, but still, nothing comes free. While it should be a deciding factor, you want to find the provider with the best plan that is suitable for your needs, and your wallet. Finding the cheapest offer usually isn’t all there is to it, as it usually has hidden costs and penalties, because hosting companies are also in the business of making money. Find a few providers and compare their offers, and find the ones that fit your needs.
Technical support
This is a really important one. When a website goes down, for any reason, you want to be able to make a call and get answers as soon as possible and you do not want to be forced to wait for responses. Also, you want to talk to a live representative of the company. It maybe their fault and their customer service must be able to handle all the calls from all their respective customers. Support must be available to you
Limitations
Even though commercials use words like “endless” and “unlimited”, there is no such thing. Everything is subject to fair use, and some resources are available to you as long as you are not overusing them. Maybe the number of files you can keep on your website is limited, or if your site gets a lot of visitors which the host hasn’t predicted, they usually suspend the account, as it can hog their resources, and endanger other websites on the same infrastructure. All these things are mentioned in the terms of service (ToS), and it is recommended that you read them carefully.
Room for expanding
If your website grows in popularity and you start getting a lot of new, unique visitors per day, you want to be able to expand some of the resources available to suit your new, rising needs. So, you want your host to be able to quickly upscale any particular resource that you ask for, for a determined price, and you will want to know that there are no hidden penalties for changing your hosting plan.
Reputation
Always do research before choosing, since there are a few very good, specialized sites that do an in-depth review of the more popular hosting services and are grading their quality. They will also reveal any hidden costs, or any other things that are not mentioned on the official site of the hosting company. Do not be fooled by fancy offers, and only trust a service once you have checked the reviews from other users.
In the end, it all boils down to research and reading the fine print. You must be willing to adjust your price range if a host provider is offering a better environment for your site. Search online for other reviews either by users or specialized sites, and make sure to thoroughly read all the details about the hosting plan you are subscribing to. You need to have eyes in the back of your head and you’ll be prepared for anything.