#1 Hosting Solutions and Specifications You Should Look For
#1 Hosting Solutions and Specifications You Should Look For
With so many hosting companies available, it’s easy to assume that all hosting solutions are equal. But they’re not. If you want a site with very little down time, then doing a little bit of research about which hosting specifications you’ll need for your website is absolutely essential. Don’t waste the reputation of your carefully chosen domain name on hosting that keeps crashing your site.
First, always find out how reliable a hosting company is, because it won’t do you any good to have a website if it crashes all the time. An easy way to research a company is to go to Google and type in the Company Name + Complaints. If you see multiple complaints about the company’s reliability, then look at other hosting solutions.
If the reliability of the company passes the test, then check out these additional features. There are three major things you should look for. The first one is the control panel or CPanel you’ll be working with.
You want an easy to use CPanel since you’ll probably be using the same company for all your hosting solutions for many years. The second thing you should be checking for is the mail host. Some companies will let you have as many email accounts as you want, but they might limit your storage to one gigabyte. Others will allow you to have a limited number of email accounts, but they won’t limit storage. Be sure to look for any restrictions on the mail accounts.
The third thing you should look for is Fantastico. This system lets you install various software scripts on your website without having to pay a designer. You can install WordPress blogs, forums and more in just three, simple, clearly explained steps.
Once you’re satisfied that your hosting company has these features, then it’s time to see what their customer service track record looks like. A few minutes spent searching the web will show you if they routinely ignore support tickets or if their staff is unprofessional or rude.
The final step in your research, now that you’ve narrowed your hosting solutions down to just a few that meet your criteria, it’s time to compare prices. You should expect to pay somewhere around five to ten dollars a month for hosting one or more websites. You shouldn’t have to pay any more than that. If a hosting company insists on more than that, it’s time to shop around for a different one.
BlueHost is one of the best hosting options out there. It has excellent customer service and a long history of reliability. They allow you to host as many websites as you like for a very low monthly fee, which includes unlimited data storage.
Be aware that storing a very large amount of data that is not related to your website(s) is frowned upon, so don’t choose unlimited hosting anywhere just to store excess data! You can get cloud storage for very large amounts of data for very low prices. Macrium is a good choice.
You’ll want to choose hosting based on where you’re going in the future with your business, not where you are now. You may only have one site to start with, but when you grow more, you’ll want the right hosting already in place.
That’s why we chose BlueHost. For one low monthly fee, we can host unlimited websites.
Final thoughts
Be aware that while hosting companies use security software themselves, it’s up to you to protect your own site. Once you’ve found the company to host your website out of all the available hosting solutions, be sure to make your site secure. It would be a terrible shame to be hacked after building a beautiful new website.
WordPress makes it easy with some excellent choices in plugins for the very purpose of securing your site. That’s one of the reasons we use them for all our sites.
