Your website is one of the most important pieces of your business. Once you decide to take your business online with a website, you need to find a host. Web hosting is not a decision to take lightly. You need to do some research and find out what companies are better based upon what you need. The more you look, the better off you will be. There are plenty of nightmare stories out there as to what people experienced with their web hosting companies. You can avoid many of these mistakes by paying attention to the 5 things that can go wrong with your hosting.
#1: Shared Server Problems
In the event that you start off on a shared server, as many do, you may not have enough space to host your website. There is only so much space on a server and if you are sharing with two or three other companies, they may be scooping up more of the gigabytes than you are. This means that you may not be able to expand your site in the way that it is needed due to lack of storage.
Additionally, if the other people sharing the server need to reboot the server for any reason, such as to load new data, your site is taken down with it. This can lead to problems with your customers arriving at your website.
A server can only handle so many processes at a time. If the other sites on the server have more processes because of fancy things going on their website, your website may be taking the brunt of it. In the event that customers cannot access your website when they want to, they are going to get frustrated and find another company to work with – which means you lost business as a result of not having the right host.
#2: Not Enough Bells & Whistles
Take the time to ask: Do I have the right hosting for my company? You need to have the right navigation on your website and if your host can’t support it, you need to go elsewhere.
There are lots of things that your website may be doing. You may need e-commerce or be able to show videos and have a variety of photos loading. Each process takes more effort from the server, which is another reason why you may not want to share a server. Find out what you are truly getting from the hosting company.
Don’t sign up for one year of hosting from the get go. Sign up for a month, test it out, and then if you like it, sign up for the full year.
#3: Hidden Charges
When it comes to mistakes that hosting companies make, being too cheap is one of them. This may be a problem that you don’t even think about because you are letting the price of the hosting rule your decision.
The cheapest company may not have the server capacity that you need. They may have an introductory price that suddenly goes skyrocketing up after the first few months. They may also have hidden bandwidth charges that they don’t tell you about – and this can end up costing you a significant amount of money.
You don’t want to find out that your budgeted amount of money for hosting is suddenly not sufficient because you didn’t read the fine print. It seems as though the cheaper hosting companies have the most to hide in the fine print. This is why it’s incredibly important to read the terms of service before you agree to anything.
Read reviews online to find out about the different companies and what they offer for the price that they are charging. Websites like VirtualHosting.com give customers lengthy reviews, given by real people – this way you can weigh up our hosting options better and hopefully you will make the right choice web host wise.
#4: Not Enough Protection
There may not be enough protection on the servers that are housing your data. You have worked hard to build a website and build a following. All it takes is one hacker who can figure out how to get in the back door to ruin everything. Find out what kind of support is provided in the event that your account is hacked.
You need to find out if there is encryption and what precautions are in place. If someone were to hack your account and delete data, you also need to find out if there is a backup elsewhere of your content. There are some companies that don’t keep an external backup of your data – and that can leave you extremely vulnerable.
Ask questions about the company before you sign with them. They need to have virus protection on their server. It doesn’t take much for a Trojan or worm to enter the system and wipe out everything you have. If they don’t have systems in place to protect you, it can happen quickly. We all know that things can still happen – and they need to be able to get your data back in the event that it is corrupt or wiped out by any kind of malware.
#5: No 24/7 Web Hosting Support
One of the great things about the Internet is that it operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. If customers want to go on your website at 1 in the morning, they should be able to do so. However, if your website goes down for any reason and you don’t have 24/7 web hosting support, you have to wait around for someone to arrive at the help centre. This can leave your site down for hours on end and cause you to lose a significant amount of business.
Too many websites have gone dark because of one problem or another. Whether the server needs to be rebooted or it has been hacked by someone, you need to be able to call support and have it resolved.
Hosting is the most important thing you need to look at with your website. If you don’t have the right hosting company, it’s going to cause problems with your website. You don’t want to lose business because of your website. These are the top 5 things that can go wrong with your hosting, but there are many more. Read the fine print and test out the hosting service before you pay for a year or more of service. The time you take checking out a host can protect your business and prevent you from losing customers as a result of not having the website they demand. Hosting doesn’t have to be expensive, but you do have to focus on more than just the price. Great companies exist; you just have to find the one right for your website.
About the Author: Cormac Rennicks is a writer and a journalist and a writer. He loves technology and interesting gadgets.
