Choosing the right website hosting company can be a difficult decision. The sheer number of hosting companies out there is overwhelming. And trying to compare the different packages can be like comparing apples to oranges if you don’t know what you are doing.
What you want to look for in a Hosting Company
- Great Customer Service
If the company you are look at is not open 24/7/365 then pass onto the next company. If it’s Friday evening at 5 p.m. and your website goes down, you do not want to have to wait until 9 a.m. on Monday morning to have someone take a look at it.
- Reliability
It’s amazing to me, but almost every hosting company claims to have 99.9% uptime. How can that be? Their website won’t tell you if their servers are unreliable. The best way to find out how reliable a hosting company is is to Google them and see if their customers are complaining about them.
- Are customers complaining that their websites go down a lot?
- No email?
- Other problems?
A few complaints for a large company is to be expected. A lot of complaints is a red flag.
- Cost
If you have a company that is reliable and has great customer service, then you don’t mind paying a little more for the peace of mind. However, if you are paying $50/month or more for shared hosting, you are probably paying more than you need to.
Part II: Read on to find out what hosting features should be factored into your website hosting decision.