Since the Internet became the must-have tool for every business, hosting services providers multiplied along with it. The success of your website relies on your hosting provider, and that’s a fact. So, what are the things that you need to look for when you are choosing your hosting provider? To put it simply: space, plan, bandwidth, platform, security, SEO, support, reliability…

Depending on the type of business, there are some priorities that need to be set. E-commerce and blog are similar, but also very different in terms of aspects that are most important. While with E-commerce high availability means business growth, when it comes to blogging, your uptime is important, but not crucial.

With that being said, let’s go over some basics.

The package that suits your needs

If you choose the hosting provider that does not offer unlimited storage space, be sure to predict your needs, and leave some headroom. Hopefully, your website will grow, and your provider should be able to keep up. There should be an option to easily increase resources if there is a need for that.

Above mention, server availability is a make-or-break option for online shops, especially when there are a lot of visitors on your website. Most of the providers offer 99,9% availability of their servers but bear in mind that if these figures go down from 99,9% to 99,5% that means that your website can be offline almost two days every year.

Website speed

If you look for the cheapest web hosting available, it is most likely that you will experience some issues with website loading. Think of it this way: You are walking through the shopping mall, and see a store that has something you need, but when you try to enter, the doors are locked, and you have to wait for the employee to open it for you. How many more times will you try that store?

It is essentially the same as your website. When a potential visitor finds some relevant info via a search engine and follows the link, they expect to find what are they looking for as soon as possible. If your site does not load fast, they will simply leave, with a very small chance of returning.

Good hosting provider has fast servers, often boosted by SSDs so they can provide fast loading times at any moment. Some hosting providers like Hostinger can ensure that you get what you paid for and more. This way your visitors won’t wait, and you can focus on content instead of worrying about the technical part.

Security and backup

Good security means that all communications between visitors and your servers are encrypted, and safe from eavesdropping. SSL should be included in the hosting plan, and you should not settle for anything less. When a visitor sees a little lock next to the website URL, they will trust you more and will come back to your website.

Essentially the same thing is related to website backup. You should pick a hosting provider with regular backup as a standard option. This way your website if safe even from hackers, or some things that you cannot predict.

Support

No matter what you use your website for, your hosting provider should provide good customer support. Since every website is available 24/7, so should your support be. Knowledgeable service can mean a lot, especially when some random problem appears. Good support can reflect website availability, and good problem-solving skills can be crucial to maintain high availability time.

SEO

SSL implementation, fast load times, and other website optimization can improve your position with Search engines and help draw more visitors to your website. Google and other search engines formula include penalties for websites that go down a lot, so it’s very important to choose the right provider that can take care of every important aspect of your business. Depending on CMS that you use, look for the hosting provider that offers plugins which can improve your loading speed and make a huge difference regarding SE ranking.

The email should be a part of the package

If you have an email address associated with your domain, it makes you look more professional than having a Gmail, Yahoo, AOL or other email address. Good website hosting packages should include email, so there is no need to settle for less.

Choose wisely

The reasons mentioned above are generally the most important ones, but that does not mean that you should rely solely on them. Good and reliable website provider is very important, otherwise, everything you work for can be in vain. And always remember that choosing your website provider because of good price will not be important if your website goes down.