Choosing the Right Hosting for Your Website
Once you have decided to set up a site, the next important thing that you will have to deal with is which hosting company and plan to use. Choosing the right hosting company is essential as it will affect the kind of experience you have when it comes to running your site. If you want a positive experience, you have to choose the right web hosting company that best adapts to the specific requirements of your website.
As for domain registrations, the same 3 Golden Rules apply here:
Rule #1: never let others buy hosting or domain registrations on your behalf
Rule #2: never buy domains and hosting at same company
Rule #3: never buy website design offers that are bundled with hosting and domain registration – NEVER!
There are excellent hosting solutions for $1/month as there are also others for $100/month. What is the difference and how do you determine which is the right hosting plan for your website?
But before considering the factors to consider when choosing the right hosting, a word of caution related to what to avoid:
Now that you have an idea about what to avoid, you can find below the main factors you should consider when it comes to choosing the right hosting provider and package:
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Server requirements
Different sites have different technical requirements. For instance, different sites like dynamic WordPress or static HTML have different technical requirements, so check whether your web host can handle them.
For instance, check if your host can support coding languages, like PHP, in different versions. If your site requires PHP version 7.0 as a minimum, it will not work if your hosting company only supports older versions.
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Speed
Your website should be able to load within a few seconds. If it takes long to load, chances are that your visitors will not stick around waiting for your pages to load. They will leave your website and head to another one. It is therefore important to test your host’s servers overall speed.
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Uptime
The hosting provider you choose should have an uptime of 99.9%, otherwise, you stand the risk of losing some of your customers when they come and find that your site is down.
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Support
Good customer support is essential in case you need help. It should be available 24/7 and should be easy to access. The support can be in many forms, such as email, live chat or phone. This way, you will be able to reach the support team any time you need help.
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Pricing
Choose a hosting plan that you can afford. However, as much as it is advisable to go for cheaper alternatives, keep in mind that you should also consider the quality of services offered and the speed of the website.
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Traffic
Hosting charges mainly depend on bandwidth and storage usage. Therefore, be honest with yourself about how many visitors you expect on your site. Is your site attracting a lot of traffic (10,000+ page views/month) or just the average? Low traffic means low bandwidth, but if you expect lots of traffic, go for a more expensive plan.
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How many sites will you be setting up?
Will you be hosting just one site or multiple sites? If you will be setting up many sites, you will either need to use subdomain names or a top-level domain name for each site. Most basic hosting packages will allow you to set up only one top-level domain name while others will allow several domains in the same package. Also, consider if the additional sites will have additional requirements, such as more databases.
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Location
It is best that you host your website close to where most of your audience is based. If most of your site visitors are in Cambodia, choose a server that is located in SE Asia (Singapore) or close to it to ensure optimal performance of your site.
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Resources you need
Each company provides a hosting package plan. Choose a plan that will meet your needs. Ensure that the company allows you to easily switch from one plan to another plan based on how your needs change in future. For instance, when you are starting out, you won’t have many visitors (or page views), so you can use a basic shared plan. You can then upgrade to a higher plan when your website eventually grows.
Conclusion
Hosting a website starts with picking the right hosting provider, so take a comprehensive approach that considers various factors as discussed above.
Before purchasing your hosting package, just ask our advice and we will be glad to help as we are NEVER affiliated with any company – hosting or else – as we only recommend services based on our own experiences.
Never Ever Let Anyone Register Your Website’s Domain Name on Your Behalf!