As a new business owner, the last thing you need to have to worry about is whether or not your website is up and running. Once your site is created, you should be able to turn its day-to-day management over to the web hosting company and get on with doing what you do best.
To ensure this is the case, you need a vendor who specializes in reliable web hosting. There are a ton of vendors out there, but not all offer the service and reliability you should expect. The best web hosting companies will give you:
* Enough resources to run your site – whether you choose regular web hosting, virtual private server hosting or dedicated hosting, your site should have enough server resources allocated to ensure the site is fast and reliable.
* Daily Backups – Your server should be backed up daily to ensure nothing is lost. These backups should happen automatically, and should not cost extra.
* 24/7 Service- If there’s a problem, day or night, someone should answer your call and have the expertise to fix your problem quickly.
* Minimal Server Downtime – You want your server, and thus your site, to be up and running all the time. Minimal downtime is one of the most important expectations in reliable web hosting.
* High Quality Hardware – For the best reliability, your site needs to run on high quality hardware. There’s no room for cheap hardware when your site needs to be up all the time.
* Affordable Price – You should expect great service and a reliable site, but you shouldn’t have to pay an arm and a leg for it. There are many reliable web-hosting companies you can choose from, so be sure you choose one that is competitively priced.
* Solid reputation- Choose a company that has a solid reputation, both for having been in the business for a long time, and for keeping servers up and running and clients happy.
It is really important to choose the right web hosting company for your business the first time around. You need to be spending your time running your business, rather than having to plan to migrate your site to another server because your web hosting company was unreliable. Ask the right questions, and know how your company stacks up in each of the above areas before you sign on the dotted line for web hosting.