There used to be a time choosing a hosting plan was way down on the list of priorities when it came to creating and launching a new website.

Back in the day, websites were largely static affairs. More often than not, they existed as a bunch of independent pages designed using an offline editor like Dreamweaver, or even the humble, bare-bones Notepad, then strung together using a series of links. Only once everything looked good and seemed to work fine would website owners hit the ‘net in search of some web hosting.

Early days of hosting

Providing a hosting plan was affordable and reliable enough, there wasn’t too much else to consider. If you found a deal that suited, it was simply a case of signing up, configuring an FTP client, and uploading the site.

Nor did web hosting play a particularly big role in the lifespan of a given site. As long as it didn’t experience any major downtime or other serious flaws, users could quite happily manage a site on their local hard drive, FTP any changes, and never even think about logging into their hosting account again until it was time to renew.

But of course, that was then, and this is now. As the Internet began to change, so too did the role of top hosting companies.

Evolution of the Internet

Over a relatively short period of time, always-on broadband and far-reaching WIFi access began to infiltrate many of our lives, bringing with it a move towards working online. Whereas once upon time users had little choice but to install programs on their computers to carry out most tasks, they soon began to find that it was much easier -and often more affordable- to do much of that work online. (more…)

Whether you’re trying to run an online business or you just want a dedicated platform from which to spread your message to the world, one thing is clear: you have to make sure that you get quality web hosting! Yet does quality have to mean that you’re spending more money than you anticipated? Not at all. What you have to do is make sure that you have a few considerations out of the way.

1. Reliability

The first thing that you have to look for would have to be reliability. In other words, is this going to be a web hosting company that can keep your site running for the long term, or are you going to be subjected to a lot of unplanned downtime? There’s no way to have 100% uptime these days, not without shelling out heavy fees for a nearly round-the-clock server setup that automatically falls back to a secondary server when the main one has scheduled maintenance. But they can get as close to 100% as possible through smart administration.

2. Speed

Reliability is nothing without speed, because if your visitors have to wait a long time before they can view your site, then it’s not going to be worth it to them. They’ll feel free to go somewhere else, because you didn’t deliver their expectations.

3. Cost

Sure, cost is a factor when you have to think carefully on your web hosting. If you’re going to run a successful business online, you want to make sure that you have a quality server that will meet your needs. Some cheaper web hosting packages will be sufficient for your business needs so spending a lot on a dedicated option isn’t always required. If you can’t afford that server, then you won’t be in business for very long. Dig deep into your business plan and then ask yourself an honest question: how much are you willing to spend? You may get a discount if you go with a yearly subscription instead of a monthly one.

4. Tech Specs

Looking at how much space you get is going to be super important. Just as you don’t want to have so much space you waste it, you don’t want to struggle because your limits are so small. One of the biggest factors is bandwidth, along with storage space. Some popular CMS software such as wordpress require minimum server specifications but it’s more down to the traffic, images and any videos that’ll be the biggest demands for your server. If you’re running a small collection of sites, you’re not going to need as much space as someone that wants a high-volume blog network. Make sure that you look at what you want to achieve through the site or sites, and then shop according to those goals. And if you have questions, don’t be afraid to ask them!

5. Support

Support matters big time, because when something goes wrong you don’t want to wait forever for a fix. Will the support team be able to tell you where your backups are kept, or is that something that you’re going to have to hunt around for on your own time? It just depends on the company that you pick.

Demand for web hosting is on the rise, with specific spikes in the cloud hosting sphere and in dedicated hosting packages. Yet if you study these tips well, you’ll be able to find hosting for all of your personal and professional needs.