The web provides us with the power to show the world what we have to offer. Business owners, developers, or just normal people, create content that we can enjoy or products that make our life much easier, but what most people don’t know or underestimate is the need of a good host.
To understand the importance of a host we first have to understand what a host is. In a simple way, we can say that a host is a web server which stores the information of the web site or app that connects to the internet. Hosting also allows you to install and run additional web software on your site such as a blog, a forum, e-commerce and so on. Where your hosting provider keeps their infrastructure will influence your site’s loading speed, which will vary depending on the location of the visitor.
In other words, we trust the information we manage to someone else, so if this server isn’t secure enough, crashes, or just doesn’t fill our purpose, then it can be very harmful and cost more money. In my experience, most small businesses end up making a wrong choice when the start because they do not evaluate what they actually need, most of the time for the lack of knowledge, and it’s fine, we can’t know everything, so that’s why here we want to inform people of the importance of a good hosting service.
When we do business, we look forward to maximizing profit and looking for what creates more value to our products, this is what we do, and small details like choosing the correct host could lead to positive or negative results. Therefore, we have prepare a list of the consequences of choosing the wrong server:
• Loss of revenue – If your site goes down, your potential customers will not be able to view your blog posts or learn about your products and services. Even worse, if you host an online store, you will lose out on potential sales and income.
• Negative effect on your SEO Ranking – Your goal with content marketing is to rank high in search results so customers can easily find you. If your site is down repeatedly when search engines are attempting to visit, then your ranking will be adversely affected. Aside from downtime, many SEO experts believe that slow websites can also hurt your rankings.
• Security and Malware Attacks – There is no perfect solution for keeping your website secure. However a reputable web hosting company will back up your data to a remote server and make it easy to restore in case your site is hacked. They will also assist you with technical support, maintenance and security issues 24 hours a day.
• Downtime – The bane of any freelancer is the idea of downtime on their website. Every minute that a website is not active or available can mean potentially dozens of customers that are unable to access their service. That translates directly to lost revenue for the freelancer in question.
• Poor Customer Support – When downtime happens, it is incumbent on the hosting provider’s customer support to correct the situation as quickly as possible. That is why the average freelancer should be aware of the customer service options, the hours they are available, the methods by which they can be reached, and the expected response time when a support ticket is filed.
24/7 service with an instant form of communication like web chat or a phone number is going to be best. Again, every wasted minute is lost revenue, so not having to wait for hours in order to communicate with somebody because a server went down in the middle of the night will benefit the freelancer the most.
• Security – Perhaps the most important yet most unappreciated aspect of hosting is security. What the majority of people don’t understand is that a particular freelancer doesn’t have to be targeted to be the victim of hackers. In many cases, sites are randomly attacked due to a link in the wrong place or just being on a particular host. Distributed Denial of Service attacks can be absolutely devastating toward a company, creating hours or days of downtime out of pure maliciousness.
Fortunately, there are security measures that can be put in place to protect from DDoS attacks, attempts to circumvent user privacy, piggybacking on bandwidth, and a number of other attempts by individuals to consciously take advantage of technical exploits.
• Loss of revenue – If your site goes down, your potential customers will not be able to view your blog posts or learn about your products and services. Even worse, if you host an online store, you will lose out on potential sales and income.
• Negative effect on your SEO Ranking – Your goal with content marketing is to rank high in search results so customers can easily find you. If your site is down repeatedly when search engines are attempting to visit, then your ranking will be adversely affected. Aside from downtime, many SEO experts believe that slow websites can also hurt your rankings.
• Security and Malware Attacks – There is no perfect solution for keeping your website secure. However a reputable web hosting company will back up your data to a remote server and make it easy to restore in case your site is hacked. They will also assist you with technical support, maintenance and security issues 24 hours a day.
• Downtime – The bane of any freelancer is the idea of downtime on their website. Every minute that a website is not active or available can mean potentially dozens of customers that are unable to access their service. That translates directly to lost revenue for the freelancer in question.
• Poor Customer Support – When downtime happens, it is incumbent on the hosting provider’s customer support to correct the situation as quickly as possible. That is why the average freelancer should be aware of the customer service options, the hours they are available, the methods by which they can be reached, and the expected response time when a support ticket is filed.
24/7 service with an instant form of communication like web chat or a phone number is going to be best. Again, every wasted minute is lost revenue, so not having to wait for hours in order to communicate with somebody because a server went down in the middle of the night will benefit the freelancer the most.
• Security – Perhaps the most important yet most unappreciated aspect of hosting is security. What the majority of people don’t understand is that a particular freelancer doesn’t have to be targeted to be the victim of hackers. In many cases, sites are randomly attacked due to a link in the wrong place or just being on a particular host. Distributed Denial of Service attacks can be absolutely devastating toward a company, creating hours or days of downtime out of pure maliciousness.
Fortunately, there are security measures that can be put in place to protect from DDoS attacks, attempts to circumvent user privacy, piggybacking on bandwidth, and a number of other attempts by individuals to consciously take advantage of technical exploits.
So how do I choose the best web hosting provider?
It’s crucial to choose a reliable web hosting company to ensure that your website remains safe and accessible all year round. If you are experiencing problems with your existing provider or have no idea what needs/features to consider, here are some tips that can help:
• Understand the different hosting options available – There are various web hosting options available such as Shared, VPS (Virtual Private Server), Dedicated and Managed Web hosting. You can learn more about them in this article. It’s always good to make an educated discussion, so you choose the best option for your needs.
• Excellent customer support is a must – The internet never sleeps. Look for a provider that offers excellent customer support. Hosting providers may claim they offer 24-7 support, but this will not guarantee you will receive fast, knowledgeable service. Test the response of the customer support staff before committing to any long term hosting contract.
• Choose a host with good backups – Your entire website, database and emails should be backed up on a daily (if not hourly) basis, and backups should be stored on different machines and kept for at least a month. Storing backups on a different machine (and preferably offsite) keeps your backups safe in case of security breach, hardware failure or accidental error on your part.
• Choose a host with an excellent uptime track record – The hosting provider you choose should take every precaution to ensure maximum uptime. While no web host can guarantee 100 percent up time, it should offer at least 99 percent up time on average.
• Cost should not be your only consideration – “you get what you pay for.” A common error in selecting a host is to select the cheapest option thinking they all work the same way, but this can lead to terrible consequences, especially in e-commerce. You should understand the amount of traffic and the type of server you need for your business. Ask yourself this question: how much money will we lose if our site goes down for a few days? A good rule of thumb is the higher the number the more you should be paying for your hosting.
• Service Level Agreement – An SLA is a contract between you and your hosting provider, where your hosting provider guarantees a certain level of service at all times. If your hosting provider is not able to provide the agreed level of service he will incur penalties. An SLA is a great thing and is usually a sign of a hosting provider taking what they do seriously and investing in a high quality infrastructure.
• Ability to scale – As your business grows, your website will tend to generate more traffic. The ability to scale will be increasingly important. Your web hosting provider should be able upgrade and scale to accommodate your traffic growth. Just remember that there is no such thing as “unlimited resources” (Truth about Shared Hosting).
• Good reputation is essential – Once you have narrowed the list of important features you require, the next step is to find a host with a top-notch reputation.
– Do a background check. Find out how long the company has been in business.
– Can they provide you with testimonials and endorsements from current clients?
– Check maintenance schedules and average downtime statistics
It’s crucial to choose a reliable web hosting company to ensure that your website remains safe and accessible all year round. If you are experiencing problems with your existing provider or have no idea what needs/features to consider, here are some tips that can help:
• Understand the different hosting options available – There are various web hosting options available such as Shared, VPS (Virtual Private Server), Dedicated and Managed Web hosting. You can learn more about them in this article. It’s always good to make an educated discussion, so you choose the best option for your needs.
• Excellent customer support is a must – The internet never sleeps. Look for a provider that offers excellent customer support. Hosting providers may claim they offer 24-7 support, but this will not guarantee you will receive fast, knowledgeable service. Test the response of the customer support staff before committing to any long term hosting contract.
• Choose a host with good backups – Your entire website, database and emails should be backed up on a daily (if not hourly) basis, and backups should be stored on different machines and kept for at least a month. Storing backups on a different machine (and preferably offsite) keeps your backups safe in case of security breach, hardware failure or accidental error on your part.
• Choose a host with an excellent uptime track record – The hosting provider you choose should take every precaution to ensure maximum uptime. While no web host can guarantee 100 percent up time, it should offer at least 99 percent up time on average.
• Cost should not be your only consideration – “you get what you pay for.” A common error in selecting a host is to select the cheapest option thinking they all work the same way, but this can lead to terrible consequences, especially in e-commerce. You should understand the amount of traffic and the type of server you need for your business. Ask yourself this question: how much money will we lose if our site goes down for a few days? A good rule of thumb is the higher the number the more you should be paying for your hosting.
• Service Level Agreement – An SLA is a contract between you and your hosting provider, where your hosting provider guarantees a certain level of service at all times. If your hosting provider is not able to provide the agreed level of service he will incur penalties. An SLA is a great thing and is usually a sign of a hosting provider taking what they do seriously and investing in a high quality infrastructure.
• Ability to scale – As your business grows, your website will tend to generate more traffic. The ability to scale will be increasingly important. Your web hosting provider should be able upgrade and scale to accommodate your traffic growth. Just remember that there is no such thing as “unlimited resources” (Truth about Shared Hosting).
• Good reputation is essential – Once you have narrowed the list of important features you require, the next step is to find a host with a top-notch reputation.
– Do a background check. Find out how long the company has been in business.
– Can they provide you with testimonials and endorsements from current clients?
– Check maintenance schedules and average downtime statistics
ConclusionThere are a lot of web hosting companies out there. It’s crucial to select a hosting provider carefully since your business will be depend on it. Do your homework. No hosting is perfect, but it’s certainly worth the effort to find the absolute best available. The alternative is losing out on business unnecessarily, and very few freelancers can afford that. Choosing a hosting provider solely on price is not worth the hassle and headaches if your site goes down.
