How to Choose a Good Web Host for Your Online Business

Though some are able to open their online business without having their own website, it’s still ideal that you do. Consider it as your virtual showroom. There everyone is allowed to walk in, search, take a pick, and purchase. As the proud owner, you can roam around, entertain them, help them out with their needs, ask for feedback, process payments, and, most of all, exercise more freedom or control over what you want to do for your online business.

Nevertheless, your website cannot run unless you have a good web host. It’s basically the one who takes care of the “operations” of your site, making sure it’s up 24/7. The market has a lot of these web hosting companies, and though many are good, some are just better.

Use the following criteria, when choosing your web hosting company:

Operation: How long can they promise to keep your site alive? A good web hosting company can offer an uptime of 99 percent. The 1 percent is intended for technical glitches, where the pages are inaccessible.

Dedication: These web hosting firms manage websites with the use of servers. A server may host more than 5 websites at the same time, depending on their size and required bandwidth. You can have your own dedicated server, but it’s going to be costly, so most likely you have to share servers with the others. Always ask how many sites are sharing the same server, as the information can affect your bandwidth, speed, and size.

Technical support: Technical issues can happen anytime, anywhere. But you can’t afford to wait for the next day to have them fixed. If you earn $50 an hour each day and the downtime is around 10 hours, then you’ve already lost $500 of your income. Find a web hosting company that has a 24/7 customer support. Moreover, you can contact them in different ways, from e-mails to live chat and phone numbers. Most of all, the staff should display advanced technical know-how to help you out.

Security: Who gets to access your website and its pages? Is the infrastructure secure enough to fight off hackers, spam-bots, and viruses? These threats can cause a huge and sometimes irreversible damage to your website, so look for a company that can guarantee the highest level of security.

Ads: You don’t want a company that runs ads to your website. The page will look so cluttered and less professional.