I have gone through mind boggling and time taking exercise of finding a good hosting provider who have hosting plans that suits my website needs. And guess what I have been also, just like others, keep looking for after sale service and switches from one provider to other doing same thing again and again. Was it always provider’s fault that I have to leave them? Well! not always but most of the time.
First Know your Needs
Have you ever involved directly or indirectly in a house purchase? We can apply this house buying analogy while buying a hosting plan. First we see if we can live on a floor of an apartment where stairs and parking areas are in sharing with other just like shared hosting plans where we share storage and bandwidth. Or need a dedicated house where all the spaces is dedicated for our use just like dedicated web hosting plans. Then we see how many bedrooms an apartment or a house has that can accommodate all couples and individual members of the family.
While analyzing your website’s need consider not only present requirements but also the need of up-gradation due to growth in future. If your business expands that is the very much likely that you will need more storage and bandwidth.
Your customer base may be confined to a particular area or spread all over the globe this fact will decide the location of the server. As server distance affects speed of data transfer, you will prefer server nearer to most of the users of your website.
Compare Hosting plans that are close to your requirement
It is difficult to find the exact match for your required hosting plan but the plan closer to your expectation will be fine.
Once you have matched your required storage, bandwidth. etc., look for other important features like SSL certificate, Firewalls, After sale support, Self help tutorials and articles, etc. etc. You can use the checklist that I have prepared to make sure you don’t miss any important thing.
Many hosting companies give free SSL certificate, website builder, etc. that can be ab additional benefit for you.
Ask for discount coupons
Off-course price matters, and let me tell you one open secret that you can ask for discount or wait for festival specific discounts that are offered by the most of the web hosting companies.
I am sure any wise hosting provider will offer some discount if not up to your expectations on any of their hosting plan as they always have room for price cut without reducing service quality. And you should save what ever you can.
Monitor the performance of your hosting plan
Once you have purchased your plan and make your website live, start monitoring the performance of your hosting plan. It is important to monitor to know whether you have the right hosting plan for your website or not.
Remember a wrong hosting plan can affect your website performance and further your revenue from your business.
Keep backup of your data
Whether your hosting plan give you data backup facility or not, it is important that you create your own data backup on a regular interval and keep it locally with you.
Data backup feature doesn’t come free of cost so try to keep main website and backup data with different providers. In case of breakdown or something unexpected of one provider you will always have another option to recover your precious data.
Conclusion
Before buying a web hosting plan you should make a checklist or refer the above given checklist while comparing different hosting plans. You should know the requirements of your website and choose a plan closer to your requirement.
Data backup and security of your website is essential for uninterrupted functioning
of the website.
Don’t forget to monitor the performance of your web hosting plan after setting up the website. It helps you detect wrong hosting plan and predetermine the need of up-gradation of the existing hosting plan.