So you finally chose to get your business a website! That’s great. You already hired the programmers and HTML guys, and they already finished everything up for you. Now you need to find what kind of web hosting you want to use, and perhaps more importantly, which company you will go with. This can be a serious challenge for those companies out there just starting out, as there are many, many different hosting companies who are all waiting to eagerly snatch up your money. As such, you need to make sure that they are worth the cost that you’re going to pay!
One of the first things that you need to look for when looking for a web hosting company is how many websites they host on one server at a time. This kind of hosting is called shared hosting, and it is the cheapest way to go. However, if the server company is hosting too many websites on each server, then you will be paying them for a sub-par product, unable to do the things which you need it to do. Having too many websites on a server will mean that it won’t be able to handle the traffic well, and will be very slow. Generally anything more than 250 sites per server, you should steer clear.
Something else that you should look for is what kind of security they are packing. The last thing that you want is your sensitive business information being hacked or found by another business sharing the same server as you! The server company should have a firewall in place, whether virtual or physical. A firewall is a series of safeguards that are designed to limit access to your information and files, which means that it is more protected from the other businesses sharing your server or even company.
Another thing really keep an eye on when choosing a company is how much redundancy they use, or in other words, if they have a server backup, and how much they have. Every company should have a server backup. This is for your own good! If a company does not have one, then they are only interested in themselves and don’t care what happens to your information. A backup server is something that is there in case the server that you are using goes down or something happens to it. Maybe a power surge fries it, or perhaps they simply lose power somehow. However, having a backup will always be able to save your information and keep your website online when it otherwise would not.
Essentially, when you are looking for a company to host your website and the information that is sensitive and important to you, you just need to look for things that indicate that they actually care about what happens to your website and your information. You need to look for indications of good customer service, and that they aren’t over-burdening their servers. If you use common sense and ask a lot of questions, you should get a good feeling for how the company is.