10 Things to Consider Before Selecting Your Web Host

8 min read

You started a business and built a killer website. But then you need to host that site. How do you know you’re finding the right web host? What’s most important when you’re shopping for a host – Price? Location? Services? All are important, but there are more things to consider when selecting your web host. In this article, I will share with you some of the most essential tips to select the best web hosting solutions for your business. Your website’s overall performance and security depend on the web hosting tools and services, you are using for your business. There are many third-party service providers available in the market offering the most reasonable and effective web hosting services to customers. By following the simple guidelines provided in the article, you can find the best hosting services available in the market.

Ultimately the right web host is the one that checks the right boxes for you, your website, and your company’s needs. Here are some of the most beneficial tips to find the right kind of web hosting services for your business.

Mobile Responsive Website

Most companies don’t care able this feature on the website, but I think it is the most important aspect of any website. Being an online business, you should not forget the importance of the mobile presence of your website because most of the customers are likely to access your website using their mobile devices. Mobile is essential for companies with an online presence, especially for those who are just building their websites. More than 1.2 billion consumers access websites through their mobile devices according to UK Web Hosting Reviews, which makes mobile access a significant consideration for those looking for both website development and hosting.

As you consider a web hosting platform, be sure you understand what optimization features they include for mobile. Some hosts are including built-in features to make mobile optimization more effective than ever.

Media Support is Essential

Don’t short-change your website when it comes to media. Effective websites utilize images, videos, and gifs, and that media can be awkward. If you’re just including a few images, the fundamentals of hosting should be adequate for your purposes.

But if you’re considering a more serious media site with videos, images, and reader uploads, your hosting must be scaled up to accept this level of access and demand. Not only do you want to be sure you have adequate bandwidth for your media, but don’t overlook the hosting company’s features that support media as well to be sure you’re covered in every area.

Reseller Hosting May Be Applicable

For most new businesses and startups, the budget is a major concern when selecting web hosting services. If you’re looking to save money on your web hosting, reseller hosting may be an option. You’ll want plenty of bandwidth for your sites and their included media, but if you have a surplus, you may be able to sell it to a third party.

There are hosting sites that handle reseller hosting, and if you can sell your excess, you may be able to cover some, or even all, of your hosting costs each month. Just be sure that you’re within the contractual obligations of your hosting company before you consider reselling. For new startups, reseller hosting is a good option to manage their finances and save some money.

Make Clear Plan

There are many web hosting companies available, and you’re under no obligation to go with one that doesn’t provide what you need or want. Before selecting any web hosting service, it is very important to make a clear plan for what you actually want for your website hosting. Some web hosting companies offer Ala carte items and others don’t appear to sell anything but packages. Most of the time the services the company is offering in the packages are more than what you want for your business. In this case, I would recommend you go for Ala Carte options that contain only those services and features needed by you.

Be clear upfront about what you need from your web hosting company and if they won’t provide what you need at a reasonable price, don’t be afraid to look elsewhere. Don’t pay for things you don’t need and don’t let yourself be steered or even bullied into thinking you need something you don’t. Before you even pick up the phone or pull up a hosting website, organize your thoughts on what you are actually, specifically shopping for.

Technical Support

Even the best hosting company experiences a bit of trouble occasionally. Hopefully, the trouble is very occasional indeed, but there is an expectation that it will occur and you should be ready for it. You will need customer support at some point in your hosting journey and you want to be sure that the company you have selected to work with is prepared to offer you the support you need.

Check to see how the technical support is included in your hosting plan. Is it an included cost or are there additional costs required to actually speak with a person and get help when the need arises? How often is that technical service team available? If you can’t get help when you need it the most, you’re with the wrong company.

Most of companies provide technical support for their customers, so they can get help from experienced and skilled team members, in case of any issue. Be sure that the company is offering technical support, especially if you have a non-technical background.

Check the Company’s Reputation

When it comes to selecting a web host in the market, the current reputation of the company matters a lot. If you’re new at the online business, you don’t need to blaze a new trail, necessarily. Hosting companies have reputations, and if you do enough digging you can find those reputations quickly enough. Hang out where other webmasters do, forums, LinkedIn Groups, or the like, and just read. Search the old threads and topics to see what information you can gather.

Alternatively, you can also just ask those experienced webmasters what they know about particular companies and see what you turn up. If you don’t feel like you have the time to immerse yourself in an online community, you may still be able to learn about some big names in the business with a clever Google search. So, do good research on companies, you shortlisted to get the web hosting services.

Save Money

Many web hosting companies offer package deals to their customers. In many ways, these packages provide all of the services you need and then some. When you select any package, you have to pay for all services included on the page, whether or not you need them. Ala carte is the best option to cut the cost and pay for the services that you actually want for your website. It’s the excess service that you’ll want to consider cutting. If you are only using 15 percent or even 50 percent of your package deal, why are you paying for everything else?

Granted if it’s included at no additional price, the additional features may be nice to have – just in case. But if you’re paying for a premium package and using an economy one, drop the excess and look at a la carte pricing options. This way you’ll be paying for what you use and nothing else. For many businesses’ packages are ideal because they get almost all the services, they require for the website in one place with some discounted price. So, it very much depends on your business needs and website requirements which services you need, and how you would like to pay for them.

Reviews of Customers

Companies that have been around for a bit will have plenty of reviews online. While every review is important in terms of selecting a web hosting company, the most important reviews are the technical support ones. Analyzing the review would help you to get an idea about the quality of services and the customer support that the company is offering to the clients.

If a customer is going to become frustrated with a tech company, it’s almost always because of a technical support issue. You will often find more negative reviews than great ones but look for both. A company that inspires online praise (on a neutral website, not the companies) is impressive in its own right. Most of the time, the company blocks the negative reviews and comments from the website, that’s why on the website you would only get positive comments about the company. To make the right judgment about the services that the company is offering, you should visit some neutral sites to get reviews about the company’s services and customer satisfaction.

Don’t Forget Additional Services You Might Need

While you certainly don’t want to pay for any services you don’t need, you should also keep an open mind about what sort of services you’ll need down the road. You may have no idea what you’ll need if you’re new to website development and hosting, or you may have a pretty good idea of your plans and the services that will require. Think in the long term, some services you might not need today but after a few months, you may need some additional services. Making a clear plan would help you to add all the services you may need for the website.

As you consider web hosts, keep in mind those plans, both known and unknown, so that you can position yourself strategically. Set yourself up with a company now that includes features you’ll possibly need in the future. Just don’t pay for them until you actually need them!

Personally Contact Company

Finally, you should be doing a fair amount of reading and reviewing what web hosting companies offer, but they should be doing the majority of the work selling themselves to you. If you can’t seem to get enough information about a company to feel satisfied, scratch them from the list.

Companies that are seeking customers understand that those customers have questions and need answers and specifics. If you can’t get the information you need from a website or company representative, consider the experience a preview of what is to come and run away as quickly as you can.

While at the most technical level, web hosting is the same across the board, companies strive to differentiate themselves. Special deals, features, customer service, and their reputation for success are all considerations as you commit to a web hosting company. But most importantly, remember that you’re not marrying the company. If you have a concern down the road, simply switch to a different company that is a better fit for you and yours. Get all the things clear before buying any service from the company, you can get an idea about the company’s services by contacting its representatives to answer the questions of customers. If he sounds confident about their long-term cost and services and willing to answer all of your questions then it is a good choice, otherwise, you should better search for a better option.

Conclusion:

In this article, I have shared with you some of the most effective and essential tips for selecting your web host. The guidelines provided in this article will help you to get the best services available in the market.

Do share your web hosting experience with us, it may help someone. I hope the information shared in this article is useful for you. If you like the article, do share it.

34 thoughts on

10 Things to Consider Before Selecting Your Web Host

  • Oleg Calugher

    Hi Donna,

    thank you for the comment,

    Yeah, support is the main thing – if the site is down for any reason and the support takes too long to respond, that is where it hurts the most,

    Thanks,
    – Oleg

  • Usman Nasir

    Hi Oleg !

    First of all I must say choosing a web hosting is really important for online presence, but now a days people don’t understand that they need to spend fair amount to get a good host.

    A host is as good as its support, because the only thing matters the most is support that they provide, because there are a lot of issues that can come up.

    Secondly, another important thing is backups, because things happen and you must be prepared.

    Regards

    • Oleg Calugher

      Hi Usman,

      Welcome to Temok and thank you for the comment,

      Yeah, the single hosting plans are just the starters, one does need to move on to VPS or to a dedicated server if the requirements demands so.

      Support is the main thing, one just can’t wait when the site needs quick support – every minute that it stays down, hurts the business further.

      thanks,
      – Oleg

  • Atish Ranjan

    Hello Oleg,

    Good list of things to consider before selecting the web host. Apart from all, I always look for better technical support team because it is important. It saves us at times.

    Thanks for such nice post. I have used Temok hosting and its great. I have a review published on my blog too. 🙂

    Have a nice day.

    • Oleg Calugher

      Hey Atish,

      Welcome to Temok and thank you for your comment,

      Glad to know that you liked the checklist. Yes, support is always the primary requirement and a quick and efficient support system keeps a web host far ahead of its competition.

      Thank you for testing out Temok and good to know that you liked it. We love your review and support.

      thanks,
      – Oleg,

  • Oleg Calugher

    Hey Santanu,

    welcome to Temok and thank you for your comment,

    Glad to know that you liked the Guide, hope it helps everyone for determining which web host to go for,

    thanks,
    – Oleg

  • Joy Healey

    Hi Oleg,

    When I first started a blog I didn’t know enough to make a wise decision on this and going for “cheap” caused me a huge amount of stress and ultimately wasted me more money than I saved.

    I started with shared hosting and – despite installing many security plugins – I managed to get so badly hacked on it that I never recovered until I went to managed wordpress hosting and they did a thorough clean out of my site.

    So my tips are support and security.

    The other thing is, check that backups are being made – and how easily you can recover from them if necessary. I learned to my cost that recovering WP from a backup isn’t always the one click option I innocently imagined!

    Joy – Blogging After Dark

    • Oleg Calugher

      Hey Joy,

      thank you for the comment,

      Yes, that is so true. Creating backup is far easier than restoring it. I usually create frequent backups and keep them off line – so that when you need them, you can easily reach them. At times an exported backup can go corrupt and become unusable – which is something you will only figure out at the time of restoring it when you desperately need it. This is one of those reasons why you should create frequent backups.

      Some web hosts are targeted a lot by the hackers which makes our sites vulnerable to attacks. Our own security plugins will mean much less if the server is compromised. This is where the security at the web host’s end become even more important. We have covered that in a previous article on how we protect our hosting clients.

      thanks,
      – Oleg

  • Abhishek Bhatt

    Nice article and I think one need to read this and understanding what are the factors to decide the best web hosting provider.

  • Oleg Calugher

    Hi Sherab,

    welcome to Temok and thank you for the comment,

    Yeah, it is always good to consider all the factors, especially those that matters most for our own needs,
    thank you for sharing it with your friends,

    thanks,
    – Oleg

  • Oleg Calugher

    Hey Karthik,

    welcome to Temok and thank you for the comment,

    Yeah, uptime and round the clock support are always the top priority, however plenty of hosts claim these features but in reality their support takes ages to respond and the sites keep going down every now and then.

    thanks,
    – Oleg

  • Mark

    Thank you for sharing your team excellent tips Oleg!

    Often times, online marketers, especially newbie marketers, based practically
    every business decision, based on solely on the initial monetary price.

    Your excellent post, advises us to see beyond the obvious, and look for
    some real,long term compatibility!Thanks for helping to open our eyes, to
    all of our potential options & considerations!

    Both now and in the not so distant future!

    • Oleg Calugher

      Hey Mark,

      welcome to Temok and thank you for the comment,
      Glad you liked the tips,

      Yeah, every requirement is unique and personal, and money surely shouldn’t be the only reason for taking a business decision so important that it affects our entire online business,

      thanks,
      – Oleg

  • Oleg Calugher

    Hi Vijay,

    welcome to Temok and thank you for the comment,

    Yeah, one needs to really do a proper research before selecting a WebHost, there’s so many out there and many aren’t really good enough. Feel free to change your host, getting sites migrated from one host to another isn’t really that difficult.

    thanks,
    – Oleg

  • Oleg Calugher

    Hi Sanjeet,

    welcomme to Temok and thank you for the comment,

    If you aren’t happy with your current WebHost, feel free to change it. Moving a site from one host to another isn’t really that difficult.

    thanks,
    – Oleg

  • Ryan Biddulph

    Hi Oleg,

    Solid advice here. Pay to play. My #1 tip is pay premium to buy dependable hosting. I paid like a few bucks monthly for bad hosting. Made sense. Big company offered dirt cheap rates by overloading the servers. So my site went down a ghastly 60% of the time some days and was slow as a snail. I left that company, went with a new one, paid more for hosting, and now my site is up virtually always, and it’s quick at that. Good point on added features too. Bought a CDN 2 weeks ago to speed things up.

    Ryan

    • Oleg Calugher

      Hi Ryan,

      thank you for the comment,
      Yeah, buying premium is always better – the cheap shared hosting from most web hosts can’t handle the traffic load.

      I love traffic, especially when it is huge – say hitting pretty good at Reddit and getting an amazing lot of traffic at a very short time. Temok does handle such traffic with ease where most other web host struggle pretty badly.

      thanks,
      – Oleg

  • srikanth

    I am new to blogging and thx for this post and Loved the post and I have been working more hosting which could more cheap and best in hosting

  • Ali Khan

    Web hosting is the heart of a blog or an online business. And I think it is really tough to select a good hosting. Almost all the hosting companies boast of cent percent uptime but do they really provide?

    Thanks for sharing the awsome tips. 🙂

    • Oleg Calugher

      Hey Ali,

      Welcome to Temok and thank you for the comment,

      Yes, totally agree with you that the web-hosting is the heart of any online business, and thus we need a truly honest and reliable web host.

      Do give Temok a try and let us know if you are satisfied with our uptime,

      thanks,
      – Oleg

  • Tauseef Alam

    Hi Oleg,

    I don’t think many people would be checking these things before buying a web hosting plan. I personally this is a must read article for everyone going to buy a web hosting plan. People usually feel get cheated after buying a web hosting plan because they don’t do a proper research while picking a web host.

    – Tauseef

    • Oleg Calugher

      Hey Tauseef,

      Welcome to Temok and thank you for the comment,
      Yeah, most people buy their webhost in a hurry and when their selected host does not meets their requirements, they feel cheated.

      It is always better to do a proper research before buying a webhost,

      thanks,
      – Oleg

  • Ige Ebima

    Customer service relation is also key .How well do your host respond to query? that to me is a greatly important

  • Jitendra

    Thanks for the awesome & Informative post.

    • Oleg Kaluger

      Hey Jitendra,

      Welcome to Temok and thank you for the comment,
      Glad to know that you found the post informative,

      thanks,
      – Oleg

  • James David

    Hey Oleg,

    Thanks for sharing this article, these are some of the most valid points that I have read. Speed optimizations, media, a great technical support,no downtimes, low cost and automatic backup will always make any web host the best out there.

    Though there are only a few which are known for providing all these features together, mostly if they have speed & a great tech support they are expensive.

    Cheers…

  • Jason

    Oleg, I am planning to start a new blog, this would be my first chance, which host would you recommend to me based on the information in this article.

    I don’t want to compromise on speed, mobile responsiveness, tech support and security. I only have experience with Bluehost, is there any other host that offers more than Bluehost at the reasonable prices, or I should go for Bluehost again?

    You are much more experienced than me and I trust your judgment more than anyone else or at-least mine 🙂

  • ABISHEK S K

    Thanks for your post.
    I finally got some idea of choosing a hosting service provider.
    Regards,
    ABISHEK

    • Oleg Kaluger

      Hey Abishek,

      Welcome to Temok and thank you for the comment,
      Good to know that – do try out Temok web hosting,

      thanks,
      – Oleg

  • Jitendra Raulo

    You have listed really good points which will surely help people in selecting the best web host! A must read info for all…

  • Austin

    Hi:
    Welcome to Temok and thank you for your feedback. We published new article for this category. Please take a look there: https://www.temok.com/blog/selecting-best-web-hosting/

  • Kamil Web Solutions  

    Hi,
    These are the tips I was searching on the internet. One must think of these things before selecting a web host. Now, I will surely select a web host after reading your post.
    Thanks.

  • Olivia

    Great review Oleg, you have raised quite valid points and they would be helpful for beginners like me.

    I wasn’t sure about my hosting provider and your comparison will help me decide further.

    Regards…

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