For most of us the words “best” and “web hosting experience” seldom go in the same sentence. Web hosting is synonymous with shonky operators, service outages, lost websites, lost traffic and a lot of heart ache. It does not need to be so. If you know how to go about getting the best experience, you can find it.To choose the best web hosting for your needs, first you need to know what those needs are. Ask the right questions, and you are much more likely to have a great web hosting experience, rather than diving in head first without a plan.Before even setting out to find the best solution, you need to ask yourself a number of questions, and write down the answers.
Question 1: How many visitors are you expecting on you website when it goes online? What about in 12 months time, or 3 years time. Can you web hosting company cope with your increasing demand? If your hosting company can’t offer you an upgrade path to better hosting plans, Virtual Private Servers, or even a dedicated server, you might run into trouble or at least a lot of unnecessary work when the time comes to up the stakes.
Question 2: What sort of software platform are you going to need? Do you need to run Windows applications behind the scenes of your website, or is Linux a better alternative. If you are just starting, making this choice might be difficult. If you don’t know the answer to this question right at this moment, it is unlikely to be an issue later, since both platforms offer plenty of tools to get the job done.
Question 3: Can you web host offer sufficient storage capacity? Perhaps you are planning on a massive photo and video sharing site. Can your web hosting company offer you enough hard disk space to fit all those photos and videos? Can they provide you with streaming media service to be able to play them?
Even if you only need a small, inexpensive and easy website and you don’t have grand plans for it, you still need to recognize that you need best web hosting for a small, inexpensive and easy website.The only way to find the best hosting experience is to plan, and then research your alternatives. There are thousands of web hosting companies out there ready to take your money, and many of them are good or even excellent web hosts. Many are not.Having a plan ready is the first step in finding the right web host for you. Start your plan by writing down how you see your website in a years time, and ask yourself: what services should my web hosting company provide to give me the best possible hosting experience.Remember that your website is YOURS. If you are running a business, having a reliable web host is very important. Your website is your storefront to the digital world. If it is frequently down and has constant problems, your business could be seriously affected. Even if it is just a personal website, the same applies.
