Top 20 Tips for Web Hosting in 2021
As the experts over at runrex.com point out, every business needs a website these days, and while web design is important when coming up with a website for your business, you should also give serious thought to the web hosting services you will be going with. Your web hosting choice is important as it determines your website’s performance and security. This article will look to highlight 20 tips on how to what to consider when choosing a web hosting service in 2021 as well as other important considerations.
Average uptime
The first factor to consider when choosing a web hosting service is average uptime, which is the average amount of time your website stays up within a given period. Your website’s average uptime is important as it affects how much traffic your website gets according to guttulus.com. Your website won’t get much traffic if visitors can’t access it when they visit, and just one hour of downtime can lead to significant losses in potential sales. Therefore, look for a web hosting service that offers an average uptime of 100% or close to it as possible. If your average uptime is below 99.90%, then you should start looking for another web hosting provider.
Load time
Page load time is another major factor worth considering when it comes to web hosting. As captured over at runrex.com, this is the amount of time it takes a web page to load. It also affects how much traffic you get as people won’t stick around if your website is taking forever to load, and when they leave, they are unlikely to return. A study by Google has shown that 53% of mobile site visitors leave if it takes more than 3 seconds to load a page. Therefore, you want a web hosting provider who can provide page load times of 3 seconds or less.
Support
Customer support is yet another major consideration as far as web hosting is concerned. Helpful customer support from your web hosting provider will allow you to deal with website problems faster and more effectively. According to the gurus over at guttulus.com, while web hosting providers usually offer phone, chat, or ticket-based customer support, what really matters is how quickly they respond and how knowledgeable their support team is.
Pricing
Every business is in it to win it and is, therefore, looking to make a profit. However, to do so, you have to be willing to invest some money into the business first, which includes investing in the best possible web hosting service. However, if you are just starting, you may not be able to afford an expensive hosting plan. On the other hand, if you are running a website for a major brand, you may not want to cheap out on features. Therefore, consider your budget when deciding on pricing as far as web hosting services go.
You get what you pay for
As an extension of the point above, you should always remember that you get what you pay for when it comes to web hosting. Given that your website is an essential business tool, it is often a false economy to go for the cheapest hosting deal possible, or even a free one, although this doesn’t mean that all cheap deals are bad. Focus on the features rather than just the price points.
Beware of pricing tricks
Another tip that also concerns pricing is the importance of keeping your eyes peeled for pricing tricks. As revealed over at runrex.com, the majority of web hosting providers offer low prices at the beginning of their contracts, only to hike the prices after the introductory period ends, which can be 24, 36, or even 60 months after signing up. Therefore, you should always look for the total cost of ownership when reviewing prices.
Look for a trustworthy provider
Nowadays, just about anybody can pretend to be a real web hosting provider and just be reselling someone else’s products. Therefore, the experts over at guttulus.com recommend that you look to see how long they have been around if they have a contact address, who owns them if they are making realistic promises on the website, and so forth, to establish if you can trust them.
Avoid untrustworthy 3rd-party apps and sanitize input data
If your site uses a database backend, it is crucial to know and trust the code behind your website. However, as articulated over at runrex.com, verifying if your code works and verifying if it is secure and stable are two very different things. You want to validate code coming into your CMS or application and confirm that it matches what is presented to the end-user on the frontend.
Follow best practices for JavaScript encoding
If your site uses JavaScript, then you should make sure that you protect it from XSS attacks by using best practices for encoding and sanitizing all input fields on your website. Additionally, you can implement one of the many open-source libraries to prevent XSS attacks such as PHP AntiXSS, xssprotect, or HTML Purifier.
Secure your account
Remember, your web hosting account is where your website files are store, which is why you must secure it. The best way to do this is by choosing a strong password for your web hosting account and also avoid logging in from public locations, unless you are using a VPN, to ensure that nobody can still your account details.
cPanel WordPress hosting
As is covered in detail over at guttulus.com, cPanel is a type of control panel that a lot of WordPress hosting companies use. Therefore, if you have a WordPress website, you should consider getting it as, while it is not a must-have, it does make things easier when it comes to the installation and managing of email accounts, and so forth.
Subscriptions
One question many people find themselves asking when it comes to web hosting is if they should purchase a monthly web hosting plan or commit long-term. As is revealed over at runrex.com, almost every web hosting provider out there offers a huge discount for choosing long-term plans. If you are serious about your website, you will likely keep it for more than a month, which is why it doesn’t make sense to choose a monthly web hosting plan as it will cost you nearly twice as much. It is a much better deal if you choose a 12-month or 24-month plan instead.
Addons
In many cases, hosting providers will try to upsell you on a wide range of services. However, according to guttulus.com, you really don’t need these services when you are just starting out. This is why you should closely monitor your order process when purchasing a web hosting plan, making sure you uncheck everything in the order process and only purchase what you really need, which is web hosting. You can then buy any web hosting addons that you need in the future when the need arises.
Google Apps
Most web hosting companies will give you the ability to create a free business email address when you sign up with them. While this is an option you should take up, a pro tip when doing so is to make sure you use Google Apps, also known as GSuite, as it is more reliable and is, therefore, the best option for your business.
Website backup plugin
Backups are always important as they offer you security in case something goes wrong. Here, it is worth noting that most, if not all, web hosting companies claim to keep daily backups of your website. However, while there is no reason not to trust them, the best thing to do is to make sure you install a backup plugin for your website which will allow you to keep your own backups, as you can never be too safe when it comes to your website.
SSL
From discussions over at runrex.com, some web hosting providers offer free SSL certificates as part of their plans. An SSL certificate creates an encrypted connection and establishes trust as it assures visitors your site is secure. It helps secure your website transactions by encrypting any information going through it, which is crucial for eCommerce sites especially. You should give precedence to the web hosting companies that have this offer.
Check out refund options
As the subject matter experts over at guttulus.com point out, when you are trying out a web hosting service, it is ideal to have hassle-free refund options as this lets you pay to try their service and see if it provides what your business needs. If you find that their services are not worth the money you paid, you can at least get your money back easily. Try and only deal with web hosting companies with hassle-free refund options.
Security
On top of securing your account as discussed earlier, you should also look for a web hosting provider who provides security features like security monitoring, DDoS protection, LetsEncrypt SSL, RAID, and secure data centers. Choosing a hosting service that offers great security means that both your website’s and customers’ data are safe as covered over at runrex.com.
Extra features
While you don’t need to purchase all the addons that come with web hosting plans as advised earlier, if you have found several prospective web hosting providers and are unable to pick one, then checking out their extra features should help you make up your mind. Some useful extra features to keep your eyes out for include cPanel availability as discussed, CDN availability, unlimited or free email accounts, free site transfers, site builder access, among others.
What are some of the best web hosting companies out there?
While this is a matter of opinion, there are certain web hosting companies that are regularly mentioned as being among the best. They include:
Bluehost
SiteGround
HostGator
DreamHost
GreenGeeks
Liquid Web
Godaddy Web Hosting, among others
Remember, if you are looking for more information on this topic, then look no further than the excellent runrex.com and guttulus.com.