How to Determine Your Web Hosting Needs
Bigger is not necessarily better, especially in the case of web hosting. Figuring out what you need before you pay a cent will help you to avoid headaches down the road, and allow you more time to worry about building up your small business. So what are the important things you need to figure out for your web host?
Uptime and Speed
As a business, you need to get as close to 100% uptime as possible. Don't compromise on this - you want your site to be available to your customers at all times, so getting a fast loading, 24/7 uptime service is essential. Physical location of the servers can be a contributing factor to how fast your site is, as well as how many people the web host has on one server. Less people equals faster load times.
Storage and Bandwidth
You need to make sure you have enough space to load your entire website, as well as having enough bandwidth to accommodate the traffic you are expecting to get per month. While it is obviously easy to know how much space you will need for the site itself, bandwidth is another matter. A good way to estimate this is to see how much traffic similar sites are receiving, and try to work it out from there.
Security and Upgradability
If you are dealing with people's personal information in any way, shape, or form, making sure that you have access to an SSL server is essential. You may also want to have the option to upgrade your site through a variety of technologies, be it SQL databases or a blogging software. No matter what might catch your fancy, make sure that you have the room to expand.
Customer Support
Let's face it - no one is perfect. Whether your hosting company screws up or somehow your foolproof backup fails, it is nice to get quick support. Make sure that you can get prompt, professional, and above all knowledgeable questions for whatever problem you might be having. Nothing can sour a good web hosting plan like incompetent support.
Plans and Pricing
Once you have determined approximate bandwidth and storage needs, you'll want to see what service is the most cost effective for your company. If an offer is too good to be true, most likely it is (or they have far too many people on the server with you). Just be smart and do some research about the company prior to settling on anyone, and you should have eliminated most of the problems other businesses encounter down the road.