Owning a business or starting one it must include an accompanying website that features your products and services. It is perfectly normal to choose a free web host if business expenses are too steep for the likes of a paid option. A detailed blog post published Thursday by Hostt goes on to explain what are the negative signs to watch out for and how to go about finding a better hosting company fits your needs.
The right time to start looking for another web host varies from one situation to another. The signs or the red flags you should look for are the following: beware of free hosting, they have banker’s hours, there’s only one way to contact them, they try to upsell and their reviews are terrible.
The list of reasons by Hostt to change hosting providers should be a framework to work with. Now, one of the pillars to having a website is ensuring that it never goes offline. Here, it’s important to stress out the importance of a service like Fireblade which ensures up-time, constant monitoring for threats, and protection against malicious attacks. Coupled with a strong and reliable web host, your website should be protected and online 24/7. If your customers or clients use your webpage to conduct business or daily operations the last thing you want to deal is the server being down. In addition, free is an excellent option but it can cost money and it goes without saying not all free web hosts are created equal.
Next, the other aspect to watch out for is the banker’s hours or simply business hours. Specifically, does a Monday through Friday with a nine to five structure work just fine for you? This may not be a convenient option because should the website stop working outside of this time frame you will have to drop what you are working on to try and resolve the issue yourself.
Nonetheless, web hosting companies must offer more than just one communication channel. Some may just have that one option, and when you are traveling for business purposes connecting will be a hassle to get a question or issue answered.
One of the things that will be a turn off for customers that utilize a web host is constant reminder by email or by phone to upgrade to another package. Finally, if the online reviews of your web host are terrible, this should prompt you to move your web property quickly to a competitor with a better online reputation.
Takeaways and checklist to selecting a web host
So the criteria of having the appropriate web host has to be good customer service, great technical support and good price packages. The free option is good when the budget is too small, yet if you can afford it pay a web host to setup a great and functional website do it.
When shopping around online for a web host a Visual.ly infographic offers the following checklist: location, support, resources, control panel, backup and price.
Not satisfied with the free option? It’s time to migrate your existing website to a better service/hosting plan? There are plenty of options to choose from (Linode and DigitalOcean for instance). Keep in mind that when those negative signs begin to surface, it’s time to dump your web host. Remember to ask as many questions as possible to know exactly what you are getting for free or for the buck you will pay.
