1) Website Look And UsabilityWould you trust a web host with a poorly designed website? I certainly wouldn’t and nor should you because first impressions are everything. A web host will be providing you with the tools, resources and space needed for you to create your own website, forum or blog. If the web host has a website that not only looks bad but is also hard to navigate it makes you wonder why they are selling web services in the first place. You may be wondering what a professionally designed website shows. Well..
- If a company takes care of their site there is a high chance they also look after their customers very well.
- Many people see web hosting as a get rich quick Internet business. As a result of this many people decide to throw up a quick website and some hosting plans only to find out hosting isn’t easy. The more professional their website is the higher chance the web host is here to stay.
- Fantastic web design shows a passion for the web and attention to detail. This attention to detail approach is likely to be incorporated into the web hosts support efforts.
- The staff behind the company either have really good HTML/CSS skills or the company has the income to invest in their online presence thus showing they are here for the long run. If the company have already shown they can design a website they shouldn’t have any problems providing their customers with fantastic support.
- The company takes their responsibility seriously and are willing to go one step further to impress.
Not only have the above taken care with branding and their websites they all have a fantastic reputation.
2) Legal DocumentsWhile this is overlooked by many it certainly deserves to be second on the list. Every web hosting company should have the following legal documents:
- Terms Of Service
- Acceptable Usage Policy
- Privacy Policy
The purpose of these documents is not only to protect the company but also the customer. Make sure you read these documents before choosing a web host because every host will have different policies on email limits, CPU usage, acceptable content, termination etc
Some companies will try to hide their Terms Of Service and Acceptable Usage Policy. If this were the case my advice would be to find another company. There should be a clearly visible link to these documents in the footer of the companies website.
Web hosting companies that provide 'unlimited' resources do it because the majority of people will not read their legal documents. By reading the above legal documents you will know what the limits really are.
3) SupportGood support is vital when choosing a web host. No matter how much experience you have with building/maintaining websites from time to time something will go wrong. At this point it’s very important to have access to a good support team. Most of the time a good support team will be able to resolve your issue in less than 30 minutes. But if you choose a web host with poor support you could be waiting up to 24 hours for a response. For those who own personal websites this might not be a problem but if you run an online business it’s vital that your website is up and running again as soon as possible.
Once you have narrowed down your search to a couple of web hosts it's always a good idea to get a feel for their support by asking some questions. This will give you a good indication as to how reliable their support is.
4) Web Hosting FeaturesGenerally when looking for web hosting you will come across the same features from host to host but with varying Disk Space, Bandwidth limits, Add-On domains, Parked Domains and in some cases MySql databases. The Disk Space you need will depend on the size of your website. For example a video hosting website will need much more Disk Space than a static HTML site. In simple terms every time someone visits your website they will use your bandwidth. The amount of bandwidth you need greatly depends on the nature of your site and how many visitors your site receives.
While looking for web hosting you are bound to come across 'unlimited' offers. Be careful with such offers because it is impossible to have unlimited bandwidth/disk space. If you read their terms of service/acceptable usage policy you will know what the limits really are. The majority of websites will not have any problems with such hosting plans but if you run a site that is going to use a lot of Disk Space/Bandwidth it's always better to choose a web host that doesn't oversell their services.
5) Uptime GuaranteeI can’t stress enough how important uptime is. After all, why start a website if it can't be seen? Uptime is the word used in web hosting for the percentage of time a server has been online for. For example if a web host has 99.9% uptime that means their server/servers have been online 99.9% of the time they have been monitored for. While looking for web hosting an uptime guarantee should certainly be considered because it shows the web host is confident in the services they provide.
*The top 5 above are just my opinion. :thumbsup:
I recently wrote an article containing my top 14 tips when choosing web hosting. The above are only the top 5.
I would love to hear what your top 5 deciding factors are when choosing a web host.
Regards,
Jack
Sequence Hosting
