Best Web Hosting

Introduction to Website Hosting

Searching through the best web hosting companies to find the right one for you does not have to be hard. Choosing a web host and plan that is right for your website is an important decision. After all, web hosting is the foundation of any website. All web hosts are not created equal, and you want to make sure you’re getting the features needed for your website.

Once you fully understand what you need for your website, you’ll be ready to start searching for the perfect web host. In this article, we are going to explain 15 very important criteria you will be able to use to select the absolute best web hosting service for your website:

• Website Needs
• Subscription Periods
• Uptime and Server Reliability
• Guarantees and Refund Policy
• Primary Features
• Services and Add-On Products
• Upgrade Options
• Sign up and Renewal Costs
• Control Panel
• Email Hosting
• Backup Options
• Server Responsiveness
• Support

What is Web Hosting and Why Do You Need It?

Whether you are new and developing your first website or an expert user, it’s important to understand exactly what you’re getting when you sign on with a web hosting company. Your web host will provide a place for you to store all essential files and data for your website. Your web host will also deliver that data to visitors of your website through their browsers.

This information could be images, videos, HTML files, or even Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) that dictate your site’s theme. To put it into perspective, think of your site’s web address or domain name as the street address then think of your web host as the actual house.

When people visit your website, their browser uses that info to locate your web host to access the contents of your site. Without a web host, your website wouldn’t be on the Internet.

While web hosting is an integral element of launching a website, it also has a significant impact on your website’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This is due to your web host affecting your website’s speed, security, and more. The web host provider you choose matters so you want to make your choice very carefully.

How to Choose the Best Web Hosting Provider for Your Website

Once you understand more about what web hosting companies provide, let’s talk more about weighing out your options. If you want a successful site right from the start, you want to consider each of the following 15 criteria when choosing a web host.

What are your website’s needs?

When you’re getting started, we recommend sitting down and making a list of your needs. Then, you’re able to prioritize them as you compare your list to what each web host offers.

Consider your website’s niche. For example, a photography website will need speed and storage features. Some web hosts offer Content Delivery Network (CDN) options for websites that are content-heavy.

E-commerce sites may need to focus on bandwidth and security. Some web hosts offer plans that are specific to e-commerce sites. Make sure you’re considering what kind of (and how much) support you will need or could need depending on growth.

Lastly, consider the content management system (CMS) that you’d like to use for your site. WordPress makes up over 60% of the CMS market so many web hosting companies will offer services that are specifically tailored to the WordPress platform. You will see if the site host has an optimized WordPress hosting solution that could come with professional staging, custom chachine, daily backups and even email.

What is the subscription period for hosting contracts?

Most web hosting companies do offer flexible options when it comes to contract lengths. They tend to offer monthly and yearly plans as well as discounted rates for multi-year contracts.

How long are you willing to commit upfront? If you’re brand new to a web hosting company, you may want to try them out for a few months to get some experience with them. However, if you’re feeling good enough to sign up for a longer term, it will save you money.

Aside from contract length, make sure to double-check a plan’s terms before you sign up. Some web hosts will allow you to move between contract lengths and pans, but there may be fees or penalties for doing so.

What are the uptime and server reliability guarantees?

Uptime guarantees are another vital service web hosting companies provide. Uptime guarantees affect how reliable the hosting service is. “Uptime” is the percentage of time that your website is online and available to browsers without any issues. You want your site to be live as much as possible, and a web host should guarantee very close to 100% uptime.

Uptime can be defined in different ways so make sure to thoroughly review your potential web host’s policy carefully to see what exactly is guaranteed. If there are different items slowing down your website, but it’s still available, the web host may consider that “uptime” even if you do not.

Also, make sure to find out how the web host does handle any downtime. You don't want your website unavailable frequently. An unavailable website is not optimal when building a following online. To understand exactly how a web host's service is, you can also look for reviews online that indicate how reliable the web host is.

What are their guarantees and their refund policy?

Who knows what could happen once you start to build your website. Maybe you want to quit altogether or find a new opportunity. Just to have a contingency plan in place, review the web host’s refund policy. If you decide you’re not happy with your web host, you need to have options.

Along with ensuring you can cancel your plan and get a refund, you want to understand exactly what the web host guarantees and what they will not take responsibility for such as their uptime guarantee along with their terms of service documents. Each web host website should have a real-time status page you can review.

Being able to get a refund if needed is important, especially if you’re unhappy with your web host. Refund opportunities could differ based on which hosting plan you choose so just make sure you understand the web host refund policy and guarantees before signing up.

What are their primary features?

You now know that there are many different types of hosting. If you know what you need from your web host, you will be able to understand their primary features. Some web hosts will offer very general services and others may offer more specific features to make running your website even easier.

As we mentioned previously, WordPress is a popular CMS platform. You may want a web host that offers features to make building, launching, running and maintaining WordPress sites easy.

We host provider sites should have a list of features. If you have to dig for their primary features, the web host might not be focused on features that you need to meet your needs.

Customers using write honest online reviews so if you do seek out other user reviews before committing to a web host, make sure to look for comments that discuss the features offered that will really make a difference for you.

What are their services and add-on products?

Once you have your website up and running, you might determine you need to add new features. This is why its important to check out what web hosts offer in terms of “extras.”

If you want to start smaller and add more features as your site grows, make sure you can bring in new functionality without having to move your entire website or jump through hoops with your web host. Picking features “a la carte” will enable you to design a plan that will provide everything you need and nothing that you don’t.

You may want to include items such as SSL certificates or custom email addresses. You may want to add on storage or other resources without altering your base plan. Whatever you may need, you can avoid unwanted hurdles in the future by establishing what’s possible now.

What are your upgrade options?

Before committing to a hosting plan with a new web host, make sure you won't be penalized for upgrading later on. Most people establish websites in hopes of growing. Read the fine print before signing any contracts to ensure you scale up if needed.

What if your blog posts or your podcast goes viral? That would be awesome, but you will need additional resources and space. Which means you want a hosting plan that can move up with you rather than hold you back.

What are their sign up and renewal prices?

Many web hosting companies offer discounts if you sign up monthly or annually. They may even offer multi-year discounts. If you want to get the most bang for your buck, you want to understand the price breaks for each contract duration.

When your plan expires, many web hosts offer a renewal discount. You don’t want to be faced with an unexpected rate increase when not expected so you want to review what their renewal terms are before agreeing to a plan.

Just a head’s up. If you’re a nonprofit organization, some web hosts offer discounts that are tailored to your needs. This can offer significant savings to any organizations registered as 501(c)3 needing to develop a web presence to increase the reach of their mission.

What kind of control panel do they have?

Hosting isn’t always the most technical part of running a website. Don’t fret. Most web hosts do provide a user-friendly control panel. Some refer to it as a dashboard. This is where you can log in to your web hosting account and configure different parts of your website’s setup.

cPanel is the most common control panel offered. Some web hosts do offer custom solutions that are designed to be user-friendly and less confusing than some of the dashboards with other hosts. If you don't have a developer working for you on your website, you can watch demos or tours of a web host’s control panel before signing any contracts.

Is email hosting included?

Unless you have an email handled through Outlook, Google or another service, you may not need a website email. However, if you want your email to match your business branding and your website name, you need a host to provide that service. Email addresses may be included in your hosting plan, and it may include limited usage. If you plan on doing any email marketing, we recommend you explore your email hosting options.

While there are pros and cons to having your web host and email host combined, it really depends on your needs. Your web host may protect one or the other, or they may have a “if one goes out, they all go out” policy. So keep in mind that if this is the case, if your web host crashes, your email will too.

If you prefer to keep them in the same place, it can make things easier for you. If your web host is reliable, you wont need to worry about your website and email crashing then losing everything. Just read through the fine print and make sure you’re comfortable with whatever features the web host is offering for emails, if any.

Do they have backup options?

You don’t always need to backup your website through your web host. For example, if you’re building a WordPress website, you will have several options for creating backups to keep your website safe. WordPress offers tools from their plugin directory for control of your backups. UpdraftPlus is a popular and very high rated solution for backing up websites. They have had over 2 million downloads and have over 3,000 5-star reviews. This plugin allows you to easily and quickly restore backups of your website whenever needed. You can back up your website to cloud storage. This is just one example.

It is good to see what your web host offers for backups. You may have access to daily backups of your website depending on the type of hosting your purchase. This is helpful if your website is hacked or if any of your files become corrupted. Really, it’s a good idea to have several backup solutions in place.

When you are looking into your web host’s backup options, look to see how long the backups are stored and how often they’re created. Make sure you know to access the backups if needed. When a site does get hacked, it will be good if your host provides a very user friendly restoration service rather than it be difficult.

Even if you’ve been reviewing other user experiences online, you can test the web host’s responsiveness yourself. If you have a site already up and running, you can use a tool like Pingdom to get an idea of expected performance. You can also use information from Google’s PageSpeed Insights tools.

If you don’t have a website yet, but you know of a website hosted with the company you’re interested in using, you can enter that website’s URL into Pingdom. You host provider may let you access a test account or sign up for a free trial so you can conduct further testing.

Do they offer good support?

Reliable technical support is so important. If you have in-house tech staff, you may not care about a web host’s support, but if you don’t, comprehensive support from your web host is invaluable.

Review the web host’s customer support options offered. The level of support can differ between plans. Lower-level plans may be more “hands-off” while managed plans and the more expensive plans offer premium support.

The Best Web Hosting Service Provider

When choosing a hosting package, you need to be informed. This is not a decision to be made lightly. Find a web hosting provider that offers something for everything. Most importantly, finding web hosting that is right for you.

Once you study the list above, you will be able to find a web host that checks off all boxes for what you need. Even if you aren’t planning on launching the next big website, you just never know. You just might!