Things To Consider While Choosing Web Hosting For A Blog
There are a number of web hosting companies these days and choosing a hosting company for your blog often becomes tough. While most of the reviews might be in favour of the hosting company, the actual service might not be that great. This could affect your website and this is the reason you need a hosting plan with dedicated servers. If you’re looking for a hosting plan for your blog here are a few factors you should consider before picking one out.
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1. Bandwidth: The amount of bandwidth you purchase is one of the most essential factors in determining the success of your blog. The higher the bandwidth, the better the blog will manage to handle traffic. If you’ve got a huge fan base and the traffic to your blog is high, always opt in for a hosting plan which provides more bandwidth. The cost for high bandwidth is decreasing these days, so it’s not going to burn a hole in your pocket if you choose the right provider.
2. Uptime: This factor determines how often the hosting services stop working. Always look for a service provider that ensures at least 99% up time. This lowers the risk of your blog being unavailable due to the hosting provider. Due to the advancements in technology these days, most hosting providers provide 99.99 percent up time guarantee.
3. Control Panel: Also known as the cPanel, this is the place your blogs are controlled. This is the most popular control panel when it comes to hosting. cPanel is more reliable and user friendly, however if your blog is under Z-Blog you might need to opt in for a Windows control panel. Although Windows control panels are not as popular as the cPanels, they are the next best thing. cPanel does not support Z-Blog, so the only option you’re left with is windows control panel.
4. Disk Space: While all the other factors are essential, the disk space is something you need to check out before you invest in a hosting plan. This space is basically the amount of MB or GB you’ll have available to upload your content. A number of bloggers choose to upload images along with their blogs. These images take up a lot of space so if you’re looking for a hosting plan check for one that has enough disk space to support your files.
5. Price: Considering the number of hosting plans available in the market these days, blog hosting plans are quite cheap these days. One of the best ways to choose the ideal hosting plan is to check out all the factors mentioned above and then compare the prices.
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You’ll find a number of hosting providers, so don’t settle in for the first one you find. Do a little research and check out which service provider is giving you the best deal. If you choose an annual hosting plan, or one that’s valid for around three years you will end up getting more discounts on these services. Discuss with your hosting provider and select one only after you’re satisfied with the features and services offered.
Almost all business owners rely on online sales and promotion and in order for them to be able to get maximum exposure online it’s really important to have the right hosting company. One of the major reasons that determines whether or not your business will succeed is the number of people that come and visit your website and if you don’t have a reliable web hosting provider the chances are your website will be slow to open or down a couple of times which is not good for the business.
If you’re planning a promotion blast online you need to make sure that your server is able to handle it. The last thing you would want is for it to crash when you’ve paid for people to come check out your site. If you are keen on making sure that your hosting provider is worth the investment and you don’t end up picking a bad web host, here are a few tips that you should keep in mind.
Compare Before Choosing
One of the most important aspects of choosing a web hosting service provider is to compare the prices and the features with most of the other top names in the industry. If you think one particular web hosting service is too cheap or even too expensive, then you may want to consider someone that is just right. Never get tempted by an extremely cheap option because you get what you pay for. You should also avoid web hosting providers that overcharge unnecessarily. If they are backing up their price by providing extra service and support, then it would be worth the investment.
Back Up Your Website
One of the most common misconceptions that business owners have is that they believe once the website is live there’s no way they can lose the content or the design of the site. This however, is far from the truth and if you end up picking a hosting provider that has the tendency of crashing you might end up losing all the data on your website with no way to recover it. There’s no safe way of predicting which web hosting companies have servers that will never crash which is why you should always back-up your website on your own to prevent yourself from having to get the job done all over again.
Payment Method
You should always be careful about the payment method that you choose with your web hosting service provider. You may be tempted to automate your payment with the company, however using a credit or a debit card can be risky because some companies may continue to charge you even when you cancel their services. One payment method you should consider is PayPal. You will be able to cancel the subscription easily and you can even protect yourself from theft and fraud. The best part about PayPal is that you do not even need to give out your card information.
Password
These days hackers are getting smarter and you need to outsmart them in every aspect. It just is not enough to just put a strong security in place. You need to keep a very strong password to your website that will be a combination of upper and lower cases, numbers, letters and some special symbols. You should also get into the habit of changing your password regularly.
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You need to remember that no matter what you do, you have to make sure you pick a web hosting company that has a reputed name in the market. This lowers the risk of you having to encounter anything bad with the website and these hosting companies often look into the problems and rectify it on their own.
Check out reviews online and take your time to decide which hosting company you want to go ahead and pick. Don’t shy away from switching hosting companies if you aren’t satisfied with the services they have to offer, at the end of the day, your business depends on the website functioning smoothly, so don’t leave any stone unturned when it comes to choosing the right web hosting company for your business.
Sohel is a software engineer by profession and a tech writer by passion, he writes about the latest technologies and latest applications and he has shared his experience and lots of innovative ideas at various technology blogs. You can follow him on LinkedIn.