As a developer, you put in a lot of effort to your idea of an important website. Therefore, it is critical that you get a web-hosting service that meets your needs and makes your project a success. You not only want to have an easy time uploading and updating the website, but you also want to be sure your information is secure and the quality of service is top of the range. Moreover, you are interested in a service that is affordable.
1. Website Uptime and Availability
Hosting is crucial in determining the uptime of your website. This constitutes the total time in a year that your website remains online. Uptime is an important metric that affects ultimate availability of the website to its intended clients. A quality hosting service will facilitate high levels of uptime.
The converse of uptime is downtime, a phenomenon that normally occurs when the servers and other systems are under scheduled maintenance, when there is system breakdown or attack. Usually there is an agreed percentage of downtime with your hosting service provider, but unprecedented events such as malicious attacks can adversely affect uptime.
Availability, on the other hand, is the total time in a year that your website is visible and reachable by people who search for the relevant keywords in a browser. The goal of every developer is to make a website available at any given time, as this makes the website services to be reliable to the customers. Websites with e-commerce and banking features such as PayPal and social media websites such as Facebook need especially high uptime and availability.
2. Content Management
The web hosting service that you choose influences your web content management strategy. The hosting service provider has infrastructure that determine how the contents of your website are presented via web and mobile devices. This is crucial for your customers as it has a direct bearing on your brand.
Content management strategies and infrastructure aim to eliminate nuisances such as long loading times and delays in content updates. Moreover, some media such as videos and pictures can cause temporary downtime if the web hosting service is not well suited for your web contents. Luckily, vendors such as Rackspace are there for your comprehensive web content management needs.
3. Web hosting and security
Whenever you pay for a web hosting service, you relinquish the security of your website and your clients to the hosting service provider. Website security is a key element of modern businesses with an online presence in the face of wide range of online risks.
As a developer, you have had to deal with website security measures while coding the website. Moreover, you need to ensure that your data will be properly backed-up while choosing a web hosting service deliberately. Websites where users log in and feed sensitive data such as credit card information, for instance Amazon, need especially high levels of security provided by the hosting servers.
4. Web hosting and domain name
Most web hosting services will require you to have bought a domain already. The domain name is the address to your website, and more often the name of your website. Increasingly, web-hosting service providers are open to helping their clients own a domain.
Therefore, it is possible to get a domain and web-hosting services at the same time from one provider. One such company is Website.com which bundles email management, hosting and domain name into one subscription.
5. WordPress hosting
For developers using WordPress, the usual concerns of security, usability and speed of loading need to be addressed. These features too, are determined by the kind of server infrastructure you have employed. Therefore, it is crucial to look for a web-hosting service that will offer you ample security and sufficient bandwidth for your website.
It befits you to discuss the WordPress hosting service with your prospective service provider so that you know how much customization you will need for your website and how much it will cost. Vendors such as inMotion hosting, Bluehost provide custom architecture for enhanced speed, tools to enhance usability for your website and security features such as Site Lock.
6. Email hosting plan
Highly interactive websites need considerable space for emails. This also varies in terms of the level of interactions and type of email service you need. When you have, a few employees providing services to your customers, then a simple inbox email service may be all you need.
However, when you are receiving emails from other email servers, then you may need to filter the emails and have a separate email server. Websites with many subscribers, for instance news outlets such as New York Times that generate large troves of emails daily need separate hosting plans.
7. Bandwidth and data transfer
Most hosting services will frequently talk about bandwidth in their web hosting offerings but sometimes leave out the important aspect of file transfer. Bandwidth is the amount of data that can be transferred at any given time. It is advisable to estimate the traffic to your website carefully.
Data transfer is the actual amount of data transferred through your website. Ideally, this value should be lower than your bandwidth in order to have a superior visitor experience. A proper assessment of both parameters is crucial for your website so that you do not buy less than required space from your hosting plan.
Web hosting and marketing
The web-hosting plan you choose can be a big factor influencing its performance in the market. Therefore, it helps sometimes to go for a premium service with a full hosting plan including such services as SEO marketing tools, more freedom to upload files and flexibility to create a blog, online store or even another website. Such a service is available from iPage.com.
In conclusion, web hosting is a fundamental aspect that defines your website security, bandwidth and data transfer, email accounts, content management and website reliability. These aspects have a wide impact on the website visitors and brand quality hence the need to be keen while selecting a hosting plan.
