Why Does Website Hosting Matter?
Your web host is a very influential, but mostly hidden, first impression of your website to your visitors. When it comes to web hosting, there are countless places that will give the bare minimum in service and support for the bare minimum price. However, a web host is more important than just a space you rent – it is the vehicle that delivers your website to the world. By taking your time and investing in the best web host to suit your needs, you not only ensure the visibility of your website, but you can sleep peacefully knowing your most important sales tool is being well cared-for and watched over.
Top Qualities of a Great Web Host
1. Website Performance
Your web host is often the largest contributing factor to the performance of your website. Common metrics reported by hosts are uptime, speeds, and bandwidth. Did you know that up to 40% of visitors abandon a website that takes more than 3 seconds to load? The performance of your web host can negatively affect your bottom line.
When thinking about performance in nontechnical terms, consider these questions:
- Does your website go down often or at all?
- Does your website load slowly?
- Does your website perform poorly during certain times of the day or during high traffic periods?
If you answered yes to any of these questions then you may very well have a web hosting problem.
2. Hosting Support
Web hosting can be technical. It can be confusing, especially if you don’t deal with it regularly. The support procedures of your provider should be a consideration when choosing a web host. Do you know how to get assistance when the inevitable happens and you need help?
How do you get web host support?
- Do you make a phone call?
- Can you send an email?
- Do you have an account manager?
- Can you visit them in person?
While you may not need support in every way possible, you will need support at some point. And you should be comfortable and confident that the support will meet your needs. When the inevitable happens and you need support, remember… you get what you pay for. It may be well worth a few extra dollars to get a higher level of support when you need it.
3. Backup
Everyone schooled in the art of Microsoft knows that you need to save and save often. Heck, Ctrl+S might be your favorite keystroke. Why is that? It’s because you’ve felt the pain of having to redo all of your work because you didn’t save. The frustration that comes with losing so much progress can be crippling.
So take that concept to the web…
What do you do when you make a mistake and update that plugin that it is no longer compatible with your theme? Most often, the best answer is to restore from backup. That is, if you have a backup of your website.
- Do you know if your website is being backed up?
- Do you know what is being backed up?
- Do you know how often your backups are being created and how long they are stored?
How big would the impact be on your business if you had to restore from a backup that was 6 months old, or even worse, rebuild the lost progress or your entire website?
Sacrificing backups to save a few bucks is a scary line to walk. Backups sound like such a simple commodity, but you don’t need them until you NEED them.
It’s easy to consider hosting just another price of doing business online and ignore it. A good web host, however, pays for itself many times over when your website needs attention. If you are having trouble with your web host, or are interested in seeing what you could gain by switching your website hosting, let us know and we will be happy to help.