Whether you’re thinking about getting into e-commerce, getting your business online, starting a blog, or having an online portfolio, you need the most suitable web hosting service to have a website.
There is a difference between the greatest web hosting and the most suitable one because you need something that offers a package to meet your needs. Since every potential website owner may have a different set of needs, finding the right web host is not an easy task.
Therefore, you need to have a general idea of what you’re looking to do and achieve with a website. Then, you can use the following tips to find the best and most suitable web hosting service for your needs.
1. Look into the Web Hosting Types
Web hosting can be complex and technical because there are many types and you need to navigate through them to find the right one for you. However, not every hosting service gives you all the options. That makes it necessary to learn about your web hosting types before looking into web hosting companies.
The different types are:
- Shared hosting
- WordPress hosting
- Cloud hosting
- Dedicated hosting
- VPS hosting
While most web hosts offer the shared hosting type because it is the most popular, you can find a host for all types to meet your needs. Some website owners switch later if one type doesn’t suit them, but the switching can be troublesome. If you’re planning to run a blog, for instance, you might find that a WordPress web hosting service might meet your need better than the other types.
2. Compare Pricing and Packages
When you find the best web host in Singapore, you can look into the packages they offer and try to find the right plan for your needs.
Because different users have different needs and budgets, web hosting services offer a range of plans with varying features to allow you to pick one in your budget. Moreover, different hosting services may offer differing rates for the same plan. Here, you need to check other things, mentioned below, to see whether you need to go for the more pricey option or the other one.
Don’t let price be your major determining factor. After all, a cheap plan won’t get you anywhere if it doesn’t meet your needs.
3. Look into their Customer Service Support
Customer service is the staple of every web host, but many people forget to check if their host offers good support or not. Usually, that’s because they get too caught up with the features and pricing.
Since you’re making a long-term commitment, you need to find out whether or not the customer service support is fast, efficient, helpful, available 24/7, and friendly.
Before committing to a web host, you should first check out its help center and customer forum along with directly communicating with a support agent using one or all the channels. This will help you understand the procedure and the resources available to you, along with how you need to use them.
4. Find Out the Level of Back Up and Security Plans they Offer
Since you’re getting online, you have to think about the fact that your website or your web service provider can get hacked. Therefore, you need to look into the level of backup plans and security that your web hosting service offers.
For starters, you need to see what SSL certificate they offer. While most hosts will give you a free SSL certificate, you might need a more advanced SSL for certain sites like an e-commerce store. Then, you can check if they offer domain privacy. This can keep your personal information private and reduce spam.
You can also look into firewalls, virus scans, server hardening, brute force defense, and distributed denial of service (DDoS) protection. While they seem technical, having a little understanding of them can help you pick the best web host.
5. Speed and Reliability are your Best Friends
Regardless of what your website will be about, it needs to offer a good experience to every visitor. For that, your website needs to be reliable and fast.
For starters, you should look into the level of uptime your host is offering. Unfortunately, your website can’t be up 100% of the time. No matter how big the web host is, there will be some downtime even if it is to run updates. Ideally, aim for at least a 99.97% uptime.
Then, you can look into server locations. If your visitors are near a server location, they can access your site faster. Therefore, you can either look into a host that has locations all over the world or in a particular country, according to your target audience base.
6. Can it Handle your Website’s Growth?
Finally, you need to find a web host that allows you the opportunity to grow your website.
Regardless of the nature of your website, you will undoubtedly want to grow and have more visitors in the future. As you grow, your needs for storage and the number of visitors your site can handle will increase. You may even need more features to support your growing site.
Therefore, working with a web host that offers you room to grow from the start is better than switching later.
Read Next: Factors to consider when choosing a web host
