If you’ve ever faced difficulties in selecting an appropriate web hosting plan, then your queries are heard. Here is a guide on what you should look for in a web hosting plan.

First, it is advisable that to understand all key types of web hosting and investigate if a web hosting company has the capacity of supporting the needs of your business and does not make unnecessary hurdles to the success of your website. Once you’ve understood this, you need to take into consideration of certain basic criteria before you select the best plan.

1. Company’s area of expertise or specialty

Just like you, different customers have different needs. That is the reason not all web hosts are suitable for you. Some provide effective shared web hosting plans, though may not have great solution to enable your business growth. Some web hosts have outstanding enterprise solutions but may not be the right fit for you, especially if you’re looking forward to run a small recipe blog.

To decide, you always need to determine the web hosting company’s specialty or area of expertise. Go for the company which understands your needs. It’s advisable for you to conduct some research first. You need to read recommendations and reviews online as good reviewers normally list down the weaknesses and strengths of a specific company.

2. Price

No doubt, this is a key concern you’d come to think of. But just a simple reminder, this should not be the deciding factor when you’re selecting a web hosting plan. Rather, you need to go for plans which give you more value. What’s the point, after all, if a web hosting plan is cheap but lack several vital features? You need to compare prices, and don’t forget the value you obtain.

3. Types of web hosting

There are several web hosting plans existing in the market. In choosing, you need to think of the reason you require a web hosting plan. Do you want to use it for a blog or website? Do you intend to carry out an online business? Do you want a more professional plan which has the ability to handle high web traffic?

4. Room for growth

You already have made decision on a web hosting provider. You might now ask yourself one vital question – what occurs when your site traffic increases and you intend to grow in the future?

Does the web hosting company have other superior products like Dedicated Server or VPS solutions which can meet your additional needs and grow together with your online business?

Remember that transferring from one host to another takes efforts and time, and this can be entirely avoided if the web hosting provider can scale their solutions for growth.

5. Features/Add-ons

You need to ask yourself what makes this web hosting provider special? Are there any additional features they offer apart from web hosting? For instance, it’s a vital idea if your web hosting plan comes with SEO and website security features to boost website traffic and protect your website.

Also, you might want to put into consideration the following:
• Location of data centre?
• Free ID protection?
• Free domain?
• Is ordinary website data backup available?

6. Strong security capabilities

Lack of strong security naturally goes against your needs. This is one huge area where you’ll get that all web hosting plans are not designed equal. So, you should invest in a plan which has strong features.

You need a web hosting company that can provide SSL (Secure Socket Layer) protection and opts for HTTPS that is more secure than the traditional HTTP. This addition to your plan can completely protect information your customers share on your website. This includes everything from their credit card information to their name.

Security features are vital for pages where your customers will be submitting information, and ensure that payment processing pages, content pages, and lead pages are all completely protected.

7. High performance capabilities

You need to ensure that your web hosting plan can keep up with your orders, your website and its traffic, both currently and as your website grows.

Site speed is a huge consideration. If your website is taking more than three seconds to load, or crashing when five customers are viewing it, then you are likely to lose huge quantities of conversions. You, therefore, need to go for some plans, which provide high-speed add-ons. So, go ahead and buy these plans, they are worth your money. You should go for plans that:

• guarantee superior order performance and high traffic
• provide isolated environments for orders with committed resources particularly for processing and handling orders
• have rapid site loading speeds and high processing capabilities
• and have CPU allocation and dedicated memory storage

In a nutshell…

The web hosting plan you select is more than saving a few dollars. It will explicitly affect the security of your website, the performance capabilities of your site and your experience of managing it.

You need to remember to select a plan which not just meets your needs currently, but also will continue doing so as your business scales in the future.

As a business owner, since you spend lots of time online and the majority of customer interactions occur on your website, you can’t afford to get the perfect web hosting plan for your business.