A fully-optimized website is the core of every online business today. Word-of-mouth marketing can take your business only that far, for eventually, the business will require something by which clients can find its services. A fast-loading, highly responsive, and reliable website can be a game-changer for your business.
Websites with high uptime allow your potential visitors to explore your website at any time of the day. 83% of visitors prefer a website that loads within 3 seconds, and 79% of shoppers never visit the website again because of the website’s poor performance. However, have you wondered what causes a website to perform poorly?
See How Our Experts Can Drive More Traffic to Your Website!
SEO: Boost your rankings and drive more organic traffic today!
Website Design/Development: Create a stunning website that converts visitors into customers.
Paid Media: Reach the right audience at the right time with expertly managed paid media.
One of the reasons behind poor website performance could be the wrong choice of web hosting provider. As a WordPress development company, choosing a proper hosting provider is necessary because if you choose the wrong one, even if website development is done correctly, things will still go wrong.
Factors to Consider While Choosing a Web Hosting Service
The market for web hosting is expected to develop significantly over the next several years, reaching a predicted value of US$192.80 billion in 2025. Thus, the myriad of choices to be made online can be overwhelming.
Those who want to start their site can also become perplexed and even doubtful about who to trust with their website, besides stressing about the content and design of their website. Taking your goal into consideration, you must compare the features of several services to choose which one best suits your needs.
As a WordPress SEO consultant, here are some factors that you should consider to host your WordPress or any website:
1. Understand your website objectives
Start by analyzing what your website needs. Start with thinking about the purpose of your website; for instance, a fully-functional eCommerce website will require more resources as compared to portfolio websites. Estimate the traffic that you are expecting, and check the overall bandwidth and storage required to run your website. Consider the security level and budget that you can allocate for website hosting.
Now, based on your needs, there are different types of hosting services available. Here’s a table that describes them:
| Type of Hosting | Description | Features | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| Web Hosting (Shared Hosting) | Multiple websites will share the same resources | Affordable, easy-to-setup, beginner-friendly, limited resources, and slower performance with security issues | Small websites, personal blogs, portfolio websites |
| VPS Hosting | A virtual server that provides dedicated resources on a physical server | More costlier than shared hosting, better control over resources, scalable, better performance, requires technical knowledge | Medium-sized businesses, website development agencies, growing businesses |
| Cloud Hosting | Websites run on a network of multiple connected servers for high scalability and reliability | Complex pricing that depends upon usage, scalable, highly reliable, and handles traffic spikes well | High-traffic websites, SaaS products, eCommerce stores |
| Dedicated Hosting | Physical server exclusively dedicated to one website | Expensive than all types, full control, high security, best performance, and requires server management skills | Enterprise sites, large businesses, high-traffic websites |
| WordPress Hosting | Hosting specifically optimized for WordPress websites | Security and speed optimization, limited flexibility, higher cost than shared hosting | WordPress blogs, websites, and WooCommerce stores |
Once you know the type of web hosting you require, then it becomes simpler to narrow down your options and choose the right web hosting provider.
2. CMS vs Website Builders
The best web hosts provide hosting services that integrate with different platforms, like content management systems (CMS) and website builders. These are essential to consider because you can build and deploy your website through the same platform.
With the CMS platform, you can build your website from scratch with a significant learning curve. Platforms, like Joomla and WordPress are popular CMS, but you need to be technically proficient to handle technical tasks like optimizing speed and security.
Then, some web hosts offer website builders. The website builders have a library of pre-designed templates and a drag-and-drop website editor that helps in customizing the template. Some of the editors have AI-powered features, where you need to answer a few questions, and the Gen AI will generate a custom website template as per your business requirements.
WordPress web development is in trend because it offers greater flexibility and customization as compared to website builders. However, it is best to go with the web host that fits your budget and technical skills.
3. Recognize the subscription model.
The next step is to examine your available subscription models. Web hosting plans usually operate on a subscription basis. While some contracts can be for a few years, others can be for a few months. You do not want to lock in for a long time should the need for switching web hosting come. Depending on the capabilities of your prospective web hosting provider, you may need to move in order to fulfill the needs of its user base as your website advances and innovates.
4. Inquire about dependability and uptime.
Before making a choice, you should always consider server dependability and uptime. Working with a web hosting agency that frequently experiences server problems is not something you want to do. Your business may suffer if someone attempts to visit your website and the server is unavailable. You want the uptime to be as high as possible (upto 99.9%) because most web hosting companies will share it with you. You want to know the server’s policies in case something goes wrong.
5. Consider scalability for future expansion and adaptability.
Scalability should be an important idea when choosing a web hosting provider, mostly for businesses or websites that foresee growth. Find one that offers easy resource upgrades to handle ramping traffic and requirements without paralyzing day-to-day operations. According to the changing requirements of your website, some providers offer scalable resources like CPU, RAM, and storage space. During times of heavy demand or traffic spikes, this option guarantees steady performance.
6. Examine different pricing schemes.
Learn the hosting plans that best meet your budget since it is a good rule of thumb-even though price should never be the deciding factor in picking a web hosting service provider. Look for options like GPU hosting and NVMe storage if you want a more sophisticated configuration. Be sure to choose a supplier whose prices are clear. Your ultimate cost can include hundreds or even thousands of dollars due to hidden fees and tiny font size, particularly if you commit to long-term hosting.
7. Examine web hosting service reviews.
When analyzing the reputation and dependability of a web server, consult trustworthy sources. You can find recurring problems or grievances from both present and previous customers by investigating a web hosting provider using third-party evaluations. If the business responds to complaints at all, observe how it handles them. You can get a sense of how it handles dissatisfied consumers from its answer.
8. Ask about extra domains and backups.
Lastly, inquire about backups and other domains. You should be aware that your data is accessible on a backup server in case the primary server experiences any issues. In this manner, your website will remain operational even if the primary server malfunctions and you won’t have to worry about losing any of your data. Later, you will need to add more domains to your website as it grows. You should confirm that the hosting provider can manage it. You must also understand how this would affect your total expenses. Ensure you are fully informed about these matters before selecting a web hosting provider.
Why is Choosing the Right Web Hosting Important For Your Business?
Your website needs web hosting to have space on a web server. It guarantees that your website is up and running on the Internet. As a result, the server hosting your files will be accessed when someone enters your site address.
Web hosting service providers own and manage powerful servers located in data centers. Web hosting ensures visitors have seamless access to your website and virtual address. Choosing the right web hosting provider is necessary because it will directly impact the website’s speed, security, uptime, and overall performance. Here’s what a wrong decision leads to:
- Poor server infrastructure leads to longer response times and frustrating users.
- Lack of CDN (content delivery network) leads to delays in loading pages for global users.
- Weak security protocols expose your website vulnerable to security breaches.
- The inability to scale and adjust the resources to handle high traffic leads to the website crashing.
- Inconsistent uptime causes the website to remain inaccessible.
All of these situations cater to negative user experiences, which affects your brand reputation, credibility, and, even worse, conversions. Each second of delay in loading speed leads causes the conversion rates to decrease by 7%. That’s why thorough consideration is necessary to choose the right web hosting service provider to ensure your website remains accessible at all times and runs swiftly.
The Bottom Line
The best web hosting provider guarantees smooth performance with minimal downtime and increased security within any stipulated budget. Choosing the wrong web host means lagging load times with unavailable support, ruining user experience and company reputation. In situations where clients are not sure how to commence, it’s better to rely on reputable WordPress SEO consultants and website developers like Icecube Digital. We help you navigate in the right direction, from choosing the web hosting provider to streamlined web development.
