How to Choose the Right Hosting Service for Your Company

The modern business can not survive, much less thrive, in this day and age without a website. In fact, 83% of SMB owners say that having a website gives them a significant competitive advantage over those businesses that do not have a website. Thus it is crucial that any enterprise find a reliable and secure web hosting company for that much-needed Internet connectivity and other related services.

But with so many web hosting options available, picking the perfect web hosting plan for your business can be downright difficult and tricky, especially if you are not very acquainted with the nuances of web hosting. There are so many things to consider and assess, including the price, the terms of the agreement, the features, and so on.

You also have to consider the kind of hosting your business needs. Whether you need dedicated hosting, shared hosting, or VPS, you need to accurately identify your needs in order to find the most suitable hosting partner.

A web hosting services provider is very much a business partner and an investment. A wrong decision can set you back not just financially but cost you so much in terms of time and business opportunities. Fortunately, the following tips will help you to know how to choose web hosting service.

1. Determine Your Speed Requirements

Before you try to know how to find a web host, you must first determine your hosting requirements, with particular attention on speed. Hosting speed is essential in picking the right hosting plan and the perfect web hosting services provider.

You think a small office with a team of 15-20 employees can get by with an internet speed of 15 to 25 Mbps. Sure, that is if they are using the internet for email, social media, web browsing, and light data transfers. But such speed is inadequate if you’re business conducts massive file exports, POS transactions, video conferencing, and online communications on a regular basis.

100 to 150 Mbps is the ideal speed for businesses that require smooth and seamless online collaboration, loaded audio and video streaming, and crowded WiFi usage. Large corporations that have more demanding operations such as e-Commerce and web hosting, as well as increased employee counts and bigger data needs, will require internet speeds that range from 150 to 500 Mbps.

It is important that you pinpoint your speed requirements. This should be one of the major questions to ask your web hosting provider. Otherwise, your company might end paying for a web hosting plan that offers too little or too much.

2. Identify How Much Bandwidth You Need

A web hosting plan with a higher bandwidth allows users to do more and achieve more without experiencing as many performance lags, slow downloads and uploads, and intermittent connectivity as opposed to a hosting package that offers the same speed yet with low bandwidth.

Many people associate, or even confuse, network bandwidth with internet speed. And understandably so, since both are closely related to each other. Imagine Plan A with lower bandwidth as a road with a single lane while Plan B with higher bandwidth offering is a road with four lanes.

Say in Plan A, there are four cars all traveling at a maximum speed of 300 kph on a single-lane road. Although the cars cruise at top speed, sharing the same road means they have to line up in a queue.

On the other hand, the same cars can have their own lane in Plan B. Each car still driving at 300 kph max. But since they don’t have to queue up, they reach their destination faster as opposed to driving in a single-lane road.

It doesn’t mean the hosting product with four lanes is faster than the one with a single lane road. But the former allows users to get more things done because there is too much space or capacity. 

Bear in mind that web hosting packages with higher bandwidth allowance are pricier. Your company may get by with lower bandwidth if there is not much of a need. If higher bandwidth is crucial for your operations, it is best that you opt for a dedicated server hosting plan.

3. Go With A Popular Web Hosting Company

There are over 330,000 web hosting companies all over the world, according to a recently updated statistics on web hosting. How to evaluate web hosting services provider individually and choose one for your business? Arriving at a logical answer is impossible.

There is simply no way you can go over each company and see what they have to offer. The best thing you can do read a few Top 10 articles on the best web hosting providers, pick a few from the list, and check reviews from actual users.

When picking a web hosting company, the cost will be a constant factor. But bear in mind that there are other aspects you need to mull over such as operating systems like Windows or CloudLinux, uptime guarantee, support, security features, data center locations, and more. These factors will be instrumental and should get significant time and consideration before you make a choice.

Of course, there are other web hosting providers out there that may offer superior plans and excellent features at a fraction of the cost. But with your business on the line, going for an unknown web hosting company is too much of a risk.

Choose The Best Your Money Can Afford

Ultimately, it will all boil down to cost. But here’s an excellent tip: pick the best your money can afford. A hosting plan worth $50 a month may be cheaper. But if you can afford package that costs $100 monthly and comes with better features, faster speeds, more bandwidth, and tighter security, choose the latter.

Spending an extra $50 on premium services and features is a great way of investment, especially if it’s not going to hurt your budget. Also, it means you can stay on a particular hosting deal for an extensive period of time before you need to upgrade to a better subscription.