Hosting companies are necessary to make your website visible to the world. Here are some tips and guidelines on how to achieve that.
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Some Popular Hosting Companies
A few popular hosting companies that you could look at starting with are
BlueHost
DreamHost
SiteGround
WordPress.org recommends all three.
Or you could go it independently and get it done through other ones such as:
HostGator
WP Engine
GreenGeeks
A2 Hosting
Hostinger
A hosting company is needed to make your website accessible to the worldwide web. You would need to read through and understand what subscription you will be opting for and what it includes. They often offer significant discounts for the first year and increase the renewal costs tremendously. Don’t overlook these.
Checking speeds, storage, and what sort of customer support they offer is essential. Understanding terminology can be daunting. Ignoring it can be detrimental to your online store. Some hosting companies will limit your website’s traffic after a certain number of visitors (you would need to look at an unmetered option to avoid this).
Ensuring that there is a guarantee of 99% uptime is also essential. You want to avoid any downtimes they may have. When there is a downtime, your website will be offline.
Ensure they create back-ups, and you can have them on demand and check the number of email accounts you can have and the storage. You would want to see if they allow you to send bulk emails.
If you are selling a product, you would need to ensure that the web hosting company offers what is known as an SSL Certificate (Secure Sockets Layer). It’s that little lock that appears next to your URL in the address bar and provides the user with confidence that their data and information are safe and secure.
Check their server locations, as your website could load very slowly if you are in Australia, for example, and their servers are only in the USA.
Conclusion
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These DIY website builders and hosting companies may take a few days to build and implement, but you must ask if they will do what you want them to do without the knowledge and intervention of an experienced web developer. Moreover, are you willing to invest the time to learn how to do all of this, or will you concentrate on your business and let the experts do this for you? Remember what I said in an earlier post; don’t spend $5 to save $1.
Experience has shown me that the experts we chose to deal with website hosting and IT / Web development were invaluable to our team. They were pivotal to the success of our business. Their experience and due diligence were incomparable to these off the shelf products. Moreover, they knew exactly what we needed and just got it done behind the scenes with minimal intervention from our company. It just worked.
Think carefully about this aspect of your business. You don’t want to be in a situation where your site stops working and you have no one to call. These customer call centres and live chats – may not work when something goes wrong, and if your sales stop coming in, it could spell disaster.
Web developers have the expertise to make your website work and stand out, both on the back end and front end. Furthermore, they can add features to your website that off the shelf products simply can’t. If you want things to operate a certain way or add stuff to your platform, your developer can help you achieve these things.
Your business deserves the best. Search for and get the best that is out there. It is my view, one of the most important investments you will make.
I remained one step ahead of my competition simply because of my site’s functionality. I could add features that gave me a competitive edge at the drop of a hat.
If you are on a tight budget however and want a starting point with as little money as possible, above are the hosting companies you can get started with and here is a list of a few website builders that have been rated and reviewed. That could give you a head start.
Once you are set with your domain name registration, and you have a hosting company in place and you have managed to build yourself a website, you would need to look at some online payment methods. These are ways you would accept payment through your online store.
Be mindful of your financial control and record-keeping or any accounting software that may be integrated with the backend of your website. Some financial providers are able to integrate online payments well with your software, while others cannot. Remember, it is critical to the success of any business that everything flows and works well together. My 5 basic step guide will take you through all of those steps and ensure you have all areas covered.
