10 Tips for Choosing the Right Web Hosting Company

What is web hosting?

Web hosting is an online service or platform that hosts website files on a server. Web hosts are crucial because they make websites accessible to visitors. They’re typically third-party providers that help the public access websites via the internet. 

Web hosting securely stores a website’s content, including coding, pictures, videos and text. Web hosts can also provide additional tech support and enhancements, such as faster loading speeds and greater efficiency, to give visitors a positive experience with the site. 

Examples of web hosts include WP Engine, Bluehost and GoDaddy. 

How do I choose a web hosting service?

Here are 10 tips to help you choose the right web host for your business’s website. Following these steps will help you prevent mistakes that could create big problems for your company. 

1. Determine which kind of web host you need.

Understanding your business’s needs can help narrow your web hosting options. If, for example, you want to run a high-traffic e-commerce store with high-quality images and video, downloadable resources, and the ability to take online transactions, you’ll need a robust site with enough storage and bandwidth, as well as tight security. In contrast, if you use your website as a virtual resume employers or potential clients may visit every now and again, your hosting needs will be minimal.

Websites with extensive daily traffic probably won’t function well on shared web servers, which are designed to accommodate many small websites with limited demands.

2. Choose the right web hosting package.

Many small businesses turn to shared hosting to save money. With the smaller price tag, however, comes a bigger risk of slow website response times. The issue is likely caused by an influx of traffic on a server with limited bandwidth. Slow websites turn away customers and can cost you greatly. 

An option such as a virtual private server (VPS) is slightly more expensive, but it provides faster, higher-quality web performance and delivers a great customer experience. VPS hosting is a more efficient option for larger websites with higher anticipated traffic. 

3. Read reviews of web hosting companies.

Refer to reputable websites when you’re researching a web host’s reliability and reputation. Researching a web hosting company through third-party online reviews can help you uncover consistent issues or complaints from current and past users. Pay attention to how the company responds to complaints, if it responds at all. Its response will give you an idea of how it deals with unhappy customers.

4. Get the proper bandwidth from your web host.

Most new websites don’t use much bandwidth, but it’s crucial to leave room for growth. Ensure that the web hosting company you choose doesn’t lock you into a specific internet speed or amount of bandwidth and then charge you additional fees if you must revise your hosting plan later.

5. Don’t choose a web hosting company based solely on price.

When you’re a new business owner with a limited budget, it can be tempting to sign up with the cheapest web hosting company. The lowest price, however, may mean slow servers, poor customer service, constant downtime or an association with thousands of unprofessional websites. 

Joe Warnimont, a contributing expert at HostingAdvice, advised caution about going “cheap.” 

“For about three or four years of my early professional career, I only used the absolute cheapest hosting accounts I could find. That was a mistake,” he said. “Most budget hosting accounts increase their prices much higher than competitors after one or two years. I’ve also experienced some of the slowest websites from cheap hosts. They tend to overload their shared servers without much consideration for traffic spikes or dwindling server resources.”

6. Read the web hosting company’s terms of service.

Most people accept a company’s terms of service without bothering to read exactly what they’re agreeing to. That may result in unwanted fees, policies and limitations. A web host’s terms of service usually include its refund policy, which becomes essential information if you have a negative experience or find a better service. 

7. Test the web host’s customer support.

When you research web hosting companies, identify how to contact the provider’s customer support. Can you quickly and easily contact a representative via email, chat or phone? If yes, great. To assess quality, see how customer support responds to your queries. Test each support feature before you purchase any services to see if your business’s needs will be met.

“Call customer support with real questions you anticipate in the future,” Warnimont said. “Send emails. Use the chat box. Browse their knowledge base. Check if you’re getting canned AI replies versus thoughtful human ones. Unhelpful reps might push you to knowledge base articles without addressing your specific needs.”

8. Know the web host’s backup plan.

It doesn’t really matter why your website is down or why you lost data. You need to know whether your web hosting company has a backup plan to help you recover. Recovering lost data, code or content from a website can cost hundreds or thousands of dollars. In addition, consider all the time it would take to recreate your entire website. When you investigate potential web hosts, find out how they handle worst-case scenarios. [Read related article: Disaster Preparedness for Small Businesses]

Warnimont warned that hosting providers’ claims can be misleading. “They might say ‘free daily backups,’ but that doesn’t tell me what I need to know,” he said. “Where are these backups stored? Do they also store the database and media files? Can I restore a backup if my site goes down? 

“My advice is to still use a host’s backup, but mainly rely on your own contingency plan,” he said. “Practice how to find a backup file, how to restore it and how to keep the site operational during the process.”

Yasmin Cotton, founder of Elyrium, agreed that frequent backups are important. “Regular backups are essential to protect your website data,” she said. “You could lose your data due to cyberattacks or server failures, so it’s important to choose a web hosting provider that offers daily backups and an easy restore process to minimize downtime in case of an emergency.”

9. Ask about the web hosting company’s security features.

Security breaches can devastate a small business. Ensure that your web hosting company has secure sockets layer (SSL) to safeguard your customers’ private information. SSL is essential for facilitating safe and secure online transactions; any web host you’re considering should provide it.  

“Security certificates are essential for protecting user data, but also for maintaining your website’s credibility,” Cotton said. “A site without HTTPS can appear untrustworthy and display browser warnings that deter visitors. Ensuring your site is secured with an SSL certificate improves security and professionalism, helping to build trust with your audience.”

10. Avoid new web hosting companies that can’t handle growth.

New web host companies often offer low prices, hoping they’ll make up for it with a large influx of clients. Most new hosting companies, however, aren’t equipped to manage that many clients at once. It’s best to stick with a more established company that can deal with growth without compromising its clients’ experiences.

When a web hosting company experiences growth too quickly and lacks the resources to handle it, problems arise for business owners, including downtime, slow page-load speeds, lost revenue and negative effects on search rankings. 

Why is choosing the right web hosting service important?

Choosing the right web host is crucial because your business’s growth, success and reputation are on the line. You must ensure that your web host can handle your requirements and keep your website online. Consider the following essential features: 

• Secure site and data: A high level of security is crucial. Your web host must protect your site from hackers and spammers. Without adequate security, you may fall victim to data breaches, corrupt data or coding, and stolen content. Security incidents mean more work for you and potentially lost sales. They expose your company and customer data, destroy customer trust and tarnish your reputation. 
• Consistent uptime: Your goal is to keep customers on your site and boost sales. You can’t do that if your site experiences regular hosting-related downtime. If your website is down, search engines can’t access and index your content, which hurts your website’s ranking and your company’s credibility. You may see a downturn in sales and online customer engagement. “A small difference in uptime might not seem like a big deal, but it really is,” said Kathryn Schwab, founder of Make It Count Creative Solutions. “For example, if your website has 99 percent uptime, that could mean days of downtime each year. But at 99.9 percent, it’s only a few hours. That little boost makes a huge difference in keeping your site reliable.”
• Redundancy and backups: Even with robust security and bandwidth, you may experience temporary website unavailability and even lost data. Your web host should have multiple redundancies built into its system, such as the ability to reroute traffic to different internet nodes and hosting sites on multiple servers. The best hosting providers also regularly backup customer websites so they can be restored if there’s a problem.
• Scalability and flexibility: Businesses grow and, in a few months or years, you may want to introduce new products and services. Your organic traffic may skyrocket with a successful SEO campaign. Inbound visits from PPC and social media campaigns may deliver more visitors. Make sure your web host has the bandwidth, CPU and storage to grow as you grow so your site downloads fast for users. 

Best web hosting companies

As you begin your search for a reputable web host, consider the following highly respected companies.

HostGator

HostGator offers various pricing tiers with unmetered bandwidth and storage space. That can be an advantage if your website has data-heavy content, such as videos and animations. HostGator also provides free SSL certificates, protection against distributed-denial-of-service attacks and free site backups. In addition to standard web hosting, the firm also offers WordPress hosting, e-commerce hosting, VPS hosting and dedicated hosting. New customers can get a free domain for the first year.

DreamHost

DreamHost offers affordable pricing; yearly plans start at only $2.95 per month for the shared starter plan. The price includes access to an AI website builder, as well as a WordPress installer and unlimited plug-ins, which makes it easier for nontechnical people to build an attractive website. You can also take advantage of DreamHost’s staging site to work on website design without worrying that mistakes will disrupt your live site.

InMotion Hosting

InMotion Hosting makes it easy to migrate your site from another hosting provider. It offers unlimited data transfers with its shared and WordPress plans. Prices are low and the company also offers unlimited bandwidth, so you’ll never have excess traffic charges. All of InMotion Hosting’s plans include unlimited email, which most other hosting providers offer as an additional charge.

A2 Hosting

A2 Hosting offers hosting that’s optimized for WordPress, enabling faster-than-normal page-loading speeds. The WordPress plans have a minimum of 50GB storage and onsite backup on all tiers. You can also use the platform’s e-commerce tools, such as WooCommerce, OpenCart and Adobe Commerce.

WP Engine

WP Engine is another hosting company focused on WordPress sites. It offers WordPress-oriented security features, daily backups and staging areas for website updates. It also has a tool for easily transferring and storing large amounts of data, which is great for large databases or catalogs. Prices start from $25 per month. The provider is very popular with WordPress sites because of page-load speed.

Bluehost 

Bluehost has an AI-powered website builder that uses WordPress functionality but makes it easier and more flexible. Its managed WordPress solutions include a free domain for the first year, access to a content-delivery network for faster page-load speeds and around-the-clock chat support. There’s also a site migration tool if you’re moving between hosts and free SSL encryption.

GoDaddy

GoDaddy is the largest domain registry and one of the biggest hosting companies. Hosting plans include a free domain; SSL and email at your domain are also free for the first year. More advanced security features cost extra. The user interface is easy to use. GoDaddy has a website builder tool, but it costs an additional $9.99 per month.

Mark Fairlie and Jennifer Dublino contributed to the reporting and writing in this article.