Often once the decision is made to get a website the first thing most people worry about is who is going to design the website. Web Design is very important but web hosting is often an after thought and to be honest not much thought goes into where your website is going to live on the internet.

It is important to make the right decision first time around when deciding on a web host. Having to change web hosts in the future can be costly in two respects. Firstly the time it takes to set up a web hosting account with a new web host and you may lose some of your valued customers due to the downtime when setting up with a new web host. Secondly the costs involved with setting up a new web hosting account with a web host.

There are a few basic things to consider when choosing a Website Hosting Service:

Make sure you ask about the reliability and speed of your web hosts hardware and servers. The first thing to do is to make sure that they have a high speed internet connection. They also need to employ effective bandwidth management. This is to ensure that your website can cope with a sudden surge of traffic. It is also important to ensure that your web host has a backup system in place. Good web hosts will have a plan b to deal with power failures which could cause you to lose clients and data.

Secondly check that the potential web host is compatible with the software you are using and the skills that you have. For example if you use Joomla to design your website, it is important that your web host supports the use of Joomla. Some of the features a web hosting service should offer are the following:

• Domain Name Registration

• At least 20mb of allocated web space

• Unlimited bandwidth

• POP3 Email accounts

• Email Forwarding

• Email Aliases

• Email-Auto Responders

• FTP Access

• Own CGI-Bin Access

• MySQL Database Access

• Server Side Includes (SSI)

• Reseller/Referral programme

It is also important for your web host to be flexible and allow room for growth. Bear in mind the future needs of your website and make sure your web host allows for migration between web hosting packages depending on your needs.

Another important factor to take into account when deciding on a suitable web host is the quality of their support structures and services. Be sure to have look at their existing customers and if possible ask their opinions. Ask for testimonials and try and get feedback from those customers regarding the reliability and support of the web host. Also check on the stability of the web host, the last thing you want is your web host to go out of business shortly after you have decided to use their services. Lastly check your web host’s responsiveness and willingness to help. Make sure you are able to contact them at any time by phone or email should there be a problem.  You can test this by sending an email before you sign up to with a question you may have about their service. If they are delayed in their response before they get your business you can imagine what they will be like once they have your business!

Cheap Site Design offers great customer service and a range of great competitive products. To find out more about our web hosting products click on the button below.

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