For visitors to open and use your site quickly, you need to host it. The site is allocated space on the server, thanks to which it is available around the clock and daily for visitors from different countries.
When creating online stores, their owners always consider which hosting they should select. There are many providers, each of which offers several tariff plans. At the same time, the site’s creators are particularly concerned about the quality of hosting and its safety.
Basic conditions for quality hosting
You should immediately warn against using cheap hosting and sites with bad reviews. Here are just a few of their shortcomings: display of third-party advertising on your site; unstable work; poor technical support for customers; there is no proof of information security; slow websites.
Website hosting: analysis of the main types
Today there are several main kinds, which differ in the principle of their work and price: the most affordable is virtual type; medium price – virtual dedicated server; the most costly is a devoted server.
Virtual hosting is a place on the server where there are many more sites in addition to your web resource. Server resources are transferred between them. Suitable for sites with a small budget and for online stores that are relatively inexpensive on resources.
Virtual Server – similar to the previous version, but only a few sites are hosted on the server. Owners get a lot more disk space and other resources, as well as the ability to fine-tune the settings on the server.
A dedicated server is the most costly option, and it requires the participation of specialists who will provide technical support. Suitable for large online stores with a large number of daily visits.
Selecting the right hosting for your website
When selecting a quality hosting, you must pay attention to the following criteria:
- Rates. You can choose the option based on how much you are willing to pay. More than cheap hosting seems rather dubious, and too expensive one is unlikely to be appropriate for small and medium-sized online stores.
- Technical support. The bottleneck in any hosting company. There is always a human factor here, and finding good specialists and organizing their work competently isn’t easy. Technical support should be qualified, around the clock, plus there should be convenient channels for communication with it (several phones, chat, ticket system, and email). This criterion is essential, especially for non-technical people. But you should understand that technical support is hosting support, not your CMS or scripts written by a programmer. On this basis, disputes often occur between customers and technical support. In most cases, when asked, “My module is not working correctly,” you will quite rightly get a link to google.
- Data backup, also known as a backup. This allows you to recover data if it is stolen or damaged. The more often backups are made, the more likely they can be recovered.
- Speed and stability. The faster pages open, the more purchases visitors can make. If the site opens slowly or shows errors, customers risk buying goods.
- Customer reviews. Look for the opinions of those who use the services of specific providers to find out why they like this or that hosting.
As you can see, you must use stable and high-quality hosting, even for a small site. As the flow of customers increases, more resources will be needed, so over time, you should switch to more expensive tariff plans.