Last updated: May, 2024
The right webhosting company will make running your website completely painless. Your pages will load quickly, you won’t have nightmares about your website going down every five days, and if something does go wrong, you’ll have reliable support. The wrong hosting company will make you wish you’d never created your website in the first place.
Most people don’t choose bad web hosts on purpose. They don’t actually enjoy it when their website is down more often than not or is constantly being hacked. But most people don’t know what to look for in a web hosting solution provider, so they end up choosing entirely the wrong one.
This doesn’t have to happen to you. When you’re choosing a hosting company, check for these nine qualities to make sure you’re not being ripped off.
Table of Contents
9 Things to Look for in a Web Hosting Company:
- Great prices
- Reliability
- 24/7 customer support
- Domain name management
- Cloud-based backup
- cPanel hosting
- Email accounts
- Variety of hosting options
- Extra webhosting services
1. Great prices
Hosting prices vary from company to company, but if you’re paying anything near 15€ for even their cheapest packages, you’re paying way too much. (For comparison, our cheapest packages are under 5€.)
Don’t choose a company with overpriced webhosting services.
2. Reliability
Whether you’re using your website to make money, to establish yourself as an expert, or to show off your songwriting skills, your website is an extension of your brand.
If your website is unreliable, your visitors will eventually give up and find some other way to spend their time (or some other place to spend their money).
Don’t choose a hosting provider unless it offers powerful hosting with at least 99% uptime.
3. 24/7 customer support
If you’ve ever had something go wrong with your website, then you already know the panic that sets in when you’ve hit the refresh button once – twice – three times and still your website’s displaying an error message that you have no idea how to fix.
This is why you can’t take great customer support for granted. The right web hosting solution provider for you will have 24/7 customer support, so that you’ll always have help when you need it.
4. Domain name management
The domain name of your website is the website address your visitors will see. It usually looks something like this: www.arealdomainname.com.
To get a domain name, you have to register one. While it’s possible to register your domain name with a different company than the one you choose to host your website, it’s much easier to have them in the same place. So, even if you think you’ve found a powerful hosting company, cut them loose if they don’t let you register your domain name with them.
Use these expert advice to register the best domain name for your future website.
5. Cloud-based backup
The biggest nightmare of anyone who runs a website is that their data will somehow just…disappear. And if you’ve ever worried about this, we can’t even chalk it up to plain old paranoia. Data can be compromised by hackers and even lost by accident.
Cloud-based backup is the surest way to keep your website safe.
6. cPanel hosting
cPanel is a powerful hosting tool that makes website management so simple that you can competently manage your site, even if you have zero technical experience. The secret to cPanel’s user-friendliness is that its interface is almost entirely graphical, so using it feels pretty intuitive.
Some web hosting solution providers don’t offer cPanel. Those aren’t the right webhosting services for you.
Choose a hosting provider with cPanel, so managing your website is pain-free. (Just so you know, we offer cPanel for a small fee with our VPS and dedicated services, and cPanel is included in our other plans.)
7. Email accounts
Email accounts probably don’t matter to you when you’re just starting out, but when you’re ready to increase your online presence and have your brand be taken more seriously, having a hosting provider that offers email accounts will be essential.
These aren’t your run-of-the-mill email accounts, either. The email accounts we offer have more storage, can send bigger files, and can match your domain name, so you look more professional.
The best web hosts always offer email accounts.
8. Variety of hosting options
There isn’t just one way to store your website on a server. So, the best hosting providers will give you options to make sure you choose the perfect hosting package for your needs.
Whether you want the increased storage, bandwidth and control of a dedicated server or the lower cost and topnotch performance of a Virtual Private Server, your hosting provider will help you get settled with the best hosting solution.
9. Extra webhosting services
This is where we really see which hosting providers go the extra mile to give you great service. If your webhosting company offers these services and has all the other qualities on our list, then you know you really are looking at one of the best webhosting companies:
Site migration
In a perfect world, we’d all choose the right web hosting company from the very start. But that’s not always how that works. That’s why the best webhosting providers offer site migration, so you don’t have to start over from scratch if you decide you want to switch hosting providers.
SSL certificates
An SSL certificate encrypts data that passes between your website and your visitors’ browsers. Websites that have SSL certificates earn trust markers that make visitors feel safe. If you’re hoping to run an eCommerce website that will collect credit card information, SSL certificates are actually mandatory. So, choose a web hosting provider that offers them, and only choose hosting providers that offer plans that are compatible with SSL certificates.
SEO tools
“SEO” stands for “Search Engine Optimization”, and it’s essential for driving traffic to your website. Choose a hosting provider that offers an SEO tool, so you can outrank your competition in search results.
Email marketing tools
When you decide to take your website to the next level with an email marketing campaign, you’ll be glad you chose a company that helps make that process as smooth as possible.
Email marketing campaigns are effective (that’s why big companies use them), but they can also be tricky to manage, especially if it’s your first time.
If your web hosting company takes the guesswork out of your marketing campaign with an email marketing tool, you’ll be leagues ahead of those poor souls who are still struggling to figure out how to create a Call To Action button.
Website builder
The best webhosting providers will include a website builder, so you can create gorgeous, professional-looking websites without needing to learn to code.
The wrap-up
Choosing a webhosting company can be overwhelming. Or, it can be as simple as checking off the boxes on your nine-item checklist. Follow this guide to make sure you choose the best web hosting solution provider for your website.
