Finding a great Web host for your site is just as important as having a great design. How your site looks tells visitors how professional you are, conveys your objectives and leads them toward some kind of profitable conversion. How well your host performs, however, often means the difference between a bounce and someone who sticks around to check you out. 57% of online consumers abandon a site after 3 seconds. Moreover, a great host will resolve issues quickly and make it easier for you to control your site, helping you focus less on the mechanics of your site and more on providing a great experience for your users. Learn to recognize some of the factors that make a Web host worth your time.
Getting In Touch
You’re going to have problems at some point, no matter how great your Web host is. The one criterion that elevates a host from good to fantastic is great support. Only use a company that gives you multiple ways to get in touch with its tech support personnel. Email and chat support are great and often the best ways to get high-level support, but phone support is a must-have. Being able to speak to someone immediately can turn a crisis into an inconvenience. Even if someone else has to get back to you through email, you know the company is aware of the situation and is working on fixing it.
Maintaining Control
If you can’t figure out how to use your hosting package, it won’t do you much good to have it. Unless you have the budget to pay someone to manage your site, you’re going to have to take matters into your own hands. Evaluate the administrative control panel your host uses. If it uses arcane methods you have no hope of understanding, go somewhere else. The point of a control panel is to make your job easier, so don’t accept any less.
Organizing Your Domain Collection
This might seem like a negligible point, but make sure your host supports multiple domain names for a single account. You’ll probably start with just one, but you might launch a new product or buy up common misspellings of your domain so more people can find you. Find a host that will let you point multiple domains to the same site or run multiple sites from the same package.
Finding a great Web host is like buying a fantastic car: everyone wants it, but it takes work and knowledge to make sure you’re getting a good deal. Your site is the public face of your company on the Internet. Even though the host doesn’t dictate your design, its ability to provide a fast, responsive experience to your users will directly impact their feelings about your site and, by extension, your business. If your site goes down and you can’t reach anyone at your host, you’re going to miss potential business until someone gets back to you. Likewise, if you can’t figure out how to work your site or your host doesn’t handle multiple domains, it’ll be hard to set your site up the way you want. Avoid the hassle and start with a reliable host.
