If you are looking to choose a web hosting company, here are my tips on how to decide on a web hosting provider you will love to call home. Remember, always choose a hosting company based on your needs. In this post I am assuming that you will be starting a blog/website, and you are looking for the for the most economical way to get started. Therefore, you will be looking to get hosted on a shared server. That means that there will be other websites hosted on the same device-the server. No worries, this is industry practice, that is why hosting companies can place your website on the web dirt cheap. Here are a few strategies to help you figure out the best hosting company for your website.

1) Look in the Footer

Some Bloggers will list the products and services that power their websites. Usually, they will do that because they are being compensated or they have it linked to their affiliate account. So if you purchase a service by following that link they will receive money. That is perfectly normal in the blogging world and many websites will do that. For example, on this site I do not hide the fact that we may be compensated if you purchase a product after following a link away from our site. That is how we stay online without placing ads all over the place. I know of some bloggers who receive free hosting from prominent web hosting companies due to the amount of business they sent to them.

2) Monitor Your Host’s Up-Time

You will realize that when you are checking out some web hosting companies they will almost never guarantee 100% up-time. Most web hosts will instead promise a 99% up-time. You can use a service such as Net Craft’s Uptime Monitor to see how your host, or potential host, ranks.

3) Ease of Contact: Customer Service

Check to make sure that it is very easy for you to contact your website hosting company. The ability to contact them via email will not suffice when you are having issues. At the very least, make sure your hosting company has a way for you to chat with them through their website, or a way for you to contact them via a phone 24/7. You never know when you are going to have an issue that needs to be addressed immediately. Can you submit tickets? Sometimes you will not have time to wait around, especially if your host is having widespread issues. Instead, you may want to contact them via email or some form of trackable forum. Therefore, it is imperative that you select a host that will allow you to submit tickets. So far, I have not come across a hosting company that does not allow you to submit support tickets, but when you are going to select a host make sure they do indeed have a way for you to submit support tickets.

4) What Are Your Favorite Blogs Using?

I take it as a matter of habit to look at what my favorite blogs are using. You can look this information up very easily. You can find out what your favorite blogs or websites are using by using a website called Whoishostingthis. All you do is enter the domain name of your choice, and it will return to you a summary of the site’s hosting  information.  Also, you can use DomainTools to get even more information along with the hosting information. Remember that it may be a bit difficult to figure out who exactly is hosting a website. In the case of AccuTeach you will see that if you run a check on my site it shows up as being hosted at CloudFlare. However, my site is really hosted at WestHost. What people do is often more important than what they say they do.

Conclusion

Choosing a hosting company is akin to selecting an insurance broker. You want to make sure that you are getting the best price and the best service at the same time. You hope you do not need to call your insurance broker. However, if you do you expect assistance right away. From the companies that I have used, I would suggest that you look into WestHost, HostGator, BlueHost and/or Arvixe for your blog hosting. They offer great support, and it is very easy for you to talk to someone. Also, I have had good results with Arvixe in the past.

Credits: L. Brand  | Mecannical | Google Image | CowBirdsinLove