3 Steps To Find A Good Website Hosting ProviderR:(4) Vote:1
How can we minimize the error of making the wrong choice of web hosting provider initially ? Well, here is a simple three step approach that can help any webmaster to find the web host that fits.
You need to understand what you really need before searching for any web host, take a piece of paper and list down your own expectations from your soon to be web hosting partner, for example, since you are new to everything, you would prefer to have a much more friendly and patience, dedicated support staff that can guide you along while you are setting up your website etc. List down as much as possible so that you understand what you really want from your web host, this is important step as most people tends to skip this process and ended up in the trial and error approach mentioned earlier.
Once you have done your self brainstorming sessions and got yourself the long list of questions, you can ask around for genuine recommendations of web hosting that fits you, be sure to get recommendations from experience webmasters that has been building websites for several years. Try shortlist about five web host that you think would fit you, do some research online to ensure you are shortlisting those that receive more good than bad remarks from general webmasters.
Don't be surprise if you are getting some not so popular web hosting companies from advanced webmasters, there are lots of good web hosting providers that do not conduct massive marketing campaign or offer bulk resources hosting plans with cheap rates, these good web hosts grow their business through word of mouth, and most of them have clients that has been hosting with them for years. These are the web hosting provider that you should be partnering with if you are serious about building your website to a success, chasing after the cheapest plan is not a good or long term option.
This is another important step, even though a web host is getting 10 out of 10 good remarks from other webmasters, you should still personally check it out before committing, because every webmaster is unique and you will only know if the web host will fit you after personally check them out.
Take out the long list of questions you have done up in step one, and send them to each of the shortlisted web host, then carefully go through the responses, you'll be surprise you can still able to filter out some of them, particularly those that is providing 'canned replies' those that do not provide the answer that is up to your expectations, and identify the one that you are feeling most comfortable hosting with.
Bare in mind that your web hosting provider is an important business partner of yours, and it does contribute to the success of your website in one way or another if chosen wisely.
Foong is a Technical coordinator of dotservant.com website hosting services, he has 17 years of exposure in IT field including a 7 years of working experience in a shared hosting environment.
Dotservant.com has been offering friendly and professional website hosting services sice 2000, focusing on Linux shared hosting with support for PHP MySQL, and a personalized support service.