How to Choose a Web Hosting Provider
The value of creating an online presence for your business in this age of tech is immeasurable. However, the procedures involved require careful thoughts and choices. The hosting platform you choose for your website plays a considerable role in the quality of the performance of your website. If you pick a hosting platform with poor uptime means that your website will experience regular cases of downtime. Having a website that always experiences downtime does not instil trust in your web visitors.
Therefore, selecting the wrong hosting platform can end up costing you money. The big question now is, “How do I select the right hosting platform? In the course of this article, we will go over some pointers you need to look out for when choosing a web hosting platform.
How to Choose a Web Hosting Provider
- Decide the type of hosting you need
The first step in getting quality web hosting is determining the best hosting for your website. There are five main types of web hosting which are:
- Shared Hosting
- VPS hosting
- Cloud hosting
- Dedicated hosting
- WordPress hosting
Each type of web hosting is equipped to handle different website needs. For example, a website with high traffic cannot go for shared hosting, which is designed to handle small web traffic. But if you are starting up small, shared web hosting is your best bet.
- Uptime Guarantee
If you are a regular web user, and you have encountered a website and hit a brick wall when it doesn’t open? Imagine finally finding a website with the information you desperately require and clicking on that website and ending up with an error message. It can be very frustrating. This is what happens when you host your website with a hosting server with a poor uptime guarantee. The uptime guarantee is an indication of the amount of downtime that web hosts experience. The closer the uptime score is to a 100% the lesser the amount of downtime they experience. It is best to stick with a host that has an uptime score higher than 99%. The ideal uptime score is 99.9%
- Availability Of Site Backups
Cyberattacks are a common thing on the internet today. One other thing you want to consider when choosing a web host provider is the availability of website data backups. You want a host that offers regular site backups. The more often the better, preferably weekly backups. This way, whatever happens to your website, the damages will be minimal, and you don’t have to start from scratch.
- Cost of Registration And Maintenance
Of course, cost plays a role in your final decision of a hosting provider. Most web hosts have attractive signup prices, but the renewal cost is usually astronomical. It is therefore important to not only consider the initial registration cost but also the cost of renewing your hosting plan. This way, you are not surprised when the time for renewal rolls by.
- Get the proper bandwidth.
At the initial stage of creating your website you might not need a lot of bandwidth, but with time and as your website continues to grow you will be needing more bandwidth space. Therefore, it is essential to choose a website that offers scalable plans, this way you can always alter your plans as you grow.
- Available storage
The purpose of your website plays a role in determining the amount of storage space you will require. When choosing a web host, it is essential to choose one that suits your needs as best as possible. So if your website might require more storage space, choose a web host that offers a higher amount of storage space with each hosting plan.
- Page Loading Speed
For a better rating on Google, you require a server with very fast page loading speed. To increase your page traffic, you need a SEO (Search Engine Optimization) rating. And one of the factors google considers when rating websites is the page loading speed. So before you register with a web hosting provider, you might want to check for their page loading speed.
- Data security
In choosing a web host provider, you want to choose one that will be able to protect your webs data and that of your site visitors. The provider should also have regular system backups and malware monitors to ensure that your website data is protected at all times. Ensure that your hosting provider has Secure Sockets layer (SSL) to help protect your information.
- Customer support
When selecting a web hosting provider, you should also consider their customer support system. You should choose a web host with a customer support that has multiple methods of contacting them. Both live chats, emails, tickets and calls. You should also choose a web host with a customer support that is always on standby in case of emergencies.
Top Web Hosting Companies in Nigeria
If you are still sceptical about which web hosting provider to work with, below are some great picks to get you on your way
ModeWebHost is one of the top web hosting platform in Nigeria that stands out among others. They provide an impressive collection of services, from domain name registration and web development, to web hosting services and even domain transfer. In terms of reliability, ModeWebHost is definitely your best bet, with an all-time high uptime score of 99.9%, you are assured that your website will always be active.
In terms of affordable hosting services, Modewebhost has one of the cheapest hosting plans in Nigeria, with a starting plan of N300 monthly. Each hosting plan comes with a free Wildcard SSL certificate that ensures the safety of your web data and that of your site visitors. Some other impressive features of modewebhost include their unlimited email account, 24/7 customer support with live chats, tickets, emails and calling to help you resolve any issues you might encounter. They also offer free malware checks and a free one-click WordPress installer. With ModewebHost, you can never go wrong
Some other web hosting providers of note include;
- Hostgator
- TrueHost
- WebManager
- Hostinger
- Whogohost
- GoDaddy
Conclusion
When setting up a website, one of the things you must do is choose a web hosting provider. The web host you choose can make or break your website as it determines the overall performance of your website. In this article, we have covered some of the most important things to consider when choosing a web hosting platform for your website.
