When building your WordPress site, finding a web host provider for your site may not be top of the list. It tends to become a last minute dash to try find a web host to get your site live as quickly as possible. It may not seem as important as other factors but choosing the wrong plan or provider for your WordPress site can be costly.
As you may already suspect not all web hosts are the same and although you’re purchasing what may appear to be the same service, there are vast differences when it comes down to the nuts and bolts of it. Below are some common questions that may arise when looking for hosting.
How Much Should I pay?
Web Hosting companies charge on a month-by-month basis, normally with no lock-in contract. The pricing for a basic shared hosting plan can range from any between free and upwards of $50 per month. With such a great disparity it’s easy to see where the confusion can come in. As with most services, you get what you pay for and if it sounds too good to be true it probably is. For the most part avoid anything that’s free or a few dollars a month. Companies that offer their web hosting at such discounted prices have to make up for the loss somewhere. This normally involves either spamming your website with ads or jamming your site on a server that has already reached maximum capacity, resulting in multitudes of downtime and painfully slow website response time.
How Much Storage Will I Need?
It’s easy to get carried away with storage and pick a provider that will offer you unlimited storage. But will you need terabytes of space? Your average sized website should never need any more then 10GB, and that's including backups and emails. Don’t short-change yourself by paying for storage you will never use.
What’s Acceptable Uptime?
Uptime simply refers to the availability of your website online. Although 99% in comparison to 99.9% doesn’t seem like a great amount, in real time that 0.9% difference could result in 3 days downtime a year, where your website won’t be accessible. Obviously this should be kept minimal so the higher the uptime guarantee the better.
What Happens When Something Goes Wrong?
Above all support is arguably the key reason people stick with their web host provider. If something goes wrong are you going to be placed in an overseas call centre queue, spending time talking to someone who can’t directly help you with your problem. Or are you going to have direct access to someone who works on the same clock as you and can personally look into your issue first hand. In the world of technology things will go wrong and when they do you want to know that you have quality support just a phone call away.
Choosing a web host provider for your WordPress site should not be taken lightly. Spend some time doing your research and asking the questions you need answered. Find a plan that perfectly suits your WordPress site and its requirements. As a guide have a look into these Managed WordPress Hosting options.
