Do you want to make a website for your business? Or do you have a blog project you want to start? If so, you need web hosting. The process of renting space on a web server to keep all of the files that make up your website is called web hosting.
Choosing the right web hosting provider with good features is very important for your website’s success. There are many web hosting companies out there, so it can feel overwhelming to pick one.
This blog will explain the top 10 features you should look for to help you make the best choice.
Top 10 Web Hosting Features
When choosing a web host provider, it is important to take into consideration the following hosting features:
Good Uptime
Uptime is how much time your website is actually online and working. You want a static web hosting provider that guarantees an uptime rate of 99.9% or higher. That means your site will almost always be up and accessible for visitors. If a hosting provider has poor uptime, your website could be down frequently, frustrating visitors and hurting your business.
The best VPS provider uses backup servers and data centers in multiple locations to ensure your site stays online all the time, even if technical issues or disasters are affecting one area.
Affordable Pricing
You want affordable web hosting that fits your budget. But it should also be flexible to grow with your business. As your website gets more traffic and needs more resources, you should be able to upgrade to a bigger hosting plan easily.
The perfect web hosts have a range of tiered hosting plans at different price points for small sites up to large, high-traffic best hosting sites. They may also offer discounts for paying yearly instead of monthly.
Carefully consider your current and future needs to pick the most cost-effective plan.
Easy to manage Control Panel
To manage your website, you’ll use a control panel provided by your web host. The control panel should be user-friendly so that even beginners can handle basic website tasks without too much technical knowledge.
Leading control panel options like cPanel make it easy to manage domains, create email accounts, access databases, and upload/download files with a simple point-and-click interface. The best hosts provide an intuitive custom control panel or a well-designed skin for cPanel.
Great Support
Things can go wrong with websites, so you want a web host with excellent customer support. They should offer 24/7 support through multiple channels like phone and email/tickets so you can get help right away when needed.
The support staff should be knowledgeable and provide fast, clear solutions to resolve any issues that come up. The host should also provide in-depth tutorials, video guides, and blogs to help you troubleshoot and solve common static site hosting problems yourself.
Security Features
Website security is super important to protect your site and your visitors’ data from hackers and malicious attacks. Good web hosts have powerful security features like free SSL certificates to encrypt data, firewalls to block attacks, frequent malware scanning and removal, and automatic daily backup services.
If your website handles sensitive customer information like credit cards or personal data, prioritize hosts with the most advanced security tools and features like two-factor authentication.
Fast Page Speed
Website visitors don’t have much patience for pages that take a long time to load these days. Beyond just keeping visitors happy, page speed is also a critical factor that search engines use to rank websites.
Since speed and performance directly impact user experience, faster websites get favored with higher rankings in search results over slower competitors.
When evaluating web hosting providers, prioritize ones that utilize performance optimization technologies to ensure blazing-fast load times for your website pages. This should include equipping servers with high-speed solid-state drives (SSDs), which access data much faster than traditional hard disk drives.
Unlimited Resources
While smaller websites or blogs may not need massive amounts of bandwidth and storage space, it’s generally wise to have unlimited or unmetered resource allowances rather than risk running out. The last thing you want is for your site to go down or get bandwidth-throttled due to hitting a fixed monthly data transfer limit.
That’s why many of the top hosting providers build their plans around offering “unlimited” or unmetered bandwidth and disk space, especially on higher pricing tiers. This gives you ample headroom to handle unexpected traffic spikes from going viral or running promotions without worrying about maxing out.
Of course, no host can truly offer infinite, unlimited resources as there are always technical limits and fair use policies. But by removing concrete data caps, unlimited hosting means you get a very generous allowance of bandwidth, storage, databases, email accounts and other resources to accommodate growth without restrictions.
Free Site Migration
If you have an existing website that you want to transfer to a new web hosting provider, look for hosts that offer free site migration services.
Having to migrate your own site can be an incredibly complex and tedious process – you have to move all the files, databases, email accounts, DNS settings and other components over manually. One missed step could result in downtime or data loss.
With a free site migration service from your new web host, they will handle everything involved in securely transferring your entire live website to their servers. This saves you from the huge hassle and headaches of trying to do it all yourself. The best web hosts have experience migrating all types of websites and make the process seamless.
Website Analytics
To understand how well your website is performing and identify areas for improvement, you need access to advanced analytics data that tracks every detail. The best VPS providers offer powerful analytics tools or integration with industry-leading analytics platforms.
For most, this means seamless integration with Google Analytics, the most widely used analytics service. A quality web host provides one-click installation and setup for Analytics tracking code across your whole site. They may even include additional checkouts or tracking features built specifically for better Google Analytics integration.
In addition to integrating with third-party analytics tools, some hosts give you built-in proprietary analytics dashboards as well.
Cloud Hosting Options
Cloud is a newer hosting option that can provide affordable yet powerful, scalable resources ideal for high-traffic websites. With cloud hosting, your site files are stored across a cluster of connected cloud servers, reducing downtime risk.
Many of the top cloud web hosting providers offer quality cloud hosting plans these days on a pay-as-you-go basis. Cloud hosting can automatically provision more resources like RAM and CPU to handle traffic spikes. It’s a versatile, flexible hosting solution.
Conclusion
Overall, you want your web host to check off all the key features – high uptime rates, fast page load times worldwide, top-notch security, unlimited bandwidth/storage, great 24/7 support, and easy web hosting management tools – all at a reasonable price that gives you value for money.
Considering priorities like these will help you find the best web hosting provider to reliably power your website for years to come and ensure a seamless experience for your visitors.