Are you looking to expand your online business? Can your current web hosting package cope with your plans for the future? Here are a few factors to consider to make sure your hosting package is still up to the job.
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Speed
How fast does your website load? Speed is more important than you may think.
The more traffic you receive at your website, the greater the burden is on your
host’s servers. Nearly half of users expect a web page to load in two seconds
at the most, with more likely to give up with each second of loading time
ticking by. According to a blog at business resource and news site Business.com users will see a slow and
clunky website as a reflection of how your business is run, and worse, up to
40% of them will share their bad experience with their friends.
If you’ve already optimised your website for loading time (such as compressing
images, hosting video content on external sites, and reducing css and
javascript) then it’s time to take a hard look at your web host.
Security
Nobody is completely safe from cyber attacks, but if your web host isn’t
staying a step ahead of the game and being vigilant 24/7, you can still be at
risk of a security breach. It’s something you should regularly check with them,
as your reputation may be affected.
Reliability
How confident are you that your website will never go offline? What
contingencies does your web host have if a server goes down or they need to do
maintenance? If you’re expanding your online business, you need to be assured
that your shop front will be open all the time, even at times of the day when
traffic may be high. If you’re not sure your current host can manage the
increased traffic your future business may bring, then research some hosts like
names.co.uk, and chat to them about
what they can offer.
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Scalability
If you’re an online retailer, you’ll be creating more pages with more images
and other media as your range of products increases. The bigger your website
becomes, the greater need there’ll be for space on your host’s servers, not
just to grow in the future, but to handle large spikes in traffic as well. For
example, if you stock seasonal products such as Christmas trees you need to be
sure your host can keep your site online and stable at peak times.
Customer support
In an ideal world, you’ll never have cause to contact your web host to resolve
issues, but if you do, you need assurance that any glitch, whether it’s speed,
down-time, or email trouble, will be resolved quickly. Check your SLA (Service Level
Agreement), which should set out the minimum level of service you can expect to
receive. If you’re looking for a new host, call them to discuss your business
website’s needs to ensure they’ll be a good fit for the long term.