Your business needs reliable web hosting so that you (and your visitors) can depend on your website today (and tomorrow).
Every website is hosted somewhere. Hosting is the service that gives your website a location in the Web. Every website has hosting – including yours.
Minimal web hosting provides your business with server space for your website’s files.
Yet hosting can also include additional features and services that increases available memory to handle spikes in traffic, protects your website from possible security breaches, backs up your website when changes are made, and more.
It is these additional features and services that can make some web hosting services more reliable than others.
Your business needs reliable web hosting so that your contact information, listed services, menu, or e-commerce portal is always available to your visitors.
So what makes web hosting reliable? Look for these factors when shopping for web hosting and if you have had a poor web hosting experience so far, consider moving to a more reliable host.
Reliable web hosting is…
Dependable
Nearly every web host today reports “100% uptime” – meaning that the websites they host are never down unexpectedly.
Yet such claims do not mean that your website will always be online.
These claims do not include “scheduled downtime” that may occur due to server maintenance. They also do not include downtime that may be accidentally caused by your developer or yourself.
Sometimes… web hosts just lie. One of our WordPress maintenance and support clients host their website through a small upstart hosting company. They claim 100% uptime. Yet during our first two months with this client we submitted multiple tickets for unschedule and unexplained downtime that was due to server maintenance or file structure errors they made during server maintenance.
A web host’s actual uptime is what you care about. You’re paying for a location in the Web – you need that location to be consistently available.
Your web host’s dependability is going to be determined by a variety of factors including their team’s size and experience, their server hardware, their physical location(s), their server software, and how helpful and available their team is to you.
Scalable
Your web hosting should be scalable.
Scalable web hosting increases available memory and processing power when your needs spike (like during a popular sale or a new product launch).
Most modern web hosting packages offer either shared or dedicated hosting. Shared hosting shares a single server between multiple websites with minimal needs. Shared hosting is neither secure nor scalable. Dedicated hosting provides you with your own server. Today that server may be virtual – meaning that you have a dedicated and secure server operating within a larger machine. Some dedicated hosting is scalable and some isn’t.
Scalable dedicated hosting will increase your memory and processing power for a limited time during traffic spikes.
Your website will crash during traffic spikes if your hosting is not scalable and your current hardware cannot handle the load. Some businesses solve this problem by increasing their server hardware prior to an expected increase in traffic. Scalable web hosting will increase your available hardware power during increased traffic but dial it back down when it is no longer needed.
Secure
We think that all web hosting should be as secure as possible. We bet you feel the same way.
A compromised website could result in downtime, lost data, or, worse, a privacy breach for your visitors and customers.
Website security is more important than ever. Reliable web hosting with modern security features is an indispensable part of any security plan.
Yet not every web host shares that opinion. Many cheap web hosting services skimp on security standards in order to reduce their overhead and continue to make money while selling hosting at rock bottom prices.
Cheap hosting is cheap. Reliable hosting doesn’t need to be expensive but it is seldom available at rock bottom prices. If you want secure and reliable web hosting you will need to look for something better than the cheapest solution.
Reliable (and secure) web hosting should at least include:
- Malware protection
- SSL/TLS certificates
- Domain privacy (to protect your domain registration information)
- http/2 connections
- Web application firewalls
Every hosting company we recommend (and the web hosting we provide our WordPress development clients) include these security features.
Helpful
It is too easy to think of services like web hosting as a mere technological purchase. Yet people maintain servers and people run your business. Reliable web hosting includes helpful people that manage your servers.
No matter how reliable your host is there will come times when you will need to contact their staff for some assistance. Keep this in mind as you shop for a host (or a new host).
I recently had an unexplained outage for a client’s website and messaged their hosting service’s tech support team after normal business hours. The tech responded to me within 2 minutes and had them back online within 15 minutes. Even better, the chat was friendly.
When shopping for a helpful and reliable web host you should ask yourself:
- How can you contact their support?
- What are their support hours?
- What guarantees to they give their customers?
- Are there different tiers of support for different hosting packages?
For your business’ web hosting to be truly reliable it must be maintained by reliable and helpful people.
Get reliable web hosting for your business
There are numerous reliable web hosting services depending on the specific technological needs your website has.
Rystedt Creative provides our WordPress development clients with reliable web hosting for an average cost of $300 a year. In addition to hosting your site we also provide regular backups, top security features, and regular software updates.
We also highly recommend DreamHost. DreamHost provides managed WordPress hosting, domain names, dedicated hosting, and more. We have yet to be disappointed by their services.
