In this article we are going to explore the key feature you need to check before selecting hosting package
The Storage Space Offered To You
Calculate about how much will be the total of the files that will make up your website plus your emails and calculate how much space you need. Don’t forget the database, videos, photos, and all other files in the calculation. An ordinary website is about 100 MB, so about as much as you need.
Many hosting companies offer unlimited storage space, this is practically useless to you and if it changes the price then do not choose it. In fact, if you see someone offering you unlimited space, don’t choose them.
Choose as much space as you really need plus about 20-25% for your page’s growth prospects.
What is bandwidth and how to choose?
Compare the data traffic (bandwidth) offered by hosting companies. Data traffic (bandwidth) is how much data you can transfer to and from your server. Every time someone visits your website you require data traffic from the server.
Imagine it as MB on your mobile connection, if you have a 500 MB package, then as soon as they’re done you can’t get on the Internet. In the same way, if you reach the limit of data traffic (bandwidth) of your server, your website and your mail will not be accessible. There are hosting companies that offer unlimited data traffic (bandwidth) while others have a limit.
To choose the right hosting package you need to consider the size of your website as well as its traffic. If your website has lots of photos and lots of visitors you will need a lot of data traffic. To get a picture of how much bandwidth you need, let’s give you an example.
The dosenea.com website, with about 100-120,000 visitors a month and over 3,500 articles, all of which contain photos, needs about 8.5 Gb of data traffic each month and using CDN (we’ll explain in the next article what it is) the need for data traffic is about 1.8 Gb. Of course that specific website is hosted on a Windows VPS Server which is far more expensive than a usual shared hosting environment.
When you hear unlimited data traffic (bandwidth), it’s usually a marketing trick and it’s not really unlimited. Usually, the price you pay to have unlimited data traffic is too high. We do not mean most money but the features of the server. Usually hosting companies offer unlimited data traffic but with much inferior the other features of the server so your website is very slow.
Find some websites hosted by the hosting company you are interested in and check their speed. Check the ping of the server, i.e. the time it takes for the server to respond to any request made to it. A free tool to check the ping of a server can be found here.
What is an uptime warranty?
This is one of the most basic points in terms of hosting. If your website is your corporate website, then you are interested in being permanently online. The biggest problem is when your customers try to visit it and the page doesn’t work.
We take it for granted that our website will be available 24 hours a day but the reality is unfortunately far from it! Many hosting companies promise 100% uptime, this is usually a very big lie which no company can abide by.
The difference between 99% and 99.9% is three days a year, these three days can cost you enough customers and enough money!
Make sure the hosting company you choose offers the services you need. In addition to storage and data traffic, you’ll need a few more things. If you choose shared hosting (in 90% of cases this is what end users eventually buy) make sure that the hosting package you choose offers a few more services such as: cPanel management environment, instant WordPress installation or any other cms you use, FTP access and traffic statistics. In addition, make sure you can use your domain to create email accounts.
