The important factors to consider before choosing a host provider

When setting up your first website or blog it’s not uncommon to get extremely confused by all the technical terms being thrown around by hosting companies. You’ll read about things like web traffic, storage space, databases, hosting and of course domain names. All of which, as a newbie in the tech world, will probably cause your eyes to glaze over in either utter boredom or total confusion! Through research I’ve learnt to spot the basic items that you’ll need in order to run your blog or website like clockwork so today I’m going to share with you my knowledge in the hope that you’ll feel more confident when making your next or first hosting purchase.

BUT FIRST…

Let’s recap on what the difference is between a domain name and hosting.

Domain Names
Your domain name is one of the first things you’ll want to look at when starting up your website, essentially it is the unique address that your website can be found at and ends in something like .com, .co.uk, .co.za etc. For example mine is nicolatweed.co.za.

Hosting
We can look at hosting like this… if the domain name is the address of your house, hosting is your house (the bricks & mortar) and your website or blog’s theme is the decor, furniture and appliances inside your house that can be rearranged whenever you like. All the files that make your website work are kept on the host providers server so if you are going to useWordPress.org to create your website or blog you will be required to purchase hosting as it is a self-hosted platform. Platforms such as WordPress.com, Squarespace and Blogger are all hosted platforms therefore you will not have to purchase hosting.

NOW ON TO THE IMPORTANT FACTORS TO CONSIDER BEFORE CHOOSING A HOST PROVIDER…

A DATABASE
As a naive new web designer I once purchased the cheapest hosting package out there and then spent a good few hours wondering why I couldn’t install WordPress on the damn thing?! My host provider quickly pointed out to me that in order for the self-hosted wordpress to function it needed a SQL Database to store all my sites information. Each installation of WordPress requires an database. Most host providers offer you one or two and some others can even offer up to 10. As a blogger you’ll only need the one unless off course you’ll be creating sub-domains or staging sites for development or revamp purposes.

STORAGE SPACE
Generally smaller businesses and blogs don’t really need to worry about this factor as much but when you’ve been blogging for ages or if you’re a photographer with high resolution images it is worth investing in a higher package that will be able to hold all your content. Storage space can range from 2GB to 100GB depending on the host provider and the packages they offer. The great thing is most providers are flexible so if do run out of storage space you can always upgrade as and when you need too.

WEB TRAFFIC
Basically web traffic is how many visitors are looking at your site everyday, month or year and many (not all) host providers offer unlimited web traffic. I have recently come across one that only offers you a certain number of visitors per month but I do only think this is something for serious and well established bloggers to worry about.

BACKUPS
Backing up is a blog post on it’s own and one that tends to get over looked by self-hosted bloggers. It’s handy to know if your host provides adequate backup and how frequently these backups are taken just in case your blog decides to go on the brink one day. Some hosts provide daily backup and others provide weekly, it all really depends on the package that you purchase.

EMAILS
Through recent correspondence with a client we both noted she was paying an additional R575/year for her email plan then R24/year for her email storage and a further R120/year for some email calendar usage thingie – something we were both like what is that?! So in total to have one email address she was paying R719/year on top of her hosting and domain name fees… yes that’s a lot! Having an email address that’s linked to your domain is extremely professional and doesn’t need to set you back a fortune. Many host providers now offer email accounts with all their hosting packages, they usually range between 30 to 100 accounts… not that you’ll actually need that many!

PRICE
Possibly the thing most of us will look at first when choosing a hosting provider, however it shouldn’t be the deciding factor. Remember cheap can be nasty and expensive doesn’t always mean the best. When comparing the prices of host providers take into consideration all the features that they offer and compare it to the needs of your blog or business.

SUPPORT
The worst thing that can happen is for your website to go down, or for you to have an email issue and then have no one to reach out to and ask what’s wrong. Technical glitches happen and so if you find yourself in the middle of one it does help if the support team is friendly, responsive to your queries and can explain in non-techie terms what the problem is. These days many good host providers are available at all hours of the day and some even have nifty chat functions on their site which are great for multi-tasking!

CONTROL PANEL/USER INTERFACE
There are some things like installing WordPress, setting your email accounts and setting up FTP accounts that you should be able to do without calling your hosting company’s support team. Check to see if your provider uses cPanel or Plesk to make updates and modifications easier, I’ve worked with some rather clunky and confusing user interfaces in the past which have left me feeling very frustrated! 

BONUS: AN INCLUSIVE DOMAIN NAME
As a bonus many host providers offer you a free domain name for the first year when you sign up to one or a specific hosting package. Generally in South Africa they will offer you the .co.za version for free which is a great additional bonus especially if you’d like to just test the waters before taking the full leap!

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Tomorrow I’ll be answering some frequently asked questions about domain name & hosting and then at the beginning of next week I’ll be doing a break down of some of the packages the top host providers in South Africa and all over the world offer. But in the mean time if you have any questions then please feel free to drop them in the comments below so that I can help you out – always happy to do so!