How to choose the best web hosting provider for your Brisbane business website
Today, when information technology has become an indispensable part of our daily life, websites are essential for any business’ success. A website is considered as one of the primary and most efficient mediums to communicate with your target audience. So, irrespective of your business type and size, consider having a functional website for your business. And to make the most of your website, choose the right provider to host your website.
Web hosting is one of the fundamental parts of any website. So, it’s important to make some careful considerations while choosing the right web hosting company for your business website. Not every web hosting platform is built equally. Thus, while choosing the perfect host, ensure that it has all the features your website needs.
The major factors that you should consider while evaluating the best Australian hosting services are:
- Average Uptime
- Average Loading Time
- Available Storage
- Customer Support
- Pricing and Renewal
- Free Domain
- Monthly Traffic Limit
- Content Management System
- Data Security
- SSL
- Extra Features
Factors to Consider when Choosing your Website Hosting Service Provider
Average Uptime
If your website is slow and does not open with a click, it may frustrate your visitors. This is one of the problems that not only annoy your website visitors but also search engines. Websites with below the average uptime rank lower in search results. Thus, this factor plays an important role in attracting traffic to your website.
So, while selecting the best web hosting site for your business website, ensure that it offers the best level of availability. The closer the average uptime is to 100%, the better the availability. If it is below 99%, you should start looking for a different web hosting site. Remember, the lower the number, greater the probability of losing potential sales.
Average Loading Time
Similar to uptime, another factor that determines how much traffic your website gets is your web page loading time. It can be defined as the time taken by a web page to fully load. Also, it is important to understand that your web page’s loading speed plays a crucial role in your website’s rank on search results. Google, Bing, and other search engines always prioritize websites with faster loading speed as they offer the best experience to their users.
When it comes to making your website highly functional, choose the hosting service that provides you with a good loading speed. There are different studies that claim that over 50% of mobile users generally abandon a website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. So, if you are building a website with an aim to improve your lead generation and revenue growth, make sure that each of its pages has a good loading speed.
Available Storage
Storage is an essential factor that you must consider while building your website. Depending upon the purpose of your business website, you may need a little or huge storage space to add files on different web pages. So, when you select the best Australian hosting site, go for the service that matches your needs.
You might need a lot of space to add a variety of features, images, graphics, and videos to your website. So, if your website demands a huge space, ensure that the web hosting service you are considering offers the amount you need to keep running your website smoothly without hampering its loading speed. However, if you need little space, you may go for more economic plans.
Customer Support
All the top hosting providers across the globe are known for their excellent customer support. Apart from offering all features for the success of your website, a website hosting service must be able to assist you in the best possible way. Customer support is one of the key factors that you must look for while selecting a hosting service for your website. Strong customer support is essential for resolving your queries during crisis situations. A good hosting service provides chat, phone, and ticket-based customer support and owns a knowledgeable support team.
Pricing and Renewal
While signing up for a web hosting plan, the service provider may offer you discounts based on the mode of payment (monthly or annually). Some hosting providers even offer an increased discount on purchasing the service for several years. So, while selecting a hosting provider, it’s important to verify their sign-up prices.
Apart from checking their pricing and discount, consider evaluating their renewal discount. Also, know the terms of those services before agreeing to a plan. With this, you do not have to encounter an unexpected rate increase. However, if you have a new business and are building a website for the first time, you may not spend your entire budget on an expensive hosting plan. Similarly, you may not compromise on features if your business needs them.
So, while choosing the host service, consider pricing and renewal options only as factors to make the decision easier and not major considerations. Remember, even a cheap web hosting provider may provide you with all the features needed to run your website and an expensive one may fail to provide you with the services you are looking for. Here, always prioritize your website needs and choose a plan that balances them with your budget.
Free Domain Name
The best web hosting sites come with exciting offers. Some of them even offer a free domain for a year. However, after using it for a year, you need to pay a fee to continue using the same domain. In most cases, the domain you receive is the subdomain of the web host. Here the format is ‘yourbusinessname.webhost.com’. With a subdomain, your website might not look professional but it’s one of the best options for people who are starting out.
Monthly Traffic Limit
Though it’s not a common feature for most web hosting providers, some of the services have their own monthly traffic limit. Such web hosting platforms provide a specific amount of FREE access and charge an additional fee for extra visitors. Even a few of such platforms stop displaying your business website on the web after reaching that limit.
Thus, while selecting a web host for your website, read the terms and conditions thoroughly. Make sure to choose web hosting sites that offer unlimited data traffic. This mitigates the risk of your website being down.
Content Management System
Creativity and technical knowledge are critical for building a website. Content Management Systems or CMS helps you to make the most of these factors to create a professional-looking website.
So, while looking for the best Australian hosting provider, ensure that the platform has an inbuilt software installer such as Softaculous Cloud. If it does not have this option, ensure that it allows easy installation of an open source Content Management System. Remember, this is one of the most important factors that make your website interactive. So, if you want to create and publish content frequently for your website, check for a hosting site with CMS features.
Data Security
Your website’s security is one of the factors that determine its success. So, while you look for a perfect web hosting platform for running your website, ensure that it can do security monitoring. Also, a good web hosting site has secure data centres for the elements used to run your website.
Choosing a web host with great security is important for both your website’s and customers’ data safety. Apart from basic security features, some web hosting sites allow you to include an additional data security layer for some additional fee. An additional security layer safeguards your data from hacking and other unethical practices.
SSL Certificate
SSL or Secure Sockets Layer is an additional security feature that keeps your Internet connection and sensitive data that is being sent between two systems safe. This is an important security feature that prevents hackers from reading or modifying the transferred data.
A web hosting SSL is referred to as SSL certificate. This certificate is important for creating an encrypted connection and establishing trust among website owners. This certificate adds the ‘S’ in HTTPS, which is a padlock icon before an URL. So, all websites, especially e-commerce ones must look for this certificate from their web hosting partners. This is a great approach to secure a website transaction by encrypting all the data going through it.
Extra Features
In today’s highly competitive market, there are several players providing you with excellent website hosting services. To stand out, the top hosting providers offer some extra benefits to users. Thus, while selecting the right host, go through the added advantages you are entitled to in each plan. This helps you to identify the benefits that may match your exact needs.
Some beneficial extra features that top web hosting companies offer are:
- Free or Unlimited Email Accounts
- Free Website Transfers
- Availability of cPanel
- Availability of CDN
- Easy WordPress Installation
- Access to Site Builder
- Specific Data Center Location
Types of Web Hosting
Cloud Hosting Services
Cloud hosting is a type of web hosting that utilizes multiple servers to balance the load and ensure high availability. Unlike traditional hosting, where websites are hosted on a single server, cloud hosting spreads the workload across several servers connected through a virtual network. This distributed architecture allows for better scalability and flexibility, as resources can be instantly allocated or reallocated based on current needs. Cloud hosting also offers increased reliability and uptime, as the failure of one server does not result in a complete system outage. In addition, cloud hosting providers often offer additional features such as automatic backups, data mirroring, and easy scalability to accommodate growing businesses. With cloud hosting, businesses can easily scale their resources up and down as needed, paying only for the resources they use. This makes it a cost-effective solution for small businesses that have fluctuating traffic or limited budgets for dedicated infrastructure. Overall, cloud hosting provides businesses with a reliable and scalable web hosting solution that can adapt to their changing needs and support their growth.
VPS hosting
VPS Hosting, also known as Virtual Private Server Hosting, is a type of web hosting that utilizes virtualization technology to provide resources such as CPU, RAM, and disk space to multiple users on a single server. It offers a unique combination of the affordability of shared hosting and the control and performance of a dedicated server. With VPS hosting, each user gets a dedicated portion of the server’s resources, ensuring that their website operates smoothly and efficiently without being affected by other users’ activities. This type of hosting is highly scalable, allowing users to easily upgrade or downgrade their resources as their website’s needs change. Additionally, VPS hosting offers a high level of customization, as users have full root access to the server and can install any software or applications they require. Overall, VPS hosting is an excellent option for small to medium-sized businesses or individuals who require more control and resources than shared hosting can provide.
Dedicated Servers
Dedicated servers are a type of hosting where a client leases an entire physical server solely for their use. Unlike shared hosting, where multiple websites share the resources of a single server, dedicated servers offer exclusive access to all the server’s resources such as CPU, RAM, and storage. This provides advantages such as enhanced performance, increased security, and greater control over the server configuration. With a dedicated server, clients have the flexibility to customize the hardware and software according to their needs, allowing them to optimize their website or application. Furthermore, dedicated servers are an ideal choice for businesses with high traffic websites or those that handle sensitive data, as they offer superior reliability and data protection. However, dedicated servers require technical expertise to set up and manage, making them more suitable for experienced users or businesses with dedicated IT departments. Overall, dedicated servers offer a robust and reliable hosting solution for clients who require high performance and complete control over their hosting environment.
Shared Hosting
Shared hosting is a type of web hosting where multiple websites are hosted on a single physical server. In shared hosting, individuals or businesses share server resources, such as storage space, bandwidth, and CPU usage, with other users. This makes shared hosting an affordable option for small websites or businesses with limited budgets. Shared hosting providers typically offer a user-friendly control panel and a variety of features to help manage websites, such as email accounts, databases, and file management. However, because resources are shared among multiple users, the performance and speed of websites hosted on shared servers can be affected by the activities of other users on the same server. This means that high traffic or resource-intensive websites may experience slower loading times or performance issues in a shared hosting environment. Nonetheless, shared hosting remains a popular choice for individuals and small businesses looking for cost-effective hosting solutions.
Choose the Best web Hosting Provider
Choosing the right hosting package is not an easy decision. However, if you pay attention to the above-mentioned tips, you will get the confidence to choose the best one according to your needs. Giving you peace of mind that your business website is fast and secure, and give your users the best possible experience on your business website.
Even so, always remember that there are several web hosting platforms in the market. So to make a wise decision, it’s essential to focus on your website’s needs. Understanding your own requirements help you to make an informed decision and choose the plan that best fits your profile.
The good news is that nowadays, the top hosting providers themselves are aware of your needs and thus, they already have different packages in their offering to target different segments. Anyway, nothing can compensate for good research. So, while choosing the web hosting partner, remember all the factors mentioned in this article before running your dream website and creating great content.