When strategizing your clients website redesign, you know that developing the site is will be only half the battle. There’s a reason you client is choosing to redesign, and one element that is often overlooked, but shouldn’t be is hosting. Finding the right website hosting service for the new website could be a challenging task as more and more providers are offering similar features while offering lower prices.
You want to understand what hosting companies are offering and what each feature means. This will help you understand what are the best hosting platforms for your website. No matter if your client is a small business or an enterprise company, understanding the major types of hosting and the basic criteria will help you choose the best plan for you.
The different types of web hosting plans
Once you start looking for a web hosting plan you’ll encounter many different types including:
Individual plans: Often best suited for beginning webmasters who don’t anticipate significant traffic or special needs for their website.
Dedicated servers: Cost more and are when webmasters are ready to upgrade from sharing space on hosted servers with other webmasters to their own servers, tends to be a higher cost.
Reseller accounts: serves a special niche between individual and dedicated server accounts, allowing clients to use a single account to set up multiple individual plans.
Analyzing traits when picking the right hosting company
Understanding the features offered by each company is just as important finalizing on a hosting platform. Here’s some features to consider when comparing companies:
Cost: Avoid free hosting programs entirely as they will most likely be unreliable. Be sure to take a close look at the specific features that each host provides before comparing prices.
Customer/tech support: Getting support when you need it can ensure when problems occur potential damage to your business is minimized. Look at the reputation of the company’s support, and the kinds of ways you can contact them when you need support i.e. email, toll-free phone, chat, and so on.
Going forward: Be sure to check the disk space and bandwidth limitations that the hosting plan has to ensure you have enough space for your website to operate effectively. Looking to the future, you want to know the hosting provider gives you the opportunity to grow by upgrading your account etc. as along with the growth of your business.
Hosting platforms to consider
SiteGround: While in the process of a website redesign changing web hosts is always a part of the equation. SiteGround offers customers a free cost to transfer their website over, and the 24/7 customer support is fast and thorough. SiteGround doesn’t offer unlimited disk space or marketing credits many other hosts provide.
WPEngine: This is the industry standard host for Wordpress websites. WPEngine offers speed, security and customer support for users. With multiple plans that scale to your business or agencies need, you will find cost effective hosting support. This service is only available to Wordpress sites.
These are just two of the many, many web host companies that are out there and if you want to check some more out here’s a comprehensive review and ranking of the more popular hosting services.
Hosting will make a difference in the speed, growth, security and longevity of your website, if you need more advice on how to choose web hosting download our latest Ebook, How to optimize your website redesign.
