If you are just starting an online business, you may think you can get away with just any old hosting company for your website. Well, you’d be wrong. Choosing the wrong company can not only hurt your business, but your online reputation as well. You will be left with frustrated and angry clients who won’t want to hear excuses about how your hosting company messed up. They will only see you, the business owner, and you are responsible for your clients’ satisfaction.
A great hosting company will guarantee that their service is reliable more than 99% of the time. This means that your customers can be assured that your website is available and visible when they visit. They won’t see annoying ‘this page cannot be displayed ‘or’ temporarily unavailable’ messages in their browser.
Choosing a hosting company that allows for POP3, autoresponders and mail forwarding will allow you to have an email address something like ‘sales@abc.com’ or ‘ceo@abc.com.’ This will give your business a professional image. You can forward the emails to an account that you already have, such as Hotmail or Gmail.
Once your business grows and expands, you will want to upload some of your own web pages. FTP access will ensure that you control your website and can modify, upload or delete pages and content any time you wish. This way, your customers will be able to read all of the latest information and content you provide as fast as possible; you won’t have to wait for one of their support staff to make the changes for you. This can be frustrating and time consuming.
You will also want to make sure that you can access the company’s technical support team whenever you need it. Do they provide support on a 24/7 basis, even on weekends and holidays? Where are they physically located? Are they knowledgeable enough to help you? You don’t want to have your site down while you are on the phone for 2 hours trying to explain your problem.
Typically, the best web hosting company will ensure that you and your business are online at all times and that your visitors’ experience will be a smooth and pleasant one. It is imperative that you choose wisely right from the beginning and as your business expands, you’ll be able to meet the demands for greater space and bandwidth. Your business and your reputation depend on it.
