5 Compelling Reasons Great Web Hosting Is Important For Your Website

Whether your company operates as a cloud-based service business or as a retail storefront with an online presence, a complementary, representative website will always work in your favor in regards to traffic and revenue generation. According to Small Biz Genius, however, 70% of businesses fail due to poor website usability, while 88% of customers stated that they would not return to a website after a bad UX.

Beside the industry-standard web design and search engine optimization (SEO) efforts, one of the key factors of your website’s usability lies in its web hosting. Depending on what kind of a hosting provider you settle on using, your site could either skyrocket in functionality and customizability or fail to stay online under the influx of interested stakeholders from across the globe. That being said, let’s take a look at several of the most compelling reasons as to why a great web hosting plan is essential to your website.

Free vs. Premium Web Hosting

Let’s start the discussion by addressing the proverbial elephant in the room and talk about free and premium hosting providers. Stephen Mitchel, Chief Web Designer at Be Graded spoke on the topic recently: “Both free and premium hosting plans have their applications – thus the option to choose between the two. However, each individual content creator or business owner should decide what is best for their particular situation, removed from industry bias or popular trends.”

As the nomenclature might suggest, free hosting is essentially free for you as its end-user and is powered by aggressive advertisement. Free hosting solutions are often not as reliable as their premium counterparts and are especially problematic if you want to host a website with a plethora of data and incoming traffic, such as an e-commerce platform.

On the other hand, premium hosting, while paid per the provider’s business model, is far more reliable in the long-run. Your site will enjoy better safety from third-party intrusions, better uptime and allow for far greater flexibility in terms of modifications and high traffic volumes. Before settling for the best option for your website however, it’s worth comparing different providers and their hosting plans upfront. Hosting hubs such as Host Review allow for a detailed breakdown of popular hosting providers, available at your discretion.

1. Reliable Customer Servicing

One of the key elements of quality web hosting lies in its customer servicing efforts. More precisely, if the hosting provider is willing to lend you a hand in case of site downtime, hosting issues or data breaches, they are likely a good choice for your website.

As we’ve mentioned previously, free hosting solutions, while affordable, are often filled with possible bottlenecks which can not only bring your website offline but also cause you to lose precious client data or content published to its pages. Make sure to audit each hosting provider for their customer servicing features before settling for a solution which works for your needs and you will undoubtedly enjoy a more stable hosting experience.

2. Open Customization Options

Depending on the type of business you run or the content you aim to publish on your website, you will require different customization options from your hosting provider. However, some providers will simply be unwilling to go out of their way to provide you with the necessary customization tools to make that a reality.

Samantha Barnes, Chief SEO Specialist at Studyker spoke on the matter briefly: “While you may be satisfied with baseline website functionality at first, you will definitely want to modify your theme, plugins and SEO at some point in time. Depending on the hosting plan you chose, as well as the provider itself, those customization efforts might not be as possible as you might have hoped. In short – vet your provider prior to committing to a contract and you will be better off for it.”

3. Safety & Stability

While your business may be small-scale and niche at this point in time, cyber-attacks or social engineering intrusions can indeed happen at any moment. Choosing a reliable web hosting provider allows you to mitigate for that fact and allow for higher degrees of security for both your own content and any client data, personal information or financial records (in case of e-commerce or service-based platforms).

As with any other feature, higher profile hosting providers will naturally offer better security for the buck, making the choice of your site’s hosting entirely subjective. It’s worth noting nonetheless that free hosting solutions often come with poor or nonexistent dedicated security systems, making them exclusively viable for personal blogging or other non-business applications.

4. Data Storage & User Capacity

Bandwidth plays a major role in your choice of a hosting provider for several important reasons. Mainly, the amount of data you can store on your website, in addition to the number of concurrent users who can visit your site should be taken into serious consideration. Capping your site’s bandwidth and concurrent user capacities will effectively render your website inert, slow and inaccessible to more users – in worst cases, it can result in a complete shutdown.

Nathan Spencer, Head of Content Management at Subjecto had this to say on the subject: “Establishing your business model and long-term goals prior to committing to a hosting provider for your website should be a priority. In doing so, you will be able to make a more informed decision in regards to which provider would suit your data and traffic needs the most.”

5. Scalability & Transparent Pricing

Lastly, once you do settle for a hosting option for your website, it’s essential that the provider you opted for allows for scalability and plan modification. For example, if you underestimate the popularity of your website early on, a good hosting provider will allow you to scale the pricing to suit your needs better without downtime.

In contrast, a poor or free hosting solution might simply disregard your requests for scalability and offer you a non-negotiable plan which will reflect poorly on your site’s overall performance on the market. Make sure to check your hosting providers’ pricing models, monetization options and scalability plans before you decide for a definitive choice in regards to your website.

A Long-Term Investment (Conclusion)

The importance of choosing a reliable, professional hosting provider for your website cannot be overstated in retrospect. Once you’ve settled for a comfortable hosting service, your website will be free to perform as intended and not buckle under the pressure of high bandwidth requirements or large traffic over time. Take all of the above into consideration and don’t skimp on making sure that your business’ online presence is stable and always readily available to the global audience – renown and satisfied brand advocates will come organically over time.