Per a recent post about BlueHost Hosting, I have started doing some research on other hosting options. What I’ve found has been quite interesting. I’ve discovered, and re-discovered, how important it is to select a proper hosting service for your website. Here are some of the things to look for in a good hosting company:
- Customer service: How easy is the company to contact? Do they use live chat, phone, or just email? The more ways there are to contact and communicate, the better.
- Extensive and easy to understand FAQ’s: most hosting companies have this but how easy are they to follow?
- Bandwidth or Data Transfer of 50gb+/month
- Storage: 50gb+
- 99.9% Up-time Guarantee
- Email:
POP3 accounts
Preferably unlimited email addresses
Mail forwarding
SMTP
Spam filtering
For blogs and content management systems (CMS):
- All of the above features
- PHP 5.0+
- Fantastico: the best thing about Fantastico that I’ve seen is easy installation of WordPress
- Unlimited domains allowed
- How many MySQL databases are allowed? Preferably unlimited
- FTP access to your hosting space
One that I’ve found that I’m exploring more is Host Gator. It meets all the requirements above and seems pretty user-friendly.
I’ll be interviewing them soon to find out more…Stay tuned!
One reply on “Best Hosting Options for Your Website”
I found GoDaddy to provide the best service there is and they are extremely affordable as well. Good Customer service. Especially for those who are running a number of websites, their Deluxe hosting program is excellent.