For a small business owner, finding the right hosting company to meet your needs can be overwhelming. You know you need your website up and running, but how do you know what to look for in a Web Hosting company? To help you find the right web hosting company, you need to ask the right questions.

What is Your Uptime Guarantee?

Making sure your website is up and running is essential as the hosting provider. The industry standard is a 99.9% uptime guarantee. As a business owner, having your website up and running at it’s optimal performance will help create a positive user experience. The worst is when a user goes to your website, and it is down or slow. Most users just get frustrated and leave. It can also have a lasting impact on the image of your brand for some users, especially if it is a frequent occurrence. So, you will want to know the history of uptime for the hosting provider, along with what expectations to have if they ever do go down. Are you notified? Are you given a credit? What accountability does that company have? What is their maintenance windows times and frequency? Ideally, their answers should satisfy your business requirements when looking for a company to keep your website running 24x7x365.

What Level of Support Do You Offer?

Support for your web hosting is a must, especially for the not so techy users. It is important to understand what type of support is provided. Is it email only? Is it overseas? Is it a call center, or true technicians and customer service people you get to speak with? What is the support response time? Your business doesn’t have time to deal with an inexperienced, not English-speaking call center. Each company may be different, but eventually you may need support. Make sure you get the support you expect and deserve! The most frustrating thing in working with a company is slow, unhelpful support that gets you nowhere. So, make sure you their support works for your business!

Most hosting providers are managed hosting, but it is best not to assume. What are their backup schedules, patching schedules, security measures, and updates they have in place? This can give you peace of mind that you are choosing the right managed hosting provider, that manages, maintains, and supports your web hosting.

What Security Measures Do You Have in Place?

Security is a priority for any website, but more so that deals with sensitive data. A website hosting provider should have securities in place and be able to give you best practices for what you can do to layer up your security. You want to know what kind of security measures they have in-place for Anti-virus/Malware scanning, firewall, SSL certificates, server access, backup schedules, restore policies, and redundancies. How long does it take to restore a website? What type of policies do they have in place for a brute force attack or compromise? Understanding their security protocols and disaster recovery plan can help you make an informed decision.

Choosing the right web hosting provider is critical to the success of your website and business. Asking the right questions about uptime, support, and security can help you select the best web hosting provider to meet your business needs. With the right web hosting provider, you can ensure your website is fast, secure, and reliable, providing a positive user experience for your customers.

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