Everyone likes to save money and find cheap web hosting plans, but knowing why such web hosting costs less is essential.
Here are the primary factors contributing to affordable hosting options:
- Shared Resources: Most affordable hosting services are based on using virtual hosting and other services; this means your site is hosted on the same server as other sites, and it will have to share the CPU, random access memory, storage, etc. This sharing can sometimes cause a degradation of performance mainly during these busy traffic periods.
- Limited Features: Usually when acquiring a plan is relatively cheap then it will have fewer features as compared with the costly plans. This might include less storage space, low bandwidth, or fewer permissible email accounts.
- Cost-Cutting Measures: For providers to be able to set such low prices they want to eliminate various variables which may include customer service, maintenance of the server, or security. This can lead to some instability and insecurity aboard your website.
- Promotional Pricing: Some hosting firms provide their offering at a much lower initial fee compared to the normal market charge. Such promotions are usually suitable for new customers but some providers may hike their charges after the first one-year contract.
- Bulk Purchases: The hardware and software vendors are willing to offer better prices to the providers in large quantities. Such savings can be extended down to consumers by offering them cheaper rates.
Sometimes, offers like cheap hosting plans can look very attractive, and yet it’s always important to think of what your website requires. If your website needs to be high-performance, highly reliable and stuffed with powerful features, then it will be worthwhile to pay for a more expensive plan.
When selecting a web hosting plan, consider these key factors:
1. Website Type and Needs:
- Static Websites: Any website that does not require regular updates is perfect for shared hosting since the websites are basic and easy to use.
- Dynamic Websites: Educational or business sites that entertain huge traffic or content-intense sites like an e-commerce site may need VPS or dedicated hosting.
- Resource-Intensive Websites: If certain programs require high traffic, or are greatly resource-intensive, say, video streaming, they will require their servers.
2. Traffic and Scalability:
- Expected Traffic: One must estimate the number of visitors one expects to come to your website to decide what resources would be required.
- Scalability: Select an ISP capable of expanding capacity if the usage of the website, with which it is associated, is augmented.
3. Performance and Uptime:
- Server Location: Availability of server locations that are close to the target consumers to improve their loading time.
- Uptime Guarantee: Be sure to choose the providers that offer high availability guarantees, if possible considering only those that offer no less than 99.9% guarantees.
- Speed: Check the speed of the provider server as you would like to be sure that it is performing to its optimum.
4. Features and Control:
- Control Panel: A more enhanced and easy-to-use control panel (either cPanel or Plesk) can make it easy to manage the websites.
- Features: Determine what the provider offers such as Email accounts, databases, SSL certificates, and website builders.
- Technical Support: Make sure they offer quality and effective customer relations service.
5. Cost and Budget:
- Pricing: It is always good to compare the prices quoted by the various service providers but there are some important points to note namely; Apart from the cost of the service other aspects must be taken into consideration also.
- Long-Term Costs: But, there should be forecast of possible renewal charges and extra costs that may be included in the upgrade or addition.
Additional Tips:
Read Reviews: Read blogs and other customer-platforms to get a feel of customer satisfaction and other experiences.
Trial Periods: Where possible, check whether you can make use of a trial period to feel the pulse of the service to be rendered.
Remember:
That is, it’s not always wise to go for a product that may be cheap in the marketplace because that may not be value for the cash. There are many factors you should be careful of when selecting the host including its availability, customer service, security, and its ability to expand.
