5-ways-your-web-hosting-can-impact-your-websiteBuilding a website? Every decision you make will have a huge impact down the road. It starts with picking an engaging, memorable domain name and choosing the right web host. Many beginners undermine the importance of the latter and settle for a host with the cheapest price tag.

A successful website requires attention to detail. While you may have an amazing product, a catchy domain name, and brilliant design, if your hosting service is subpar, you can’t maximize user experience and reap the full benefits of your online enterprise. Here are five of the most critical considerations:

Server Uptime

Ensuring maximum uptime should be one of your top priorities when choosing a web host. Keep in mind, the success of a site directly relates to user experience.

Unfortunately, many cash-strapped bloggers and marketers are attracted to one-dollar hosting services. Although you may save money, their uptime is not reliable. Instead, you must invest in quality hosts that offer the standard 99.9% uptime guarantee. These are easy to spot as companies actively highlight this offering. To enforce your decision, look for overwhelmingly positive reviews from credible users on sites like Quora, Yelp, and WebHostingTalk.com.

Security

Security is another fundamental factor for the success of every website. Since even big names, such as Sony, Amazon, Yahoo, and Google, are vulnerable to hackers and other security threats, you must not overlook your site’s security and compromise its future integrity.

When it comes to digital security, you can never be too cautious, especially if you’re running WordPress. Remember that WP-powered blogs are easy targets for hackers. For do-it-yourselfers, you need a quality host that provides DDoS protection, custom firewall, and other rulesets that can avert any form of cyber-attack.

Sure, there are third-party security solutions and plugins that can protect your site from malware, DDoS attacks, and other digital threats. But also seek out integrated security solutions in your hosting plan for an added layer of protection. As a fail-safe, you should also utilize backups for speedy recovery in case of data loss or site-crippling mistakes. This leads to the consideration.

Backups

In addition to security, you need a web host that offers backup solutions. Let’s say your security isn’t perfect and a hacker manages to get through and incapacitate your site. If you maintain regular backups of your site, you can easily recover from any attack and resume normal operations.

Opt for hosting companies that offer automated backups, so you can focus energy and time on other areas of your website, such as marketing and content development. Even better, go for a managed WordPress hosting account to ensure your backups, plugins, and WP installation are all updated. Companies like HostGator now offer managed WordPress hosting to cater to the growing WP community.

Page Load Speed

The online audience demands speed; they want content to load fast. If it does not, users will usually bounce away  from sites that keep them waiting. If your site takes more than 3 seconds to load, then say goodbye to 40% of your potential customers.

This is why a slow site is detrimental for eCommerce stores and sites that sell products or services. For self-made WP websites, there are plenty of tools and services you can utilize to increase your site’s loading speed. This includes caching plugins, lazy load plugins, and CDNs.

You may also achieve better speeds by upgrading to a dedicated hosting plan. Dedicated hosting means you won’t be sharing the server’s resources with other websites. This, in turn, delivers faster loading and bigger bandwidth.

cPanel Tools

Finally, you need a web host that provides an easy-to-use cPanel that will give you access to many useful features. This includes site statistics, unlimited mail accounts, shopping carts, and third-party app installation features. These make managing everything from the hosting side easier.

Some web host cPanels are lackluster as compared to popular hosts that offer a comprehensive toolset. You can check around for reviews and YouTube videos to compare web host cPanels. Alternatively, you can put a hosting company’s customer service to the test by directly asking them cPanel-related questions.

Don’t think it should be “guarantees” if it’s just one standard, correct?

Is this an industry-specific term? Before I correct, want to check on that.