Choosing The Right Web Hosting Company

Just a little advice for those of you who are planning on starting, or are just getting started in an online business. Please be careful when choosing your website hosting company! There are lots of inexpensive options out there. But, do not sacrifice saving money for reliability and service. Do some research before you sign on the dotted line.

When I started my first online business, I chose a company that was a bargain in order to cut start-up costs. Boy was I wrong. I worked hard to create a professional site up for my company. I started promoting my site and just as I started getting visitors, boom, the site went down in the first week. And it happened regularly from that point on. My visitors starting contacting me and asking questions and complaining. I tried to tell them it was not me but my hosting company. That didn't matter to them. It was my site, and therefore my company was not seen as reliable or professional.

When I had a problem and contacted the hosting company’s support line or live chat support I found myself waiting forever, only to reach a person who was truly clueless about how to help me. They all just made me open a problem ticket. And when I did open a problem ticket, they were rarely ever addressed. If they were addressed, it was many hours or sometimes days later. It was then that I found out that their support only ran Monday through Friday during the core hours of 9AM to 5PM. Sure, that might be fine for a standard brick and mortar company, but online companies are 24/7.

So, I decided I had to switch companies or watch my online business crash and burn before it even got off the ground. But this time I did some research and background checking on new hosting companies. I recommend you do the same before you set-up an account. Here are some tips:

• Look for a company that has been established for quite a while. You don’t want a fly-by-night company, that disappears on you just after you get your company rolling.
• Look at their up-time statistics, if its not 99% or better, look elsewhere.
• Check into their technical support, is it 24/7 or just Mon-Fri 9 to 5? You need 24/7 on a commercial site. Do they offer live chat and phone support? You may find yourself in need of immediate assistance.
• Finally, contact the company and ask them if they can give you some references to contact for some of the companies that they have been hosting. Make sure they are companies that they have been hosting for a year or more. See what their customers have to say about their overall service, uptime and support. If they can give you good feedback after being hosted for a year or more, you are pretty safe.

To your success....