As a web hosting company, you are constantly working to ensure a fantastic experience for your growing list of customers. Many times, that means being highly reliant on the quality and capabilities of your infrastructure provider. For this reason, it is extremely important to make careful and wise decisions on the provider you entrust your business with. You have enough to worry about as a business owner; you shouldn’t have to worry about hardware components and networks.
1.) What Support Guarantees will I get?
Providing your customers the best possible experience should be your number one priority. After all, if you keep customers happy they stay longer, pay more, and tell others about you- That’s free marketing! And to provide a great experience many times means having fantastic support. Being reliant on someone else’s support is a big deal, and you need someone you can trust. Even if you’re administering your own server, having reliable, 24×7 support available when you need it is critical. The last thing you want is to have a hard time reaching someone when you need them most. Look for service providers that offer multiple support channels such as live chat, email, and phone, as well as specific support-related guarantees.
2.) What’s the Reputation of the provider in the web hosting community?
What are other people and web hosting businesses saying about a certain provider? Is it good, bad, or is there nothing at all? A great way to really know if a provider is reliable and worthy of your business, is to learn from the experience of others. Websites like Webhostingtalk.com provide a community where others are talking about dedicated hosting solutions and web server related topics. One way to help decide on a provider is to simply ask the community for feedback. Of course, you can do some due diligence ahead of time by simply searching the providers name in the search function.
3.) What type of hardware will I get?
Your customers’ business applications demand 24×7 environments, and therefore need to run on hardware that can support those demands. It’s important to make sure that the provider you select offers server-grade components, not desktop-grade, which is built for only 40 hour work weeks. The last thing you want is for components to start failing, causing your services to be unavailable to your customers. To add to this, ask about network redundancies and what you can expect in terms of performance. A good way to test this is to ask for test download files or test IPs.
4.) What discounts are available as I scale?
Everyone has a budget, and it’s important to choose a provider that fits within that budget. However, price should not be the first or only consideration. It can, many times, end up costing you more in the long run by simply choosing the lowest priced option. That said, look for a provider that has flexible pricing terms so that you can accomplish your goals. Different providers offer different discount schedules, so be sure to choose the one that best matches your needs in the long run. A big discount up-front may not always be best.
5.) How Flexible are your services?
Web Hosting Providers go through several phases of their lifecycle. It’s important to find a provider that can meet the needs of each phase, and will allow you to quickly scale up or down based on your needs at any given time. Whether you’re getting ready to launch and need to keep your costs low, or are a more mature business looking to expand into new areas, a flexible provider that can meet these needs will allow you to focus on your business and not worry about finding someone to solve your infrastructure headaches.
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