3 Facts you Need to Know Before Signing Up to a Hosting Plan

In today’s world, every business, whether online or not, needs a website. This means that you will need to create a website, and then host it using one of the many hosting platforms available today.

This is because every company out there will promise you to provide the best support, unlimited bandwidth, and disk space, availability, etc. However, once you sign up, things may not work as you think they should, especially if you are not aware of some things.

What you pay is what you get

There are different hosting options available, i.e., shared hosting, Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting, dedicated hosting, cloud hosting, and managed WordPress hosting. You need to understand what these options are and what they mean to your site. WordPress is one of the most popular options, especially for websites that use WordPress CMS, and here’s how you can try WordPress.

However, when choosing between the above types of hosting, one fact is that you get what you pay for. This means the varied performance of your website in terms of speed, security, bandwidth, plugins, etc. You, therefore, need to understand the variables that you need and pay for them, instead of settling on a plan just because its price is low.

The pricing may is not what it seems

Some hosting platforms will throw in a free domain once you sign up for a plan. However, what they won’t tell you is that this domain is only free for your first year. After that, the price will shoot up to about $13. When you add domain privacy, this will cost you almost $30 a year, separate from your hosting plan.

This also applies to domain registration platforms before you even buy a hosting plan. Almost all domain registration services usually give a discount for registering your domain in order to entice potential customers. However, the discount offered is only available for the first year, and the price will shoot up during renewal. This applies to both domain registration and domain privacy protection charges.

Don’t expect too much from the support

In almost every guide of choosing a hosting plan, you will find “reliable support.” This is because support is crucial in web hosting when things go south, and you need to resolve issues like back up and malware attacks. However, hosting platforms usually support millions of websites, and so it may not be easy to get support from the company every time you have an issue.

EIG owned hosting companies like Bluehost and HostGator are usually said to offer the best support especially due to their live chat option. However, even with these companies, you will easily be greeted with, “We are experiencing higher than normal chat volume. We will be with you as soon as possible, but please consider reviewing our Knowledge Base or calling us instead.”

This means that you will need to be able to at least Google and solve most of the hosting issues you face. Alternatively, you can have a technical person who you can call upon at such times, instead of wholly relying on customer support.