How to Make The Most of Your Web Hosting Service: Part One

Navigating the world of web hosting can be tricky, especially if you are relatively new to this platform. A good web hosting service will be able to improve your website, boost your brand and ultimately increase your revenue. Conversely, a poor web hosting service can seriously cause damage to your image, audience and any sales as a result.

Being able to trust in your web hosting service is incredibly important - you are to some extent at the mercy of the company you choose. This two-part post hopes to offer advice and shed some light on the shadier promotions designed to entice you towards a specific service that won’t deliver anything solid. It is better to equip yourself with the right information before investing time and money into any hosting solution.

‘Free’ Domains

As the old adage goes, there is no such thing as a free lunch in this world. This rings true in the world of web hosting too, so do not be tempted into thinking a free domain has no strings attached. There are usually a few big problems with these promotions, which are outlined below:

Ownership of the domain is still with the hosting service, so if you ever want ownership you will have to pay a large fee to buy it outright.

Renewal prices can be quite costly. Most free domains cost nothing for the first year, but at the end of that year they can charge exorbitant amounts if you want to renew.

‘Unlimited’ Storage

Similar to the free domains, many web hosting services offer up unlimited storage as a bonus. However, this is all a ruse - the unlimited storage is a complete fantasy. Although they promote this benefit, in the terms and conditions of the company's agreement with you there will be a specified bandwidth limit that cannot be exceeded, or else it will violate the terms of service.

Do Some Digging

Thanks to the increasing popularity of online reviews, finding out a little bit about your service provider before signing anything is quite easy. It is also a great way to vet potentially shady services and get a customer’s perspective of the company. Understand, though, that you should try to look at the bigger picture with reviews rather than focus on one person attacking the company. Try to remain unbiased and see if they are trusted by the masses or not.

Part two of this post will offer up some more insider tips that are geared towards helping you make the right choice in web hosting service.