With such a wide choice of hosting services available in Australia today, it can be difficult to know which service provider and which type of hosting package to choose. However, don’t worry because help is at hand: by going through the points in this article, you can make a more informed choice and increase your chances of selecting a hosting service that makes sense for your organisation.
7 key considerations when choosing web hosting services
Whether you are setting up a brand-new website or planning to move to a host that is better able to meet all your needs, you will be better able to choose the right hosting services like DreamIT Host if you focus on the 7 factors listed below.
- Uptime
Most reputable web hosts provide uptime scores for potential customers to evaluate. These scores reflect the amount of time that the hosting service remains online and, more importantly, the amount of time it is offline. Anything above 99.5% uptime is considered good, with 99.99% being the gold standard in the industry today.
- Upgradability
If you outgrow a web host in the future, it could be a major hassle to migrate your site to a new one. To avoid this potential issue, make sure that your chosen host can meet not just your current requirements but your projected future requirements too.
- Backup/Disaster recovery
Every hosting service should include robust backup/disaster recovery features. In the event of critical hardware failure or a sudden power outage, you need to know that you can recover any lost data immediately and get your site back online without delay.
- Technical support
If you choose a host that offers high-quality services, technical issues should be a rare occurrence. Nevertheless, it is important to make sure that when you need help, it is easy to obtain. Web hosting services with an Australian-based support team have a major advantage in this regard.
- Performance
Uptime can be considered as one aspect of performance but what we are really referring to here is network speed. You need to make sure that your web host has servers in prime locations, thereby ensuring fast page loading speeds and data retrieval for users of your website and online apps.
- Flexibility
Most organisations expect to need more hosting resources in the future but it is also possible there will be times when you need less. A flexible hosting service that allows you to both increase and decrease your network resources will help you to control costs more efficiently.
- Ongoing costs
Staying on the topic of costs, you need to decide how much you are willing and able to pay for your hosting service. Once you have done this, you can save a considerable amount of time by focusing on hosting services that are within your budget.
Note down your thoughts on each of the above factors and you will find it much easier to make the perfect choice when evaluating Australian web hosting services and individual service providers.