Hosting came up for renewal recently? Like everyone at the moment, seeing a renewal can make you question the value of the service you’re getting when you’re focussed on making the most out of your money.
While it might be tempting to go for a hosting service where you can host your website for £1 to £10 a month, when it comes to building a website for your business, hosting is one of the most critical factors to consider and not something to go cheap on.
While it’s understandably tempting to opt for the cheapest hosting option available, it’s important to understand that the cheapest can leave you stuck experiencing a range of problems that can hurt your website and your business.
Cheap Hosting Often Costs Your Website Reliability
One of the key reasons to choose a higher cost hosting plan is you know you’re getting a reliable service. While no hosting provider will ever offer 100% up time, cheaper hosting options are often less reliable, resulting in downtime and a loss of potential customers. This loss of availability can have far reaching consequences, besides poor user experience it essentially means you’re wasting any advertising budget your spending driving traffic to an inaccessible website.
Is The Cheapest Hosting Prioritising Security
Another critical factor to consider when choosing a hosting service is security. A quality hosting service will have robust security measures in place to protect your website from potential security threats. Cheaper hosting options may lack these security measures, leaving your website vulnerable to attacks. In some cases a cheaper hosting provider may not even regularly update their hardware or notify you when updates need to be made to your website.
In the age of GDPR you need to make sure your website is secure to stay compliant with legislation and prevent a huge fine landing on your door. Plus, if you’re taking card payments online your website needs to be secure so your customers can feel safe trusting you with their personal information.
You should always invest in a quality hosting service that offers SSL certificates, firewalls, and regular security updates.
Will They Be There When You Need Technical Support?
Technical issues are bound to occur when hosting a website, regardless of the hosting provider. When things go wrong do you want to struggle to find a contact option to be stuck in a queue where it can take weeks to resolve your issue, or do you want quality support that will be there to get you back online fast?
A quality hosting service will offer prompt and effective technical support to resolve any issues quickly whereas cheaper hosting options may lack this level of support, leaving you to deal with issues on your own.
Website Performance Needs To Be Priority
The performance of a website is critical to the user experience. Cheaper hosting options often cut corners on the resources at their disposal in order to allow them to offer these low cost hosting packages. When you opt for these cheaper prices you will often be stuck with a slower website, which can lead to a poor user experience and a higher bounce rate.
It’s no secret that a website that loads quickly and provides a seamless user experience can lead to increased sales and customer loyalty. This is why it’s worth prioritising your budget to go for a quality hosting provider instead of the cheapest choice.
While going for a cheap hosting provider might seem like a good idea, it’s a false economy to go for this option over a quality hosting provider. From reliability and security to technical support and website performance, a good hosting service can provide you with the tools they need to succeed.
Thu, 18 May 2023