What to Know About Cheap Web Hosting
If you do your research, there shouldn’t really be any downsides to cheap hosting. The main points to consider are making sure that the company chosen provides what is needed in the following key areas.
Features
These are questions that must be asked, "How much storage do they offer?" and "How much bandwidth is being offered?". Take note of whether or not a domain is included. Notice if web building tools are part of the package. If not, what are the options when choosing one? Often website builders will actually include hosting free of charge. While it can seem cost effective to choose the cheapest package, the last thing anybody want is to be paying for loads of added extras, which can really add up. Another element to look out for is how scalable the features are. You might only need a few hundred MB of storage now, so it can seem like a great idea to go with the cheapest host package, but can an upgrade be performed without downtime as the site's needs grow?
Security
This is one area that can cost more than just money if you aren’t careful. Make sure to look at the relevant options carefully to make sure they are doing everything necessary to keep the website protected and all visitor information safe. Features to look for are daily backups, a powerful firewall, and SSL certificates if the hope is to sell online. If the company is a quality one, they will offer more expensive options as well. They are likely to use secure hardware and provide the best in data safety practices for all the sites they host.
Customer Service
Despite the industry wide cries of 99.9% uptime, things can and do go wrong, and you want to be able to get through to someone who can help in those times, whether it’s the middle of a working day, or the middle of the night on a weekend. Look at the location of your hosts, and then check what their customer service hours are. Do they have a free telephone number to call, or will you be racking up international phone calls? If so, that is far from cheap website hosting! Do they offer live chat, or a forum to get help from other users?
If you make sure that those three elements are in place, you can’t go wrong with cheap website hosting.
Last Updated February 2020
