When you are ready to create your new blog or website you need to choose a good hosting company in order to make sure that your site is available when your readers want to visit it. This post outlines some of the most important factors that you need to consider when choosing a good host. I have architected some very large scale and expensive systems over the past 20 years and funny enough the same factors that I would use in designing a mission critical system are the ones that I would recommend you use in assessing potential web hosting services. other than cost in my experience the six most important factors are:
Performance
Your web pages must load quickly every time someone wants to see one of them. Attention spans are getting shorter all the time so if there is a delay in loading your pages the potential visitor is likely to go elsewhere. Ideally a page should load in less than 2 seconds but most people will tolerate up to 5 seconds. Any higher than 5 and you will lose readers fast even if your content is fantastic!
Scalability
As your business grows your blog needs to be able to grow to handle more traffic and still get good performance. This is called scalability in technical circles. So your web hosting solution must be scalable. check that your web hosting provider is able to offer you upgrades to larger bandwidth, better servers and even dedicated servers for your company.
Tip: With the cheaper options you will be on a server that is shared amongst a number of websites, This is usually fine for startups. But as your business goes you will want to eventually have your own dedicated servers.
High Availability
Your website needs to be available 24/7 (all the time) in order to get maximum exposure around the world. Your hosting company must be able to guarantee uptime to ensure you get this constant exposure.
Usability
The control panel that the hosting company provides you with needs to be easy to use in order for you to get the best out of their services. A good example is the use of Fantastico or SimpleScripts that allows you to easily install blogging software like Wordpress.
Features
Most hosting providers will provide the hosting basics but if you need advanced features like live video streaming then you need to make sure that they provide this in a cost effective manner. Don’t assume that all hosting services are alike or that they all will provide multimedia services.
Support
The better companies provide good support in the shape of frequently asked questions, a knowledgebase, live online support, and the ability to raise trouble tickets. This is invaluable in getting any issues you experience resolved in a timely manner.
Two of the more popular and respected hosting companies are Dreamhost and Hostgator.
I hope this article is useful and I’m happy to answer any questions/comments you may have.
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September 4th, 2008 at 1:44 am
I was always thought that ssh was the only way to “manage” a server, but I have to admit that whm/cpanel/fantastico is a nice package.
September 6th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
sssh is great when I am working in a corporate and ultra-secure environment, methinks its a little too cryptic for most bloggers