Choosing a hosting provider can be difficult, especially considering how many companies offer hosting plans. Each host will claim they are the best option for your company, but you must filter them out one by one and make the right decision to avoid future problems. To help you out in your selection process, we’ve compiled a list of the top five mistakes customers make when choosing a hosting provider. 

1. Using Free Hosting

Free hosting services may be appealing at first glance and may be adequate for a small blog or hobby site. However, they are a poor choice for a business website. If you want to start a business website but you are on a tight budget, check out this page that offers coupons and discounts that can significantly lower your hosting expenses. 

Many free hosting services generate revenue by inserting pop-up ads and banners into your site, resulting in a poor user experience when visitors come to your site. Search engines like Google do not prioritize sites hosted on free hosting services in their search results, so you will receive less traffic as a consequence.

With free hosting, your site will usually be hosted on a subdomain, which can harm your reputation. Moreover, free hosting services perform poorly in terms of speed, reliability, uptime, and availability because they do not charge enough to invest in providing better service to their users.

2. Choosing a hosting provider that does not offer money-back options

It is difficult to put your trust in a web hosting company that does not provide a money-back guarantee. When selecting a hosting package, there are so many variables to consider that it is easy to make the wrong choice and then realize you made a mistake. If you made a mistake or are dissatisfied with the package you chose, a reputable hosting company will refund your money. Avoid service providers who do not provide a money-back guarantee.

3. Not knowing the difference between VPS and shared web hosting

The majority of small businesses choose shared hosting or a virtual private server (VPS). When you first start out, there will be little difference in the services you receive from either of these options. However, as your website grows in popularity and traffic, problems may arise if you have shared hosting. This is because your website will require more resources than shared hosting can provide.

On the other hand, with VPS hosting, the chances of you experiencing problems as your site grows are significantly lower. Your site will still be hosted on shared infrastructure by a VPS hosting provider, but you will have your own private allocation of resources such as CPU time, storage space, and bandwidth.

Although VPS and shared hosting utilize one server and divide it among multiple users, the underlying differences should not be ignored. 

4. Shopping purely on price

Some people believe that all web hosting providers are essentially the same, so they opt for the cheapest plan available. Others believe that the best hosting packages must be more expensive, so they opt for a more expensive package to receive better service. So, which is true?

Both arguments are correct. The cheapest hosting plans frequently have to sacrifice speed, storage, features, customer support, and infrastructure to offer such low prices. On the other hand, more expensive hosts may try to entice you with marketing jargon and irrelevant features to your business.

Consider where your site will be in a year or two, and then select a hosting package that meets your requirements. Avoid any low-cost services that you know you will outgrow quickly, but there is no need to spend a lot of money on a full-featured hosting package if your company does not need all of the features, bandwidth, and storage.

5. Not knowing your limits

Scalability is an important consideration when selecting a hosting service. You must select a plan that will grow with your company. If, for example, there are strict limits on how much bandwidth or storage you can use, you may encounter issues if your site traffic significantly increases.

Moving a site from one host to another is inconvenient, so avoid it at all costs, as all web hosting providers have lengthy terms and conditions when it comes to site migration. Before entering into a long-term hosting contract, it is critical that you understand what you can and cannot do with the service.

Final Words

Try to avoid these mistakes when you start looking for a web hosting provider. A good decision is an informed decision so do solid research before deciding on a web hosting provider.