You should look for Web Hosting Features that meet all your needs. Therefore, understanding the features offered is essential for anyone looking to build or move their current website.
Features such as bandwidth, storage space, email accounts, and security not only affect the performance and reliability of your website but also the ability to scale as your site grows.
You can rest easy knowing that security tools protect your site while bandwidth and storage ensure fast load times and plenty of room to grow.
Remember, choosing a web hosting plan that caters to your needs is essential to website planning.
So, how do you choose a web hosting plan that will be the right fit? Unless you have some unique requirements beyond most, below are the top features you should consider regardless of what type of website you have or need to build.
Key Takeaways:
When looking for a web hosting provider, consider uptime, load times, customer support, scalability, price, security features, and additional offerings like email, website builders, and app integrations.
- While website uptime and speed are critical, reliable customer support is also needed to quickly resolve issues
- It’s important to find a balance between cost and the features you need so don’t over purchase
- Security should never be compromised, and features like SSL certificates and site backups should top the list
- Though some features are optional. it’s important to consider those we outline below as “Must-Haves”
- Consider that some third-party services likely do better for features such as email and CDN services
Ultimately, choosing the right web hosting plan depends on your personal or small business website needs, so prioritize the web hosting features that matter most to you.
Top Web Hosting Features To Look For in a Hosting Plan
Unless you have some unique requirements beyond most, below are the top features you should consider regardless of what type of website you have or need to build.
Web Hosting Uptime Guarantee
Let’s say you’re a store owner. Imagine that store randomly locking its doors throughout the day. Not ideal, right?
That’s where uptime comes in. It’s the “Guarantee” your business website, or any website for that matter, is available to visitors almost all the time. You want this number to be as close to 100% as possible.
While no one is perfect, you’ll find that most web hosting providers advertise a 99.9% uptime guarantee. If you find a web host that doesn’t brag about their uptime, there may be a reason. Therefore, you might consider looking elsewhere.
Website Security Features
No, this isn’t just about ninjas and guard dogs. On the internet, security means features like SSL certificates for your domain name (the internet’s version of a secret handshake), firewalls (like bouncers at the door of a club), and malware protection (think of it as your website’s immune system).
These web hosting features keep your site safe from bad actors trying to exploit your website and hosting for personal gain at your expense.
Should your website become a victim of a malware infection, it can be detrimental to your website’s reputation and significantly impact its online presence with search engines.
Web Hosting Scalability
Picture your website as a plant. As it grows, it will need a bigger pot. So, as your site grows, you’ll need more room for content, more capacity for visitors, and more resources to keep everything running smoothly.
Like a growing plant needing a bigger pot, your website needs a hosting plan that can accommodate growth. Scalability is where it’s easy to upgrade with little to no downtime.
Many web hosting plans are upgradeable with a single click, requiring no additional migration at all. It all happens in the background.
Customer Service
Even seasoned website designers need a little help sometimes. That’s why having a reliable and responsive customer support team is so important.
Think of them as your friendly neighborhood tech geeks (We all know one). Their mission is to help you keep everything up and running smoothly when technical issues strike.
When considering your support needs, it’s important to consider how quickly you need a response and how. While most hosting providers offer phone support, many only include email and live chat. Be sure you can work with any limitations on talking with a live customer support representative.
Pricing
Web hosting costs depend on the type of plan and features included. Look for a web hosting provider with transparent pricing and no hidden fees.
Some web plans have usage limits or additional features for an extra fee. There are plenty of hosting providers with upfront pricing to choose from
Domain Name Registration
Need a domain name? Look for a web hosting provider that offers domain name registration.
As with email setup, you may find it more convenient to register your domain with the hosting provider since they handle all the setup needed to connect it to the internet.
Once you have chosen your new domain name, it should only take a few clicks to set up your web hosting space so you can begin building the new home your website.
Website Builders
When building your website, most providers offer their own home grown website building tools for beginners that may not be as familiar with building a website as a web developer.
If this is you, look for a web hosting provider that offers website builder tools. Now keep in mind, there are some trade-offs to consider when using a providors website building tools. The most important is that most of these tools are proprienary, meaning you can not move your website to another hosting provider without redesigning your website. It’s a major limitation to consideration.
Website builders allow you to create a website using pre-designed templates and drag-and-drop tools without coding skills. Some providers offer website design as a service but know these can cost thousands of dollars.
Storage Type and Space
This feature is your website’s personal storage locker, where it keeps all its stuff – files, emails, databases, you name it. More disk space means more room for your website’s belongings. So, choose a plan that gives your site plenty of space to spread out and get comfortable.
Nowadays, most websites typically use only 1-2 GB of storage space, with many under 1 GB. So, with most web hosting plans providing 10, 20, and 50 on up to 200 GB or more per hosting plan, you’re sure to have enough storage.
So, unless you plan to build a photo gallery website or need to self-host many videos (hint: consider YouTube for videos), most hosting plans will provide plenty of storage for your average website.
One last consideration is storage performance. Having a fast website is not only good for visitor experience but will also help improve search engine ranking.
While more hosting providers are moving to SSDs (Solid State Drives) for storage, a few still offer older mechanical drives for your storage needs. These drives are slower than SSDs and can impact your website performance.
Website Bandwidth
Have you ever seen two people try to walk through a narrow doorway at the same time? It’s comedy slapstick, for sure!
Think of bandwidth as if it’s the width of the doorway. More bandwidth means more data (visitors, files, etc.) can move to and from your site at the same time.
When it comes to Disk Space, most web hosting plans provide unlimited bandwidth, so this won’t be an issue. However, some entry-level plans will have data transfer limits on how much bandwidth they provide each month.
The reality is that if you have a website with enough visitor traffic to exceed this, you should be looking at a hosting plan with more power and resources.
Control Panel
This web hosting feature is Command Central for your website. It’s where you can control everything from files and databases to email accounts, etc. You want a control panel that’s user-friendly and easy to use.
While a few web hosting providers still offer a proprietary control interface, the most common one we recommend is cPanel. cPanel is the standard control panel for managing all aspects of your web hosting plan.
Typically, everything is configured and ready to go out of the box. Still, for those familiar with it and who like to tinker with host settings, the user interface is very easy to understand, with a ton of advice online on how to use it.
Website Backup and Restore
It’s like having a time machine for your website. Scheduling a regular data backup will make sure you have a recent copy of your site in case anything goes wrong.
Think of it as a safety net that will catch you if you slip and make a mistake. Like anything else, hosting and designing a website is a major investment in time. As the old adage goes, “Time is Money.”
So, if you’re like me, you don’t like to waste time either. Every hosting provider offers different tools and methods to backup and restore your website.
With this feature, it’s important to pay close attention to how their backup tools work, such as manual and automatic scheduling. Be sure it’s something that will meet your disaster recovery needs.
Web Server Location
Unless you choose not to use a hosting provider’s Content Delivery Network (CDN) or a third-party CDN like CloudFlare, the location of your web host’s servers can impact your website’s load times.
In this case, data center location is important. You’ll want to choose a web hosting plan with web servers located in the same region as your target audience for faster load times.
However, while we mention this as a feature consideration, the reality is that you should use a CDN for any website, as this will offer you the best performance overall.
Nowadays, visitors expect a webpage to open in less than two (2) seconds, any longer and they’re hitting the “back button” to move on to another website.
Additional Web Hosting Features
These are the “nice-to-haves” but not necessarily needed when hosting a website.
While it’s likely you may need features such as Email, website builder tools, shopping carts, and various pre-installed apps – these are all features available through third-party providers that specialize in these services.
Now, if you prefer everything under one roof, look for a hosting provider that offers all the features you need.
However, if you can’t find it all under one roof or they don’t meet your needs, consider using other third-party providers for these features.
Final Thoughts
These are just a summary of the most common features to look for when shopping for web hosting services.
It’s crucial to remember that the type of web hosting you choose for your website is the one that caters to your unique needs and prioritizes the features that matter to you.
So, don’t hesitate to explore different options to find your perfect fit. If you try one that doesn’t meet your needs, remember that many hosting providers offer a 30-day money-back guarantee.
