There is an abundance of choice in the web hosting industry and it can be a bit difficult getting your choice right among a jungle of options that look identical on the surface. However, separating quality from hype is your utmost priority when making a decision on a hosting platform that you can trust with your business or blog.

So, without further ado, let’s examine the 8 most important qualities your next web host must have plus a short review of my web host of choice.

Reliability

This is the first factor on the list. When your web host cannot guarantee that your website is available at all time, you risk a lot of factors. Your website is your identity and a medium between yourself and your loyal audience. That is why it is vital that you choose a web host that guarantees uptime, user satisfaction and a wonderful web experience.

If your website keeps disappearing, you will start losing visitors fast and before you know it, you lose customers and your reputation is damaged in the process.

Speed

Loading time can determine whether someone comes back to your website or decides to look elsewhere. Speed is greatly affected in companies that host their clients’ websites on overloaded servers because ultimately they become too slow. When this happens, your visitors are forced to look for better alternatives elsewhere.

A quick way to ensure your web host is blazing fast is by visiting their website, blog, and customers hosting there to see how fast they are.

Disk Space

Make sure the amount of space afforded to you by your web host provider is sufficient for everything you want to do with your website. Since web space is one of the cheapest feature among hosts, make sure to get as much as possible.

Unlimited Bandwidth

Bandwidth is also readily available among common web hosts. Your website will grow big eventually and will ultimately demand more space and bandwidth. When this happens, you don’t want to be cut off from the server or be charged extra for more resources.

You need a consistent provider who can grow with your website from the beginning and cater to the many demands of your website.

Customer Support

Arguably one of the biggest concern about website owners is how helpful the support will be when you contact them for help. Having the convenience of call, email and chat support is a great way to quickly solve a problem. When you face unforeseen technical difficulties, you need to be able to contact support and get assisted with knowledgeable solutions to your problem. Find out how their support handles its clients before you decide which company to host with.

Updated Hardware

Quality hardware in any web hosting company directly improves its performance across all platforms. A company that is dedicated to regular updates also represents more stability and shows they have the need to keep improving their services. If a company uses outdated hardware, avoid early.

You cannot rely on a hosting company that uses outdated hardware and technology and expect a smooth flow of things. Where speed and uptime is concerned, hardware is a crucial selling point in a web hosting provider and shows you a long term dedication to stability.

Email and Features

When it comes to features, a good provider should have all the important options your website needs. From a user friendly and stable control panel(cPanel or Plesk) to the number of allowed sub-domains, scripted language support, database, and whether or not hosting is on Windows or Unix.

Also find out if the provider has limits on the number of email boxes you can have and what other email features they support. Ensure you have full control over them and you can manage them yourself.

Pricing/Payment Plans

When it comes to price, you more often get what you pay for, there could be some exception to this rule but it is generally true in web hosting.

The less you pay, the less features you get with many web hosts. Some companies may also offer a low price on face level but charge more for every new feature. Some companies are notorious for this and you will be wise to avoid.

Those are some of the best features to look at for a quality web host.With that said, here is one of my recommended pick for web hosting.

Having worked with most household web hosts, I believe a web hosting decision should be personal.

Avoid going with the hype where big names are concerned as they do not always guarantee quality in return, case in point the EIG outage scandals involving some of the biggest names in the industry that left customers around the world devastated.

TD Web Services

My recommended provider of choice is a relatively unknown but goes toe to toe with the biggest providers in the industry.

TD web Services effectively combines all these factors to offer fast, reliable and flexible web solutions for satisfied users worldwide.

TDWeb Services Pros and Features

  • Updated software and latest hardware.
  • Faster loading speeds
  • 24/7/365 knowledgeable technical support
  • Personalized, user friendly cPanel
  • Data security and free weekly scans for viruses and malware.
  • Free weekly data backups and 99.990% server uptime guarantee.
  • Scalability that allows greater server resources as your website grows.
  • Free cloud storage for greater data accessibility and syncing.
  • Support, security and greater performance speed with the managed WordPress hosting that lets you work more and worry less.
  • A 30 day full money back guarantee.

It’s not easy to simply point a finger on any specific web host as the best in the market.

In web hosting, every customer has their own needs and hence will go for a hosting provider that caters to those specific needs best.

This means that if a company offers the best cloud service but less than perfect shared packages, a cloud server customer will feel right at home.

A good web host effectively combines all the above qualities in one and offers a service that can cover the overall needs of the website or offer flexible solutions that can grow your business.

Always do a thorough background check on every potential candidate to make an informed decision