Every modern business needs a good website, one that is not only well designed but which is served up to visitors using a reliable infrastructure. With more web hosts than ever competing for your business, it can be hard to pick out the best provider for your needs, especially if you are new to web design.
Businesses who overlook the importance of thoroughly vetting their web hosts are much more likely to run into trouble further down the line. And, for businesses whose website contributes significantly to their income, this can be a serious problem.
The good news is that anyone can familiarise themselves quite easily with the necessary terms and different features that are on offer, and even a basic understanding of these will make selecting an appropriate host much easier. You neglect your web hosting service at your own peril.
Unreliable websites put off customers
When we decide that we want a product or service, we will either turn to providers that we already know, trust, and are familiar with, or we will use the internet to look for providers. It takes some hard work, and usually a reasonable financial investment, to ensure that your site appears high up on search results. You don’t want to go to all that trouble only for your website to be inaccessible to visitors, if your website loads too slowly or not at all, then visitors will simply go back and try the next link on the list.
In order to ensure that your website has as much uptime, as it is known, as possible you should check what percentage of uptime your host is quoting. Do not settle for anything less than 99%! No one can guarantee full 100% coverage, but those who advertise and deliver on the 99%, like bestwebhosting.co.uk, will have backup systems in place so that if the main hosting server is inaccessible your site can still be served to visitors from a backup system.
People prefer e-mail to phone
Before the days of widespread internet access, people communicated with businesses by locating a phone number and calling them. In today’s world of digital communications, many people don’t like the idea of doing this when we have e-mail available. E-mail is more convenient and allows for people to contact you and your business and receive replies at their leisure, with a phone call they have to set aside time for it during their day.
It is therefore essential that your website makes it very easy for customers to contact you, all forms of contact information should be easily accessible and clearly visible.
A good website makes you look professional
Many visitors to your website will make a judgement about how professional your operation is on the basis of how professional your website looks. Don’t skimp when it comes to hiring a competent designer and coder to put your site together and make sure you choose a host that does justice to their hard work.
