Good website hosting services are essential to your brand offering quality service to the public. And as a lawyer, your website functioning correctly is crucial to victims getting the justice they deserve. In addition, a reliable hosting service can improve website speed, have greater security, and at the very least, won't crash when your website gets a lot of traffic. However, on the flip side, having the right hosting plan or a good provider can benefit your website's success.
It's just a question, but an important one to understand. The technical definition of hosting services is "a provider that allocates space on a web server for a website to store its files." The amount of space allocated on a server depends on the type of hosting. Some websites need minimal space, while others will need dedicated servers.
Think of web hosting like real estate. To have a website go live, you need to rent or buy a space for your URL. Your URL is the business, but you need some real estate to operate it. Do you need an entire floor on a skyrise or a tiny office on the main street? Do you need room to grow, or are you happy with its size?
While there are many reasons reliable hosting is essential, there are three main reasons we want to cover.
Have you ever gone to a website and seen that red screen of death with a warning that "this website is not secure?" Nothing sends website visitors away like the feeling of vulnerability. And we're not talking about the good kind of vulnerability you feel when listening to "would've, should've, could've." We're talking about the wrong type of vulnerability where your entire identity is at risk of being stolen.
If your website doesn't have the proper security measures, like HTTPS, then Google won't rank the website and will warn every website visitor before they access your site. Choosing a good provider and getting a secure IP address is necessary to enable HTTPS.
HTTPS, "Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure," ensures all information going through that website gets automatically encrypted. Encrypted means all sensitive data, like your credit card information, is hidden from the world and hackers.
A solid website host will back your website up daily. Website backups are crucial since websites are delicate labyrinths. A reliable host won't just say, "you're on your own, kid, "and leave you hanging. Instead, they will back up your website for worst-case scenarios. So exhale; if you broke the site while trying to add a photo, there's a backup.
While there are things we can do on the front end of the website to ensure the website is fast to load, a lot of that work relies on the hosting provider's infrastructure. Your website's speed also considerably affects your website's SEO. Google has come out and said that slow websites would not rank. In a 2016 study, researchers learned that website visitors would leave the website if a page took longer than three seconds to load. So make sure your hosting provider ensures your website will load fast.
It doesn't take a mastermind to understand the three most common types of hosting. Remember, hosting is the network environment where all your website files and data are stored.
This is the most commonly used as it's more affordable, and most websites do not need much space. With this hosting, you will share the server with other websites.
Some companies will offer a free package along with purchasing or using another product. For example, Shopify, Weebly, and Wix all provide free hosting. However, with their free hosting, you do not get a dedicated URL.
VPS stands for Virtual Private Server. This is the best option for larger projects.
Most hosting providers will offer much of the same thing, but it's essential to understand them.
"Marjorie, I think there's been a glitch." A good provider will look into website glitches, fix them, and even tell you how they are fixed in case it happens again. In addition, good hosting support will be available at all hours, from 7 am to all those midnights when you're working on growing your business.
Uptime is the website's time live or on air. Some companies have a 99.9% uptime, whereas others have a lower uptime. It doesn't hurt to ask your future provider what their uptime is.
We mentioned this before, but we'll say it again- a good hosting provider will offer robust security to keep your website and its users safe from hackers.
If you do not have the hosting plan you need or a good hosting provider, you can expect a lot of sweet nothing to happen. As in your website won't work. No amount of bejeweling the website will make it function better. You need a reliable hosting provider with the right type of hosting. An excellent example of this is the latest online fiasco to take the world by storm.
Last week, singer/songwriter Taylor Swift announced her first tour in over three years. Using Ticketmaster to sell her tickers, fans became crushed as the website crashed, glitched, froze, and made it almost impossible to buy tickets. Ticketmaster has completely negated responsibility and said they were utterly overwhelmed with the number of people trying to access their website. As the only online place to buy tickets, we find this hard to believe and suspect they didn't do the proper oversight to ensure their host could handle that kind of demand. Now, the government is getting involved and investigating Ticketmaster as a monopoly.
Here are some tips as you choose where to host your website.
Most hosting providers should have an uptime of as close to 100%. The lower the percentage, the less reliable the host.
People can be passionate about who they use to host their websites, as you can learn while reading reviews. So check out reviews on big-name hosting providers and avoid the companies to which people tend to give a thumbs down.
If all of this hosting information is enough to give you a headache, hiring an experienced digital marketing firm like Sydekar will help. We know which hosting providers to avoid, what kind of space your website will need, and how to fix any issues. In addition, we constantly do speed checks, updates, backups, and maintenance to ensure your website runs smoothly all the time. Contact us today.
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