1 | P a g e H o w t o H o w t o C h o o s e Y o u r H o s t i n g

P r o v i d e r ?

How to Choose Your

Hosting Provider?

2 | P a g e H o w t o H o w t o C h o o s e Y o u r H o s t i n g

P r o v i d e r ?

How to Choose Your Hosting Provider?

The only thing permanent in this world is change. You must keep this in mind when you

choose a hosting provider. You must be able to grow within a hosting environment.

Many businesses and individuals have suffered because they have not catered for growth

while taking a decision. Here we will discuss challenges you are likely to encounter and

how to cope with them.

Your host is like a home for your website

John Silver owned a shoe store in London. He had inherited this store from his father

and was proud of it. The shoes he sold were special. They smelled of tradition, class and

history. They did cost more than usual but his traditional customers valued his products.

When John decided to go online, he received all kinds of advice. His good friend and

neighbor told him that cloud hosting was happening and he should adopt it. John felt that

the cost of cloud hosting was not worth it. John was a shrewd man and though he was

not tech savvy, he knew business. He wanted to consider a few factors before choosing a

hosting provider.

Scope to grow and expand

Discussing the situation with a friend, the first issue which John wanted to understand

was the scope to grow and expand. From experience, he knew that he will need more

space and resources as his online shop started getting more traffic. Actually expansion

3 | P a g e H o w t o H o w t o C h o o s e Y o u r H o s t i n g

P r o v i d e r ?

made good business sense. He wanted to go with a hosting provider who could meet his

growing demand. ‘It is like a normal shoe shop’, he claimed. His traditional business

had grown from fifty square yard to five hundred in ten years. His website would

probably grow faster.

John realized that he could begin with a simple shared hosting plan and go for a

dedicated hosting plan later if required. He should be able to adopt cloud hosting if he

found it suitable. John was also told that migrating from one host to another can be a

problematic issue. Therefore any hosting provider must be able to cater for this

expansion.

Choosing WordPress

Finally after considering various options, John decided to try out his online enterprise

with a shared hosting plan. It was cost effective and provided him with all the facilities

which he required to run his shoe shop. There was one more piece of advice which he

was considering. He was told that his small business could easily run on WordPress

platform. Other options required that he employ a full time technical hand which he

could not afford. Fortunately for him the hosting service provider had a ready solution

for WordPress. In fact, his site could be WordPress enabled with one single click. He

simply had to purchase a professional theme and his shoes shop would be up and

running. John was astounded by the simplicity and power of WordPress. He had never

imagined that a website could be launched with such ease. WordPress was not only an

elegant solution but could also become an enterprise solution with all the bells and

whistles in place.

Going the Ecommerce way

John was offered an alternative solution. He could directly go for an ecommerce

solution. Here he would have to pay for the ecommerce software. The hosting provider

once again showed the way. John could choose from a range of ecommerce solutions

depending on scope and cost factor.

John could grasp the advantages offered by an ecommerce platform. He could visualize

the ease with which his customers could navigate through his shop and buy shoes.

Moreover, book keeping and inventory control was automated. He could stock items

depending on demand and could save money on inventory. Inbuilt analytics gave click

by click report of visitor behavior. He was also excited by the forecasting tool which

came with ecommerce solutions. An ecommerce platform made good sense except that

the initial cost was higher than WordPress. Additionally, he was told that WordPress too

had ecommerce plug-ins which were as powerful as any ecommerce solution. John was

4 | P a g e H o w t o H o w t o C h o o s e Y o u r H o s t i n g

P r o v i d e r ?

happy that his hosting provider would be able to support him whether he chose

WordPress or ecommerce solution.

Managed Services

John knew the shoe business inside out but lacked technical expertise. He was a shrewd

person and knew that the trick to a successful business was to keep operational costs as

low as possible. Employing a technical person would have dented his profits. Focusing

on his business was his top priority. Managed services therefore made sense to him. He

was told that his hosting provider can take over the entire management of his website.

Cost

Choosing a hosting provider must be done carefully. Cost of hosting must not be the

only consideration. If you are planning for managed hosting, specific attention must be

paid to each and every additional service provided by the hosting service. Hidden costs

may bite you at a later date. Ideally, all maintenance and upgrade work should be

completely handed over. Piecemeal approach should be avoided. Some hosting

providers may charge a premium which may well be worth the cost. It is always

advisable to compare costs with three or more providers.

Support & Security

One of the major issues with any ecommerce platform is security. Customers don’t want

to transact online unless they are absolutely sure about the security of their credit cards.

SSL certificates can ally fears and provide confidence to customers.

John had learnt through experience that service providers are tested only things go

wrong. Timely troubleshooting and support from hosting provider can save money and

reputation. Support in the form of helpdesk is essential.

Conclusion

John was a businessman not a technical expert. He knew very well that his online

business would work well if he leaves hosting to people who know their job. He was

ready to pay a bit more for the services. Customer loyalty and support can only come

when they have a flawless online experience. Slow and sluggish websites, downtime

because of maintenance and such issues can be disastrous for an online business. John

chose a hosting provider based on these essential factors.

TD Web Services Common Platform for All Your Applications Needs

Ecommerce solutions - Open, hybrid infrastructure and services for building secure, scalable, and highly available ecommerce stores built on Magento, OpenCart, WooCommerce, Oracle Commerce or any proprietary platform. Web content management systems - Application and infrastructure hosting expertise for leading WCMS platforms including Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla, etc.

Benefits for Mobile Ecommerce Applications:

Expertise and experience in building scale and performance for power high- traffic apps regardless of platform

Pre-built, optimized deployments for faster deployments

High performance, SSD-based servers that help enable blazing fast speeds

Hybrid cloud scalability connects bare metal, dedicated, or cloud

Optional monitoring and optimization services with Critical Application Services for better visibility and optimization

Get more details aboutE-commerceapplication hosting and support:

e: sales@tdwebservices.com w: http://tdwebservices.com/