That’s a question that almost all young entrepreneurs on a budget tend to ask themselves right before they starts to work on adapting their business for the Web.
Why? – Well, like I already said, they’re on a budget. If you’re just taking your first steps in this digital world as an entrepreneur, your first instinct is to think about all your costs and how to reduce them to a bare minimum.
As a newbie who still isn’t making any money from what you do or sell online, you are not really in a position where you can afford to be careless with your cash. You don’t have the luxury to waste your money on trivial things that won’t help you improve your business or bring in new customers.
Even though this sort of thinking is quite logical for inexperienced entrepreneurs, it’s also usually the main reason why they all end up in trouble. This is where most of these young businessmen create some of the bigger mistakes that really come back to haunt them and eventually even put their entire business in jeopardy.
While trying to save money, most people often get carried away and actually try to become economical where they really shouldn’t be. Nine times out of ten, this sort of thing happens with web hosting.
Why? – Well, because people don’t really understand the importance of quality hosting until it’s too late. They tend to think that every host is a good host, and that every package works fine for them, until they figure out they’re wrong.
One Brick On Top of Another, And So On, And So On
If you’re determined to create a powerful online presence for yourself or your company, you need to secure a steady and reliable foundation for your website. You need to start from the beginning and truly invest more than just money into its development.
Even though these days most marketing experts are preaching about the power of social media and adding the right type of content marketing to your already existent marketing mix, before you even start to think about all that – you first need to focus on creating a good and respectable website for your business.
You need to build your empire from the ground up, brick by brick.
There’s no way around it.
You cannot skip this part, nor rush it in any way.
Owning a great website is still essential for every business that operates online. And thanks to that, so is investing in good web hosting.
There are literally hundreds and thousands of reasons why you should really do your best to create a representable digital home for your company. Everybody has a professional website today. It’s like a digital office that’s open 24/7 to every single person that could be interested in your products and services at any given time, day or night.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t really trust a business that doesn’t have a website. It immediately seems shady to me.
If you don’t have a website or even worse – own a crappy one that’s constantly offline – I will immediately abandon ship. Even though your products or services might seem great to me, I won’t end up paying for them because of your awful website (or no website). It will convince me that you don’t run a serious business.
A lot of online shoppers share my opinion here. I personally know dozens and dozens of people who would never, I repeat, NEVER, purchase something from a brand that doesn’t really care about its digital image.
Owning a good looking and well-optimized website will get you far in this digital sea of possibilities. It will help you create a credible online presence that will allow your current and potential users to easily come into contact with your brand and learn more about what you sell, all the latest news about your brand and company, and what makes you stand out from the crowd.
It will help you represent yourself in the best way imaginable to an insanely large audience of possible shoppers and consumers.
The Importance of Building a Stable Foundation for Your Website
If you’re running an online business or trying to create an impressive website for your brand, you’re hosting service plays an important role in this equation. It’s the cornerstone of your online business. It’s your hosting provider’s job to make sure that your site is always accessible to your visitors and customers, and that your data is constantly well protected.
If he fails to do so, then you’ll have some serious problems on your hands.
Since your website represents a critical component of your online business, you cannot afford to expose it to any risk.
Choosing a bad company to host your site can instantly become your worst nightmare. Being offline can hurt your business in many different ways. Apart from making you look bad in front of a global audience, frequent downtime can also cost you a lot of sales.
A couple of years back when Amazon went down for 40 minutes, the guys behind this brand said that this particular hiccup cost them exactly $4mil.
$4mil?
Terrible, right?
You don’t want this to happen to your brand, do you?
Bad hosting can negatively affect your business in a lot of different ways. It can massacre your rankings, butcher and lose your data, and so on, and so on. You get the picture.
So, Is Cheap Web Hosting Good or Bad for You?
As in everything other in business, the same goes in web hosting – “cheap” doesn’t often mean “good”. In fact, in more cases than not, it usually means quite the opposite.
Even though everyone is looking for the best possible deal out there for themselves, you as a shopper, have to understand that some things just cannot be bought for scraps.
The same goes for web hosting.
Despite the fact that this is an incredibly price competitive market, the cheapest solution isn’t often the best one for your business.
Why? – Well, because most web hosting providers don’t really deliver on their promises. A lot of them offer unlimited storage, bandwidth, and even free web design solution for $2, which is, simply put – bait for cheap customers. Once you migrate your site to their servers, you’ll see that what was promised to you won’t be delivered, which is, when you really sit down and think about it, quite logical for a service that goes price-wise below the industry standard.
Your website will frequently go down, and you’ll experience slow load page times, not because these providers want to trick you, but because they’re hosting too many sites on the same server.
Next to that, cheap web hosting providers don’t really invest in their support. Sure, this seems like something that doesn’t concern you now, but what happens when you start to experience (and you will) problems and no one is responding to your requests in hours and even days? And once you finally get ahold of someone, what happens when you figure out that you’re talking to an untrained and uneducated company representative who isn’t really able to provide you with any usable answers?
These are just of the things that could create a ton expensive problems for you just by going for the cheapest hosting solution.
When professional web hosting services are available for just $5.00/Month, what’s the point in siding with a cheap or free hosting provider?
You aren’t really saving any serious cash that you could better invest somewhere else.
The overall access and stability of your website is in question here. You shouldn’t gamble with that.
If you’re interested in running a professional business, you need to find a professional web hosting company that’s really able to keep your website constantly up and running, and on a highest possible level.
You need a company that’s able to respond to your requests within 30 minutes with great and intelligent answers. You need a host that provides a variety of hosting plans including dedicated servers and data centers in top locations.
So, when choosing a web hosting provider, don’t just look for the cheapest possible option out there. Compare prices based on what these companies offer, and how long have they’ve been on the scene.
Like I said above, web hosting is a highly competitive market, which means that brands are basically killing each other over the same customers. So, having this in mind, when choosing a provider to host your business online, keep your eyes open and really look at what they offer and what makes them different. Some perks are guaranteed for a limited time or they offer free features if you sign up now.
Read online reviews, but don’t take anything for granted. Don’t value random customer rants. No. Instead, look for real reviews and see for how long your possible next provider has been active online. Companies that have been around for a long time are more stable than companies that are just starting.
Thank you for taking the time to read my latest blog entry. I hope this post helped you understand why cheap doesn’t usually mean great in web hosting.
If you have anything to add or ask – write down your thoughts in the comments sections, and I’ll get back to you right away.
If not – well, that’s it for now,
See you soon again,
Goran @ AltusHost B.V.
The author is highly qualified and writes blog posts weekly.
