What makes the best web hosting provider?
Firstly, to have a fully functional online presence, two things are required. To register a Domain Name and Web Hosting Space.
- WHAT IS WEB HOSTING AND HOW DOES IT WORK?
- WHAT IS A DOMAIN NAME?
- WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN A GOOD WEB HOSTING PROVIDER
- IS FREE WEB HOSTING A GOOD CHOICE?
- IN CONCLUSION
What is web hosting and how does it work?
Having your own presence on the web is an absolute requirement for any business or blogger these days. In order to secure your presence online, you need your own space on the internet. Web hosting can be seen as the online location where your emails and website files are stored and served from. In order to have a presence on the internet, you need to give your website files a location to be found and served from to your visitors. This location is unique to every website on the internet linked by something called a Domain Name.
What is a Domain Name?
Think of it like any physical address that you would search on Google Maps where the web hosting would be seen as the physical property itself and the Domain Name is the address to that property except that you would be securing an address on the internet itself. This is what is called a Domain Name. Once you secure this domain name, no-one else in the world can take this from you. It’s yours!
What to look for in a good web hosting provider
Web hosting providers are a dime a dozen these days but good and solid providers are very few and far between. You might think that extremely low costs and huge amounts of storage are what makes a great web hosting provider but if this was the case, you would be quite mistaken. BlueSteam’s history since 2005 has proven that we can be trusted and relied upon to deliver world-class services and we believe that over the 13 years of service, we have learned that there are very specific characteristics to look for when choosing a web hosting provider.
Reliable Server Uptime
One of the worst things that can happen to any business is to face downtime. It leaves a very bad impression on your audience and can be a make or break situation for you when trying to sign that big deal you have been working on so hard for months. It’s gut-wrenching when you try accessing your website and you see the dreaded, “This page is unavailable” message. BlueSteam backs our services up with a 99.9% uptime guarantee to ensure that your online presence is always active.
Server Stability
Another frustrating thing can be a slow server. A server that is simply not up to the task of serving your web pages to your visitors in a timely fashion. These days SEO(Search Engine Optimisation) also takes the speed of your website into account. How soon can your visitor download your website for viewing? BlueSteam believes that it is imperative to have a solid infrastructure to serve your visitors ensuring that your reputation is not seen in a bad light and that our servers are always up to date with the latest versions of all software services that we provide protecting you from all known vulnerabilities.
Privacy and Security
With all the hype these days about privacy and security, BlueSteam considers this characteristic to be one of the most important. It’s really hard to find a provider these days that are ethical and sensitive to your personal data. BlueSteam will never give out your private data under any circumstances without your permission to do so and unless there are extenuating circumstances that force BlueSteam to access your website content(eg. a hacked website or similar), we prefer not to access your content without your knowledge. Read more about BlueSteam’s privacy policy.
Most importantly, Excellent Support
Lastly, but certainly not the least, is support. This is a big one. Support is extremely important to BlueSteam. There is truly NOTHING more frustrating and upsetting than having any provider that simply is not there when you need them. BlueSteam takes our support very seriously and we do our best to always respond in a timely fashion, with detailed responses and as helpful as we can possibly be. Of course, you don’t have to take our word for it but you can see for yourself how happy these clients in the below video have been over the years of being with BlueSteam.
Is free web hosting a good choice?
Of course, we all love free things but this will depend on whether you are fine with your website being randomly offline and you not being able to do anything about it because you don’t pay anything towards the service. We all know how important it is these days to ensure that your data is secure and safe and often free service providers do not guarantee your privacy or security of your data.
BlueSteam does not believe that free web hosting is something that anyone should consider. Unless you truly trust the service, we believe that it is a very dangerous decision to choose free web hosting. The ramifications of this can be that the provider decides to shut the server down and you never even had a chance to back up your files or that the provider is simply never available when you need them because you are essentially not paying them. The risk is just too great to place your hard work in the hands of someone who is giving free handouts.
In Conclusion
We all want and need the best web hosting provider. It is imperative to have a service that you can trust and rely on. My grandfather always used to say “penny wise and pound foolish” meaning that if you buy cheap, you get what you pay for.
I encourage you to do your research before choosing your preferred web host as it is incredibly important to choose a provider that will ensure the availability of your website to your visitors, be helpful in times of need, respond to your every concern courteously no matter how silly they might think it is and give you peace of mind that your data is protected and in safe hands.
BlueSteam believes that we meet these requirements. Sign up now to see for yourself.