Focus on your business, not on your web hosting details
Web hosting is another part of your web presence that, in some ways is simple, but in other ways is fraught with complexities and unknowns.
The good news for my clients is that I lift this burden from you and handle all the details of web hosting. Tasks that I typically help my clients with include:
- Domain names: The task of choosing and buying a domain name secures the “address” that people will use to find your business on the web. I can assist you with selecting a good (and available) domain name, and recommend a registrar. The registrar is the company from which you purchase your domain, and maintain the details including your contact information required by ICANN.
- Domain name privacy: I strongly recommend this to all my clients. This keeps your domain’s personal contact information private. People who don’t use domain name privacy often get solicitations from companies that look like a bill for services. In reality, these solicitations are to a way to trick you into switching your service or buying a service you don’t need.
- Hosting: once you have a domain and build a website, you need a server on which to “host” the files so they can be served to your visitors’ web browsers. I now offer hosting so you don’t need to find a hosting company or worry about any of the technical details. You simply pay my yearly invoice for hosting and I take care of the rest.
Now available: Premium WordPress Hosting
Clients who are serious about their web business presence should increasingly avoid “bargain basement” shared web hosting, because, like most things in life, you get what you pay for. With web hosting, it’s what you don’t get that actually hurts you more. Some problems you will typically run into with shared hosting plans, where your website is on the same web server with thousands of other websites competing for the same resources, include:
- Slow website response: your web pages load slowly, causing prospective customers to bail and look elsewhere
- Email that doesn’t work: you don’t consistently get emails from your web contact form, or when you send email from your domain it doesn’t get delivered or ends up in the recipient’s Junk folder
- Poor customer service: long waits for help, then no real help after you engage the person
Over the past few years, there’s been a lot of changes in the web hosting business. Some big players have come in and bought up hosting companies, putting profits before quality and customer service. Other hosting firms have always just been annoying to work with, and are always trying to sell you some other service which you probably don’t even need.
As a result of the above frustrations, which I’ve experienced personally, I recommend a premium WordPress hosting service for my own website (this site) and for most of my clients.
How much more is premium web hosting? In most cases, it will cost you less than $100 more per year for one website compared with with a “bargain” shared hosting plan. That’s very little in the big picture, and certainly a lot less than the cost of losing even one new customer.
Contact me to learn more.