I think one of the most overlooked items in an online business is the quality of the hosting where the online business website sits. When I hear business owners say that they can get hosting cheaper elsewhere I am both amazed and saddened that the driving factor to where a business hosts their website is the COST. Once again the almighty dollar has persuaded us to make a very shallow decision on something that stands a good chance of biting you on the backside.

Website hosting is grossly overlooked by spend-thrift business owners and mistakenly discarded as an expense you should avoid at all costs. If only these poor ill-informed business owners knew! I really do get annoyed when I see this happen. I’ve even had business owners say to me “why do I need hosting at all”. What? Are they serious?

Good hosting is the foundation of your website. In fact, the quality of your hosting is going to determine in some way …

• How easily you are found by search engines
• What country your business is perceived to reside in
• Whether you get listed in search engine results at all
• Whether your email will actually get delivered
• The speed of your website pages appearing in the browser
• Whether your website can perform at all under a rush of traffic
• Whether your website can withstand hacker attacks
• How much downtime your website will endure
• Whether your server maintenance happens in your “quiet time” or whether your service is interrupted during your peak business hours
• and I can assure you a whole lot more of good reasons

Other considerations when you are looking at hosting should include …

• The response time and the quality of support for your hosting
• Are the latest versions of software on the server?
• Consider the size of the server space you are allotted for your account
• Consider the allocated bandwidth for your hosting account
• How are backups performed and available to you
• Do you have at the ready databases as standard in the account, or will you have to pay extra?

Finally, I would suggest to you that when you do look at the price of your hosting, do comparisons, but most importantly ensure that you are comparing apples to apples. I also encourage you to ask the hosting provider all the questions you need to make an educated decision until you actually understand what it is you are buying and that it will efficiently serve your business rather than trying to save a couple of bucks for the sake of it.

If you don’t put thorough research into what will house and drive your online business, then I would seriously worry about the state of your entire business performance because only the researched and prepared will survive and prosper in the world of online business. The ill informed with no plan will perish.