In the early stage of planning, businesses spend a lot of time researching things like domain name, brand name, website layout, color, fonts, etc. But very few businesses spend time identifying the best Hosting provider that can fulfill website requirements and needs.
Website hosting is an important research every business should do to find the right hosting for their website. Today, it has become essential for every business owner to showcase online presence through a successful website. To make a website successful it is important to select the best web hosting provider that can create an impactful presence in front of an audience.
There are many eCommerce websites hosting providers in the market offering various features and services. That’s why it is important to identify the best hosting provider for an online store. Check our blog on the 5 best eCommerce hosting providers for your online store.
Web hosting plays an important role in making and breaking a business reputation among the audience. A slow-loading website with frequent downtime can impact your business and relation with customers. That’s why selecting a proper hosting provider is as important as creating enticing eCommerce web design.
There are many companies providing hosting services by promoting their features & functionalities. But it is important to know that hosting features are not limited to providing 24X7 support, Backup and speed. There are other features available to make a website successful by providing an error-free experience.
Most of the newbies get confused in selecting a proper hosting provider and plan for their eCommerce website. Because of the number of hosting providers offering various features and plans to their users.
Therefore in this article, we will be drawing your attention to something important that is ignored by most of the website owners. We will be discussing the features you should expect from an e-commerce hosting provider.
Here are the essential features of web hosting services:
1. Uptime Monitoring
Website Uptime is an important aspect of running a successful eCommerce website. A website uptime refers to keeping a website up and online without any errors. Most of the website loses its sales and traffic due to a lack of uptime monitoring. If you are into an online selling business then you should remember that website downtime can badly affect your business. Even If your website, visitors fail to access your website each time they visit, then they will not show interest in buying products from your online store anytime in the future.
Before taking up hosting for your eCommerce website you should be very much clear about the Uptime offered by your hosting provider. There are times when hosting providers may say that they provide 99.99% uptime to every site but they fail to keep the website up and online. That’s why you should evaluate uptime monitoring features before buying hosting for your eCommerce website.
One of the main purposes of a website hosting provider is to keep your website online without any errors. There are times when websites go down due to maintenance or breakdown making your website inaccessible to users. A good hosting provider will ensure to manage and solve every downtime issue within a short span of time.
You will be shocked to know that if a hosting provider is giving you 99% uptime then your website will have a minimum of 7 to 8 hours of downtime. And if a web hosting provider is saying that you will get 99.99% uptime then your website will face a minimum of 4 – 5 hours pf downtime. So, you have to be very much clear with your hosting provider about your host uptime monitoring. Because unwanted downtime can impact your eCommerce website sales and create a bad impression among customers.
2. Website load speed
It is another essential aspect that can make and break your revenue and reputation of your business. When it comes to buying eCommerce websites hosting, speed and performance are the important aspects of running a successful online store. A slow eCommerce can annoy website visitors making all your hard work pointless. An optimized website with less load time can increase your conversion rate and decrease the bounce rate.
Every eCommerce website owner wants their website to load faster with fewer errors. Because they know that even a small second of delay can impact their website traffic and they may lose their customers. That’s why experts recommend selecting proper and reputed hosting for every website.
Website load time has lots of pros and cons. A slow-loading website can impact your website ranking, reputation, and sales. Whereas a fast loading eCommerce website can encourage your site visitor and customers to explore more about your brand and products. Research by Kissmetric states that if a website takes more then 3 seconds to load then 40% of the users abandon the website.
Therefore to run a successful online store make sure that you select a hosting provider that can decrease your website load time. There are times when e-commerce websites offer sales and discounts to users. During that time your website can get a sudden surge in traffic. So you need to ensure that your hosting provider can handle the traffic by providing optimized website loading speed.
3. Dedicated host vs Shared host
There are various types of hosting available in the market but shared and dedicated hosting are used by most of the small and large scale businesses. Shared hosting is cheaper than dedicated hosting. It allows you to share a server with other websites. There are many small businesses and startups using shared hosting to grow their business. If we talk about performance and security then you have to compromise with two things due to a heavy loaded server.
But if we talk about dedicated hosting it is costlier than shared hosting. But it provides a fully secured server that can optimize your site performance and rake. dedicated hosting i9s used by enterprise-level businesses and complex eCommerce websites with a hundred thousand visitors per week.
Selecting the type of host totally depends on your eCommerce website requirements and needs. For example, Shared hosting is best for an initial stage blogging website. If you are buying dedicated hosting by paying a huge price for the blogging website then it will not be worth paying a huge amount. But if you are running a complex eCommerce website where security and website performance is your first priority` then you should look
4. Pricing of your hosting
Generally, website hosting involves two different costs. First is setting up and installing the website hosting (Many hosting providers offer free setup and installing). And second is renewal and maintenance cost. Most of the businesses fail to analyze these two costing methods. It is important to know that at the initial stage most of the hosting providers charge a lesser amount. However, when it comes to renewing the hosting charge the costing becomes higher. Therefore, before picking up a hosting service check their terms and condition to get better results.
To make your website live you have to take up hosting service and for that, you have to pay some price to the hosting provider. Picking up a proper hosting provider depends on the type of pricing & plan offered by them. It is not necessary that you have to buy an expensive hosting to get better results for your early-stage website. There are cheaper hosting available that can offer you a great result and help you in showcasing your web presence. So, check the pricing and features of every service provider to get better and cheaper results for your eCommerce website hosting.
5. Do they provide proper Security?
If we talk about the eCommerce website then security is one of the important features that every visitor seeks. An eCommerce website is not limited to displaying products and services. When visitors want to signup or buy something they should be confident about operating a fully secured website. There is advanced hacking software that can scan your network and website to get every payment-related data and user’s personal info.
Once a hacker finds vulnerabilities on your website then they will hesitate in stealing data from your websites. So to avoid that you need to ensure that your eCommerce website hosting provider offers free SSL and powerful firewalls that can’t be breached by any hacker.
If your site is not encrypted with HTTPS then your eCommerce website will not be identified as secured. And users are very much clear about what is a secure and unsecured website. An unsecured website can reduce your visitor’s confidence to make the payment on your eCommerce store which can lead to reducing in revenue and sales.
Therefore, Before buying a website hosting you should know whether your host provides a strong firewall, protection from viruses and malware, email scanning, spam removal, and onsite security. If your hosting provider is offering these security features than you should verify from the hosting provider and buy the plan.
6. 24X7 Tech Support
Tech support is another important feature that you should seek from every hosting provider. There are times when every business owner gets stuck somewhere, either in seating up hosting or some issue occurring in hosting. For example, imagine a morning when you wake up and find your website nonfunctional and you don’t have a proper solution to resolve that problem. You might be having a manual but it is not necessary that you will be able to solve the problem. That’s why you need to be sure that their tech support team is available to help you with every problem faced by your website.
Many companies out there may claim that they provide the best tech support but most of them fail to do it. An authentic website hosting provider will surely help you in fixing your problem faster without any delay. Before buying their service get in touch with them ask them how you can contact them and how quickly they will respond to your question. A top-notch hosting provider will surely offer you different ways like you can contact them through phone, email or live chat based on your comfort.
7. The reputation of your Hosting Provider
Before buying hosting for your eCommerce site you should look for host providers reputation in the market. You can check their reviews from third party sources. If your desired host provider is producing good output then surely they might have got some appreciation through reviews from their customers.
The reputation of the company doesn’t depend on the brand name, it depends on the service they provide to their customers. Most of the time startups and early-stage website owners prefer to select the e-commerce website hosting provider depending on the brand name. But it is important to know whether their features are meeting your requirements or not.
Every hosting provider offers different features and functionality some companies may offer hosting features depending on monthly visitors whereas others may offer to host depending on the number of orders per hour. That is why it is important to identify whether the feature and functionality provided by the host suit your business needs and goals or not.
8. Email Service
It is another important feature that you should expect from your hosting provider. Emails play an important role in building a strong relationship with customers. And emails are considered as one of the essential aspects of an eCommerce website. It can help in showcasing your online presence among the audience. That’s why you should check whether your hosting provider is offering email service in the hosting plan or not.
If we compare it with social media, emails are more effective and reliable. For an eCommerce website, it is essential to keep their customer’s updates and email can be an efficient source of sending order updates, offer related and much more. Many Hosting providers may offer a safe and secure service with an unlimited email forwarding auto response service.
So, before taking up any hosting service get in-depth details about the type of email service offered by the hosting provider. Add don’t forget to check their reputation, reliability, and flexibility of their email plan. Make sure that your email service includes spam control, time travel features, etc.
9. The backend interface is intuitive (cPanel)
Control Panel or cPanel is the back end interface that is used by website owners to control and administer a website. While buying a website hosting make sure that the back end interface is intuitive and easily understandable. If the cPannel is too difficult to operate then you have to contact the support every time for making small and big changes in your website. Therefore before buying any hosting service make sure that your service provider is using Cpanel and plex and providing a user-friendly interface.
These are the basic web management options you will find in the backend of your cPanel:
- Managing your SSL
- Adding new application and Database
- Managing you backups
- Domain name management
- Setting up redirects
- Upgrading and renewing hosting
- Managing your domain email addresses
10. Website Backup
It is one of the most important features because once you lose your site content and data without any back up then it’s gone, there are no chances of recovering those data back. That’s why you should make sure that your website hosting provider is backing up your data. Imagine a scenario where you are working on the cPanel and by mistakenly you delete the data of your website and your website is not backed up. After losing the data you can feel the pain of losing your hard work just for a small mistake. To avoid it always give preference to backing up your data.
Yes, there are options available to manually backup data but it is not necessary that you will back up your data every week or month. While buying a hosting service you should ask your hosting provider whether they offer automated backup or not. There are websites that are offering solid backup for free. So
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What is the best eCommerce web hosting provider in 2020?
- SiteGround
- BlueHost
- HostGator
- WP Engine
- DreamHost
- Liquid Web
- Hostinger
- GoDaddy
- A2Hosting
2. How much does it cost to host a website on Google cloud?
It may range between $40 to $70 per month. A virtual machine in google cloud is called an instance.
3. Is there a discount for Annual pricing?
Yes, almost every hosting provider offers a discount for the user selecting their annual pricing. If you are planning to run your website for a long duration then you should select annual pricing for yo0ur website.
4. What are the features provided in web hosting?
- Easy Woocommerce Installation
- Free SSL Certification
- Enhance and Easily understandable Cpanel Interface
- On-Demand Backup
- Manage Update
- 24X7 uptime monitoring
- Tech Support
- Onsite Security
- Supports PHP 7+
5. Is shared hosting good for eCommerce?
Yes, shared hosting is good for eCommerce websites but only for the early stage website. If your website is getting more traffic and more than 500 orders per day then you should look for a dedicated host. To make your website secure and top-performing.
6. What are the most important factors to evaluate when selecting a hosting service?
- The reputation of your Host
- Do they provide free SSL certification?
- Uptime Monitoring
- 24X7 Support
- The backend interface is intuitive
- Security strength provided by your web host
- User-friendliness
7. Is Bluehost Good for eCommerce website?
With its advanced feature and flawless hosting BlueHost will surely help you in creating a well-rounded eCommerce website. Its reliability and scalability with a clear cPanel interface make it the best choice for the WooCommerce store.
8. How much does WooCommerce cost?
Installing and activating WooCommerce plugins in WordPress is free. In addition, you have to pay some charges for the extra plugins and extensions that you add for your e-commerce website. Charges may vary from $0 to $200 depending on the requirement.
9. What are the different types of hosting?
- Selecting hosting is categorized into
- Shared hosting – Most of the startups and newly launched companies use shared hosting due to its cost-effective plans.
- VPN hosting – It is used by companies that are observing substantial growth in their traffic and business.
- Cloud hosting – If a business is getting rapid growth in its website visitors then they should shift to cloud hosting. Cloud hosting is cost-effective and describes a hybrid version of VPN Hosting
- Dedicated hosting – Top companies (enterprise-level) prefer to use dedicated hosting for their large website which receives huge traffic. Ecommerce websites also prefer to choose dedicated hosting.