Web Hosting OKC
You are ready to take your business up a notch online. You need website hosting that can achieve fast, professional results. Is it better to choose a local company, or a large platform, or do your web hosting yourself? If going local, what are the best web hosting OKC companies? Here's what you need to know about web hosting services and how to choose the best host for your business site.
What is Web Hosting?
In the simplest terms, website hosting lets you put a website on the internet. Both individuals and organizations rely on website hosting as a platform for their websites. Even the federal government has its own website hosting service for .gov sites.
Websites need to be stored on servers. The more information on the website, the more space it takes up on servers. Servers can be shared between many sites, dedicated to a single site, or exist on a cloud that uses multiple servers to support many sites.
Web hosting services offer more than a platform on which to put your website. The best web hosting companies also help you purchase a custom domain name, offer business-related email accounts, and provide ongoing support for your website.
Choosing a Website Hosting Company
Regardless of whether you choose to go with a large web hosting company, a small company for web hosting in OKC, or do it yourself, here is what to do to make sure that you make a good decision for your business.
- Do your research. It can be very tempting to go with the first choice that is within your budget. Remember, web hosting is the foundation of your website and not a good place to make compromises or be rash. Take your time and do your research before choosing a web hosting option.
- Ask questions. If you are planning on working with a hosting company, determine how communication will go now, before you have made any kind of commitment. Ask questions and expect to get answers that solve your problem in a reasonable amount of time.
- Demand speed. A slow website leaves a bad impression on potential customers and may even deter them. After all, there is always another site in the Google search results to choose from if your audience becomes impatient. Whatever your other objectives in planning a site, speed is essential.
Types of Website Hosting
Every website needs a host, so naturally, there is a wide variety of website hosting services to choose from. How do you choose the best web hosting services for your business needs? You can choose a big web hosting company, a small company that offers a personal touch, or do it yourself.
Big Hosting Companies
You have probably seen large hosting companies advertised, even if you didn’t know what they were at the time. These companies offer all of the standard services that you should expect from web hosting services, including hosting a domain name and basic customer service. Sites like Godaddy.com and Endurance International Group are some of the best-known names in giant hosting companies.
Big companies are affordable and available, but there are some serious downsides to working with a giant company. Here are a few things to keep in mind about large website hosting platforms.
Customer Service is Unlikely to Be Prompt
Have a problem? Grab a ticket and wait. When an issue with your site means lost business, you don't want to be waiting around for customer service to help you get your site back online or fix a broken page. Once you finally do get help, the assistance often comes from an amateur who can't do much to solve your problem, which means more waiting and frustration.
Expect Limited Customization
If you are imagining a dynamic website customized to your brand’s look, font, and colors, you may want to look somewhere besides a large hosting company. You may be able to find a drag-and-drop interface or help to create basic elements of your site, but if you want something specific or that is more challenging from a design perspective, a large company may not be able to meet your needs.
Sites May Load Slowly
Your potential customer doesn't want to wait just for the opportunity to get on your website. Large website hosting companies may overload servers, causing websites to load slowly, especially during busy times like evenings and weekends when most of your customers are online.
Interfaces May Be Clunky
Even for those who are experienced in website design, the experience of working with some large sites like GoDaddy can be frustrating. The dashboard doesn't make it easy for you to navigate and pages are bogged down with ads. The best web hosting makes it easier, not more difficult to navigate your site
You May Encounter Technical Difficulties
While most large web hosting sites can handle extremely basic website building, anything more advanced can be a technical nightmare. Moving a site onto or off of these platforms may take days rather than hours.
Do It Yourself Web Hosting
If large hosting companies aren't worth the money and effort, why not do it yourself? You can find a server to support your own site and get online with nobody’s help. By choosing to use your own server you can choose as much RAM and processing power as you like.
Your own server can provide excellent uptime and rapid performance. If you have the technological know-how and are a self-sufficient type, you may be attracted to the idea of hosting your own site. However, there are some things that you need to keep in mind when considering this option.
It Takes Know-How
Perhaps the most obvious problem with taking care of your own website hosting needs is the requirement that you understand the best web hosting principles well enough to do it for your own site. Using web hosting services allows you to focus on what you do well with your business while allowing the company to take care of the details of web hosting.
It is Unlikely to be Your Cheapest Option
Having a server dedicated to your site is one of the most expensive ways to get online. Whether you choose cloud hosting, a virtual private server, or pay the high cost for a dedicated server, you will likely pay more or equal to what you would have paid with a web hosting company. On the upper end, you will pay more than you may have paid for even the highest-end web hosting services just for your server space.
Dedicated and Shared Servers Can Go Down
Unlike cloud servers, dedicated and shared servers keep your entire website on one server, which means that if that server goes down, so will your website. An attentive web hosting company will quickly recognize and address a problem, but if you are busy with other business tasks and are maintaining your own hosting, your site may be down for some time before you realize the issue.
Security Breach
If your web hosting is not maintained carefully in regard to every necessary firewall and protection, a security breach can occur. Not only may security breaches cause your website to go down, but hackers could find important information about your business or clients.
It Takes Time
One of the hardest things for many business owners to accept is that they don't have time to manage every aspect of their business in the way they would like. Even if you have the technical know-how to host your own site, it may simply not be a good investment for your time to do so. Badly managed web hosting results in consistency and performance issues that reflect poorly on your business.
Choose a Small Company
You may choose to support small businesses when you go to your local coffee shop, but is a small company the best place to go for web hosting? A small, local web hosting OKC service like Perfectly Optimized can provide excellent value that gets you the results you want at a cost you can afford. Here are just a couple of reasons that you may not have thought of considering a small web hosting OKC company for your web hosting needs.
Individualized Support
The hallmark of small business is customer support. This is as true of website hosting as at your local coffee shop. Just as the Barista may know your favorite order, local web hosting services can provide you with the individualized support that makes building your website a pleasant and comfortable experience.
Forget about waiting for responses that often aren't helpful. Be in continuous contact and conversation with your web hosting OKC service so that you'll know exactly what's happening with your website at all times.
Attention to Detail
Every page that loads slowly or link that doesn't open properly puts you at risk of losing a customer. Optimizing your website for the most rapid load times with the most striking visuals possible requires non-stop tinkering, experimentation, and great attention to detail. A small company is best at providing this for you.
Hosting Option Without Hidden Fees
You want website hosting that can grow with you but doesn't cost any more than it needs to. A company that understands the needs of a small business like yours knows how to set you up for a plan that will provide you with the hosting that you need but also give you room to grow effortlessly.
Smooth Integration with Other Services
The company that you choose for web hosting is also likely to provide search engine optimization, website design, content optimization, and more. Choosing a company that can take care of all of your websites needs at once saves you time, money, and worries.
Security
Regular security updates and plenty of assistance if you were to be hacked are to be expected with a small company. Your customers trust you to keep their information safe. Even site downtime because of hacking can be very bad for business. You need to know that you have security that you can trust.
Choose Perfectly Optimized for Web Hosting OKC
Perfectly Optimized can be your choice for web hosting. Not only will you get top-of-the-line hosting and website security updates, but you will get access to real-life people that can answer your questions about hosting and your website. We are quick to answer emails and can also help you edit and re-do your website. Fill out our Contact Form or call us today to move your website to our hosting platform today!
Get in Touch with Perfectly Optimized
Let's connect and discuss how our web hosting OKC service can help you and your business. Whether you are ready to switch your hosting today or have questions - we want to hear from you!