As you start looking for a website provider, you might be overwhelmed by the options. Each hosting provider will offer different features, with many offering some amount of bandwidth, storage space, and domains. Here are the extra features you should look for in your website provider to ensure that you are getting the best deal possible.
1. Multiple Domains And Subdomains
If you have one site, there might be a good chance that you will want to start a second site up. It can be a hassle to have to maintain two different hosting accounts for your various sites, so you should check to see if you can host multiple domains with your hosting provider. Most hosting providers will also have a limit on how many you can host, so make sure that your chosen website provider can accommodate your growing website needs.
Also, it might be a good idea for you to buy up some of the common misspellings of your domain name, the .com, .net, .org, and hyphenated version of your domain name so that you aren’t losing any traffic to a typo. You can simply redirect that traffic to your real website and keep track of it all in your control panel.
2. Email Accounts
Are you planning on running an online business? You might want to have a professional, branded email that is tied to your website. An email that comes from email@yourdomainname.com is much more professional than email@gmail.com.
Before you sign up for a hosting provider, check to see how many email accounts you are allowed to have and the various selections available for how you receive and send that mail. Look to see if they have a web interface, the email service can integrate with Google Apps, and if you can choose between POP and IMAP.
3. 24/7 Support via Email, Chat, and Phone
Websites sometimes go down, and when that happens, you want to make sure you find a solution fast. The last thing you want is to put in a help ticket on a Friday night and not hear back until regular business hours on Monday.
Before you sign up for a website hosting provider, check to see what the options are for reaching the support team. Likely, you’ll want to be able to reach the support staff via email, chat, and phone. You can also test them out and reach out to the support team to ask them a few simple questions. If you aren’t satisfied with the level of support and service you receive, that should be a huge red flag.
4. Website Builder
For those who aren’t professional website designers or have any coding experience, then having access to a website builder might be a lifesaver. Some website hosting providers like GoDaddy and Shopify offer website builders to their customers. These types of website providers will have templates that you can easily drop pictures, text, and other content quickly onto your website, without you having to know a single line of code. Having access to a website builder can save you thousands of dollars and hours of effort in having to create a website from scratch.
5. Free AdWords Credits
Some website providers will help your site get a boost in traffic by giving your Google Adwords credits. Some will offer you about 50 dollars worth of online advertising. Having access to this can help your website in its beginning days as you start to grow your website.
6. Free Daily Backups
When you have a site, it is sometimes smart to plan for the worst to occur. If it goes down or is hacked, it is extremely useful to have a backup of your website stored so you can restart back to a point where there were no problems. Hosting providers will provide this service for a fee, whereas others offer it as part of their hosting package. While you can also backup your site on your own, it is always nice to have another backup done by the hosting provider.
7. Free Domain
As you create your website, you’ll realize that you need to sign up for a hosting service and register your domain name and pay a fee each year to keep the domain name yours. Some hosting providers will offer domain registration included for the first year. Even better, others will give you a free domain name for as long as you are hosting with their service.
8. SSL Certificate
Look for a website provider that offers a free SSL certificate like Let’s Encrypt! Having an SSL certificate helps to encrypt any data exchange that might occur between you and your customers. Sensitive data like credit card information, email addresses, and other personal information can be shared safely.
While you can purchase an SSL certificate, you can save money by finding a hosting provider that gives you this perk for free.
Hosting can be expensive, especially when you consider all the add-ons you might need. Save money by considering a website hosting provider that offers all of these extra features in order to have a good hosting experience and give your visitors a positive user experience when they visit your site.
Our suggestions for the best email hosting are here.
