Finding the best web host

When looking for the best web host you can find, the next most important feature is support.

2. Customer Support

You may think your needs are simple and that will not need much support after you set up your web hosting. We can assure you this will not be the case.

Even the best web host will encounter problems. Personally, in the last year, we have experienced these issues with the various web hosting services we use - missing statistics, email failures, the need to set up shell access, credit card renewal failures, and lack of information on how to retrieve a domain name. None of these were very serious, but in every case we needed personal attention from hosting staff.

Web hosting is different to a normal business in that you may be in different time zone, country or continent to a hosting service which is critical to your success. You need to be sure that when you have a problem, it will be responded to by chat, email or phone whatever time of day it is. In other words, you need to see that there is 24/7 support before you sign up. The best web hosts will have this.

Remember, Murphy's law states that if something can go wrong, it will go wrong. We once set up an expensive Adwords campaign for a new product, and our site's server went down the minute it went live. You need to be sure your host will be on to a problem like this without delay.

How do you know how good a hosting services support will be if you have never used them?

You can try a test email at weekends or late at night, and check how quickly they respond. If you have some technical knowledge, ask a technical question and see how much they know. Some companies put much more money into sales than into support, and you want to avoid these ones. The best web host services will have solid 24/7 technical support. We have found that these are normally not the cheapest, but if you are serious about your site or trying to build a web business, you need to be confident any issues or questions will be responded to fast.

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