Web Hosting is one of the more profitable business niches online but it is also one of the most competitive. Getting and keeping web hosting clients is crucial to maintaining a profitable business. Sometimes getting customers is much easier than keeping them and that’s the inspiration for writing this blog post. I’ve just finished switching several experimental and vanity domains from the web hosting company LaneHost, based in Houston Texas – perhaps one of the worst web hosting companies that I have ever dealt with.
For a successful web hosting company service and support is the basis of keeping customers. There is nothing more frustrating than having a web hosting provider that disappears during times of need or has incompetent/unavailable support. Customers are at the mercy of web hosting providers. If you are running an online business it’s critical to have a web hosting company that is reliable and there to support you should the need arise.
Web Hosting providers generally offer a variety of services including shared hosting, reseller hosting, virtual private servers (VPS) and dedicated servers. Shared and reseller hosting is the most common hosting that the majority of small online businesses utilize and these types of web hosting relies on the hosting provider to provide support in times of need. VPS and dedicated servers are more self-managed web hosting solutions where the customer is generally in complete control of maintaining and supporting their hosting needs. Support must be available and never treat you like your business doesn’t matter. When web hosting companies fail to provide support they may find support tickets as shown in the graphic below. Notice the support tickets clearly spells “You Suck – Cancel My Account Now“.
Many web hosting providers use gimmicks and pitches to attract customers and make promises that are often unrealistic. Recognizing that a web hosting company may be trying to woo you with things that seem too good to be true becomes the basis of knowing if your web hosting company sucks. Some of the things that a web hosting company does to attract customers include:
- Pricing that seems too good to be true;
- Offering hundreds of dollars worth of free add-ons;
- Unlimited or an enormous amounts of diskspace and bandwidth; and
- Guarantees of 100% uptime
For example, in searching for examples for this post, I found a web hosting company that offered 5 GB of disk storage and 50 GB of bandwidth for 21-cents a month based on a 12-month contract or 19-cents for a 24-month contract. 
There is no way that a web hosting company can be profitable at this price point and offer the service and support that is required to run even the most basic website. With “691 happy customers”, chances are those 691 customers are on the same web hosting server which means the server is over loaded! That means the web hosting company has committed 3.5 terabytes of disk storage and 34.5 terabytes of bandwidth a month for its customers. It is impossible for the web hosting provider to provide this to customers AND be profitable. Both disk space and bandwidth does cost money and regardless of how cheap both have become, it is impossible to provide the promised level of service and support those customers at this price point and be profitable.
Why anyone would operate a business like this if they don’t plan on making money?
No company can offer 100% uptime guarantees. It is impossible. Downtime will occur and it is a reality in the web hosting business. It’s the extended outages that customers have to be concerned about and outages that are happening on a regular basis (even if they are only for a few minutes). Outages affect your web site’s availability and if you web host is not reliable, it affects credibility and availability. It will cost your business the more outages you have and the longer the outages occur.
One of the most popular places to research web hosting companies is Web Hosting Talk, one of the largest and most active discussion forums dedicated to all aspects of web hosting. Search through the forums for reviews of companies before deciding, sign-up and participate in some of the discussion and interact with the companies before selecting a web hosting company and talk to existing customers.
From experience, I have learned that web hosting companies should provide a balance of disk space, bandwidth and uptime, all backed by reliable and available support. Several other features to look are safeguards such as backups, network redundancy and the ability to have phone support supplemented by online chat. Backups are a critical part of any web hosting and your web host should provide a combination of daily and weekly backups. Backups should also be stored in an alternate location, never on the same server that you are hosted. Your web host should also provide you with an option to perform your own backups. Never trust the safety of your online data and the operation of your online business entirely to your host. You should be deligent and perform your own backups for your web site.
For shared hosting, web hosting that will meet this criteria can be found very easily. Hosts such as HosGator offer a variety of packages that provide a great balance between disk space, bandwidth and support. I have several clients that host with HostGator and they are pleased with the performance and the service they are receiving.
Personally, I’ve used a combination of shared and reseller hosting in the past. Currently I have several VPS and dedicated servers for my web hosting, as well as several reseller and shared hosting accounts that I experiment with. I have experienced terrible web hosting and I have experienced great web hosting. Plus, as a web hosting provider myself, I know what it’s like to offer service to customers and clients.
Drop me a note if you want to have me evaluate your current web hosting company. I’d be more than glad to give you an honest opinion.
