With the increased internet availability, more and more people are starting their businesses over the web, and the web hosting industry has evolved, offering more than was to in the past. Besides many free hosting services out there, suitable for small sites that need the basics, there are other, more advanced hosting services known as managed or dedicated web hosting.
The Right Time for Managed Hosting: Know the Signs
A managed web hosting service is usually ideal for a company, individual, or business that requires a large amount of bandwidth and/or storage. It may also be suitable for those whose website will need more advanced features and capabilities than a simpler or free web host.
Some of these needs are multiple email addresses, as many as thousands of email addresses. Sometimes, a business may need more storage that can support database applications, or queries necessary for the business’s functioning. These servers will provide bandwidth that ranges from 1000GB to 10TB as a monthly provision to the user.
Focus on Growth, Not Servers: The Case for Managed Hosting
If you require more sophistication and are running even bigger applications, then you need to upgrade your hosting package to accommodate these needs. If you are producing video content for your site, you may need to go past the 10TB to get more bandwidth. For very large companies, and if you have an intranet and staff of people accessing your site to load and manage data, then upgrading is for you.
As your website or business grows, so will your need for more features and different hosting packages. If you are unsure of the many features available, or the terminology, since this could be very confusing at times, a consulting professional/representative will help you develop a plan for your website to pick the best features and to anticipate growth in the areas of storage needed and bandwidth. Quite often, the hosting company will offer discounts on these bells and whistles attached to a certain package. It may pay in the end to take advantage of these discounted packages when you know that you will need these features sometime in the future.
There is nothing more frustrating for a web visitor than having to deal with slow downloads from the site and or choppy images due to poor web hosting services. It is an instant turn-off, and most likely the visitor will leave the site and will not return. You have lost a potential customer due to a poor web hosting service. Repeat this scenario over and over, and you could be put out of business, or at least lose a considerable amount of revenue. If you think your host is performing poorly, you can use website speed test tools to find out how long it takes to download a web page from the server.
