Offshore web hosting refers to hosting outside your typical jurisdiction. If you’re located in Asia, for example, and you host a website or data on servers that aren’t within Asia, you’re considered offshore hosting. As with onshore hosting, you need to make your choice carefully. This article highlights a few factors to consider before making your final decision about a web hosting provider.
Your Needs
Yes, you know you need an online presence to have a wider audience, which is why you’re searching for an offshore web hosting provider, but you need to know exactly why you’re searching for a hosting provider and the type of content you plan to share. This is one of the most important considerations you can make, as it helps set the tone for the kinds of providers you’ll contrast and compare. Are you in need of a professional-looking company page or a personal blog? A community forum where hundreds of users can interact or something less broad? Consider all these in the early stages to ensure you don’t overspend on a service you won’t require.
Reliability & Uptime
The next most important factor any business owner looking to focus fully on an online presence should consider is reliability. This is at the top of the list because it’ll determine how often customers interact with your online platform. The offshore data center you consider should be highly reliable, with longer and consistent uptimes. Going in for a provider who is offline more than half of the time means you’ll be losing half of your visitors, sales, and profits. That sounds scary and outrageous.
While you’ll never come across a web provider with a 100 percent uptime guarantee, the provider you do opt for should guarantee at least 99 percent uptime. With regard to uptime, you might want to also ask about how they work around utility failure. Do they have resources such as backup generators and UPS systems available to ensure that your site runs regardless of failures? Questions like this are essential.
Space & Bandwidth
Running an online business entails more than what meets the eye. While on the outside, it all seems so simple: Post a photo, attach a price, and wait. However, more work is needed to ensure you meet the needs of the hundreds of users generating traffic on the site.
When running an online community, you need to work with a web hosting provider who can offer you a big bandwidth to cater to the hundreds of users generating traffic on your site. The bigger the bandwidth and space on the server, the easier it’ll be to handle your website. Space and bandwidth are the two main determinants of whether or not you can increase or reduce your pricing system.
Data Backup
Any web hosting company that backs up your files is the best web hosting provider. Backups are great for everyone, whether you’re handling a personal blog or an online forum. It allows you to restore your website in the event of the unexpected. Find out from the companies you’re considering how often they back up their servers to help you make a decision. But don’t forget to also have an archive on your hard drive containing your website files, just in case the unthinkable happens.
Customer Support
Checking your hosting provider’s support is a great thing to do if you want to enjoy the best service and high customer satisfaction. How long does their customer service take to respond to queries? How do they respond? Check all these through the live chat systems most providers offer, and also find out from existing customers if you can.
No matter how small, every business will need to have an online presence if they wish to move with the new trends in technology. With everyone itching to make purchases without entering a physical store, it has become imperative for all businesses to invest in web hosting. It helps to consider the above factors before choosing your provider.