5 Expert Tips For Choosing a Best eCommerce Web Hosting Provider

When you are planning to start an e-commerce website, there are several things which you must look into. To begin with, you will have to choose a domain name, make a good and attractive design of the website, make a logo, etc. There is another very important step which you cannot ignore, and that is choosing a good e-commerce web hosting plan. Many business owners rush at this step and fall into the trap of some unfavorable hosting plans which offers only a few features. They suffer a lot from this mistake in the long run.

Choosing a web hosting for your e-commerce website —
Web developers used to search for what is the best hosting service for eCommerce sites? What is the fast and reliable eCommerce solution for business? Is Bluehost or Hostgator good for eCommerce? How To Choose Best Template For Website? What type of web hosting is best? How do I host an eCommerce website for the long run? And so on.

Every business owner must do proper research at this stage and see that the hosting plan he chooses must meet all the hosting needs that an e-commerce hosting site may ask for its full-scale operation.

Companies offering a hosting plan for e-commerce websites offer different types of plans which include basic level, PRO plans, and Enterprise plan at the highest level. At a glance, you will feel that the cost part is the basic difference between these hosting plans. But if you dig deep into the details, you will feel that there are many differences in their features which may hamper your operations of the e-commerce website.

What is the point in saving a few dollars if the plan fails to provide you with the necessary security to protect the banking information of the customers or fail to load the site at a faster speed? If the site loading speed is slow, then many of your customers will leave the site without placing the order. All pans are not equal and you must read what is written between the lines to choose the plan which is suitable for your need. Later on, you can change the plan to a better one, but the migration of the website is really a painful matter.

5 Factors You Should Consider When Choosing An E-commerce Hosting

Below mentioned is the five most important factors which must be considered while choosing a hosting plan for your e-commerce website:

1. Strong security.

As protecting the secrets account details of the customer should be of first priority and many legal hazards may drop in if that is not protected. This is a very important area and you will find that all hosting plans do not offer the same level of security. You must choose a hosting plan which offers strong security features.

There are some plans which offer automatic Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protection. You can go for HTPPS which offer more layer of security than normal HTTP. These additional protection layers offer a layer of security by protecting the information of their customers including name and their bank details or credit card information.

Adding security features are very important in lead pages, payment processing pages, and contact pages and in those pages where the customers will be submitting their information. Make sure that the hosting plan protects the site from the top to bottom and there are no leakages in the site as far as security is concerned. Loyal customers will avoid the online store if they find that their personal information is at risk and they will stop shopping at the website.

You must take extra care if you are running a smaller e-commerce store. The smaller stores face more security threats from cybercriminals because of the lack of security measures. It has been observed that one out of five e-commerce stores faces the attack of internet fraud every year.

You must know; 6 Best Ways To Protect An eCommerce Shopping Site [Online Store] Against Hacks & Frauds

2. Potential of strong database performance.

You need to see that the hosting plan must have the strength of strong database performance. Chances are very high that the users will not only be browsing through your products but may use your search bar to search for a specific product. If you have large numbers of products on your list, everything about your product and the relevant information will be stored in your database. Proper storage and functioning of the database will ensure that your customers will get the product which they are looking for in their search.

In an ideal situation, you must know how many product files can be there and what will be the approximate size of each file. Try to take a hosting plan which is giving scalable bandwidth and the hosting company must have higher plans helping you to grow. Go for the plan which has the very high processing power and see if the plan can accommodate the files which you are planning to accommodate.

Check out; 8 Precautions To Be Taken During Database Backup - Database Security Tips

3. High-performance abilities.

Web hosting actually determines the actual working of your website as well as the experience which they would provide to their visitors. As the website itself is the most important aspect for your e-commerce business, make sure to choose a hosting plan which would maintain your site, drive traffic, and the orders which you receive. It has to be a continuous process and you need it even when your site grows.

The speed of your site is very essential. It shouldn’t crash when more than 4 people do visit your site and browse. If it takes more than 2 seconds to upload your page then you might be losing a huge number of conversions from your customers.

You can find some hosting plans which would provide you with high speed add on and make sure to choose such kind of plans.

If you wish to have guaranteed traffic for your site and obtain orders make sure to look for the following:

• Choose a plan which can provide you with the right resources with which you can now handle and process your orders.
• The plan must provide dedicated storage for memory.
• Allocation of CPU.
• Fast loading of your site.
• High process abilities.

It is important to make sure that your site would handle higher volumes of orders else you might end up being stagnant without having any kind of potential growth in your business. If you do not follow this, you might land up having frustrated customers in your hands rather than satisfied ones.

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4. Find the supporting plan for E-commerce and CMS software.

Though the appearance of your site matters but how well your website works is the most important thing to consider. Though you may find e-commerce software available in the market such as Magento and WordPress which would make your work much easier, all the web hosting plans are not compatible with the e-commerce and CMS software. So, before you choose any of the e-commerce software, make sure to check whether it is compatible with your web hosting plan that you have chosen. You also need to read my recent page that might help you; Blog vs. Website For Making Money, How Blogs Differ From Websites

There are many hosting plan providers and most of them provide one-click WordPress installation options and has WooCommerce which is automatically available and running. There are several designing and building tools as well with the help of which you can now develop and maintain your website in the most appropriate way. Other than choosing the right web hosting plan which would suit and is compatible with your software it is also essential for you to check whether it has full control and flexibility over the software which you own. If you wish to do some custom changes in your WordPress site, you should actually be able to do it.

Get the most out of choosing the best web hosting that is compatible with your e-commerce website. If you choose the right platform, you will see your site running without any hindrance and your business will bloom as time passes by.

Related; 7 Actionable Tips For A Better Performing Ecommerce For Traffic & Sales

5. Customer support.

While choosing the hosting plan, always ensure that the hosting provider must have strong customer support. The website must run 24x7 round the year since customers can log in anytime to buy their product. If the customers always find the website running and active, it will bring in good customer reviews and it, in turn, will improve the brand image of the e-commerce website to a great extent.

Before you book the hosting plan, just ask from them how you can reach them in the fastest possible way? Is it by phone or Skype or live chat? Also, ensure from them how fast they can resolve any issue and to what extent they offer customer support, and are there any costs involved in it? If they offer only e-mail support, test their response time before booking the plan. Without good customer support from the hosting provider, it will be very difficult to run the e-commerce store round the year without any hindrance.

Bottom Line

Starting an e-commerce website is not an easy task and if you do not proceed carefully at each step, you will be in trouble. If you follow the above-mentioned steps while choosing a perfect hosting plan, you will be able to avoid a lot of hurdles. But for God’s sake, please do not try to save a few dollars and skip a few wonderful features like security and high-performance capabilities as they will hamper the performance of your website.

Always book a hosting plan that will not only fulfill your current needs but will also satisfy when your business will start going to a higher scale.