How to choose a website hosting provider

How to choose a web hosting provider

For the majority of my clients, I provide website hosting (as supplied by a supplier I know and trust), but for some website projects, the client wants to look after their own hosting and engage me to build the site for them.

It took me a while to choose the ideal web hosting provider and in case you are looking for one yourself, I wanted to share with you what a web hosting company should ideally have to help you when selecting yours.

Web hosting services

Here is a list of services I recommend that your web host should provide :

  • UK based company with UK based servers
  • An uptime guarantee (ideally 99%)
  • Phone and online support
  • Providing a cPanel Control Panel account to give you full flexibility and control of your hosting
  • Support for the latest versions of PHP
  • One click installation for the popular apps (e.g. WordPress)
  • If you need email then important features include : spam filters, webmail and IMAP email
  • A minimum of 10Gb disk storage
  • Access to at least 512MB Ram
  • Unlimited Aliases (parked domains)
  • Unlimited MySQL databases
  • File manager to give you full access to your website server files
  • Free SSL certificates (allowing you an HTTPS website)
  • Daily backups and the facility to have them restored easily
  • Fast, modern and secure web servers
  • A nice to have is servers which are 100% powered by renewable energy.

Recommended web hosting provider

If you would like a suggestion for a web hosting provider, then I personally recommend the following UK based company :

Kualo