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 :