On The Hunt For Web Hosting Atlanta? Arm Yourself With Information

By Author: abhayraj Chauhan
Total Articles: 17
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It’s a jungle out there. As a small business owner, you are faced with a myriad of challenges and a long list of areas to set up and manage. When it comes to your website, and other IT needs however, hunting for Web hosting in Atlanta can be less daunting if you’re armed with some basic information first.

If you are like many small business owners, IT may not be your area of specialty… it’s not what you got into business to do… but it’s one of the more important aspects of keeping your business running. Target the right web hosting solution, and you will hardly have to think about it again. Take a bad shot, and you’re likely to spend lots of time in frustration over outages, poor customer service, inadequate storage, and other headaches.

Here we will provide you with a plan of attack for sorting through what you need to know, and to ask about, when dealing with potential hosting companies.

The non-technical:
* Customer Service: No matter how good the hosting company is, things can still go wrong at any time. Make certain the host is available ...
... 24/7 to handle any issues, big or small. Most claim they are ‘at your service” at all times, but test this out. Try actually calling with a question on a weekend, or an evening, even a holiday, and see how long it takes them to respond.

* Reliability: Is your host prepared for problems, or set up to greatly diminish the likelihood of them? Ask how they handle back-ups to prevent data from being lost. Get a fix on how often they shut down for maintenance. Do they have a server farm that allows other servers to kick in if one dies?

* Security: If you plan on conducting business on your site, does the host provide for a secure server (SSL)? This is a must if you plan to take credit card payments from online customers.

* Legal issues: According to an attorney interviewed for money.cnn.com, If your site allows users to post content, and copy write owners find their work illegally posted, they can send a message to those running the site demanding content removal. Web hosts receiving that message will often pull down the site without question. Be sure any messages are sent directly to you first. The downtime can cost you lots of business.

* Reselling: Some hosts are web service resellers. They don’t own or lease their own servers. This is not necessarily a bad thing. The good ones can often be less expensive than the original hosting company. When looking into a reseller though, check into them, and the real hosting company.

On the technical side
If you aren’t tech savvy, or just want to be well prepared with technical questions for potential hosts, look into these topics and determine what your needs are currently, and try forecasting what they may become. Often times it’s wise to start with more than you need, rather than trying to upgrade. But again, that’s another question you can always ask.

* Data transfer (band width): This deals with the amount of bytes transferred from your site when it’s visited. Some companies offer “unlimited bandwidth”, but be wary… there can still be charges for ‘overage’.

* Disk space: Most sites don’t require much more than 10MB of storage, but do some research and determine your requirements for now, and for when your business grows.

* Server: There are different types, like Windows or Apache that are better suited for certain site activities. For a resource on what these each offer, read here:

Yes, there is a lot to consider when it comes to Web hosting Atlanta, but going in with an understanding of your needs, and with an understanding of what is being offered, can make for a successful hunt.

If you’re still in doubt, try asking other business owners, or reading Web host company reviews.
If you’d like to know more details about web hosting, you can get some answers by contacting us today.
Source: http://avaxusa.com/on-the-hunt-for-web-hosting-atlanta-arm-yourself-with-information/