The Ultimate Money Game: Free Vs Paid Hosting

Nowadays, everything is online – from your friendly corner bookstore to the neighbourhood school. Want to know where the nearest bakery is? Simple, just look it up online! Thus, having a website is crucial for any business – be it big or small.

Having said that, only having a website is not enough. It’s imperative that the site has a very clean interface and works well (with no downtime). Setting up shop with the right kind web hosting company is the ultimate way to attain these few, but essential goals. So it takes a great deal of care and diligence to choose the right provider that offers affordable web hosting for your site.

Hosting Soul Search!

A web hosting solution should ideally solve the toughest of your problems, besides serving your basic needs. These would include apt storage, quality support mechanisms, upgrades and domain name selections. It’s a World Wide Web of options, options and more options out there!

Paid Hosting Inclusives…

• Better SEO: Search engine crawlers are better able to hunt down your website, when you’re using a unique domain name, offered only by paid hosting services.

• Improved Traffic Handling: Paid web hosting service providers usually guarantee server uptime which means that visitors can always access the website and you’re better able to handle traffic much better.

• Expanding Is Easier: free to add more pages, increase bandwidth, applications and software . The sky is honestly the limit with paid hosting.

• Better Brand Promotion: With modification, updation and enhanced backup options, your brand will stay at the helm of all affairs, and your business will run smoothly.

• User Experience: Users mostly rave about paid hosting services. There is little to complain about. Assistance is round-the-clock ensuring you’re stress free at all times. And what’s more, loading time is better and it even offers multiple domains.

Free Means Headaches…

• Advertising Annoyances: Free web hosting services, in order to gain more advertising revenue, will run countless annoying ads on your website. These ads are not even relevant to your website, and there is little you can do to control them.

• No Dream Domain Name: They don’t allow users to pick and choose a domain name. It is usually the choice of the hosting company.

• Upgrading Blues: Upgrading can be a gigantic task. Switching hosts can be a tedious affair, with users usually giving up on the entire process!

It seems clear, that the only advantages free web hosting offers is that its FREE!

When Do I Take Out The Wallet?

When you start pushing up the limits of a free service – you’re about to exceed your bandwidth limit, etc – that’s when you should start paying for add-on features or go for upgrades. Be vigilant so as to not fall into the trap of over-paying for services. The best paid services will always make your business look professional.

Author Bio:

With a degree in IT, Kathleen Collins has worked with the top hosting companies for over a decade. Currently she works with Hosting Reviewed, providing an in-depth evaluation of the various hosting companies listed.