If you’ve never had a website before, web hosting may seem like a fairly straightforward process
If you’ve never had a website before, web hosting may seem like a fairly straightforward process. You probably figure that you can just find the cheapest option, arrange some graphics, write some text and be good to go.
In reality, web hosting is a complex choice, with a range of options to suit the needs of various websites, their functionality and their audience. When you look for web hosting services in Singapore, it is important to know common issues people have so that you can address them with your hosting provider and know that you will be covered.
Here's how to avoid the 5 most common web hosting issues.Click To Tweet
Common issues with web hosting fall into two categories: problems with the service you’re provided and everyday technical difficulties.
Service issues
As with most things, when it comes to web hosting, you get what you pay for.
Be wary of free services as at best they will be limited and at worst provide you with a barely functional website.
Know what your needs are so that you can match with the right service plan and maintain a quality website. If you choose a cheap or low quality provider, you could run into a variety of headaches.
Speed
Website speed can either make or break a business. No one wants to wait around for a page to load, rather they will just skip over your company for the next in line on their Google search results.
Web hosting plays a big part in the speed of your website. For example, if your provider has you on a shared server, that could negatively impact your loading speed.
One way to ensure a faster website is to choose a locally hosted server.
When choosing a hosting provider, ask them where their servers are located. The closer the server is, the faster the connection will be. Many of the cheaper hosting options are cheap because the servers are overseas. This will cause your website to lag as the connection has to constantly bounce back and forth over long distances.
Support
Sometimes issues are unavoidable, a result of human or machine error. When you run into a problem with your website, you want to make sure you can get in touch with your hosting provider right away and that they will fix the problem as quickly as possible.
Check that your hosting provider offers 24/7 support and has clearly outlined methods for contact.
Technical Difficulties
As you build and manage your website, you are sure to run in to a few technical difficulties once in awhile, particularly as part of the learning curve.
Clearing your cache
For most technical difficulties, your first stop on the road to a resolution should usually be to try clearing your cache. Basically, when you clear your cache you hit the reset button on your browser so you are no longer working from older versions of the website and download a fresh version.
Did you recently make some changes to your website but they aren’t showing up? Clear your cache.
Did you upload your site to the server but the ‘Coming Soon’ message is still being displayed? Clear your cache.
Website down
There are few things more stressful for a website owner than their site being down.
Sometimes, this is a result of an overload of changes you’ve just tried to make to your site or a change in domain name. Other times, it can be because your hosting service is down.
Choose a hosting provider with a good uptime score and be sure you’re aware of when they have scheduled maintenance.
Your layout isn’t showing up correctly
Layout issues usually point to a problem with the CSS file. To solve this, you can re-upload the website in case you missed any elements of the file the first time.
Managing your website can be tricky, but having a trusted hosting provider can help take the stress out of it. Be knowledgeable when choosing a provider and it doesn’t hurt to have someone to call for the technical issues.