Things to Consider While Choosing a Web Host for Your E-Commerce Website

As the owner of an e-commerce website, you need to consider the interests of diverse groups such as your customers, vendors, visitors, etc. along with your business's interests. It is important to keep the data of your customers as well as your business secure besides maintaining optimal amount of uptime with user friendly web pages. For this all, you should choose a web host that can do all these tasks for you.

In this article, we will discuss things that you need to consider while choosing a web host for your e-commerce website.

Mandatory SSL

Ensure to check whether the web host is licensed to provide SSL certification. This is important because when shopping on your site, customers use personal credentials such as credit card numbers, user-ids, passwords, etc., and this information has to be kept secure to make sure they are not accessible to unauthorized third parties.

Uptime of the e-commerce website

A few seconds of downtime can cause huge loss. Your website should be available to your audience around the clock seven days a week. Therefore, make sure to hire a web host that can create maximum uptime and able to manage traffic at peak times. If you are not sure on how much traffic your site handles, ensure to fix the issue accordingly with the web host.

Good database support for managing data

Today's websites deal primarily with dynamic content for which a database is required. The type of database you should choose depends on the CMS you are using.

For example, if you are using WordPress, it needs MySQL 5.5 or greater. Check whether the web host offers features that are compatible with database support. Choose one that you can handle easily.

Shopping cart support

The shopping cart is the feature on your e-commerce site where customers choose products/services that you sell and they can also use it as a tool to track their shopping activities. The web host should support the technical requirement for operating the shopping cart. In addition, check for the technical support they are offering for shopping cart.

Dedicated or shared hosting?

• Shared hosting might be good in the beginning, but as your business grows in terms of number of visitors, multiple features in the site, etc., sometimes shared hosting fails to meet the standards.
• Dedicated web hosting will allow your site for higher scalability and cross-platform accessibility of the services.
• Dedicated hosting allows you to upgrade the features of your server like OS/libraries/plugins/etc. Whereas you may have to rely on the hosting company for the same when you have a shared server.

Disk space and sufficient bandwidth

• Your e-commerce site is likely to have a large number of pages and images to present products/services effectively. For this, more disk space is needed. Estimate your amount of disk space requirement today, and the probable requirement in future. Choose a hosting plan accordingly.
• As for bandwidth, make sure to take a bandwidth higher than your current requirement. This will help you when there is unexpected large monthly increase in traffic. On the other hand, if the bandwidth is not enough, your site might crash, which could lead to loss of potential customers and business and damage to your reputation.

Quality customer support

Check for the quality of customer service the service provider offers. This is essential as they will help you fix issues with respect to technical aspects of hosting and enable your e-commerce website to work round the clock without any downtime.

Considering these points when choosing a web host for your e-commerce site will be beneficial for your customers as well as to your business.

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