Having a good hosting provider you can trust today is a mandatory requirement for anyone who wants their website to succeed. As the relevance of this service grows, so does the number of hosting providers and packages they offer. You have to be aware of what exactly to look out to see when you require a switch to a new hosting deal. This will allow you to always keep the website at peak performance yet retain the lowest cost.
Note that ‘outgrowing’ your hosting doesn’t necessarily mean switching from a shared to a dedicated server. As the service packages, today are extremely versatile, you might only need to get one with more bandwidth or storage. This means you have to look out for specific details and not let your website drag you down while you are trying to make enough money to pay for a dedicated server.
Top 3 Signs That Tell You Need a New Web Hosting Plan
1. Your website is slow or crashing and it’s not due to some fixable problem
Your website might become slow if it has some problem, like malware or an error caused by conflicting plugins. However, if your checkup shows that everything is in order, yet the website speed testing tools show unsatisfactory results, it’s time to move on.
Note that frequent crashes come into the same category. If they aren’t the result of some inner issue, your host might not be able to keep up with your website. Today you need a hosting service that offers amazing uptime. Nothing less than 99% will do if you don’t want Google to rank down your website due to speed issues and instability. Therefore, it’s essential to use website monitoring tools that will alert you immediately if the speed or website itself drops down.
2. The tools you need can’t be included in your current plan
You’ll need to upgrade your website regularly to keep it competitive. This means adding all most popular tools to increase its efficiency and enhance the design. However, many cheap web hosting packages only allow using specific sets of tools. For example, you might be able to run a product website with a blog but not an eCommerce store.
At this point, you’ll need to decide whether to switch to a new hosting plan or provider. You should be able to see which is best by answering two questions:
- Are you 100% satisfied with the overall performance of your host? (use tools mentioned above to measure it)
- Does your current host offer an affordable plan to meet your needs?
3. You’ve been consistently scaling up for the last six months
If you need to scale up your hosting plan often, this might be the time to get a dedicated server. The change in cost will be big, so assess your business situation carefully. Do you believe that this growth will be consistent in the future? How many benefits can an upgraded website bring you?
Be very thorough when making calculations to answer the second question. Some businesses might not need a dedicated server at all because their websites aren’t the priority. In this case, switching to the biggest shared package from the same host might be enough.