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.

4GoodHosting – the best Canadian web hosting

companies offers VPS hosting and an impressive

website builder. 4GoodHosting provides VPS hosting

in Canada and is trusted for over 10 years as a reliable

provider for Linux & Windows hosting and Reseller

web hosting. If you're looking for a web hosting service

provider in Canada using the keywords Vancouver web

hosting or VPS hosting Canada, visit us.