Preparing to launch your first website? It can be tempting to go with free website hosting, but you might end up regretting that decision down the road if you want to grow your website into something more substantial. To avoid making any early mistakes with your new website, listed below are five reasons why you should not use free hosting for your website.
Website Performance
First and foremost, free website hosting services are designed for very low-traffic sites. A large percentage of these free hosts offer a variety of plugins that can slow down your website performance. When you’re paying for your hosting, you have more control over what features are installed on your site. Low-traffic websites shouldn’t rely on these third-party features, and you have the option to take advantage of premium plugins with a paid hosting service that are relevant to your business website goals.
It Lacks Security
If your website is being hosted by a free hosting provider, you’re at risk of getting hacked. When using free hosting services, you don’t own your website or server; someone else does, and if it gets compromised or goes down for any reason, you lose everything. To avoid these headaches, pay for a solid web hosting service with business-grade security features. A small investment to your website security now can save you from future disasters.
No Control Over Your Website
When you use free hosting, your web host is in control of everything. If they decide to upgrade to a new server or change their hosting service, there’s nothing you can do about it. Additionally, if something goes wrong with your website performance and your site crashes during peak traffic times, chances are there’s not much you can do about it either. When it comes to choosing a provider for website hosting services for your small business, think less about price and more about security and reliability.
Limited or No Customer Support Options
Most free website hosts don’t offer any customer support options. If your website suddenly goes down, you can’t reach anyone for help. Even if you’re able to get in touch with a customer service rep via email, he or she may not know how to fix your problem. With paid hosting services, however, you have access to technical support and even free phone-based support.
Slow Site Speed Affects SEO
Slow site speed can hurt your search engine rankings by lowering your page load time. If you’re using a free hosting service, you likely don’t have control over server optimization and compression, so it’s best to stick with premium hosting options.
Conclusion
If you want your website to rank well, your website visitors to feel safe, protect your website from hackers, don’t use a free web hosting service. If you’re just getting started in business and need affordable web hosting for a small business website, you can still find small affordable website hosting plans on the Internet.
