For most start-ups, free hosting is appealing as it helps you save cost. You however may be harming your business by opting for free web hosting. Here are five reasons below why free web hosting may not be the smartest business choice
- It makes you look cheap. If people are going to be paying you for services and/or products, they want to know that they will be getting value for the money they are letting go of. Seeing you use a free hosting option may send a signal to them that you might cut down on value just to save some cost and this reduces your trustworthiness in their estimation. In business, if you do not have the trust of your customers, then you might as well not have a business.
- You have to suffer ads: With free web hosting, your provider has the right to use the space they are given to display ads (they usually exercise this right fully) and there is nothing you can do about it. Your content is going to be competing for their attention with the ads on your website. When your clients visit your website, you want them to focus entirely on your offer and not be distracted by ads that have been placed on the site.
- It paints you as an amateur. You want your customers/clients to view as a serious professional. If on getting to your website, they see that it has a sub-domain, it makes you look like an amateur who is not serious about their website. No customer wants to put their money in the hands of someone that cannot be trusted to deliver professional results.
- Limited room to manoeuvre: Free web hosting usually has a limit on what you can do or upload unto your site, they also provide you limited bandwidth and storage space. This means that you will not be able to do all you want with your website. Then in the event that you want to move from free hosting to paid hosting, it is always a frustrating and complex process which you want to avoid.
- Site support: Free hosting providers do not provide you immediate support and assistance. If you experience a glitch that needs urgent attention, you may not be able to get that from your provider and that could result in downtime that may cause loss of customers.
Since the purpose of your business is to make profit, you want to ensure that you are not by trying to reduce your expenses actually losing out on profit. There are cheap web hosting options you could choose for starters and as you grow, you can upgrade according to your needs. A good place to start your search from will be OpenHost Web Hosting, they offer different packages to suit your budget.