In every business, there comes a time when social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, amongst others won’t be enough to handle the growth of your brand. In order to gather your target group in one place, and generate instant conversion, you start to sense the need to own your website.
Here is the thing, there is nothing wrong in developing a website for your business. In fact, thinking e-commerce is the best way to generate sales for whatever business you’re into. One major mistake you should be wary of however, is going for a free web hosting service.
There is this natural urge to try to cut cost in every possible way when starting a business. This idea is good (since you’re unsure of the future of the business), but bad in the world of web hosting. By now you’ve probably come across lots of web hosting services online with promising to host your website for free. Take this one word advice – RUN!
Before you question our harsh criticism of these free hosts, answer these two basic questions- Why aren’t your product or services free? How do free web hosting services make money? Pondering and researching on these two questions, will open your eyes to one thing – “there is always a catch”. The catch of free web hosts however, will do your business no good.
Here are five basic reasons you should shun the idea of housing your website with free hosts.
1. Unwanted or Irrelevant Adverts
The sole purpose of your website is to sell your brand to your customers. While they navigate around your website, trying to digest a particular information, purchase a product, or fill a form, you want them fully focused without silly distractions. Well you kiss such thoughts goodbye if you’re running on the service of a free web host.
Free hosting service and ads go hand-in-hand. With a free host, your website is bound to be flooded with adverts (ugly irrelevant ads most of the time) you are not going to be paid for. You might nod and say “who cares”, but do you know free web hosts care less if an advert affects your brand? They can even post the advert of a direct competitor on your website. Talk about promoting your competitor. You sure don’t want this.
Your prospective customers won’t take you serious if banners, links, and pop-ups (the worst of them all), hinder them from interacting freely with your website. With a paid host, you’re not only getting rid of unwanted ads, but gaining access to ads you allow on your website.
2. Kills Brand Professionalism
One of the key factors that separates your brand from every other competitor out there is your level of professionalism. Professionalism in web hosting starts with your domain name. Free web hosting services won’t grant you the pleasure of owing your preferred domain name so you end with a wacky web address like “coolcakes.freewebsites.com”. With this, your potential clients are bound to seek the services of a competitor with a custom domain name like “classycakes.com” simple because they sense a bit of professionalism in the brand.
Still on branding, by now you must have heard of custom email address. Having a custom email also promotes your brands professionalism. An email to your business should not be reading coolcakes@yahoo/gmail.com. Instead, you should be using a custom email like cakes@coolcakes.com.
Sorry though, free web hosts don’t offer custom emails in their service, so you will be stock with regular email addresses which are bound to weaken your brand.
3. Sabotage
Like any other relationship going sore, pulling out becomes the inevitable solution. Dream on. Free hosting services won’t let you off easy, and in some cases won’t let you off at all.
A sad reality sets in when you try to pull out of the services of a web host. Naturally, its reasonable to request for all your backed up data from your free web host (to avoid starting from the scratch), but your these guys are witty con artists. Their modus operandi is to charge you a ridiculous fee to get your data. Still think hosting is free?
Apart from the risk of parting with your hard earned money, you’re exposed losing your website at any time. In the advent of a hack on your site, or the company shutting down for unknown reasons, getting up website back becomes impossible since free hosts gives you little or no access to your own files.
4. Crowded Server
In any form of business, there are pioneers (old and trusted companies) and the newbies (rookies). Like every other new product out there whose main objective is to overthrow existing competitors, new hosting companies often offer free and ridiculous hosting packages to clients oblivious to the business.
No one says NO to free things. So, if you’re using a free web hosting service, you’re amongst hundreds of people who fancy free things. What you don’t know is this- free web hosts overcrowd their servers with lots of websites (including yours), which in turns slows down the speed of your website.
A slow website begets high bouncing rate. You don’t expect your customers to wait all day for your website to load when there are other options out there. Remember this- your customers owe you no form of loyalty. They’ll leave you in a heart-beat once they come across a better option.
5. Hidden Charges
As explained earlier, most free web hosting services out there are new companies trying to break into the market. So what happens when they gain desired amount of clients? They withdraw their free services. Common! Who runs a business with no interest of making profit?
Aside from switching up on client, free hosts are infamous for charging outrageously when you try to tweak you website. They are known for charging their clients for additional services like email accounts, website transfer, image hosting, FTP access, and so on, which are basic offers that come with different paid hosting plans.
The Choice Is Yours
A success quotes goes thus – “excellence is mandatory even in adventures am not passionate about.” In this case, your business and its website, are adventures you not only care about, but desire excellence. By going for a paid hosting service, your one step closer in your search for success. More so, paid hosting is not as expensive as you think. With less than $15, you can shield yourself from the bait of free web hosting for six months.
There are a bunch of paid web hosts out there, but sadly not all are reliable. How do you spot the reliable ones? Search for reviews on hosting service providers of your choice. Make sure you’re reading reports from top web developers. A bunch of web hosting service providers out there pay for reviews or generate good reviews for their company. Ensure you scrutinize reviews with prejudice, and trust your instincts.
Domains4less is a reliable web hosting company you should try out. With them, you’re a getting swift and reliable hosting services and low cost.