Choosing the best web hosting company in Uganda is a hard task since there are a couple of them today. Whether you want to host a personal website, business, or your organization’s website, the following will help you decide on the best web hosting company in Uganda.
The Price
Price is an important consideration more especially when you are starting out. You don’t want to burn a lot of money in hosting if a cheaper option is available. With less than $2 USD monthly, you are able to host your website.
At webhosting256 we charge 50,000 ugx for the starter package which is at least 2 GB disk space, 100 Email accounts, cpanel etc. Roughly 1.5USD which is 4166ugx can host a website monthly.
Note: The price of hosting space does not include domain name. Most hosting companies offer domain name registration as well so it’s important to get one that sells both for easy management.
Server reliability
In addition to price we all need reliable service providers, don’t we? And web hosting is no different. Customers on the other end will trust a brand if its website is readily available and can provide them with the information they need at all times.
How to tell a web hosting company is reliable.
- Look if they have big brands in their customer base.
- Search for them on google to see their rating.
- Send them a message on social media or other means to see their response time.
- Ask one of their clients online.
- Check their location details and how long they have stayed in business.
One of the most important aspects while choosing a web hosting company in Uganda, in particular, is support. Most hosting companies don’t have a standby support team to troubleshoot problems whenever they occur.
The support ticketing systems and advanced technical knowledge should be available all the time to tackle customer queries.
At webhosting256, our biggest compliment from customers is that we provide standby customer support and give them a reason to trust us even to troubleshoot their code or technologies whenever need arises.
Things to check out on customer support
Customer Support
- Contact information. There should be business contact information such as email addresses and telephone contacts either on the website header, footer or contact us link.
- Location information: The business location should be available on the website. For those that have branches, their branch location should be indicated with town, street, building and office numbers.
- Social Media Accounts. These days’ social media is very important in providing another communication medium between a business and its customers. A business that is customer centric will reply to a query on social media much faster and that as well can be an indicator of a company with great customer service.
Security
Consider security as important as the website its self because if you don’t have security then you don’t have a website literally. Look for a web hosting company with secure and reliable servers.
However, security these days is not only required from just the provider but the customer too. For example, wordpress users are required to update it and its plugins regularly since it poses a threat of being hacked.
Strong security measures should be implemented on both ends to cut out threats on the web.
Security Measures you can implement to secure your website are:-
- Install SSL certificate. SSL stands for secure socket layer. It is used to encrypt data during communication. check ssl certificate prices here
- Use strong Passwords. For example use of numeric and alfa, numeric characters are recommended. use a password with more than 10 characters to be safe.
- Change Password regularly. Change password either weekly, monthly, or quarterly.
- Use Two Factor Authentication. It provides another layer of security in addition to username and password. You login using a code sent to your mobile device.
Technologies Supported
You should look for a web hosting company whose servers support the technology of your site or application.
At webhosting256 we support a wide range of technologies eg PHP, JS, CSS, ReactJS, Python, CMS eg WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla.
For technologies like PHP find out if the version of your application or website is compatible with the version the server supports.
Easy to use control panel
Also, a good web hosting company should have an easy to use control panel that doesn’t give users headache. Cpanel is the most popular control panel for most shared hosting platforms. It is easy to use and has more features required by website owners. Some of the most important features are;-
- Emails feature: you are able to configure company email addresses eg support@webhosting256.com
- Softaculous app installer. Helps you install scripts in cpanel eg management web applications, CMS like wordpress and joomla, hosting management software eg whmcs, E-commerce like magento abantecart etc
- Files management. Eg file manager, inodes and Disk usage statistics.
- Domains. Where you configure addon domains, subdomains, domain redirects etc.
Scalability
A good web hosting company should have a scaling plan available to the customer. When a business is starting, it usually requires small resources in terms of processing power but when it grows and therefore its customer base increase, then it may need to expand.
A hosting company should help in expansion. At webhosting256 we have starter packages and advanced packages for growing businesses and you can scale at any point when you feel it’s necessary. We have:-
- Shared hosting plans
- VPS plans
- Dedicated servers
Server Speed
Research says that website users spend 5-10 seconds waiting for a page to load. Server’s response time In addition to other procedure can improve a website speed.
A website that loads faster is preferred more than one that is slow.
Website speed is also a factor in search rankings by major search engines, slow ones have high bouncing rates which also affects their ranking in search engines.
Disk space and bandwidth
Similarly, disk space and bandwidth are important considerations. Choose a web hosting company with better space and bandwidth according to your requirements.
Knowing such information at the start will help you make an informed decision. Remember you will keep updating the site with images and emails with attachments also fill space so a reasonable cheap yet bigger first package is important.