Agencies invariably work on projects of different shapes and sizes to create websites that fit with each customer’s needs. Even if agencies stick to using a common CMS platform like WordPress, websites may use different themes and plugins to enable required features. Furthermore, every website is used in a unique way by the customer and their visitors. As an example, eCommerce sites will often see a lot more page hits per visitor. This is because users spend more time browsing through pages (different products, categories etc), compared to brochure type websites. Some websites have a lot of dynamic activity, with frequent database querying, this can often increase workloads on hosted servers.
Different website builds, and the traffic workloads they will generate should help determine what type of hosting plan is going to work best.
Key factors to consider when selecting a hosting plan for a website
1. What type of website is it? E.g. brochure website, eCommerce website.
2. What CMS is used (if any)? E.g. WordPress, Magento, Umbraco
3. What are the disk space requirements for the site? E.g. Will the site need to store lots of data as the business grows?
4. Any marketing or advertising or seasonal activity planned which will drive higher traffic to the website? E.g. Black Friday campaigns or monthly mailshots with special offers
5. What is the value of the site to the customer? Is there tangible and significant loss of revenue or reputation if the website is slow or unavailable?
6. What are the growth forecasts and expectations for the website over the next year to three years?
Approaching your managed hosting provider with the above information helps them to accurately recommend a best-fit hosting package to meet these requirements and avoid any nasty surprises.
Stay tuned for our next blog post as we explain what a hosting audit is, and why it’s so important during the migration process.