Our Guide to Choosing a Website Hosting Provider for Your Law Firm

Your law firm website needs a domain name and a host for it to show up online. Think of your website as a house—the domain name or URL is the address. It points to the location of your website. In addition, for you to build anything lasting, you need a stable ground. The hosting provider gives you that. It is like the ‘land’ on which you construct a house.

There are many hosting providers available for websites, and it can be complicated to try to decide on one. For one, you need to determine if you want to get a VPS, shared, dedicated, or resold one. You have to consider many things, from the technical to the more superfluous. Here are some of the things you might consider when looking for a hosting provider for your firm’s website.

Type of server

Before anything else, you have to know the type of hosting service you need. Shared hosting has many websites residing on one server. This is often cheaper than other types. Dedicated hosting, meanwhile, can be pricier, but it offers more customization since your website will be the only one on a server. VPS is an online service that is a hybrid between shared and dedicated. You can also get hosting from a reseller, a company that purchases from a larger provider and sells the space to customers.

Pricing

There is a range of prices for hosting; you can expect to pay anywhere from $3.99 to $1,000 per month for a provider. Note that you get what you pay for in these services—the price is dependent on the extent of the services of your provider.

Server reliability

Uptime is the most important consideration when choosing a website host. Uptime is the amount of time a website is available to visitors, and the server hosting your site should have an uptime score of 99.5 percent. If the server is down, no one can have access to your website. You lose potential clients if your website cannot be found online, so be sure you have a provider that has a reliable server and network.

Rolling backups

Your provider must always have a backup of your website. They must cover everything from recent blog posts, additions or changes to the site, and updates. People create new viruses and malware daily, so your provider should have a complete backup of your website in case attacks or infections keep your website down.

Security measures

Aside from viruses and malware, hackers might also target your website. It is then important that your provider protects against brute force attacks, distributed denial of service, or other similar intrusions. Your hosting provider should have a firewall and comprehensive security system to prevent these breaches.

24/7 customer support

Having good customer support is necessary for any service. Your provider must have someone on hand to answer issues or questions about the service. Try submitting a query about pricing. When you do, assess the response time and quality of service. This could indicate how quickly your provider is able to respond to issues that are more serious.

Bandwidth

The maximum data that flows between your users and your website is the bandwidth. The higher the bandwidth, the better your speed, connectivity, network, and systems. Many providers claim they have “unlimited” bandwidth, but this is not often the case. Work with a provider who can offer you scalable solutions so that you can have the bandwidth you need when you need it.

Which company should you choose?

You should take into consideration the price range, reliability, and technical capacity of your hosting provider. Furthermore, you should choose a company that is proactive against security breaches. For professions in law and medicine, client privacy is important. You need a solutions provider who can give you peace of mind. You should also take into account the monthly cost of hosting a website. It will all boil down to your purpose—why do you have a website? Your purpose will dictate the hosting service you should take.

For law firms, it is best to choose a VPS online provider like I/O Zoom. We aim to provide fast service, affordable prices, and 100 percent uptime, all with exceptional customer service Contact us today for more information.