We were inspired to write this article following a chance discussion we had with a friend of ours – the friend in question was looking into purchasing web hosting for a small hobby style website. The basis of the discussion was centred on what qualities we (firstly from the perspective of a consumer/client and secondly, as web hosts ourselves) would look for in an ideal web hosting provider. To cut a relatively long story short everything we spoke about boiled down to 4 key areas: –
1) Security: – The client must feel that their website is secure, regularly backed up and the hosting platform is supported with the latest in virus/bug protection software.
2) Loading Up/Running Speeds: – Isn’t it annoying when you are short of time and the page you are trying to access takes forever to load up? Or during navigation, it seems to take a lifetime to move from page to page?
3) What am I actually getting for my money? : – Am I buying the right package for my needs? In terms of information is the web host transparent in what they offer and how they deliver their service to their clients?
4) Customer Care: – If something goes wrong or I’m unsure of something is there someone who can help me out? Is that person easy to contact and can they troubleshoot quickly? Do I feel at ease when communicating with my host provider?
This was a great reflective exercise for us at Peters Web, originally we were motivated to start up our company due to dissatisfaction with our previous hosting providers. Looking back the root of our unhappiness was in the four points above – our web host fell short within all of these areas!
When we first started out (myself and a friend started up a family history website – www.familyhistory4beginners.com if you are interested in taking a look) we changed our host provider every year due to standards starting high then slipping over time. We felt that there was always a lack of loyalty on the side of the hosting provider which reflected in how we were treated as clients, going forward we wanted to create a hosting provider that we would choose to use ourselves. I was approached by two colleagues around this time for advice about the running of their websites and securing a reliable web host. This marked our first foray into the world of web hosting……
From the beginning we adhered to a strict set of values, we would keep our organisation small and we would always focus on the needs of our clients. To allow us to do this we started by making our service available to purchase at any time which allowed potential clients to acquire our services at a time that suited them best and to be online within one hour of purchase. From here we developed our organisation on several fronts, producing a service that featured the latest in security protection whilst always keeping an eye on developments we could use to further speed up the delivery of data to our clients. Lastly, we placed transparency above all else, we provide exactly what we advertise with no hidden extras.
At present we provide a super-fast, streamlined service aimed at everyone from small scale bloggers up to more commercial ventures. We use Litespeed web server – x3 times faster than Apache server (Apache is still used as a standard by the majority of hosting providers) and use SSD drives backed with RAID if 1 fails your website stays online. As an extra feature, we also have 10GB of quic.cloud’s CDN for free read more about it here. As well as our superior service we provide full support personalised to each client and aim to resolve any issue within an absolute maximum of 24 hours (although this is usually much less!). As a final note, we are proud to say that at present our network has 99% uptime, meaning that you never have to worry about your website being offline. Here’s a link to our live network status – https://petersweb.instatus.com/
If you have read this article and have any queries we are always delighted to chat, contact us via a support ticket to our hosting department (open a ticket) we are always happy to discuss all things web!
Please follow this link to Trustpilot to see what our clients have said about us….https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.petersweb.me.uk
