Some people treat their cars like appliances, just taking care of the basics, and this approach works fine.  But people who demand high performance consider the brand and grade of gas, the motor oil’s age, and all other sorts of stuff.  And with regards to websites, one of those important-yet-easy-to-ignore-details is your Web host provider.

One Web host provider is generally not the same as another.  Stoney deGeyter recently wrote about a whole list of issues that need to be considered, from cost to uptime to speed.  Also, think about bandwidth allotment, server load monitoring, space, email, and security.

DeGeyter stated, “You may not be concerned about your web hosting package today, but I guarantee you that you’ll be thinking about it the minute your site goes down or you are unable to send or receive email.  Over the years I’ve used almost a dozen different web hosts providers.  In that time, I’ve found only one or two that I feel I can trust completely.”

So do your research, reading reviews and even pulling out calculators as necessary.  (Think 99 percent uptime sounds nice?  That means 1 percent downtime, which translates to about 7.3 hours a month.)

All the SEO and marketing in the world can’t help a site that’s inaccessible.

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