Reason To Not Use Free Web Hosting For Your E-commerce Site

Yes, free things are fun, but that does not mean they are good, especially when it comes to free web hosting.
It is understandable that most people, especially a beginner in the E-Commerce world want to keep the cost as low as possible. When you just starting your online store, the very first thing you do probably type "free web hosting" in Google search.
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Of course, the thought of using a free web hosting and building your online store with low or even zero cost it's quite tempting, at least until you realize the truth behind it. You will realize there are so many limitations, and some of them actually not totally free at all.


Reason To Not Use Free Hosting



So, if you are thinking to use free web hosting for your online store, here are a few reasons why you should not do that:

1. Is it truly free or not?

While is it true that with free web hosting, you can set up your online store for free, and you do not need to spend extra cost for maintenance, but at the same time you have no control over ads that appear on your site.
Your free hosting provider will place their ads anywhere they want, without asking for your permission first. At the end of the day, there may not any space left for you to put your own desired ads. So, In a sense, a free web hosting actually will "cost" you money. A lot of money.

1. Slow site

Most providers use the same servers for all their free web hostings. This makes all of them load at a very slow speed. This is bad for your E-Commerce site, where speed is one of the most important factors.



A slow website is not only will drive away your customers, but it is also bad for your SEO.

1. Not very reliable

All kind of free services may get shut down anytime they want, sometimes without any notice at all. There is nothing you can do about it.
Let's say that you use free hosting at the start of your E-Commerce journey. Thanks to that, you can save a few dollars. Your shop is still fairly small with less than 20 products in it, so far there is no problem at all. You feel great.
But one day, out of the blue your hosting provider sends you an E-mail in which they inform you that they will close their free hosting service.
What are you going to do now? Move your store, together with all your products and customers data, but to where? Will you have enough time and resources to do that?

1. Lack of support and customization

You will get so many limitations when it comes to your web design. Free hosting usually comes with their own templates. Yes, you probably can choose more than one templates and change the colors or the fonts, but even those are very limited.
Free web hosting also offers none to very limited support for plugins. That is mean, you can not add all the features you want into your online stores.
Not only that, free hosting also lacks support. Most of the time you will be on your own. If something wrong happens and you can not access your site for an unknown reason, you will have no choice but to figure it out by yourself.

1. Limited bandwidth and storage

Most free hosting providers also offer paid package. Of course, the most expensive package has the most benefit of their service. So, if you are the free user, you will be at the lowest level of their interest.
Storage space also will be limited, and some of the free hosting providers even have the right to delete the content of your site as they see fit.


How To Choose The Best Hosting



So, how you can choose the best hosting for your E-Commerce site? There are several important factors that you can consider when evaluating all the available hosting services:

• Makes sure it has sufficient storage spaces and bandwidth

The e-commerce site will need a large space for all its elements, such as shopping cart system, products, and customer database. So, you must choose a hosting plan that can cater all your space needs, and make sure you always can get additional extra spaces for any future development.

• Makes sure it supports your E-Commerce and CMS software

Just like hosting services, there is a wide selection of CMS software and E-Commerces that you can pick, such as Magento, Shopify, Bigcommerce, Opencart, and much more.



Make sure your provider support your CMS choice, so you will not meet any compatibility issues in the future.

• Is it support secure credit card payment?

Security is always becoming one of the most important factors in the website, especially when it comes to an E-Commerce site. Not only the security of the site itself, but you also need to protect your customer's information.


The best and the most common security system that used in many E-Commerce sites is the SSL. SSL certificate works as a digital passport, allowing data to transfer via a secure connection.

• Can support high database

At the first of your E-Commerce business, you probably only can manage to get one or two customers per day, but when your online store has become more popular later, thousand of customers will come and browse your products at the same time.

• Hosting with reliable support

One of the best aspects of an online store is, you can open it for 24 hours a day. People can still visit and buy things from your online store, even when you are sleeping!
In order to make sure your online business runs smoothly, you need to get 24 hours of support from your hosting provider too. Just think them as your business partner. Choose only a reliable and trustworthy hosting provider.


Don't just believe everything they said on their website. Do your research. Check their customer's reviews. How do they respond to complaints? If they have a blog, check that too.


Conclusion

[COLOR=#333333][FONT=Georgia]In order to run your online business successfully, you need to find a trustworthy and reliable hosting provider. A company that can become your partner for years to come.


This article also got published at limecommerce