5 Reasons to Use Free Trial Before Entrusting Your Pages to Hosting Provider

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For those out there who are on the verge of launching their online project, choosing a hosting provider can be a tricky thing.

Here are 5 reasons why it is worth using free trial before settling at a particular host’s and what things you should pay attention to while exploring your website’s dwelling-to-be.

Web hosting is the basis of your website – it is the place where your pages live, so it is up to you to make sure their dwelling will be great. However, you should approach the process of choosing a web hosting carefully: with so many providers available today, including Paid and Free web hosting, an embarrassment of riches is what is most likely to cause confusion.

So what could be the way out? Can you just pick one randomly?

Virtually every hosting provider claims that their performance and customer support are flawless, but are such statements justified? Perhaps, it is wiser to do some research and choose a hosting provider that appears to be most reliable. How can you do that?

Many providers offer a free trial: you can use their services for free or get a refund within a given period if you are not satisfied with what you get for the price (this is often called “money back guarantee”). Here are several reasons why you should use it and what things you should pay attention to when exploring your potential hosting provider.

Before to give you the reasons, I would like to let you know, Phreesite.com host on the vultr.com, You can easily get some free bonus to take a free trial.

  • Make sure the uptime is decent

Uptime is a very important characteristic. It is not without reason that most hosting providers use the 100% uptime claim in their ads: if your website cannot be accessed, it means your audience will not be able to learn the information you provide them with or become your clients. Rarely do hosting companies manage to maintain 100% uptime, but a result of 99.5% or higher is what is now considered acceptable.

When trying out the hosting of your choice, pay attention to for how long its servers are down. To get an overview of what its services are like, use statistics charts that include uptime for several months. Another useful thing is uptime monitoring tools. Use the free trial offered to find out if downtime is an issue for this particular hosting company.

  • Check the CMS and features you need

If you are choosing a hosting provider, it means you already have a project to implement. What kind of a project is it? What features is your website supposed to have? What CMS are you going to use? It is before (!) becoming a client of a hosting company that you should decide on what requirements you want to set.

The trial period can help you understand whether this host meets the requirements of your project. Does it support the CMS you want to use?

Is its software compatible with the plugins and other solutions needed? Make a list of what features should be there and check if all of them can be provided by this hosting company.

Note that there may be different plans, some of which include these features, while others do not. Be careful when trying out hosting services, as there may well be differences in performance (say, dedicated servers and shared hosting will yield different results).

  • Make sure their customer support team is helpful

Having splendid customer support is a must for every hosting provider. If problems arise (and they sometimes do regardless of whether you are a proficient user or not), it is this team who is supposed to give you a helping hand. However, in an attempt to save on customer support, some companies outsource support staff and delegate this aspect to people who are not really knowledgeable. In such cases, all users get is a never-ending series of talks with “managers” in online chats who promise to inform someone who knows more about the problem.

When the trial period is not over yet, try to contact the support team and ask them to help you. Try out all the means of communication available: live chat, phone, tickets… If you see that these staff members are really interested in helping their clients, the chances are subscribing is worth a try.

  • Gather statistics on load time and read reviews

Apart from uptime, pay attention to load time and how it fluctuates. You can use special tools and websites for loading speed monitoring to facilitate the process. It is of the utmost importance to make your pages fast to load, as today few people have the patience to wait for more than a couple of seconds to see website content. The lower it is, the better.

One more thing to do during the trial period is to read reviews and identify common problems. Do people complain about cPanel failing to work properly? Test it. Do they report any other problems?  Make a list of what issues are reported often and see for yourself whether it is really like that.

  • Read terms of use carefully to identify possible pitfalls

Most people skip the ToS and proceed to checkout. Actually, you should read the Terms of Use before (!) signing up and starting the trial period, as there may be limitations regarding further charges and possible refunds.

But even if you have already started exploring this host, do spend some time reading this document carefully. This approach can help you avoid embarrassment: quite often, there are conditions that can be a surprise. Not all ToS’s are tricky and full of traps, but it is advisable to learn what rules there are.

Among the most common surprising findings are changing in prices. For instance, the price tag used in the ad on the main page may well turn out to be some “promotional offer”, and you will be charged much more when the trial period expires. Another very common hidden ToS gem is the rules regulating “unlimited everything”: it is often the case that there are actually a lot of restrictions.

As you can see, a free trial period can be productive. Once you are given an opportunity to try out the features the provider you are interested in offers, do so and do not forget to make notes: such statistics can help you make a decision whether it is just the option you need.

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