Building websites always involves hard work filled with lines of code, administration, maintenance, design, and a lot of patience. However, as a web developer, finding the ideal hosting to host your and your clients' sites is crucial to making your job easier, instead of making it a terribly complicated task with emergencies that come out of nowhere.
While there is no specific set of rules for choosing the best solution, there are important details you can plan and implement before making the decision to engage with any company and your client, and thus maintain a professional profile that results in a good recommendation or long-term relationship.
1. Decide the best way to host your site : Some clients are very proactive, that's ine philippines business email list vitable. Some will want much more control over access and features, while others will simply leave the entire package to you to handle all the details.
If you have a large client base, one option to consider might be to host their sites within your own hosting package, as many packages allow you to add an almost unlimited number of domains: this way you will have much more control and will be able to manage those small projects that will not consume so many resources and might not warrant your own hosting.
Now, be careful, as any technical issues that occur with the site will be your responsibility and not that of the hosting provider, because that will be you in their eyes.
If clients need to be constantly accessing functions such as CPanel, email management or making more advanced movements at the database level, it is advisable that you guide them so that they themselves are the ones who hire their hosting service based on the recommendation that you make to them.
This way, they will be able to have all kinds of access and come to you in case they need any specific advice in addition to the development service you are already providing them, and you will have the peace of mind that this hosting is one that you are already familiar with.
2. Plan the scope of the project correctly with the client: many times the reason why a good number of misunderstandings or disagreements arise throughout the project with clients is because we did not understand or they did not express exactly what they wanted for their website.
Ultimately, your job as a developer is to guide your clients to obtain the best possible solutions, and that means explaining in detail what is involved in hiring any of the services they have in mind:
What is the scope of the project in the short, medium or long term?
What type of maintenance will the site require and how often?
What kind of access does the client or their colleagues need to operate the site once development is complete?
Which future changes would require an additional quote and which are included in the project.
3. Research the hosting company thoroughly – Your clients will usually try to stay as far away from any technical issues as possible, which makes you the provider that will solve all problems – no matter how big or small they may be.
If there is a specific issue on the server side that needs to be fixed as quickly as possible, will the hosting company respond to your call for help as quickly as you did to your clients? Knowing that you can count on a technical support team at any time from the hosting company is essential.
Generally, researching online and reading reviews on different sites about each of the companies you plan to hire is the safest way to go.
Consider both the good and bad comments and, based on your own judgment, give them a rating that will help you establish a baseline for comparison. Remember that, as in all business areas, there are companies that stand out for their quality.
I think we can bring all these points together into one very important one: transparency and relationship with the client. Wanting to maybe add one more line to the quote by including hosting may sound good on a monetary level, but try to see the whole picture of what this can mean on a long-term relationship level, technical difficulties in case something gets out of hand and, in the worst case, the client deciding to go elsewhere with their site.
Give them confidence in each of the points we have seen and this will surely make your relationship stronger: you will stop being a supplier and become a business partner in their eyes.
