1. Local Hosting Provider: There are hundreds of web hosting companies that advertise their web hosting and domain registration services online and represent themselves as a local “Hamilton” (or other area) web hosting provider. However upon closer inspection you’ll find that most of these companies are actually based in the United States, with a handful in Canada and only a very select few web hosting companies actually based out of Hamilton (or Toronto, or Burlington, etc.). Now dig a bit deeper and you’ll find that of those few companies that advertise themselves primarily as web hosting companies based in Hamilton, they’re not actually situated in Hamilton.
2. Affordable (not free) Web Hosting: For the few companies that are truly based in Hamilton and offer web hosting services – many of them have yearly hosting & set-up fees that top the $300/year mark, putting their web hosting service out of reach for many small businesses. And for the alternative hosting issue that crops up – “free hosting”. Definitively, there is no such thing as “free web hosting”. Everything comes at a price – usually “free web hosting” means, you’ll have advertising on your website. This is not something that looks attractive or professional on a business website.
3. Web Hosting Provider Accessibility: Another very common trend with “online only” web hosting providers, is the way they are set up to minimize human interaction with their clients. In fact when checking out their websites, you’ll find that many of them don’t even list a telephone number that you can call. And you may have an experience similar to one I recently had…I tried to use their online contact form to make an inquiry….actually, 3 different online forms on their website….and none of them worked! And of the 2 of the local Hamilton web hosting companies that I was able to get a working email address for, neither of them responded to my inquiry email! How’s that for customer service? And that was when they didn’t even have my web hosting business…what would it be like if they were my hosting service provider already and there was a problem? No number to call….online forms don’t work….no response to emails – Help!
If you live in the greater Hamilton / Burlington / Toronto area and would prefer to deal with a local, affordable & accessible web hosting service provider then we’d love to talk to you about your web hosting needs.
