When it comes to finding the right web host for your business, uptime, reliability and good customer service are most likely to be the first features you look out for. On top of this, however, you also need to think about the amount of disk space you will be allocated, and the amount of monthly website bandwidth you’ll be entitled to.
But how do you ensure you always have enough bandwidth so that your website remains online all month long? Below, we’ve put together five great ways to ensure you have enough bandwidth for your website.
- Ask your web host
If you’re unsure of whether or not your new web hosting package will be able to accommodate your needs, then consider asking your web host directly. By giving them information about the size of your website and the number of visitors you’re likely to get, they’ll be able to calculate how much bandwidth they think you’ll need, and provide you with a free estimate in the process. Some web hosts offer unlimited, or unmetered, bandwidth, which gives you more flexibility and ensures you’ll always be online.
- Look at your control panel
If your website is hosted on a shared web hosting server with a control panel such as cPanel, you’ll be able to log into your account directly and see how much bandwidth you have left. You can find out more about how to monitor your site’s bandwidth on the cPanel website.
- Use a content delivery network
Content delivery networks, commonly referred to as CDNs, deliver your content across multiple servers and reduce the load on your main server. Software such as Cloudflare sells itself on its security features alongside bandwidth savings and is free to use for start-up websites. You can, of course, upgrade to a premium package, or consider an alternative such as StackPath or WordPress’ very own Jetpack, which includes an image CDN for free.
- Get more bandwidth than you need
If you’re unsure of how much traffic your website is going to get, then the best way to avoid that pesky ‘bandwidth limit exceeded’ warning is to buy considerably more bandwidth than you’re likely to use. The web hosting packages at PAC Web Hosting, for example, all come with generous bandwidth allowances so that you’ll never run short.
- Use a bandwidth calculator before signing up
Numbers never lie, so if you want to find out an accurate figure of how much bandwidth your website is likely to use in a given month, then download a bandwidth calculator. This plugin, which is available for WordPress, takes the sizes of your web pages and combines them with figures of your monthly page views to determine how much bandwidth you’ll need.
It’s a handy tool that can save you time and money, so we recommend trying it out if you’re working with a web host that charges for bandwidth in small increments so that you can enjoy the maximum cost savings.
Written By: Mark Holland
I love tech and gaming, and am always looking for the 'next big thing'...