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Originally Posted by joseWebline#1 View Post
Is it 24/7 support
This is not relevant and to be honest to you I don't believe any review, some companies are just paying for this, and of course you can have 24/7 worst support so it is useless. Those days quality is not a require like was before if you are "trendy", if you are active on Facebook bull**** you are OK. Of course if you just install Wordpess they, the support, will be OK, but if you need some different setup, option they are lost.
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Originally Posted by joseWebline#1 View Post
Affordable prices,
Irrelevant again. Question: affordable for whom, Bill Gates?
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Originally Posted by joseWebline#1 View Post
data center locations
Can be some good points, if for you depends geolocation.
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Originally Posted by joseWebline#1 View Post
web hosting company that is really good at marketing their brand?
Marketing is the way how to lie the customer until is with you. After the customer's money are in the house it doesn't matter anything. It is like with the sheep in the flock, if one will jump the rest will follow.
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Originally Posted by joseWebline#1 View Post
Which one will you choose?
I think the best option is to have 100% control of your website, vps, dedicated server etc, this you can achieve by unmanaged services and start to learn, is not so difficult, "guru" admins are just showing that is difficult, of course for monetary reasons.
I am giving you a clue. I came in Canada in 2003, and since then for me it is clear what big companies are doing, I mean they are using people with diploma but with no brain, today is more important to have no opinion, just follow.
Any company I called (cable, phone, internet, etc.) I need to call 5, 6 times and to compare information because those information are different, so there is just one explanation, they are not pro. So for me people who are working for Walmart have the same knowledge like people who are working for big ISP providers, etc.
Just close your eyes, and choose a company, with no so big reviews(those will always fail), because for them the customer is not a person is a product.
24/7 support is relevant to me.
If I get an alert from a monitoring service that any of my sites are down at 2 AM in the morning, I absolutely want to be able to contact customer support to get them back up as soon as possible. And I'd venture to state that most hosting providers are capable of supporting way more than just WordPress sites. In fact, in the 19 years I've been in the Internet/hosting business, I've only run across one host with sub-par customer support.
And since when did quality stop being important? Every single one of my clients would beg to differ with you, and I certainly demand quality from my hosting company (and on a side note, I have not yet been disappointed with their support).
I'll agree with you on reviews, up to a degree. I always read reviews with a grain of salt because they're normally not verifiable. I routinely disregard older reviews, but on newer ones, I'll look for trends and try to weed out what I interpret as sour grapes.
Clearly you must not like Facebook, but a social media strategy is important (on multiple levels) to businesses that want to maximize their branding and profits.
Concerning affordable prices
YES, price is definitely relevant. In the context of the tread, it's
implied that price is
relevant to the prospect.
I don't currently have any clients who are not concerned with pricing. I did work for a multi-millionaire a couple of years ago who paid top dollar for content, but those types of clients are far and few in-between.
Data center location can be important
Infrastructure, at least to me, is just as important as the location of the data center. This depends on what you're offering and who your target audience is.
Marketing is indeed exceeding important
Marketing isn't just about converting prospects. It encompasses the entire realm of pre and post sales, and maximizing lifetime customer assets. The overwhelming majority of prospects I've engaged over the past 19 years in this business are experts in their field of expertise, but not necessarily hosting literate. When structuring a marketing strategy, I never predispose prospects as sheep in a flock. Marketing is all about presenting solutions that remedy a perceived need.
100 percent control of your website?
Of course it's always preferable to have complete control of your website, but that's not always possible. For example, the owners of very successful hair salons or restaurants may utilize their sites to draw repeat business through their front doors, but know very little about Linux, cPanel, domain hosting, data centers and so on.
Employing a staff of IT professionals is normally cost restrictive for mom and pop operations, and allocating resources for learning how to manage a VPS or dedicated service may or may not be the best course of action. Managed hosting solutions fill that requirement. In my own business, I don't want to know every in and out of WHM, as I have more pressing matters to attend to day in and day out. The same concept applies to hiring bookkeepers or CPA's. Not every business owner is "accounting" literate.
Diplomas but no brains?
We travel in different worlds, my friend. While you so casually disparage thousands of hard working professionals who work for Walmart and Internet Service Providers alike, the reality is that most hosting providers care more about demonstrated ability. Ask the hosting providers on this forum what they prefer, a diploma or techs who live and breathe this industry.
Just close your eyes and choose a company?! :crash:
That's advice I hope no one on this forum follows.
