If you want a website for your practice, you need a web hosting provider. Law firm web hosting is a critical requirement for having a place where potential clients can find you online.
Here's everything you need to know about hosting so you can choose the right provider and plan for you.
What is Web Hosting?
Web hosting services provide storage and management of your website's files and data. That means all of your web pages, images, videos, and any other website files live on their server. When people access your website through the internet, they're viewing the files stored on your host's server.
However, web hosting companies provide more than storage space.
Web hosting is part of the technology that makes your site run. Your web hosting service is responsible for your site's speed and security. Some hosts provide server maintenance, malware protection, and removal to keep your site in good shape.
Why is Choosing the Right Host Important?
A good website host makes for a streamlined and smooth experience for your visitors. But a bad host leads to a range of problems with website performance.
Hosting is the Foundation of Your Law Firm's Website
Your website is the first place potential clients go to learn more about your services, making the decision of choosing the right website builder crucial. But with so many website builders and hosting companies available, finding the perfect fit can seem daunting.
When creating a new lawyer website using a website builder, there are several crucial factors to consider. One of the most critical decisions is selecting the right website hosting company. Think of your website host as the home for your website. Just like a physical building, you need a solid foundation for your site, hence opting for the right hosting company.
Consider Your Website's Design
Some of the most popular website builders come with their own hosting, simplifying the process. However, if you desire more customization options for a truly custom design, a free-standing hosting service might work best for you. This allows you greater flexibility in choosing a website template that aligns perfectly with your brand.
Your website needs to function and highlight your law firm's unique value proposition as much as possible. Picking a good host is critical to reaching and converting potential law firm clients. A solid website host ensures that people can access your site whenever they need to.
Any good website host should share their uptime percentage so you'll know that your website will be your round-the-clock calling card.
Speed Matters
Your choice of hosting provider will also impact site speed and consequently, its search engine optimization. Major search engines, like Google, care about website load time.
So, sites built with a hosting company that offers fast load times will undoubtedly rank higher in Google search results. This factor alone can significantly influence the website builder or hosting company you choose. Some hosting plans even include perks like unlimited bandwidth, which means your website can handle a large amount of data transfer without slowing down.
Your technical SEO efforts can only do so much if you build your law firm's website on a bad host.
Your focus should be on maintaining a professional website that is easy to navigate, fast, reliable, and scales as your law firm grows. So take the time to consider your choices and make a decision that best suits your firm's needs.
Understanding Different Types of Web Hosting
Considering the myriad of web hosting options available, it can feel overwhelming to pick the one best suited to your law firm. This choice becomes easier once you understand the four primary types of web hosting: shared, Dedicated, Virtual Private Server (VPS), and Cloud hosting.
Shared Hosting
The most budget-friendly option is shared hosting, which involves multiple websites on the same server, much like tenants sharing a building. While this keeps costs low, hosting resources such as bandwidth and disk space are shared, which could limit performance when your website or others on the same server experience high traffic.
Dedicated Hosting
As the name suggests, with this type of hosting, your law firm's website has an entire server to itself. This option provides more control over the server and its settings, along with increased performance. However, this increased control and optimization comes with a higher price tag.
Virtual Private Server (VPS) Hosting
VPS combines traits from both shared and dedicated hosting. While your site shares a server with others, a specific portion is dedicated to your website, hence ensuring better performance than shared hosting. It strikes a balance between costs and performance, making it suitable for many small to medium law firms.
Cloud Hosting
In cloud hosting, a network of servers (the 'cloud') collaborates to host your website. This allows seamless handling of high traffic or surges and provides excellent uptime. Cloud hosting is scalable as it allows you to increase your resources during peak times and reduce them when traffic goes down. However, pricing can be variable and less predictable depending on usage.
Choosing the right type of hosting for your law firm largely depends on your specific needs, such as your website's size, expected traffic, and budget. Whether you require the affordability of shared hosting, the power and control of dedicated hosting, the balance of VPS, or the high uptime and flexibility of cloud hosting will significantly shape your decision.
What to Look for in a Hosting Provider
The quality and services of hosting providers vary from company to company. Lax communication and poor speeds will not only affect traffic on search engines but could also negatively affect the reputation of your law firm brand image. Knowing what features to pay attention to will help you create a shortlist of the best law firm website hosting options.
Here are the most important things to evaluate when shopping for a new website host.
1. A Track Record of Excellent Customer Support
You're paying for web hosting and deserve great support. Your attorney website is the central hub of your digital marketing and online presence. A quick response time from website hosts is crucial if there's an issue causing bugs or crashing your website.
You can comb through reviews from past and present customers to see what they have to say about the host's support capabilities.
You also need to know what kind of support to expect. Some basic hosting plans only allow for support through email queues. But other services provide subscribers with help over the phone or through online chat. This kind of support provides for more urgent assistance.
Checking out the host's support documents or tutorials is another way to gauge the service's customer friendliness.
Clear and easy-to-follow documentation means your web team will be able to troubleshoot without support. It also shows that the provider pays attention to taking care of its customers.
2. Speed and Reliability
There's a lot at stake in your legal website host. Professional websites should reflect the quality of the companies they represent. A bad user experience on your legal website will cause you to miss case opportunities or irritate potential clients. A great web design will not make up for a host with too much downtime.
Bottom line: steer clear of any companies with a poor track record in terms of speed and reliability.
Look for the following metrics for each hosting provider on your shortlist:
- Uptime: the percentage of time your website is working properly: aim for 99.97% and up
- Connection time: how long it takes a browser to connect with a website: 30 seconds or less
- Bandwidth: how much data a server can share with a viewer, which depends on page weight and page views
- Storage space: your capability to store things like images, content, and videos (aim for 25 GB+)
Another thing to look for from your host that affects speed is whether or not they offer a content delivery network (CDN).
Hosts that use CDNs distribute your site's files across servers around the world. Someone who searches for your site in one location accesses your site from the server closest to them. This means faster response times since the visitor doesn't have to try reaching a server in a distant location.
3. Security Measures
Your site's security is vital.
An insecure site puts your data and your visitors' data at risk. The last thing you want to deal with is having a site that's crippled by malware. Your hosting provider should do everything they can to keep your site safe.
Your law firm website needs an SSL certificate for site security, for one thing.
An SSL certificate encrypts data sent between your site and visitors. This ensures that visitors' personal data is safe when they come to your site. Most hosting plans roll this feature in with your subscription for free.
But an SSL is just the beginning.
Look into other security features that may come with your plan. Web hosting providers offer features like virus scanning or DDoS protection. A good provider will offer basic security features at a minimum in their entry-level plans.
4. Backup Features
Your website will eventually encounter errors, and you'll want to roll back the code.
Check to see if your hosting service offers free site backups or if you have to pay for an additional subscription to back up your site. This feature is important and recommended.
5. Migration Services and Options
Check out whether your potential host helps with site migration. Moving your site's content is a real hassle to try to do on your own. Having a host that's willing to help you is a big bonus.
This factor should not be a concern if you're planning to build a new website, though.
Also, investigate whether it will be easy for you to migrate away from the new host to another one in the future. GoDaddy, for example, has a reputation for being easy to set up but difficult to leave. This is another place where real customer reviews can tell you a lot.
6. Pricing that Fits Your Budget
Verify that your law firm website hosting package fits into your overall legal marketing budget. Beware of cheap hosting providers, especially since these tend to have issues with reliability, bandwidth, and other features.
Keep in mind these pro tips for choosing a good pricing and hosting plan:
- The kind of hosting you select will also influence the price, with dedicated hosting being the most expensive of all.
- Pay special attention to the actual price, not the promo price. Plenty of web hosts draw in new customers with affordable discounts. Then, the fees start adding up when you renew a year later.
- Verify the subscription length you choose since the lowest per-period price is also the longest term in most cases. That locks you in for a long period you may not want or need.
- Check to see if the company carries a money-back guarantee.
- Review what's included for free with a hosting plan. A free SSL, for example, is an obvious one that you should expect in most packages.
7. No Hidden Fees
Hosting plans are complicated, and some unscrupulous hosts will try to make things worse by hiding fees.
Look at both the upfront costs and the renewal costs. Many lawyers jump on a cheap introductory hosting plan without looking at how the add-ons push the monthly or annual rate up. Some of these paid add-ons (like your SSL) are free with other providers.
The 5 Best Hosting Services for Law Firm Websites
There are plenty of website hosting services out there, but some stand out from the crowd. Here are five of the top website hosting companies for law firms.
1. Kinsta
Kinsta has many plan options available, so it's important to know exactly what's important to you and what you need. The starter plan costs $35/month and comes with:
- 10 GB storage
- 100 GB CDN
- 25,000 site visits
- 1 premium migration
- 14-day backup
Their more expensive plans allow for more site visits, additional storage, and migrations while keeping the 14-day backup.
2. WP Engine
Plans with WP Engine start at $15/month as an introductory rate for basic WordPress hosting. That comes with 10 GB of storage and 50GB of bandwidth, but the prices to scale up with this provider are costly.
Be aware of add-on fees for automatic plugin updating, page speed boosting, and site monitoring. However, they do have a 60-day money-back guarantee and 24/7 chat support for WordPress assistance.
3. SiteGround
SiteGround is a standout among hosting providers since it offers competitive pricing for new users. Be aware, though, that the renewal rates are costly.
For example, the service lets you start at an affordable $2.99/month. But when that expires, you'll pay $17.99/month for their Grow Big mid-tier plan.
That plan covers 20GB of web space and up to 100,000 monthly visits of managed WordPress hosting. You'll also get:
- An unlimited number of sites
- Free SSL
- Enhanced security
- Daily backups
- Free email
- Free CDN
- Unlimited databases
4. Flywheel
Flywheel is another managed WordPress website host that comes with a nice dashboard and easy-to-use features.
The basic plan won't suffice for most law firms intent on growth, so expect to pay at least $20/month for their starter plan. That includes up to 25,000 page visits a month, 10GB of storage, and 50 GB of bandwidth.
Bonus points: Flywheel's lower-level plans still include free SSL, free migrations, and 24/7 chat support. However, over-the-phone help is only available on their most expensive plans.
5. Bluehost
Bluehost is one of the most popular and highly reviewed hosting providers out there, making it a great choice for lawyers. Their plans start out very affordable, with basic options at $11.99/month, with regular discounts for new subscribers.
The service comes with some notable features, which is they get high marks in a lot of reviews for their free add-ons. That includes things like:
- Free SSL certificate
- Website backups
- Malware scanning and prevention
- 24/7 ticket support by phone and chat
- CDN
Put Your Best Foot Forward with Hosting
Law firm sites rely on solid hosting to give visitors the best experience possible. Choosing a good hosting provider gives you the foundation for a fast, secure website. The right host will also be there to help you when something goes wrong.
But hosting is just the ground floor of building an effective website for your law firm.
You still need an appealing law firm website design that clearly communicates your unique value proposition to clients. After that, most lawyers want to try attorney SEO to attract and convert new clients through Google searches. That's where Rankings.io can step in to help. Contact us for a one-on-one consultation to learn about how you can boost your website's search engine rankings through proven strategies.
