One of the best ways small-to-medium businesses (SMBs) can save money is by reducing unnecessary expenses. If you do your research, one expense you might be able to cut back on is your web hosting service.

Common sense would have you think that all you need to do to reduce your web hosting costs is to choose a cheaper provider. Unfortunately, it’s a little more complicated. Would you trust a web hosting company offering you dirt-cheap prices below the industry standards? Or worse, free web hosting?

Hopefully, your answer is “No.”

Let’s have a look at how you can opt for a safe and secure web hosting environment without having to bankrupt your business.

Cut costs, save money

Below are 10 steps you can take to cut your monthly web hosting expenses:

1 – Opt for what you need, not what you want

It would be nice to buy the best package from the biggest web hosting provider out there. But that would be a reckless waste of money.

Just because a web hosting provider is “big” doesn’t mean they’re the best. There are many great hosting providers offering excellent services at reasonable prices. Most also have flexible packages where you can select only the specific features you need.

2 – Ask your friends and family

If you have business acquaintances, friends or family members who manage a website and whose judgement you trust, enlist their help when picking your web hosting provider.

While trusting the opinions of a non-expert might not be the ideal way to go about running your business, someone’s actual experience with a certain provider could be eye-opening. Ask around and see what the general consensus is before you make your final choice.

3 – Look at your competitors’ hosting solutions

You can use your competitors’ wisdom against them. If you think they have a healthy web hosting solution supporting their website, then perhaps you should also get on board.

Before you pick a provider, take some time to study your competitors’ site performance. There are multiple free tools available online that perform this service. Analyze their performance, and if it convinces you, sign up with their hosting provider.

After all, having a smooth-running website with no glitches or crashes will help ensure the money keeps rolling in as you build trust with your clients.

4 – Google is your friend

Alternatively, use Google to do some sleuthing of your own. Searching “Best web hosting services provider” should give you a starting point. Over time, you will find a pattern occurring as the general opinion will lean towards a few trusted hosting providers.

5 – Buy the most-accommodating package

Once you have settled on a hosting provider, choose the package that meets all your requirements – or as many of them as possible.

Try to fit your hosting package around your website. If that doesn’t work, see if you can’t change your processes and site configurations to integrate better with your new hosting solution. Perhaps the new model will be the better way of doing things.

6 – Look for bargains

Coupons, sales and promotions could save you a lot of money. Always be on the lookout for bargains. Just because you’ve signed up with a hosting provider doesn’t mean you can’t take part in their money-saving offers.

7 – If there’s too much, cut it out

If you’re paying for a package with more features than you care for, drop the extras.

If you’ve bought into a scalable hosting package, you might be able to convince your provider to let you cut out the features you don’t need. If not, make sure you choose a scalable solution when it’s time for renewal.

8 – Keep your house clean

You’d be surprised at the amount of disk space that can be wasted on bloated logs and uncompressed media files.

Make it a point to do some scheduled maintenance and delete all unwanted or unused files.

9 – Keep everything updated

Invest in enhanced security. Although it might seem like you’re actually spending more money here, the idea is that investing in increased security and upgrading your hardware and software regularly will save you money in the long run.

Imagine the costs (both financial and otherwise) of dealing with malware that gets to your server and destroys files, steals data, and floods your mailing list with spam. Or worse, hackers who steal your clients’ vital financial and personal information.

10 – Seek the help of review sites

If you find all the points mentioned above to be a bit daunting, you could always turn to web hosting review sites.

These companies have made it their bread and butter to study, review, and rank web hosting companies. Let them do the work for you while you simply consume their reports.

Start saving money today

These are 10 easy ways you can reduce your web hosting bill that you can start implementing today. If you think we’ve missed out on a couple, let us know by leaving a comment below.