Implementing cost saving strategies can be the kick your company needs to really take off. With heavy market saturation in the startup world, there are lots of companies out there doing what you do, making sales and competing for your business. Though sales should be your primary money-making vehicle, finding ways to cut down costs on expenses is crucial to really making your business dollars go far.
Most businesses can find unnecessary or costly internal services and processes that can either be outsourced or totally gotten rid of. In fact, some bigger corporations even have full-time cost saving departments that study processes and purchases to see if anything can be cut. If you’re looking to save on company expenditures, you too should look closely to see if there’s anything you can do without.
Before You Begin
Before making any major cuts, be sure to fully analyze your expenditure reports. Where are you spending the most money? Could you afford to cut services without taking a major fall? When looking at your hosting provider, be sure to take special note of the following:
- All the business processes related to your hosting service
- Features provided, including those on special rate or discount (which you may or not be using)
- Comparative services offered by competing hosting providers
Once you have all the data you need, you can move on to seeking ways to cut your costs.
Cutting Web Hosting Costs
Armed with the necessary information, you can now take stock of your business situation and begin making cuts. Here’s where to start.
1.Operating system
Let’s admit it. Windows hosting is expensive. Linux hosting prices, on the other hand, range from free to mid-range. It never gets expensive unless your company needs customized or large hosting solutions.
At the risk of sounding too pro-Linux or anti-Windows, opt for the relatively cheaper and arguably more secure hosting solution.
2. Cut Disk Space
Most small-to-medium businesses (SMBs) probably won’t have web pages that would exceed 5 GB in size. Even if your website were to have 50 pages, lots of content and even a blog that’s updated daily, there’s no way you’re going to fill all that space. Remember, the first principle of a webpage with regards to SEO is that it should load fast. This means, even if you’ve got images and other media files on it, you will have compressed them to their minimum possible sizes to ensure your page-load time doesn’t lag. Otherwise, you’re doing it wrong.
If you’ve signed up for exorbitant disk space that you won’t ever need, you’re wasting your money.
3. Trim Your Database
If your website needs to save data, make sure you have checks in place that will ensure:
- No data redundancy due to saving the same data in more than one place
- No saving of “just in case” data that you will never use
- No saving of corrupted or false data
- Periodical clearance of data that you no longer need
- Protection from saving of data that is not relevant to you
If you don’t have that check in place, go through your databases and do some data cleansing. You will be surprised by the amount of unvaluable data you’ve been lugging around.
Once you have cleansed your data and put the checks in place, take another look at your database requirements to see if you can’t cut storage sizes or even whole databases.
4. Silence bells and whistles
One way hosting providers draw in customers is by promising new features. They advertise “the latest technology” that can do wonders for you. That’s all well and good if you need it or can make use of it, but paying for services and features that you never get to use is a mistake.
Study all advertised features and see if there are any that might help you. If not, it’s time to move to a package with less flashy attraction that’ll help you cut your hosting costs.
5. Look for a new hosting provider
Loyalty isn’t smart if you can find a service provider with the same packages (or better ones) for a cheaper price. Remember, you are in business to make a profit – that’s the brutal truth. Don’t forget your hosting providers are on the same boat, too.
Always be on the lookout for other hosting providers and the offers they have. If you find one that offers a better solution, then you shouldn’t think twice about jumping ship. Before you do so, make sure you do a thorough research on them. You wouldn’t want to jump from the frying pan and into the fire.
Cost saving is a non-stop process. It will be one that you will need to implement for as long as you are in business. Therefore, even after you have moved to a new hosting provider, you will need to repeat this process again and again.
