What is web hosting? Is it important? Can I just get a domain and have a website?
Hold on to your questions.
I know you want answers for them, and we’ll deliver them.
One of the things I mentioned last time on building a website is getting a web hosting. It is essential to know how much budget you have for this.
Setting up a website is something that business owners do at the drop of a hat. Unfortunately, it’s so easy for us to fall prey to rainy discounts and promos, please don’t. In this blog post, you will understand what website hosting is and what is right for you. Also, we will be talking about the considerations you must have in selecting a web host.
You don’t want to get something that costs you an arm and a leg and doesn’t deliver all your needs. In the end, you’ll find out that it isn’t the right hosting for you. How unfortunate.
We want you to avoid that, so here’s a post that will help you understand what type of hosting you need.
Sale vector created by teravector – www.freepik.com
Look at the image above. You can see the house inside a lot. Some buyers look at the address before buying a property. It gives them the freedom to choose numbers or street names for their home that’s available and according to their liking. They also consider the size of the lot and its cost. They then decide to build a house and buy appliances that suit their needs.
So to understand what hosting is, imagine this: The lot is your web hosting. Your street name or address is your domain name. While the files, resources, pages on your website are the appliances in your house.
Simply put, hosting is your storage for everything that you offer online.
Types Of Web Hosting
Business owners want credibility. They set up a website and get a host that they “think” is the right one for them. Sometimes they win and others they find out they made the wrong choice. I can’t blame them. It’s confusing out there with so many discounted hosting services, and teaser rates. But, there is always a perfect match for you and your business. Let’s discuss first the different types of web hosting.
There are five types of web hosting:
Shared Hosting
Shared hosting means your website will be on the same server, together with other websites.
What happens when you’re in a shared web hosting plan? Well, it means that you share RAM (Random Access Memory) and CPU (Central Processing Unit), which are both server resources with other website owners. If you could imagine sharing a room with tons of people, it can be cheap because you share in paying your utilities.
It can also get crowded, or in internet terms, surges in usage are possible, ultimately affecting your user’s experience. It means that if other websites get tons of traffic, your website might get affected too.
Shared hosting is best for small business owners and starting bloggers, especially if they don’t expect their website to traffic. It’s a great way to get started and building a following.
Virtual Private Server (VPS) Hosting
What if there’s a way for you to have your own server, but it is not as expensive as the Dedicated Server? This is the answer to it. Virtual Private Server hosting has the central server, but it’s divided into a number of websites. It means you won’t have any problem if anything goes wrong with other website owners in your central server. Everything is separated and metered, so you’ll always have your fair (purchased) share of bandwidth and services.
It’s like living in an apartment building. Each renter has their own space, electricity, water, and the likes. You can do a lot of things, but what happens when the apartment is on fire? You get burned. This is rare and for most applications on a smaller scale say under 25,000 visits per month this works.
Dedicated Server Hosting
Dedicated Server Hosting gives you direct control over the server where the website is stored. In this type of web hosting, you rent an entire server that provides full control of the admin and root access.
Sounds good? Of course! Choosing this means that you would need to have the technical know-how on running the server and the operating system. Dedicated server hosting is the best option for big companies and those businesses that get a high volume of traffic. Therefore, with all the perks and technical freedom you have, this comes with a price. If you don’t have all the know how, you can usually upgrade to a “managed” service on your dedicated server.
Cloud hosting
Imagine you choose this hosting, and you have no idea what will happen. You have nothing to worry about that. Why? Because cloud hosting offers you with multiple remote servers. What so good about this is each one of them has a different thing to do. When one of them encounters a problem, the other servers on the network will take your site in and your website -saved.
Cloud hosting is becoming the standard for many companies as compared to the ones I mentioned above. This hosting is highly favorable to business owners who want a cost-effective hosting service. You only need to pay for what you use. Cool right?
This hosting also allows your website to have high reliability and is expected not to have as much downtime due to server errors. It results in a high performing website.
What I also like about Cloud hosting is you don’t need a technical person to manage computing infrastructure. The only downside here is that the price is unpredictable. The cost depends on your usage. As we have no control over the traffic that your website might get, it could become higher. It pretty much takes the server out of the question and your site just runs on its own. Kinda like magic!
Managed Hosting for WordPress
They made this hosting intended for WordPress users. What is so good about this hosting is that since WordPress is vulnerable to cybercrime, they added security measures that protect you.
Besides, it loads faster and is optimized. This hosting also comes with server caching and staging. The two downsides of choosing this web hosting are; you also share resources with other WordPress users; Updates are not always clean or smooth. But you don’t have to worry about any of that because it is Managed. There is a team to take care of all your headaches and answer all your questions about running your site. You can even go to the level of “done for you” which is what every successful business or organization wants. They want it taken care of.
At this point, you must have an idea of which hosting services fit your business. Now let’s dive into the next topic.
Our 5 Top Picks to Consider When Choosing Web Hosting
Renewal Rates
Most web hosting providers offer low introductory price. People tend to fall for this without knowing or catching the renewal rates. It is an important thing to consider, especially if you are looking at the long term. So it’s best to ask this first before you even take their offer. Begin with the end in mind.
Bandwidth, Storage, and Email Account Limits
Bandwidth is the capacity for data transfer of an electronic communications system, according to Merriam-Webster.
So what adds up to the bandwidth? Every time you do a back up for all your files, send emails to your customers and when your customer goes to your website and download files or consume your videos.
Storage is how much space you have for your website content (images, videos, and audios).
Both are important. A good analysis I can think of is for you to Imagine a huge truck (bandwidth) and the sand (storage). Say you have an unlimited supply of sand, and you want to transfer it to others. It will not be possible if your truck is full already. It would help if you got a bigger truck to perform this. The same thing, we must have a huge bandwidth if we’re expecting a massive transfer of data to our customers.
Therefore, we must also choose a hosting company that can offer the best network, connections, and system in place. It is crucial to think about the resources that you will put on your website. If your website is for mere text and few photos, a low cost shared hosting plan will do. However, if you will be uploading videos, podcasts, and other big files, you need to get a web hosting that can help you with this.
I always say ONLY plan for 10x what you have now. Always be looking for ten times what you have and don’t worry about what happens after that. When you get to 10 customers, plan for 100. When you get 100 plan for 1,000. etc. Don’t plan to be what Facebook is today. Start like they did 10x at a time.
As for email, Email used to be popular feature of web hosting. I wouldn’t consider this at all when exploring hosting. There are a variety of free and superior offerings if you have “normal” personal or small business email traffic. When you out grow that it’s time to go to a service that does email. We prefer and offer Google and Microsoft email setup when our partners find that a need.
Security
Since security is necessary, try to get a hosting provider who can offer free SSL. Having one is essential, mainly if your website wants to have high search ratings and especially if it receives payment. You don’t want to mess that up. SSL increases your visitors’ confidence. They like seeing that little lock up in the header:
Also, having access to spam prevention tools like Recaptcha will create less interruption in you and your teams day.
Support
Once on board, it is inevitable to encounter technical difficulties along the way. Choose a hosting provider with customer support available 24/7 via email, telephone, or live chat. Quickly getting support can be crucial for your business.
Backup
Not all the hosting provider does this, but it is worth checking if they also offer this. It entails that they will automatically back up your website files and database daily or even more frequently. If it is not provided you’ll need another solution.
Failure to back up your files will not save you when hacking, human error or fire at the data center happens. In general, your site will go down at some time but having a solid backup plan in place will lessen the headache caused by a hack or mistake.
Recommendation
I’m not sure if it’s for you, but we’re using WP Engine. It might seem biased; however, our company trusts this brand because they satisfy all our requirements. This hosting provider is advisable if you have been in the business for quite some time now and you plan to scale. If you’re a beginner, you might want to consider. We offer managed hosting with a personal relationship.
You might find our Tutorial blog interesting as you build your website.
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EvoDynamic Inc
WP Expert on Development & Support
We, at EvoDynamic, are composed of Expert Ninjas, protecting our partner's websites & provide Software Systems Excellence.
Our mission is to give you freedom from unnecessary headaches, technical overwhelm, and worries by setting up your website, doing the technical support, updates, and setting up your content for your website. May it be a landing page, pop up page, error 404 pages, your podcast episodes, etc.
Your website can be done, partner with us.
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