You’ve got your idea, haven’t you? That’s the reason you are looking for a website hosting solution!
You are starting a business, building your network, and it’s time. It’s time to get your company’s website ready. You already know that you need – a logo, content, and additional features for your site. But have you decided where to house your website?
Sure, the first important step of your blogging journey is the selection of the right domain name. The second and most crucial step is the selection of a Hosting Service.
The Gist
Imagine that your extended family has come to the town. You want to see them for dinner, but you don’t want the headache to get stuck with all the cooking and preparation, which takes hours, plus cleaning all the dishes at night. This way, you cannot spend quality time with your family.
You have the other option to go with them to a restaurant, where you don’t have to deal with any cooking, preparation, and cleaning. Moreover, the restaurant better knows how to handle your aunt’s gluten allergy. Plus, it’s a central location which is easy for everyone to find. Ultimately, everything will be organized and sorted. This way, you can spare enough time to talk about some childhood memories late at night.
Consider your family as your website and the restaurant as your hosting provider! That’s what hosting acts like, and it’s important!
What Exactly Is The Web Hosting?
You enter a keyword on Google. Choose the one to click on. Visit a website. Go through the services. Make your purchase. And then, leave!
It isn’t that simple, actually!
When you visit a website in a browser, you can do as such because the browser has downloaded various files loaded up with codes and converted the markup into something you can see.
Just like your computer, these files were stored somewhere so you could access them. However, there’s no hard drive these files are saved to. Instead, they are stored on a so-called server.
Of course, the servers are way more powerful than your laptop. After all, managing many people accessing the website at the same time isn’t a thing which normal computers can do.
The owner of the server rents space to the person owning the website you are visiting, and also provides some other services like website support, server management, backups, malware scanning and so on.
The process of providing this framework to others is called “Web Hosting.” And, the person or company who does it is known as a “Hosting Provider.” They together form a “Website Hosting Solution.”
All clear? Cool!
What’s The Big Deal Where Your Website Is Hosted?
It actually is a big deal!
Indeed, it’s important to have the ultimate marketing techniques by experts when running an online business. At the same time, having a professional website hosting solution too is very important.
The right web hosting service greatly affects a company’s growth. It even helps businesses get some mind-boggling results.
The right web hosting offers you various advantages, for example, technical support and web security that usually lacks low-level web hosting services. Aside from this, you will likewise benefit from restoration and backup features for your online business.
A professional website hosting company on your side is an assurance that your website will be up every time with the latest up-gradations.
Thus, finding a good hosting provider is vital to ensure your website’s data is safe and secure.
Now, all you need is to decide which type of hosting you need.
5 Tips Before You Get Started
- You Almost Get What You Paid For – If your site is a part of your hobby, that shouldn’t make any difference. However, as a primary business tool, going for the cheapest deals is not a good idea.
- Beware of Pricing Tricks – A majority of website hosting solution providers offer low prices at the beginning of their contracts. But afterward, they jack up the pricing when the introductory period ends.
- How Trustworthy is the Provider – Anyone can pretend to be the best web host when they are not. You have to see how long they have been in the business, whether they have any contact addresses, who’s the owner, whether they are making realistic promises, etc.
- Know Your Cutoff Points – How comfortable would you say you are with developing your site? Do you need any external help to comprehend the various ramifications of publishing?
- Ask About The Refund Policy – Always remember that many cheap hosts will claim to offer a money-back guarantee to get your business. But how much they mean that is a totally different matter. When your site is down for someday, ask them if they will give you credit for those days? What about when the guarantees are not met?
What Different Types of Web Hosting Solutions Exist?
Now that you understand the concept of web hosting, how about getting into the different hosting services so you can settle on your choice?
1. Shared Hosting
As the name suggests, Shared Hosting involves sharing dedicated server resources with other users. This includes sharing the physical server and the software applications within the server.
Shared Hosting services are quite reasonable because the server’s cost is shared between you and many others.
Advantage: –
The advantage of this type of web hosting is that you share the cost of the server with many people. If the hosting provider can put hundreds or even thousands of clients all on one server, then it allows them to spread the operating cost among many parties, which makes it very affordable.
2. Cloud-Based Hosting
Cloud-Based hosting refers to a fairly new hosting technology that gives several individual servers a chance to work together so that it may look like one giant server. The idea of this hosting is as the need grows, the hosting company can add more commodity hardware to make an even bigger cloud.
Advantage: –
The advantage of Cloud-based Hosting is that if you get an unusually expansive measure of website traffic, the web hosting plan can accommodate the surge of traffic – instead of shutting your site down.
3. Virtual Private Server (VPS) Hosting
Virtual Private Servers share one physical server yet act like multiple servers. It is a stepping stone between shared hosting and getting your own dedicated machine.
Even though each VPS example shares hardware resources, they are allocated a dedicated cut of computing resources.
Advantage: –
A VPS Hosting averts the problem of having your hosting neighbors bring down your website while avoiding the cost of a dedicated server.
4. Dedicated Web Server Hosting
In Dedicated Hosting, you have the entire web server to yourself. This type of hosting allows for faster performance since you have the entire server’s resources and not sharing with other website owners.
However, this also implies that you will be responsible for the cost of server operation. It’s a decent choice for sites that require a lot of system resources or need a more elevated level of security.
Advantage: –
One of the main advantages of Dedicated Web Server Hosting is that it negates all bad neighbor issues because there are none. No other site can take your resources, pose a security risk or cause other issues.
5. Colocation Web Hosting
When you colocate, you lease rack space from a data center. You get your own server hardware, and they provide physical security, power, cooling, and an internet uplink. This implies that you are in charge of your server software, back procedures, data storage, etc.
Colocation Web Hosting is probably not worth the investment unless you have the technical know-how in-house.
Advantage: –
An advantage of this type of hosting is that you have full control over the web server. You can install any scripts or applications that you need.
Shared Hosting – Best For Beginners
If you are a neophyte building his/her first website, Shared Hosting is your choice. It is the most basic and cheapest website hosting solution available.
As discussed above, with shared hosting, your website’s data is stored on a single server along with many others, meaning that the total amount of resources is shared among everyone on the server.
It’s perfect for beginners with limited tech knowledge, low-traffic websites, and who don’t have a lot of content on their websites.
When choosing a website hosting provider, the many choices available can make you feel slightly overwhelmed.
Sure, finding the right web host isn’t an easy thing, as there are a lot of factors to consider. You may easily get stuck with some Question Marks (?) as to which one is the right for you.
So, if you are searching for the best hosting company, I’ve got you covered with recommendations and advice.
1. HostGator
If you are searching for a budget-friendly website hosting solution, look no further than HostGator. The best thing about this hosting provider is that its basic plan is unrestricted in many respects. There are no restrictions on bandwidth, MySQL databases, subdomains, FTP, and email accounts.
Also, you get cPanel-based management of your website. Other commendable benefits include 24*7 customer support and $200 worth of Google and Bing Ads credits.
Further benefits include a 45-day money-back guarantee and free transfers for new accounts within the first month after you have signed up.
Considering the minimal impact on your wallet, there’s a lot to like here, with pricing as low as $2.75 per month.
2. GoDaddy
This US-based web hosting company is one of the largest in this game and probably the best-known one. Not only this, but GoDaddy is also one of the biggest domain name registrars in the world, with tens of millions of domain names in its portfolio.
GoDaddy’s cheapest web hosting package is decently kitted at $1.39 monthly when you sign up for a year.
Apart from this, the hosting provider offers free backup and restore, free MS Office 365 Business Email for a year, an uptime guarantee, unlimited storage, and unlimited bandwidth with a free domain name with the annual plan.
3. Bluehost
Bluehost offers basic shared hosting from $2.95 monthly, with WordPress plans starting at the same price every month.
You get an automated setup for WordPress, apart from other popular apps, through a Mojo Marketplace-powered system. Additionally, a cPanel-based area allows expert users to tweak things.
There’s good customer support on offer, and the result is a mix of user-centric aspects alongside a good amount of power and potential tweaking for more advanced users.
4. InMotion
This popular web host has been in this business for over 15 years. It offers an impressive array of plans, including shared hosting, that starts from just a few dollars per month.
A cherry on the cake is that this hosting provider bundles some pretty neat extras into its plans, including malware and DDoS protection, spam-safe email, and a system of basic backups.
InMotion offers both cPanel and Softaculous panels with its hosting, and the other strong suit is some top-notch technical support if you get stuck with anything.
This host’s performance levels were well above average for those who wish to see fast-loading websites.
In short, there’s a whole bunch of deals to like here with attractive pricing. Even more impressive is a 90-day money-back guarantee if you fail to be satisfied with the services offered.
5. SiteGround
SiteGround is a popular hosting service with excellent customer support and the latest software on its servers, providing the newest technology in speed performance.
On top of anything, SiteGround’s WordPress caching solution speeds up a website’s performance several times.
Also, the website host’s customer support is available 24*7 on different channels with knowledgeable support agents capable of handling questions beyond web hosting.
It offers a one-click installation facility of the most popular CMS, free migration from previous hosts, free CDN, SSL, and daily backups.
The Big Picture
The bottom line is that you have to look at many different elements to determine whether a web host is right for you.
Read hosting reviews to discover what others think about that host. Then, run your own test and ask your own questions. Trust your gut instincts when making the final decision about which host is most suited to your needs.
Never be too lazy or afraid to switch hosts when things turn bad. Even a great host can grow too fast or all under new management and become the opposite.
If you’ve given a host a few months for things to settle and things aren’t improving, then it’s probably time to shop around for another website hosting solution.
