Why website hosting is important for your business.

Website hosting is a service that gives your website a place to live and people to visit. As the foundation for every website, it is important to understand what website hosting is and the options you have for your business.

If you are starting your very first website or looking for a new hosting solution, you will eventually come to a question of which hosting service do you choose?

The answer is not very simple and the wrong option could seriously hurt your business online. To avoid this problem, we are going to get into what website hosting is and what the options are for your business website.

What is website hosting?

For your website to exist online, it needs a hosting service. This service stores your website on a computer server that allows access to it on the internet. Without this service, you are simply not online.

When you pay for a hosting service, you are paying for the space that your website takes on the server. Each one is different either in its type or the features they offer you.

The most common features are:

• Email accounts
• FTP access
• Support and maintenance

Your website will come with a custom domain, for example, www.yourbrand.com. Many website hosts will offer email accounts under that same domain. This will allow you to have an email that looks a little like this: [email protected].

File transfer protocol (FTP) access lets you upload files from your own computer to your web server. Find out more about what FTP is here.

A website host that doesn’t offer support and maintenance is one that you can ignore. For your website to be in tip-top shape, its server needs to be looked after. This feature can include 24/7 server and network monitoring, network configurations, onsite backup power supply and regular backups of your website.

Thankfully real server support is not handled by the The IT Crowd.

Different types of website hosting.

When you look for a website hosting service, you are going to come across many different types. They each offer different features, prices and performance. Choosing the wrong one could either hurt your website’s performance or drain unnecessary funds.

Let’s take a look at the five main types of website hosts that you will come across.

• Web builder
• Shared hosting
• VPS hosting
• Cloud hosting
• Dedicated hosting

Web builder.

These come from website building services like WordPress. This is a popular option from small businesses and bloggers as it offers a cost-effective and simple website hosting solution.

Don’t get mixed up between the website hosting and website creating properties. WordPress is incredibly scalable and a website made with it can be hosted using any of the other options even enterprise-level websites.

Shared hosting.

As the name implies, you shared hosting means that you are sharing a server. Your website will be in the same location and share the same space as the other websites on the server.

This is the cheapest option but it does have one drawback. If someone eases website crashes the server, your website goes down with it. This is where your hosting service provider should come to the rescue and as fast as possible.

We recommend shared hosting for entry-level websites that don’t get a lot of traffic.

Virtual private server (VPS).

A VPS is a lot like shared host in the sense that you are sharing the same server with multiple websites. The big difference here is that it removes the drawback that we mentioned before. Your website will be given its own space within the server that is not connected to the other websites.

It’s like living in an apartment. All the websites in the same building have their own room. So, when one room stops working, all the other rooms can still function. Another benefit to using a VPS is that high traffic on someone else’s website will not slow your website down either.

This option is great for websites that have outgrown shared hosting or want to skip the negatives of shared hosting with a little extra cost.

Cloud hosting.

Similar to a VPS, cloud hosting is a more cost effective alternative. It comes with multiple remote servers that each have their own responsibility. A significant positive to cloud hosting is that when one server goes down, the other servers take up its responsibilities until the problem is solved.

The upshot of this is that your website will have less downtime due to server errors. There is also a lot of space for growth since you will pay for the exact space that you use and you can easily adjust that space with your service provider.

Cloud hosting is a great option for fast-growing websites that expect a lot of traffic.

Dedicated hosting.

The name says it all. A dedicated server belongs to your website and your website alone. While offering the best performance, it is also the most expensive option that is on offer.

Because of the amount of space a dedicated server offers and the price that comes with it, it is not recommended for websites that do not have huge amounts of traffic.

Dedicated hosting is for large enterprise-level websites that get loads of traffic. This amount of space is not needed for websites that are smaller or get less traffic.

Choose website hosting with speed in mind.

Website speed is a factor that finds its way into almost every topic about website creation, and for good reason. The speed at which your website loads is incredibly important to its success.

Websites that load longer than three seconds will chase away most of your potential customers. Some people will give up after two seconds. Keep those numbers in mind when it comes to every aspect of your website. From design to host.

Since Google wants to show websites that its own users will want to land on, it comes as no surprise that website speed is a factor to search engine optimisation (SEO). While it doesn’t carry as much weight as some other SEO factors, in this highly competitive scene, you need to take every advantage you can.

Get the best for your website from design to host with Web2Web.

You want your website to have the best chance it has for online success. This will include optimisation from the foundation up and that includes finding the right hosting provider. As digital experts, Web2Web can put you on that path. We design, develop and support websites of all levels and can help you make the perfect choice for which hosting provider to choose.

Put your website in the place it needs to be, contact us today.