There are two main factors you should think about when you want to choose a web hosting service. The type of website you want to build, and the type of web hosting service that can handle the need of the website.
It might be very confusing to choose one web hosting company from the many web hosting providers out there, especially if you are new to this field. All claim to be the best.
But what should concern you the most is the reliability and performance of the website or blog that you want to create regarding the type of web host.
A web host is an online service that let you host websites and make them accessible on the internet. When you rent a server from a web hosting company, that web host dedicates a certain amount of resources such as Storage Space, RAM, and CPU for your website.
Here are simple questions that you can put on the table with any web hosting company you want to sign up for:
- Is it easy to use?
- What are the prices?
- What is its uptime and loading speed?
- What are the free features provided?
- Is their support good?
In this article, you will learn what are the types of web hosting, and how to pick the right web hosting for your business website.
First: Web Hosting Types
There are many types of hosting that you can choose from, and each one is suitable for a certain type of website. And to start right, you should understand each before you go to the next one.
For example, a big e-commerce site needs big dedicated resources, while a small new blog can be hosted on shared resources.
Read the web hosting types and determine which is best for your online project before you go to the next step.
1. Shared Hosting:
Shared Hosting is a type of web hosting that hosts multiple websites on one server, the resources of that server such as disk space, CPU, and memory are shared and split between the users on that server.
With shared hosting, one server stores all the files for several websites and is responsible for maintaining them, which means less work for you.
Shared Hosting is ideal for:
- Beginners and non-developers.
- New websites.
- Low-traffic websites.
- Portfolio websites.
- Small blogs.
- Small business website.
- Cheap pricing (On a budget).
2. VPS Hosting:
VPS hosting is a web hosting type that provides dedicated resources – such as disk space, CPU, and memory – on a server with multiple users. Dedicated resources on shared physical CPU.
VPS is a faster, more reliable, more secure, and more stable solution, and you have complete control over the server.
A website hosted on VPS hosting performs better than a website hosted on shared hosting, but, it requires more work.
VPS Hosting is ideal for:
- A website with decent traffic.
- Small to medium blogs.
- Small to medium businesses.
- PHP and CMS websites.
- Afford to pay more.
- More resources and performance.
- Websites with different needs (video hosting).
There are two types of VPS hosting:
- Managed VPS: The web hosting provider does all the hard stuff for you so you don’t need to do any tech work, but, its plans are expensive compared to Unmanaged hosting.
- Unmanaged VPS: You rent the server and configure it by yourself, its plans are cheap compared to managed hosting. But, requires knowledge to work with.
3. Dedicated servers:
A dedicated server is a type of web hosting that is entirely dedicated to you. It offers immense power and flexibility as you get an entire server machine dedicated to you.
A dedicated server is exclusive and not shared with any other customer, service, or application. On the other hand, it’s very expensive and requires more technical experience.
Dedicated Hosting is ideal for:
- Huge website traffic.
- Big companies and online businesses.
- eCommerce websites and online stores.
If you are an absolute beginner we recommend you go with shared hosting or managed VPS hosting for more resources.
Second: Your Website Needs
Creating a new or small website does not require huge resources on dedicated servers, it’s expensive and requires a lot of work, and vice versa.
Let’s put websites into three main categories. Small websites, Medium websites, and Big websites.
Small Websites:
If the website you want to build is one of the types below, use shared hosting type:
- Beginners who want to create websites for the first time.
- Portfolio websites.
- Low-traffic websites.
- Small Business.
- Small blogs
- One page eCommerce.
Medium websites:
If the website you want to build is one of the types below, use Managed VPS hosting type:
- Your website or blog gets a lot of traffic every month.
- Want to start big.
- Expecting to gain visitors quickly.
- small to medium business.
- Small online store.
- Blog with decent traffic.
Certain needs websites:
If the website needs certain web hosting needs and wants to build is one of the types below, use the Unmanaged VPS hosting type:
- Want to store large files.
- Host videos.
- Large media basis.
- CMS and PHP.
- medium business websites.
- Small to medium online store.
Big websites:
If the website you want to build is one of the types below, use the dedicated server hosting type:
- Large eCommerce website.
- Massive amount of traffic
- Blog with millions of visitors.
Third: Web Hosting Features
After you determined which web hosting is better for you and your website, now it’s time to choose the most suitable hosting among each group of hosting types.
If you chose Shared Hosting, for instance, look at what it offers and guarantees before you apply for it.
If a web host provides everything you want for free but delivers a bad performance, it doesn’t worth it at all.
There are many features that determine what web host is good and what is not, especially for shared and managed hosting.
Crucial features:
These features are the most important, if a web host doesn’t provide these features, it’s not worth it.
Reliability and uptime:
The performance of any web hosting is what makes websites rank high on search engines and makes other websites don’t rank at all.
Website uptime is essential for your website experience. If your site goes down, clients or customers will be unable to find you or access your products or services.
As an online business, you do not want to lose your website visitors and then revenue because of website downtime.
If your website is down, there is a big chance your prospects or visitors simply go to your competitors.
Website uptime of 99.9% is considered good, but the more, the best.
Loading speed:
Of course, optimizing a website can affect your loading speed, such as optimizing images, fonts, plugins, and themes. But the web hosting of that website takes a major role in its loading time.
If a website’s speed exceeded 3 seconds, it is difficult for it to appear on Google’s first search page. Therefore, your website speed matters the most.
A loading speed of 2.5 seconds on mobile and 1.5 seconds, and on the desktop is great, you should seek such results.
Customer support:
The web hosting that you would choose must have a strong support system and a knowledgeable team. There are several situations that make it crucial to contact support, especially if you are a newbie.
If you get attacked by hackers or your website is crushed and you want to back it up, or simply you want to know about a specific service your web hosting provides and you don’t know about, you may have to call their support.
Security:
The Internet is accessible to everyone and it is becoming the preferred means of conducting business.
Whenever there is a possibility of exploiting a system for the gain of disreputable people, it will be attempted.
Therefore, the security of your server and your website must be a higher priority when you want to apply for a web host.
Necessary features:
These features are also important to have in your web hosting service. But, they should not make you turn away from a good web hosting service.
Ease of use:
It’s better for you to get a web host with easy to understandable backend interface. Managing your websites, WordPress sites, domain names, and account settings will be easier with such a control panel.
So if you are new to web hosting services, you won’t struggle with managing your websites and other services.
Servers location:
Having a server that is near your audience is important. The closer your website hosting server is to your clients and visitors, the better the load speed and performance.
Some web hosting providers offer many data centers that you can choose from to host your website.
Refund policy:
Almost all web hosting companies provide a money-back guarantee option, but its period differs from one to another.
Most of them offer a 30-day money-back guarantee, while others offer more. This means that you can cancel your hosting plan within this period for a full refund.
Automated backups:
Backup is the first thing website owners should not neglect. Without making backups to your website, you are seriously risking your website. The backup keeps a record of your website’s content.
Backups are important, automated backups are also necessary to automate the process. Easily restore your website to a previous point in time in the event of a crash or a mistake while editing.
Free Features:
These features can cut some of the money you pay for web hosts, and they are not free on all web hosts. It’s better the have web hosting service that offers most of these features for free.
Free domain name:
A lot of web hosting providers offer to register and host your domain name for 1 year free when you sign up for a hosting plan, so it won’t be a problem for you to find such a feature.
Free domain privacy:
When you purchase a domain registration, ICANN requires you to submit personal details such as your name, number, email, and address.
When the purchase is complete, these personal details are publicly accessible to anyone running a WHOIS lookup.
Free SSL certificate:
An SSL (secure sockets layer) certificate is a small data file that provides an extra layer of security between a website and a browser.
An SSL certificate serves to authenticate the website’s identity and encrypt any information provided through the website.
Free CDN:
CDN stands for content delivery network. CDN takes popular content to cache servers where it is accumulated, temporarily stored (cached), and given at future requests.
CDN is essential for your website’s speed and performance. CDN will convey web pages and other web content to users based on their geographic locations, providing a high-speed experience.
Unlimited bandwidth:
Bandwidth is the capacity of data that can be transferred between the website, its users, and the servers.
The amount of bandwidth you have determines how quickly your website can deliver content to your visitors. Higher bandwidths allow website owners to have more dynamic features and content on their websites which can be more appealing to their visitors.
Recommended Web Hosting Services
You should think carefully before choosing the right web hosting for your website. But the good thing is that you can change your website’s web hosting service easily. But you don’t want to go through all those procedures to get your money back.
In general, here are our recommendations for the best web hosting services taking all the considerations we mentioned above:
- For Shared Hosting, we recommend Hostinger and DreamHost. DreamHost review.
- For Managed VPS Hosting, we recommend Cloudways. Read Cloudways review.
- For Unmanaged VPS Hosting, we recommend Vultr. Read Vultr review.
- For Dedicated servers, we recommend DigitalOcean. Read DigitalOcean review.
Read Also:
Make a WordPress Website On DreamHost.
Make a WordPress Website On Cloudways.
Make a WordPress Website On Vultr.
Make a WordPress Website On DigitalOcean.
