If you’re just setting up a website for your business, you’ll soon find you have a lot of choices to make. You have to decide what content you want to include and how it looks. You have to pick an address – and hope it’s available. But you also have to pick your web hosting service.
Many companies offer hosting, but there are also various types of hosting. It can be a complicated choice. We’re not going to recommend any particular company. Instead, we’ll look at the various tiers of hosting that are available and evaluate their pros and cons.
What To Consider When Choosing Hosting
There are several important factors when choosing hosting. Price is one, as it is in almost every decision. But the amount of storage is also important. So is the bandwidth you’re allotted. And the speed of your hosting package also comes into play.
Storage
Most major hosting companies today offer “unlimited” storage on lower-level plans. However, they do specify a limit on higher-end packages. “Unlimited” has to respect network performance issues, so it’s a little cloudy what exactly it means. However, any package is going to offer more than enough storage for most websites.
A lower-level plan does have some limits as to what you can do. You’re not going to create the next Facebook, Amazon, or YouTube on shared hosting (at least not once it begins to grow). You don’t have access to all the same options as you would on a better plan, but you’ll still have plenty of space for most business website needs.
When you look at more complex plans, you still get plenty of space, though. A properly-designed website doesn’t require huge amounts of space. Don’t be scared off if you’re looking at a plan that has 2 gigabytes of storage, for instance. That’s more than enough for what most sites need. And if you have a lot of videos and images, there are better alternatives than storing them on your hosting. Content delivery networks are the superior alternative in such cases.
Bandwidth
Like storage, bandwidth is often “unlimited” with many hosting packages. But again, it comes with the proviso that it shouldn’t interfere with regular usage of the network.
But what exactly is bandwidth? It’s easy to get confused about this topic. Storage is the total amount of material that your site has. Bandwidth, though, refers to how much material is sent between site visitors and the servers.
Say, for instance, you have a site that simply displays 100 words and totals about 500 letters and spaces. The storage stays constant, but the bandwidth that’s consumed varies depending on how many visitors come to the site. If it’s viewed once, then your bandwidth used is the same as your memory. But every view adds to that total. So 500 views would use a bandwidth of 50,000 (500 times 100) words!
Of course, you always want more visitors. And no site is as simple as containing 100 words. So it’s important to be aware of any bandwidth restrictions that could shut down your site temporarily if you have too many visitors.
This was a huge problem a decade ago, but not so much now. However, it’s still important to be aware of it.
Speed
The speed of your hosting depends on various factors. The actual hardware used to host your site is one. So is the type of hosting. Physical distance affects it as well. Overall, the biggest factor affecting speed is the quality of the site’s programming, but that’s not related to hosting, so we’ll leave it aside for now.
No one likes to wait while their site loads. Many users will give up after only three seconds. So you want your site to load smoothly and quickly.
Better hosting packages are faster because they use better hardware. At the same time, you should make sure your hosting provider has servers relatively near where your users are. If you’re running a business in India, you don’t want your servers to be in the US. And vice versa.
Many hosting providers have servers around the world. They automatically set up your site on servers close to you.
Again, a lot of page speed issues revolve around programming, but hosting is still a factor. So be sure to check out what works best.
The use of more bandwidth can also slow down your site as various users try to view it at the same time. So as you grow, you will probably need to get better hosting to support the load.
Types Of Hosting
There are various types of hosting offered, and each offers pros and cons. Let’s have a look at them. For our purposes, we’re only talking about contracting with a hosting provider. Some companies have to buy servers to provide hosting. This is costly and hard to maintain, but often necessary because of their size or the need for extra security.
Shared Hosting
If you’re beginning a site, shared hosting is probably the best choice for you. And for many businesses, it will remain the best choice.
With shared hosting, one server is subdivided into many hosting sections. Many different people might rent partitions on one server. The CPU, RAM, and hard disk are shared among all the users. Resources are allocated as needed.
This is more than adequate for running an informational or even a small e-commerce site. It’s also the simplest to set up and use since all the configuration is done for you. And it’s the most economical.
On the other hand, you might want to leave shared hosting behind as your site grows. When you get into thousands of visitors per day, things will slow down a lot. It’s also generally slower even with few visitors because the other sites on the same server are using resources at the same time.
VPS (Virtual Private Server) Hosting
A virtual private server is a nice middle ground between shared hosting and dedicated hosting.
Like shared hosting, many sites may be on the same physical server. However, you’ll get a bit more control over the server-side settings. This can help with some aspects of speed and function. At the same time, it’s not as complex to set up as dedicated hosting.
You can also increase the resources that go to your site, although you’ll have to pay more for it.
Of course, the control you get means it also requires a bit more skill to operate compared to shared hosting. But it’s still relatively easy to set up and get started.
It can still be slowed down by other sites that use the common resources, too.
VPS hosting is usually slightly more expensive than shared hosting. But it’s still more affordable than dedicated hosting.
Dedicated Server Hosting
If you need more control, you probably want to get dedicated hosting. As the name implies, you have an entire server for yourself. That means you have all its resources working only for you.
This provides a lot of power. It’s far more than most small businesses need. But if you do require more control, more speed, and more customization, it’s the choice for you.
That does come with the need for more technical knowledge, though. You will have to be able to configure the server from the ground up (or hire someone to do it for you). And if that configuration fails, you’re the one who has to get it working again.
Of course, that level of service means you’ll have to spend more, too. It’s significantly more costly to have dedicated hosting than to have VPS or shared hosting. Again, that’s because you’re the only one using the entire server.
Cloud Hosting
Hosting “in the cloud” is the newest choice and can be a good choice for most needs. It’s more expensive than shared hosting but more affordable than dedicated hosting.
With cloud hosting, the workload of hosting and processing your site is shared among various servers. They are often in different locations, too. That can provide added security since you’re protected against service outages.
It may also boost your speed because the workload is being shared.
The setup is not as complicated as a dedicated server and it’s not too difficult to get started. It’s still a step up from shared hosting, though.
Our Recommendations
The type of hosting you should choose depends on your needs. Ultimately, every site could benefit from being on a dedicated server. But, in most cases, the benefits aren’t worth the additional hassle and costs. Be sure to talk to your web programmer to help assess your needs. And remember, you can always upgrade later as your needs grow!