Do you own a business? Then at some point in your life, you must have heard about website hosting; In today’s era, it’s no longer an optional luxury. Our always-connected society and the world require that every business has an online page. Even mom-pop shops and local brick-and-mortar stores must be discoverable through the internet. As a basic courtesy, a company should have at least a page with their location and business hours.
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Is there even a need for website hosting?
Netizens discover new businesses, established, small and local—via Google, Bing and Yahoo. Gone are the days when they turn yellow pages to find your business. Not having an online webpage, seriously affects your social media impact too. So, if you don’t have a website, don’t even think of having exposure, money and further business.
Well, businesses aren’t just for businesses; independent creators, freelancers can make one too to showcase their work! Either way, Sampark Infoways has got you covered.
The initial step in establishing your online presence is finding a web host, the company that’ll keep your website’s files on its servers and deliver them to your customers’ and readers’ internet browsers.
Web-hosting services provide varying amounts of email, storage, monthly data transfers and other perks. Even how you pay; monthly or annually, can be totally different. So taking the time to understand what exactly your company needs for online success is utmost important.
Many of these firms offer reseller hosting services, which lets you go into the business, offering hosting to your own customers.
After you’ve decided to create a website for your business, you should familiarize with the wide variety of web-hosting tiers that are available. You will find virtual private server (VPS), shared, dedicated hosting, and WordPress hosting plans. So while you read the blog, we’ll break it up to you in an easy way.
Shared Website hosting?
Shared hosting is a type of web hosting in which the provider shelters multiple sites on a single server. For example, Site 1 shares the same server with Site 2, Site 3, Site 4, and Site 5. The good part of it is that multiple sites share the server cost, which makes shared hosting very inexpensive. In fact, one can find an option for less than Rs 750 per month.
Speaking of its cons, all the sites share a single server’s resources; so, a huge amount of traffic spike on Site 1 may impact the other sites’ performances. It is even possible that another site could take down the shared server altogether if it crashes hard enough.
VPS Website hosting?
Similar to shared hosting in the aspect that multiple sites share the same server. So what’s the difference? Well, a dedicated web-host shelters very few sites on a single server than shared web-hosting. Also, every site uses its own individual resources.
So that means Site 1’s traffic surge won’t have much impact on Site 2 or Site 3. Talking about its price, VPS hosting is more expensive than Shared Web-hosting. You may have to pay around Rs 1500-6000 to have your website hosted in a VPS server.
Dedicated Website hosting?
Dedicated hosting is as pricey as powerful. It is meant for sites that require an extreme amount of server resource.
Unlike VPS hosting or shared, dedicated hosting makes your website the only loner on a server. Dedicated Web-hosting is like owning your own home wherein your website has access to the server’s full power, and pays for the privilege. If any business needs a high-powered site, dedicated hosting is a way to go.
Just like a homeowner has to look after his/her house’s maintenance same way dedicated web hosting services task you with handling technical issues, backend etc.
Many web-hosting services also provide you managed to host. It sees the web-host act as your IT department, handling a server’s upkeep and maintenance. This option is something that you’ll find with dedicated servers.
WordPress Website hosting?
WordPress hosting is for those who want to build their sites on WordPress content management system (CMS). There’re multiple ways to set up your site using this free, site-building and open-source blogging platform.
If you create a self-hosted site, you acquire the most web-building functionality. This involves transferring the WordPress CMS to the server or signing up for a web host’s optimized WordPress plan. With this plan, the host automatically manages the backend stuff, so you don’t have to pay attention to updating the CMS, plug-ins, and enabling auto-enabled backups. In these cases, the WordPress environment usually comes pre-installed on the server.
One can also host his/her website on WordPress.com, but this is different from that which is mentioned above. WordPress.com uses the same code from WordPress.org, but it keeps the server code hidden and manages the hosting for you. It’s a simpler but less customizable way to use WordPress hosting.
Business Hosting
If you’re a business then you should look for a web host that offers dedicated servers, advanced cloud server platforms (such as AWS or Google Cloud), and 24/7 customer support. Depending on your business’ needs, you may require a web host that can handle visitors in thousands/millions and a large number of page views.
If you’re a business who sells products, you could look for a web host that offers a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate. Now you’d ask why? Because it encrypts the data between the web-host and customer’s browser to safeguard transactional information. You might’ve noticed it on the URL bracket of your browser, it’s the padlock. It is always better to spend those extra bucks in acquiring the certificate to showcase your business’s legibility.
Email Hosting
Most businesses who have their online presence sorted, they go more further by opting an email hosting. It’s a useful way for potential customers and clients to send you a message/attachments and vice versa. Thankfully, many web-hosts include email service in the price of their plans. Some web-hosts offer infinite email account creation, while some offer a finite amount. In our opinion, you should want infinite email.
It is at times better to separate your email hosting and web hosting services. This might sound like a hassle but many webmasters think it is smart. In their opinion, this will make sure, one provider going offline won’t affect others and won’t completely take down your business.
For instance, GoDaddy, sells email packages starting at 254.66 Indian Rupee per user, per month.
Some info you need to know
If you’re starting new and not sure what you want, you might as well start small, with shared Web-hosting. If you notice, that it doesn’t fulfil your requirement, you can always promote to a more feature-rich package of, say, VPS or even dedicated hosting in the future.
Make a plan on how much you expect to grow your website, and how soon. It’s worth taking the time upfront to understand and make sure that the host you choose is able to offer the growth you aim for your site as you can’t change web hosts in short periods of time.
Features you would need from your Host
Read the details of every plan to make sure you are selecting offers what you require. If you require a site builder application to design your website, make sure that the web host you are picking comes with a site builder. Most of them require you to pay for the builder as a separate addition.
You would also want a web host with 24/7 customer support. Forums, FAQs, knowledge bases, and help tickets are good, but at times you just need to communicate with another human to get things sorted out as quickly as possible.
Linux is usually the default option when it comes to server operating systems. Still, some of the services offer a choice of an option of Windows or Linux hosting. If you have specific server-side applications that need Windows, such as a custom application written in .NET or a SQL Server, then you make sure the web-host has Windows hosting.
But, Windows hosting is typically more expensive than Linux hosting, especially when talking about dedicated server area. This is not always the case, but this is something you should be aware of as you shop around.
Website uptime matters
The above-mentioned features are valuable in enhancing the over-all web-hosting experience, but none of them matches the importance of site uptime. If your business’s site is down, customers or clients will be unable to find your business or access your services or products.
Usually most web-hosts do an incredible job of keeping sites up and running. Web-hosts with issues are heavily penalized during the review process and are unable to qualify for top ratings.
Summing it up
So, are you ready to establish your online presence or to make it more prominent? Sampark Infoways is an all-round IT solutions company who holds the power to strengthen your digital foothold. From website development, its hosting and certification to its proper server maintenance; we’ll sort everything for you.
So what are you waiting for? Start your digital journey now. Till then, we’ll see you in our next blog.
