Do you know the reason why it is crucial to choose among different web hosting services and why it is necessary to have some knowledge regarding web hosting services available in the market?
[UPDATED]Here is the answer.
In this article,
I will help you in finding “How to choose a web hosting with ease in June, 2021” which is best suited for you to purchase.
Are you ready!
Different companies have different plans and services to offer. You have to find your tariff properly. So that you never regret your own decision.
So, let’s start with the basics.
Table of Contents
Understanding the meaning of web server
Web server is an online facility where you can upload data for your website on the internet. Companies provide space/ storage for you to store data online on a rental basis. The device where you store the data is known as a server.
There are different options for web hosting. You have a lot of alternatives from them and they provide services at different price ranges.
Without taking some action to grow knowledge or neglecting the proper information, you may get into big trouble.
The problems are endless.
But don’t worry. I will tell you how to choose the alternative from the list.
But you shall have enough patience because there are several factors to be considered.
First,
I will discuss the types of servers, choosing the right services offered by different companies, types of hosting, list of web hosting providers, and the last one is the disadvantages of choosing the wrong web hosting service.
Types of Servers
Apache Server– It is a server which is very cost effective. I would suggest you go for LiteSpeed instead of the Apache server.
LiteSpeed Server– It is faster than the Apache server.
Nginx Server– It is faster than the Apache and LiteSpeed server.
Don’t worry. It is not that difficult as you think.
Let me clear the things for you.
How to choose between these services
The factors considered for choosing the right web hosting according to your needs are as follows-
Budget/ price–
The primary deciding factor for a beginner is the budget he or she has because there are many options available. If you have no issue with the price, then you have better options available among these.
Do not think that you have to purchase the hosting only at higher tariffs to get the best offers. As a beginner, I would suggest you go for the low or medium priced plans.
The myth is that you should only buy the highest-priced web hosting, but it is not correct.
Features–
You have to analyze the type and need for features for your website.
These features can be
- Free Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certificate
- Sub-domain
- Storage
- Estimated monthly visits
- Protected servers
- Backup facility
- Content Delivery Network (CDN)
- Bandwidth
- Site protection
- Free domain
- Tools
- Free Domain-based email
- Site builder (if you want to build a WordPress website)
These are some of the features mentioned and that’s not all. There are much more on the list.
But the basic ones are SSL certificate, estimated monthly visits, storage, bandwidth, and the type of server the company is providing to the users.
Your Needs/ Requirements–
Among these features mentioned above. Now you have to decide the priority what you need and what not.
What specification you want in your web hosting server so that you can finalize your purchasing decision.
Customer Support–
You have to find out who has better customer support.
If you don’t have a good customer support, you will be in a huge problem.
Let me clear your doubt with an example.
Let’s say!
If you are facing some server-related issue on your website and you cannot fix it.
Then the next step for you will be contacting customer support.
After that, you contacted support for assistance. Then you realized that the company’s support did not respond for a while. When they approached you and told you that it might take few days to sort out. You will be disappointed with the support because you did not get instant help and solution.
So, it is an important factor to consider in the list.
Better customer support will help you to resolve your problems quickly and efficiently without encountering problem.
Security–
A web hosting company must have better security software or firewalls to protect the users from cyber-attacks like DDoS, malware, brute force attack, etc.
In these days and age, cyber-attacks are becoming very common.
So, you have to be very careful.
They should provide SSL Certificates, tools, plugins, etc. You must research their security monitoring systems and whether they are continuously upgrading their system for security purposes.
So, your data and your website’s visitor data are protected well.
(Stay tuned because I will be writing an article on measures to be taken for securing your website very soon)
Uptime/ Downtime–
You might have seen that the hosting companies mention 99.99% uptime in the tariff section.
It means the time a server is up and working accordingly without any occurrence of issues.
The meaning of downtime is just the opposite of uptime.
In simple words, downtime means an outage.
Downtime may affect the visitor of your website as the website will not be accessible for that particular time.
It is vital to focus on this one also.
Try to find out a hosting provider who has less downtime.
One thing I have to say to make it clear, that you cannot prevent downtime.
The ability for up-gradation of servers–
As I mentioned, there are a lot of plans listed on the web hosting company.
I will explain it with an example. Then you will understand the need for up-gradation in the future.
Suppose you are a beginner.
After some time on your website, you saw that your website’s traffic increased, let’s say above 10,000 visitors a month together with the server (tariff) you are using is not capable enough to handle lots of traffic as your current plan supports only 10,000 visitors a month.
Now, you have decided to upgrade the plan. So that your website can handle more visitors.
CASE-1
If your hosting provider has the functionality to have upgradability, you will have no problem.
Thus
You will switch to the new plan without any problem by following some steps.
CASE-2
In this case, if your hosting provider does not have the feature, you have no option to solve your problem except to change your hosting provider who has the functionality to upgrade.
Renewal charges–
If you sign up for the first time for purchasing a hosting, you will notice that the price is much lower in all the tariffs available.
But it is important to note that you have to pay more after your current plan expires.
You have to compare every hosting website to check the renewal charges so, you have some idea about the pricing after the comparison.
It means that there are two different prices associated with it.
The first one is registering for the first-time charges and then renewal charges.
Note: Be aware of the policies concerned with the renewal charges.
Bandwidth–
In simple words, it can be stated that how much data that could be sent (data transfer capacity of a computer network) to a user within a particular time.
Storage–
Make a list of web hosting sites where you want to shortlist the best alternatives.
Compare the storage options (capacity) available among those sites and make a note of them. It will help you to choose the better offer.
Terms and Conditions–
You must read the terms and conditions of the web hosting company regarding refund, renewal, hosting/ domain agreement, transfer of hosting policy, and a lot more are there.
So, you have to be very careful about the policies.
Reviews–
Research on the reviews available on the internet.
It will guide you to have a clear idea of the hosting services provided by a company.
Nowadays, it is a prerequisite to check the reviews of any product on the internet you want to buy.
Note: Don’t take all the suggestions given above lightly because they may help you with your own needs.
Limitations of the tariff–
Before making a decision, make sure that you know all the pros and cons of the hosting plans.
Losing a feature, you want to have but the service provider does not offer may create a hindrance.
If you are still confused, you can ask me by entering your query on the Contact Me page.
Do not hesitate to ask me. I will help you to figure out the issues you are facing.
Type of niche you are in–
As you know different hosting provider has distinct features.
It is important to know the specialization of that hosting plan.
Let’s say you want to have a website on e-commerce. In that case, you need good hosting to handle the visitors.
Some specific hosting providers give the best quality of hosting just for e-commerce websites.
It is just an example to let you understand the specializations.
Availability of desired server location–
Server location means the place where the servers are located and the data are hosted from.
In simple words, it is that place where the data centers are located.
Confused!
I will clarify it with an example.
If you want to target an Indian audience for the niche selected for the website and by mistake you chose a server from the USA, so the problem will be the load time of the website when a user requests your website.
Because, the data has to travel from the data centers of the USA to India, thus load time increases.
And if you choose a data server location from Asia, it will load faster compared to the server located in the USA.
Note: Find where the target audience lives first and then decide the location of the server. So, the data loads faster.
WordPress Plans-
There are some specific plans/ tariffs for WordPress as well. If you want to make a website on WordPress, you can also choose these plans.
Note, it is not compulsory to choose these plans if you want to make a WordPress website. However, the tariffs offer optimization.
WordPress is easy to install in any hosting service provider and, it is easy to use. WordPress is that it is SEO-friendly.
Web Hosting Types-
Shared hosting–
You can guess it by name. It is hosting service where different websites are hosted from a single server.
It is the most popular one among beginners to start a website.
It is the most inexpensive web hosting service provided by a web hosting company compared to other services like cloud hosting, Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting, dedicated hosting.
Now, you may ask that is shared hosting good.
So, these are the Pros and Cons.
Pros–
- It is economical.
- Best suited for beginners or who create a website for the first time.
- The maintenance of the hosting is taken care of by the company. And you have no extra work to resolve it or have knowledge about it.
- It is easily accessible as the price is economical, which means anybody who wishes to make a website and want to make it available online can do it.
Cons–
- It is limited to some traits.
- It can lead to face downtime or freezing up the website because many websites are hosted from a single server.
- You may face a security-related issue as it is hosted from one server where your and other’s website data are stored.
- If someone’s website has a problem, then all the websites that are associated with the same server will face the issue.
- It may slow down your website.
- IP address will be as same as the other websites on that particular server.
Cloud hosting–
It is a type of hosting service where the data kept in multiple servers. It helps in balancing the load of the traffic.
Suppose,
If a server is not working and that server is facing downtime, you will have no issue with your website because your data are kept on multiple servers.
The data is taken and transferred from other servers.
Pros–
- High uptime.
- Better performance.
- Easily handle the load.
- Low price.
- Scalable
- Price imposed according to the resources utilized by you.
Cons–
- Not all cloud hosting providers have better uptime and performance.
- Price differs with the resources used, which means there is no fixed cost.
- Unpredictable visitors may increase the cost of hosting as extra resources are utilized.
Dedicated hosting–
In this type of hosting service as the name suggests the whole server is dedicated to you only.
It is not recommended to those who just started their journey as it costs very high because the whole server is for you.
You also have full control over the server and you can optimize as you want it to be.
Pros–
- If you opt for this, you will have full access to that whole server.
- Suppose, if a company (business) does not want to take responsibility for the maintenance and other charges of the server. Then they can rent the dedicated server from a hosting provider.
- There are no resources shared in dedicated hosting, unlike shared hosting.
- You will get your IP address of the server.
- Those who want to have full control over servers can opt for this.
- Increased security as the resources are being utilized by you only.
Cons–
- It is the most expensive server.
- It is not for everyone.
- It requires technical skills for setting up the server.
Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting–
So, what is VPS hosting.
It is the type of server that acts as a dedicated server in a shared hosting server and it is less expensive than a dedicated server.
People get most of the features of a dedicated server.
Pros–
- It is less expensive than a dedicated server.
- Virtually acts as a dedicated server in shared hosting server.
- Have a lot of control of the server compared to shared hosting.
- Stable performance.
Cons–
- It needs technical knowledge to set up.
- It is expensive than shared hosting.
- Remember that, after all, it is shared hosting.
List of web hosting sites/ service providers-
- Bluehost
- A2 Hosting
- WPX Hosting
- SiteGround
- GreenGeeks
(These are some of the providers listed for explanation purpose)
The disadvantage of choosing the wrong hosting service
OR,
By doing no research
- Loss of money– If you choose the wrong hosting, it will create a feeling of dissatisfaction.
- Wrong Hosting type– Suppose you wanted to have cloud hosting by mistake, you choose shared hosting as you do not have enough information regarding the facilities of the servers.
- Security-related issues– Without proper research, you might face security issues because not every hosting company provides good services.
- Requirement not fulfilled– What you desired and what you get is a whole different thing.
- Loss of performance– It refers to the kind of server you needed but chosen a different one.
- Poor customer support– Research is important while selecting a good hosting service provider. If a hosting provider has good hosting features but does not have good support will lead to dissatisfaction and tons of problem.
- Down-time– You may face downtime because of low performance, server location, customer support for a technical issue, etc
- Unavailability for up-gradation for hosting– If a web hosting service provider does not have the feature of upgrading the tariff for the future plans.
- Other limited features– As I mentioned above, different providers have different tariffs. So, if you want high bandwidth and the hosting company provides low bandwidth, it may cause problems for you.
- Migration feature– If you want to upgrade your current plan to a new plan because of any reason, it may be for the monthly visitors, storage, etc.
Then you will face a problem as your website cannot cater.
- Back-up feature not available– If you wanted to back up your site for security purposes and after purchasing the hosting you noticed that there is no facility for backup it may affect the experience.
- Server Location– Suppose, if you choose the wrong server location and you are targeting an audience from India, the loading time taken by that server is more compared to a server from Asia. As the data load faster from an Asian server concerning a server outside of Asia.
So, that’s the end of this article.
Conclusion
Hope you understood (“How to choose a web hosting with ease in June, 2021”) that why it is important to do a research on web hosting services available in the market.
If you have any questions related to it, you can ask me via the Contact Me page.
And,
If you liked the article and want these kinds of article in near future leave a comment on what topic you want an article.