You have probably Googled “best hosting plans” and end up getting confused by SERP results incorporating technical terms like hosting type, bandwidth, storage, etc.
With the increasing encroachment of the internet into our daily lives, it’s both easier and more necessary than ever to purchase a hosting plan. However, with the multitude of services available, it can be difficult to choose the right web hosting service that fits your budget.
In this article, we will shed light on a handful of essential terms that will help you choose the right web hosting service for your website.
Hosting, in simple words, is obtaining space on the internet that enables you to bring your data online. Under this process, your data is uploaded to a server to make it accessible for remote users.
When a user purchases a hosting plan, the service provider shares (or allots) the server’s resources, as determined by the plan you opted for.
Understand your needs
How much space do you want on the World Wide Web? How much bandwidth are you being offered? How much content do you want to push online?
Hosting services providers charge you for the space and the bandwidth they provide.
Once you have decided upon how much space you will be required, this is the time to choose the hosting.
Checklist to finalizing your hosting
Decide on storage capacity & bandwidth
Space is simply the amount of storage you will be allocated on a server to store the data you have, while bandwidth is the amount of data (traffic and site content) a website can send or receive over a given period of time. Major companies offer unmetered bandwidth. More bandwidth means more data transfer.
Check the uptime history
Your website must remain online round-the-clock. Therefore, it is essential to know more about the uptime history of the host you are choosing. You can ask for uptime when purchasing; moreover, user’s web hosting reviews are the best way to ensure the credibility of the hosting provider.
Know the server location
The performance of your site depends on the geographical location of the server on which your website is being hosted. The closer server is, the faster the website loads.
Choose the right hosting for you
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Shared Hosting
As long as your website has limited content, you can comfortably opt for affordable shared hosting.
Shared hosting is the most reasonable hosting plan where a single server box hosts hundreds of websites along with yours, which makes it cheaper and affordable to everyone.
The resources available on the server are shared with all other websites residing there. Therefore, your website performance may be affected if the server is overcrowded.
- It’s affordable and beginner-friendly
- The best option for small business owners with a limited user base
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Dedicated hosting
As the name suggests, with taking dedicated hosting, you will be given a dedicated space and a great level of privacy and control over your resources.
Unlike shared hosting, where the load on the server caused by other websites affects your website’s loading speed, dedicated servers are detached and unaffected by the activities of other users on the same server.
- High-priced plan with premium service
- More control over resources
- Stable website performance
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Cloud hosting
The best thing about cloud hosting is the pricing structure. Here you will be charged for what you use.
Let’s say you don’t have any idea how much traffic you will receive over time. With traditional hosting plans, hosting providers allocate you fixed resources whether you use them or not. With cloud hosting, you can scale the resources according to your needs. For instance, if you don’t use some resources, you can drop them from the plan.
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Customer Service
Often ignored, this is one of the important factors that you cannot skip while choosing the right service provider for your website hosting. Over time, you might come across various kinds of technical problems beyond your domain.
Good customer service ensures you don’t run through hours to resolve mysterious problems.
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Trial policy
Major established hosting companies offer you a trial to ensure you are satisfied and test out the services if they fit your needs. Over months of free trial help you deeply test out all the services, and if things go wrong, you can simply opt out.
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Flexible plans
Website traffic is unpredictable. Let’s say you have started a new website, and it has less content and a limited user base. Over time, the traffic might surge up, exceeding the storage and bandwidth, which can negativelly affect the website’s performance.
At first, you might end up taking shared hosting. But shared hosting has some limited resources. Therefore, you can look for such plans that allow you to upgrade your plans in the journey.
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Choose the right host
Now you know the hosting terms we have covered in this article, it is time to find a perfect host that meets your needs. Though you can look at your host’s history and credibility on their website, public opinion pages like SiteCreator review can provide you with valuable insight. The host you choose should be reliable in order to create a thriving presence on the digital market.
Points to remember
TL;DR; keep the following points in mind before you choose a web host:
- Is the host reliable?
- The flexibility of the plan
- Uptime score and server location/speed
- What resources they offer
- Disk space & bandwidth
- Public reviews
- Pricing should not be your priority if your website has a lot of data and traffic
- Shared hosting is good for websites with less content and a very few visitors
Conclusion
So these are some points you have to check before taking a hosting plan in order to run your website comfortably at your budget. Do you know web hosting affects SEO strategies?
The host and type of hosting you choose can make or break your website and even negatively affect your SEO strategy if not chosen with enough consideration.
Customers are always demanding, and marketers who are able to serve their demands quickly survive in this fast-paced digital world. Being an enthusiastic marketer endeavoring to make a good presence on the internet, you shouldn’t overlook the significance a well-chosen web hosting service can offer.
