So, you’ve decided that you want or need a website. Maybe you want to put up a portfolio website to showcase your
skills. Or maybe you want a website for your business or for your job.
Whatever the case is, you want or need a website. Now What?
What is Web Hosting?
A web host is the company that owns and maintains these servers.
Websites are made up of different types of files, images, text files, sound files, etc. These files take up storage space on a computer that is a called a server. Servers connect to the internet and that is how people are able to see our website, which is just a collection of files.
You Need A Domain Name
In order to have a website, you need a domain name. I’m assuming that since you are looking for what to look for in a web host,
that you know what a domain name is and maybe you already have a domain name, but I’ll quickly cover what a domain name is just in case that you don’t.
What Is A Domain Name?
A domain name is a unique online address. Here are a few examples, google.com, youtube.com and facebook.com.
Can you have a website without having a domain name? Yes, but you want a domain name, like for example, mydomain.com that you actually own, rather than a domain name that does not look professional and that you don’t own, like for
example, mydomain.blog.com.
Types Of Web Hosting
Once you have a domain name for your website, you should look into what type of web hosting is right for you and your needs. I will cover only some of the types of web hosting that most people that are looking to set up their first website will look into.
Shared Hosting
Shared web hosting is when many websites are hosted on a single server. The biggest benefit of using shared web hosting for your website is the cost. The reason is that because multiple websites use the same server, the costs can be split and the hosting can be offered at a lower cost.
Shared web hosting is the most common type of web hosting. Most websites do not require more than shared web hosting as a hosting service.
If your website will be a relatively small website with not too much traffic, for example, a blog, shared web hosting will probably
be suited to your needs. If your website will much larger and expects to get a lot more traffic, for example an eCommerce store,
then you will want to go with another type of web hosting that will dedicate more resources to your website. Of course, this service will cost you more.
Dedicated Web Hosting Service
Dedicated web hosting is when a website is hosted on a single server or servers. The owner, or owners, have full root and admin access, which gives them complete control over the server. This type of web hosting is suited for larger websites with a lot of
traffic.
Dedicated web hosting is expensive compared to shared web hosting, and can get much more expensive pretty quickly.
Virtual Web Hosting
Virtual web hosting is similar to shared web hosting. With shared web hosting, a website is hosted on a server along with other websites and shares its resources with the other websites. Virtual web hosting creates a virtual environment that imitates a dedicated server, but within a shared web hosting environment.
Virtual web hosting is more expensive than shared web hosting, but cheaper than dedicated web hosting.
Cloud Web hosting
Cloud web hosting means that a website that is hosted on a server, can be moved from one server to another server when that server is busy or down so that there is no lag is performance or downtime, compared to shared web hosting where a website is only hosted on one server.
There are other web hosting options, but these cover the most likely options that you will deal with.
What To Look For In A Web Host
Now that you know that what a domain name and a web host is and that you need both of them to have a website, let’s go over what to look for in a web host.
At Least 99% Guaranteed Uptime
One of the most important things for your website, is for it to stay online. If a website is not online, it is potentially losing money, providing a negative experience for its visitors and driving any potential visitors to competitors’ websites.
The primary job of a web host is to keep a website online and available to its visitors. Every web host has to do some maintenance on their servers and there may be some scheduled downtime, but it should be minimal
Some web hosts go as far as guaranteeing 99% or higher uptime.
It is usually the bigger, more established web hosting providers that are able to provide this kind of guaranteed uptime, offering a money-back guarantee.
Good Reputation
An important thing to consider when deciding on what web hosting provider to choose to host your website, is reputation within the industry. Web hosting is a service, and like any other service, you want a company that has a good reputation.
A few good places to get a good idea of the reputation of a web host, is online review websites and web hosting forums. Visiting these type of websites can give a pretty good idea of what to expect from a web host.
It can be tricky when trying to filter through online reviews and awards though, because most websites, especially review websites, are incentivized to not only push some web hosts over other, but to also filter and add positive reviews to web hosts that make them more money. A similar thing can be said for web hosting forums, but looking at a few of each should give you a pretty good idea of which ones are good.
24/7 Customer Support
Customer support is one of the most important aspects when looking for a web hosting provider, in particular 24/7 customer support.
When you’re starting, you will have a lot questions, including from your web host, and you want them available to quickly answer any questions that you might have. Most larger, established web hosts, offer either 24/7 phone support, 24/7 online chat support or both. Typically, they will offer phone support during day time hours, and 24/7 online chat support.
All web hosts, or at least most, will offer email support of some kind. They may refer to this as ticket support, or something similar.
A Variety Of Plans
One thing that can be a big deal when looking for a web host is that they offer a variety of plans. The reason is that the needs of your website might change.
A website might start out small and with not much content, but may start to get a lot of visitors and require more bandwidth. It might also add a lot content, which can require more disk space. Your website might grow to a point where it makes more sense to go from a shared web host to a dedicated server.
Hosting your website with a web host that allows you to upgrade instead of having to migrate your website to another web host is the ideal situation.
Support of Website Migration
If you want to, or have to move your website to another web host, you want to be able to do it easily and as smooth as possible.
The ideal situation is to be able grow with your web host as your needs change, but there can be several reasons to change web hosts. You may not be happy their customer support, your website may have too much downtime or you may not be able to make an upgrade to suit your web hosting needs.
Whatever the situation, if you want to or need to migrate your website to another web host, you want your current web host to offer that as an option.
Intuitive Interface
Whether it is you or someone else that will working on a website, you will want the web host to have an interface that intuitive and easy to use.
Some of the web hosting tasks include, managing your domains, setting up SSL, managing your emails, adding new applications and/or adding databases to your website, backing up your website, upgrading and renewing your web hosting service, migrating your website to another web host, and more.
Web Hosting Control Panel
A web hosting control panel is a the graphical interface that the host provides that let’s you manage all of the hosting tools and resources.
The most common web hosting control panels are cPanel and Plesk.
Web Hosting Security
Website security should be one of your top concerns as the owner or admin of a website.
All good web hosting providers invest in and offer good security options, including firewalls, SSL certificates and other security software and other add-ons.
Whether this is your first time or you are looking for your next web hosting provider, take what’s listed in this article into consideration.