Comprehensive Guide to Web Hosting: What You Need to Know

 

As an eCommerce business owner, you should know that you cannot afford to have a website that loads slowly. A slow and poorly designed website is a terrible customer experience. If your site takes more than 4 seconds to load, the vast majority of your visitors will click away before it’s even finished loading. Aside from that, page load time is an important factor that Google takes into consideration when analyzing your website. The quicker your website loads, the better it is for SEO rankings.

That is why a reliable and fast-loading web hosting solution is a must in order to be successful online. Website speed matters and has become an integral part of any marketing strategy. If the one you are using now cannot perform well, then you need to change it now before you lose your customers. But before you get a new one, you need to understand first what web hosting is all about.

In this blog, I will be covering the key points you should know about web hosting in general. Then, I will also be talking about the different types and the factors you need to consider when choosing a web hosting service. Lastly, I will be sharing my top 5 recommended web hosting servers that can be your trusted friend in building and growing your business. So make sure to keep reading to know all these.

What is Web Hosting?

Web hosting is the process of providing space and storing websites on a server. It is a critical part of any website and can be crucial for your business. Through this, you can share and store files over the internet. The web hosting service provider hosts your website and provides you with the necessary tools to manage your website as well as to handle the technical details of the website.

Web hosting comes in various forms depending on the type of website you are planning to build. You can choose between shared hosting, VPS hosting, dedicated hosting, and cloud hosting. Web hosting services are essential for every website because they help you build a successful online presence. It is very important to choose the right web host for your website. The best web host will ensure the smooth performance of your website and provide.

5 Reasons Why Having a Reliable Web Hosting Matters

Web hosting has become a key component of your website. The web hosting provider you get for your business can greatly affect the performance of your site. Aside from that, a reliable web hosting provider provides the security and efficiency of hosting your website.

Web hosting is the backbone of your website. Your site’s performance is dependent on your web host. A fast and reliable web host will enable you to have a smooth running website. It also allows you as a website owner to enjoy the following benefits:

• Have a Fast-Loading Website
• Offer Quality Service
• Minimize Loss of Sale
• Have Better Ranking in SERPs
• Ensure that Your Website is Safe and Secure from Hackers

Have a Fast-Loading Website

Load speed can greatly contribute to the success of your eCommerce business. Visitors would not spend their entire time waiting for your website to load. If it takes more than 3 seconds, 40% of customers would leave you. So if you want them to stay longer on your page, you need to have a fast-loading website.  

Offer Quality Service

Buyers always look for quality service. If you cannot provide that to your customers, they would not hesitate to leave and look for other stores with the same products as you. Statistics show that when people visit a website, it takes only 5 seconds to get them engaged before they leave. Then, 46% of visitors would not visit a website again that performs poorly. On top of that, a one-second delay in page loading time reduces customer satisfaction by 16%.

Minimize Loss of Sale

In order to remain competitive in the ever-growing market, you need to make sure that your website is always up and available for your customers. That is where a reliable web hosting provider comes into play. Downtime and slow loading time can create a huge impact not only on the overall performance of your website but on your business profit as well. Nearly 70% of shoppers are willing to buy from an online retailer with a website that loads quickly. If you go offline or have a slow-loading website, your customers lose confidence in your business. In the long run, you will be missing a lot of opportunities to nurture your leads and keep your loyal customers.  

Have Better Ranking in SERPs

Your web hosting can make or break your website. If you want to improve your SEO rankings, you need dependable web hosting that will give you a good server response time. Server Response Time (SRT) is the amount of time the server responds to a client’s request (for example, clicking on a link and entering a URL into the address bar.) Google prefers websites with good server response time and has a TTFB (Time to First Byte) under 200 milliseconds. So for every millisecond, your website needs to load, you are not just losing customers but also an opportunity to rank higher on the search engines results page. If your page load time is too long due to poor web hosting, you can never get on the first page of search.  

Ensure that Your Website is Safe and Secure from Hackers

More importantly, a reliable web hosting service provides you with a high level of security to ensure that your site would be free from being hacked or infected with a malware virus. 

Your website contains valuable data about your business and your customers such as credit card information, private information, and passwords. This is the reason why hackers will try to gain access to your site. They want to collect and steal these details for their own advantage. When your site is not secure, they can target it at any time posing a real threat to your business. 

Why is Web Hosting Service Essential for Your Business? 

Web hosting is a crucial part of your business website. It allows you to store all the files that are needed to make your website work. It is where your website gets its name, its domain name, and its IP address. When you have a web host, you have access to the tools that are needed to create a website. Though you can also have a website hosted on your own computer. However, if you do not have the space for it, then a web host is necessary. By having a web hosting service, your website can be accessed from anywhere in the world. You can also keep it up-to-date and functioning without having to worry about hardware or software malfunctions. 

Managed VS Unmanaged Hosting: What’s the Difference? 

Often people get confused when they look at the differences between managed and unmanaged hosting. Managed hosting is where you access your server (your website) via a web-based interface (e.g. cPanel, Plesk, or DirectAdmin). These systems allow you to manage the resources on your server (e.g. website, databases, e-mail, etc.) and perform physical stuff like installing additional software, updating the software, updating the server, updating the server settings, etc. Also, in managed hosting, the company takes care of routine maintenance, security, and backups for your website. 

Unmanaged hosting, on the other hand, is where you do not use any of the software provided by the hosting company. There is no web-based interface. There is no access to your website once you sign up for it. Your provider will simply give you website storage space.

Unmanaged hosting is not necessarily bad, but it does lack the ease of management that comes with managed hosting options. One of the biggest advantages of managed hosting is the lack of downtime. If your website goes down, you can simply log into your account and restart it. Unmanaged hosting will take longer to restart, and if you request tech support you may not receive any. Managed hosting also allows you to control how many server resources are used by your website. Unmanaged hosting is great for tech-savvy people. 

Different Types of Web Hosting

Before deciding which web hosting company to go with, it is important to know first the various types of web hosting. You need to make sure that you understand each of its purposes so that you can choose the right fit for your business. 

Shared Hosting

Shared hosting is a hosting type that many businesses use mainly because of its cheap price. However, among all, it is the most restricted. The limits in shared hosting are in the form of disk space, bandwidth, and the number of domains a website can host.

With a shared hosting account, a business can host up to 10 domains. Also, when a website is hosted in a shared hosting plan it gets shared with all the other websites that are hosted in the same account. Generally, it is best for new websites with low traffic.

Virtual Private Server (VPS) Hosting

Virtual Private Server (VPS) Hosting is another type of hosting that allows people to administer the running of the services on the server but not the server itself. It is similar to a cloud server. However, instead of having all your files stored in one central location, your files are stored on the server’s hard drive. This results in an error-free virtual server that can be expanded or recreated for future use.

When your website starts to get more traffic or exceeds the architectural and resource limits, VPS can be a good alternative for Shared Hosting. It is cheaper than Dedicated Server Hosting yet can provide better performance, reliability, and security. 

Dedicated Server Hosting

Dedicated server hosting is web hosting that allows the hosting holders to set up their own servers which are then hosted on their premises. The advantages of dedicated server hosting are that it is more secure than shared hosting. You can install any software you like, with more hard drive space, and more RAM. You can also install a load balancer that will distribute traffic to multiple server instances. 

This type of hosting is best suited for people who want to launch, build, and grow their own websites since it is more secure and private. However, this can be very expensive. It usually requires more technical knowledge and is often needed to function in a large virtual environment. 

Cloud Hosting

Cloud hosting is a type of hosting where your website is hosted remotely via the Internet. With cloud computing, you have the freedom to manage your own website, instead of being limited by your local hosting service. The advantage of this service is that there is no need to install software on your computer. The provider can manage your website from anywhere in the world. Also, when you have a cloud hosting solution, you have access to high-performance servers that are fast, secure, and reliable.

Managed WordPress Hosting

Managed WordPress hosting is a type of hosting where web hosting providers configures their web hosts instance as well as support team to be optimized for WordPress and manage WordPress related issues. As WordPress is the most popular site builder on the World Wide Web, more web hosts are creating services that target WordPress users. These WordPress hosting plans usually cost a lot more money as the web hosting providers expect higher volume of support but they have the technical expertise to resolve WordPress related issues for you. This makes it attractive for newbies or small businesses who do not have the capacity to deal with technical problems from WordPress. While it cost more, it is still definitely more affordable than hiring your own in-house web developer to manage your website. Liquid Web is one of the pioneers to offer managed WordPress hosting.

eCommerce Hosting

eCommerce hosting more often than not, refers to WooCommerce hosting, although it can also mean eCommerce platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce but most people do not talk about eCommerce hosting in that sense. These are usually more powerful shared hosting plans with higher specifications for simple WooCommerce websites. They are often just basic shared hosting plans able to support WooCommerce websites although some companies do provide dedicated resources and support for WooCommerce hosting. Inmotion Hosting is one of those companies offering a dedicated WooCommerce hosting plan.

Reseller Hosting

Reseller hosting is when you are renting web hosting services to be resold to your own clients. These web hosts provide you with a white-label panel with sub accounts that your clients can login on their own and manage their own web hosting instance. Reseller hosting are usually shared hosting.

Factors to Consider When Choosing a Better Web Hosting Provider

Choosing the best web hosting service for you and your business is a difficult decision. It can be confusing and overwhelming. Beyond the technical aspects of choosing a good web hosting service, there are a few other factors to consider:

• Uptime
• Speed
• Performance
• Security
• Customer Support
• Domain Management Tools
• Scalable Package
• Pricing
• WordPress Support

Let me discuss this one by one. 

Uptime

How much uptime do you need and why should you look at it? Uptime is the percentage of time your web server is up and running. You need to look for a web hosting company with good uptime rates because it is a crucial factor in the success of your website. A reliable web hosting should allow your site to operate for a maximum of 24 hours a day. If your choice gives you less than that, then it is not a good and healthy investment for your business.

Speed

The next thing you need to look at in your hosting option is its speed. Speed is the key factor that affects the time of your website and determines its performance after it has been loaded. Websites slow to a crawl can have a detrimental effect on SEO ranking and user experience. In the long run, it can have a lot of implications with regard to the future of your business. 

Performance

Performance is another factor that you need to consider in order to find the right web hosting for your website. It needs to be reliable and can perform well so that your website is always up and available for online viewing. Web hosting that cannot provide a high-quality service can only make your website’s performance sluggish and result in a high amount of downtime. 

Security

Before you sign up for a web hosting account, you need to know first the level of security you can get from the server provider. Your site has confidential data that you cannot afford to lose. So whatever web hosting service you pick, you need to make sure that it can constantly protect your site from hacking and malware attacks. 

Customer and Technical Support

When you buy web hosting, you pay for the support from the hosting company along with the service you need to keep your site up and running. Their customer service team should be quick to respond with live chat and is always available (preferably 24/7 or if not at least during peak hours). They should also be able to provide you with complete assistance to deal with any technical issues you may encounter.

To know if they have excellent customer service, my advice is this: during the inquiry, pay attention to how they assist you. If they are able to answer all your queries, then you can rely on them. If not, cross them out on your list of options.

Backups

Backup is another important factor you need to include in your checklist when weighing your options. The reality is no matter how secure and protected your website is, there is always the chance that it may encounter vulnerability in the system. Thus, there is a possibility that you can lose all your data. But if your web hosting can offer a regular backup plan, then you do not need to worry because you can easily and quickly restore your data.

Scalable Package

A scalable web hosting package is also one of the essential factors you need to look at. It can help you push your business to the next level and gives you a significant amount of control over your infrastructure. Whenever possible, you should be able to upgrade your account for larger storage, better capacity, and an enhanced level of security especially when you are anticipating an increase in traffic. Based on experience, a scalable package gives me peace of mind because I can assure that I have available resources when I need them. 

Pricing

If you are just starting out, you do not need to think about the price of web hosting plan because there are companies that offer a free hosting plan or even lifetime hosting plan. However, as you grow your business, you need a paid subscription to build and manage your own website. The web hosting pricing differs from each other depending on what is included in the package. And it is often not easy to find a web host that can accommodate your budget. But for me, it is more cost-effective to choose services with high prices but can meet all your demands than those with cheap prices but can only offer limited support. Usually, those are unreliable and their service can stress you out.

WordPress Support

Over the years, WordPress has become one of the most used content management systems among bloggers and content marketers. This is the reason why web hosting must have a good level of WordPress Support. It should still be flexible, reliable, and can work without any issues on the WordPress site. It would be a good advantage if they offer useful tools as well that would help you improve your website. 

Recommended Web Hosting Provider

Web hosting companies continue to grow giving you a lot of options to choose from. However, not all of them can be reliable in hosting your site. In this section, I will enumerate the hosting providers that can give you quality service.

Exabytes

Exabytes offers web hosting solutions and managed WordPress hosting with dedicated IP (or SSL certificate) and dedicated servers to manage your WordPress websites. Their web hosting is built on a LiteSpeed server and they use an SSD that allows you to have a fast-loading website. Other significant features of Exabytes are its Daily Backup, Enhanced Security, and Free SSL certificate. They also offer free domain registration. Their shared hosting is fantastic, however, they are also much pricier.

Read here my full review on Exabytes

RackNerd

RackNerd is a web hosting company providing services from shared hosting with cPanel, VPS, dedicated servers and colocation servers. They have the most affordable shared hosting and VPS services around. In fact you can get a VPS hosting plan for just $1/mth. Their shared hosting plans are running on LiteSpeed servers, allowing you to use LiteSpeed Cache. RackNerd shared hosts has been exceptionally fast and definitely one of the best web hosting services based on value in my opinion.

Contabo

Possibly the best value VPS hosting provider around. I exclusively use Contabo for demanding WooCommerce websites. You can a decent VPS server at just €5.99. With this plan along with CloudPages, you can already run a powerful WooCommerce website with lots of traffic a month, paying much less than most shared web hosting service. However, note that this is unmanaged hosting and you will need to have some understanding of managing your own servers. I would rate Contabo as one of the best web hosting services.

Starthost

Starthost is a 20i reseller hosting company with lifetime hosting plans. This means you pay a one-time fee, and get to use the web hosting service for life. They are able to do this because of the economical pricing of 20i reseller hosting itself which even includes unlimited storage. They do not provide NVME hard drives and it’s only shared web hosting but with proper caching you can get decent loading speeds, especially in UK and US where their datacenters are. I recommend this for your websites that are under incubation, passion projects or staging sites. As your website grows, you can move them to a better and more reliable web host like RackNerd. While not the best web hosting services around, I would still rate them fairly well due to the insane value you get from them.

Namecheap

Namecheap is another exceptional hosting company that offers WordPress, Shared, Dedicated, Reseller, and VPS Hostings. If you want to change your hosting provider, they can assist you every step of the way for free. With them also, you are guaranteed that your website can get a better uptime because they have multiple security measures and do regular backups. Their expert support is available 24/7. They offer different plans (currently pricing starts at $2.88/month) to cater to your needs. All of them come with unmetered bandwidth, free website builder, free domain names and privacy protection, free automatic SSL installation, and free Supersonic CDN. Check their website to know more about their package inclusion.

Amazon Web Services

If you want the best, this is the best. With automatic scaling and a lot of other services to enhance your server performance, Amazon Web Service deserves the top spot. However, it is incredibly expensive and requires proper security to prevent issues like DDOS from causing you hefty bills as their pricing plan is based on usage. Would only recommend this for international companies conducting an online-based business like an eCommerce platform. Even then, there are also other choices like DigitalOcean or Google Cloud platform that are more affordable.

Final Thought

Your web hosting plays a critical role in the success of your website. So it is necessarily important to find a good web hosting company that helps your website perform well. If your site does not perform well, it can badly affect your business because you will lose a lot of potential customers. Thus, it is a must to have a reliable host that can offer unlimited bandwidth and has a better uptime guarantee.

When it comes to selecting a web server, you need to make sure that it is powerful enough to handle heavy loads that would not affect your loading speed. You need to check also that your website is using updated software so it will not be easily exposed to any technical and security issues