Any successful business website has good web hosting backing it up. When running a business site, web hosting is definitely one of the most important investments that must be given important consideration. While it is an important element in creating a new website, this part can often be overlooked.
Sure you already have a good-looking website, great content, and effective digital marketing strategies implemented on your platform, but if your site often runs into some trouble loading and often gets recurring downtime, chances that these site problems may lead you to some opportunity cost in the future is huge. Besides, nobody likes to stay on a website that isn’t loading properly.
What is Web Hosting?
Web Hosting is a server that stores all your website files on the Internet. It is what makes your website accessible all over the Internet. When you create a website, you are also creating a bunch of different website files that has to be stored somewhere that you can access when your website is LIVE online. Web Hosting is like a rented space on a remote computer that stores all your files from the hosted website. It is what provides the webspace (Bandwidth, Disk Space, RAM, Uptime) that your website requires to be easily accessed online.
Types of Web Hosting
When it comes to web hosting, there are several options that you can have to get your website up and running on the Internet. Although all these types serve as storage for all website files, each type differs in the amount of storage capacity, server speed, reliability, control, and technical knowledge. Here are the six types of web hosting that you can choose for your website:
1. Shared Hosting
Shared hosting is one of the most common hosting options for those building their very first website. This type of web hosting allows multiple websites to use a single server for storage. Each website owner is usually given a limited amount of server resources that can be used per website depending on the chosen hosting package.
2. Dedicated web hosting
When you’re using dedicated web hosting, it means that you are renting an entire server exclusive only for your website. This type of web hosting allows you more flexibility and control over the setup and use of the server and provides more speed and security to your website.
Dedicated servers are one of the most expensive web hosting options available and are often used by larger companies or those with large websites with high levels of website traffic.
3. Cloud hosting
In Cloud hosting, instead of using a single server, it is made up of multiple different servers to balance the load and to maximize the uptime. This means that if one server fails, another server works for your website. Your website is also able to use resources from a centralized pool. This is a more reliable type of hosting than those standalone servers since there is no downtime and is designed to scale automatically when there is an increase in traffic.
4. Virtual private server (VPS) hosting
A VPS hosting plan is more like a combination of one of each function of a shared server and a dedicated server. Each website operating in this hosting is hosted on its own space within the server but still shares a physical server with other websites.
It’s ideal for website owners that need more control over their resources, but don’t necessarily need a dedicated server for their website. Unlike with dedicated hosting, VPS hosting cannot handle incredible high traffic since the site performance can still be affected by the other sites hosted within the shared physical server.
5. Colocation
In Colocation, website owners or companies may choose to co-locate their own hardware by renting server space in a data center. The center gives access to higher levels of bandwidth compared to the normal office server room. It’s lower in cost but website owners are to take care of everything including the software, hardware, and services.
6. Managed hosting
In Managed hosting the web hosting provider provides configuration, hardware and software setup and other technical services, updating, monitoring, technical support, patching, and other day-to-day management of your website’s server and technical operations.
There are many different options when it comes to choosing the web hosting for your website and it all comes down to knowing what your website needs and finding the right web hosting provider that is efficient and reliable for all your web hosting needs.
Why do you need to invest in a good web hosting for your website?
Nobody likes a website that is loading too slow, always down, and inaccessible. If this happens often, what’s the point of having a website if your audience cannot access it properly? Your website should have a decent website speed because it affects the whole work performance of a website from the perspective of your users. Your overall website performance can make or break your business. It can either gain you more traffic or conversions or cost you customers and money.
Below, we list down some reasons why you should invest in good web hosting.
- Less chance of getting downtime
If your website is often down and available, you can miss out on opportunities of getting potential customers and income. With a good web hosting provider, the chance of your website having a downtime is low. Good and reliable web hosting employs maintenance on their servers to slim down chances of disruptions or downtime. For instance, server updates and maintenance are made when the website has low activity.
2. Provides a fast loading time for website pages
Website speed is a crucial factor that every website owner must consider when building their website. When people search the Internet for information, they expect to have availability and accessibility for their searches, and they want it fast. If your website loads too slow, chances that the user will wait for your page to load is slim even if you have great content and they will most likely search for another link that could give them what they need in an instant. This is a loss in traffic and conversion for your company.
Site speed affects a variety of key metrics including your site’s visibility in search engines. Search engines, particularly Google considers site speed as an important factor to look into when ranking websites. If your website is running slow, this sends a bad signals to Google which will affect your rankings in SERPs leading to low traffic.
A fast-loading site should be one of your goals in web optimization.
3. Better security (HTTPS and SSL)
Almost all web hosting enables HTTPS on their hosted websites. This offers a more secure IP address and information are protected. HTTPS uses SSL (Secure Socket Layers) to fully encrypt communication between visitors and the websites and keeping it hidden from the wider web. Enabling this security system, your web hosting provider will be able to give your website more secured platform where sensitive, personal, or private information are protected from unauthorized parties or hackers.
- Better SEO/ Search Enging Rankings
If your website is often not available and is loading really slow , this will impact your position in SERPs. Google is very particular about these factors. A low position in Google results to fewer website visitors and low traffic. You can prevent this by investing in good web hosting.
5. Secured backups if anything were to go wrong
If you have an issue with your website and needs to be fixed, you will need to secure all your files by taking backups. Most good web hosting companies include this service in their hosting plans. Securing a backup of your website file is secure and responsible thing to do since it will give you the assurance that all your files are not lost after an attack or issue with the website.
6. Better technical support
The issue with poor web domain hosting is that if anything does go wrong, you are not helped properly and quickly as you need. A website that does not work properly can have negative impact to the overall performance of your website. You can even lose your data and information, affect your search engine ranking which will then affect your conversion. Find a good web hosting company that can support your need for technical support, back up and the capacity to manage and make your website run smoothly without problems.
A High-performing and reliable web hosting is crucial in any successful business website. Your choice of web host can affect your website’s overall performance. While choosing web hosting is probably the last thing on your mind when building a website, your choice of web hosting services can make or break your business.
