If you are a business owner, or simply a curious individual who wants to learn more about website hosting services, but don’t quite know where to start, this article is for you!
WHAT IS WEBSITE HOSTING?
In a nutshell, web hosting is the process of renting or buying space to house a website on the World Wide Web. The content of your website hast to be stored on a server in order to be visible on the web.
So, what exactly is a server? Well, A server is a computer that connects other web users to your site from anywhere in the world. As the name implies, web hosting service providers have the servers, connectivity, and associated services to host websites. By offering a variety of hosting plans, they cover the spectrum of hosting needs, from small blogs to large organizations.
If you’re planning on creating an online presence, reliable web hosting is essential. There are literally hundreds of web hosts available today providing thousands of varieties of web hosting services. Plans range from free with limited options to expensive web hosting services specialized for business. The plan you choose will depend primarily on how you plan to use your website and how much you have budgeted for hosting.
Choosing the right hosting plan will mean having access to the right allocation of resources to keep your website loading quickly and reliably for your visitors. Think about how many businesses these days operate primarily online; their sales and business leads come from their website. If someone lands on a website and there’s a problem — it takes too long to load or doesn’t appear at all — potential customers won’t wait around.
The Five main Types of Web Hosting
Now that you know what web hosting is, let’s go through the five main types of website hosting. All of these hosting types are fully capable of powering WordPress sites. However, some may be more suited to your WordPress site’s unique situation than others.
Web hosting service providers have the servers, connectivity, and associated services to host websites.
1. Shared Hosting
This is basically the most basic and affordable website hosting option you can get. In a nutshell, with shared hosting, your site/account will share resources with other accounts and websites on the hosting server — hence the name. By sharing resources like this, hosting providers are able to keep their costs down and offer rock-bottom prices.
2. Cloud Hosting
Under cloud hosting, your website has its own dedicated resources on a huge network of computers called “the cloud”. That’s what differentiates between cloud hosting and shared hosting — instead of sharing resources, you get resources that are 100% dedicated to your site. This generally leads to improved performance because you don’t have to worry about someone else’s websites affecting your site.
Another important point to note is that there are basically two types of Cloud hosting services:
- Managed – the hosting provider will configure and maintain the basic server details for you.
- Unmanaged – you’ll be responsible for configuring and maintaining your server.
3. VPS Hosting
VPS is very similar to Cloud hosting except from one single fact ; Your site gets its dedicated resources from a single physical server, rather than “the cloud”. While you don’t get the whole server to yourself, the resources that are allocated to your site are 100% your own (unlike shared hosting). This type of website hosting used to be quite popular for a while but is not as widely used as before because of the growth and expansion of cloud hosting due to its flexibility and scalability.
4. Managed WordPress Hosting
Although this is not the only way to host a WordPress site, the specificity of managed website hosting is that it can only host WordPress sites, which can be limiting in some situations.
5. Colocation Hosting
Colocation hosting is an advanced type of hosting that is almost exclusively utilized by very large businesses. Basically, with colocation hosting, you physically own the hosting hardware but rent space in another company’s data center to have that company power and maintain that hardware for you. (Alternatively, you can build and maintain those facilities yourself if you have the means to)
CONCLUSION
In today’s business landscape, if you own a business, that business should have a website; If you want to create a website, you need hosting services. As we briefly explained in this short article, there are different types of hosting options, each one with its advantages and disadvantages. It is important to make the right diagnostic in order to choose the option that is the most suited for your specific needs, the nature of your business and within your budget.
At EDEL DIGITAL, website hosting is one our main areas of expertise. Over the years, we have grown to become one of the top marketing agencies specializing in the field; We have helped several businesses thrive online with customized website hosting services and have always delivered the best results for our clients. Save yourself some time and contact us today. Let’s help you reach your business goals.s
