So you’ve always heard the web jargon “website hosting” or “web server” but not too sure how it works and how it can support your online business? No worries. Good that you are here now.
I will help you to understand some basic yet essential information about web hosting & why its important for a website. Also, you will learn about some pre-requisites that an ideal web hosting company must have. At the end of this article, I will also list some of the recommended reliable web hosting companies.
Let’s get on it!
# What is a web server?
In a technical language, web servers are computers that respond to a browser’s request for a web page and deliver it to the users browser through the internet. It is like a hard drive that stores your website files and images.
In other words, a web server is a machine that stores all the files & folders of your website and renders them upon the request of any user through their browsers.
# Why do you need web hosting services?
You could buy a web hosting server and set it up yourself at your premises to launch your website however the costs involved to buy & maintain a hosting server is too high. Therefore, it’s always a good idea for small & medium size companies to subscribe with web hosting companies by paying them a monthly or yearly subscription fee.
When you subscribe with any web hosting company, they provide you with a shared space on their server which you can use to upload your web files and launch your website.
# How web hosting can affect your online business?
If you run an ecommerce website and sell your products online, then its even critical to choose a reliable web hosting company for your online store. Why? Simply because you don’t want your potential customers to come to your website and experience downtime or slow loading web pages, correct? How downtime and slow loading websites affect business?
Downtime
Downtime is the time period during which the users are not able to access a website. It could be for a few seconds, minutes or even few hours. Best web hosting companies always assure 99.9% uptime (which means 0.01% downtime). The lesser downtime of any website, the better for it.
Slow loading
Let’s face it. Nobody has ample time to wait for a website to get downloaded. The users expect websites to load within couple of seconds. Several studies have also shown that users tend to quit those websites that take more than 6 seconds to load. The loading time of a website is, upto a certain level, dependent on the server quality.
Imagine you spent thousands of dollars on advertising your ecommerce website but most of the targeted customers quit your website because of its slow loading speed. What a huge loss. Isn’t it?
# Some of the reliable web hosting companies
Based on my experience with several web hosting companies in the past, I have listed down some of the best hosting providers:
PLAN - PRICE
Description
Description
Monthly Bandwidth
Control Panel
Databases
Analytics
Domains
Starts $1.99/mo.
24x7 phone, email, and chat assistance
Calls answered in 2 minutes on average
1GB Cloud Storage
Daily malware & spam scan
Free SiteLock security (Worth $100)
Amazing video tutorials and online help
Site Analytics Suite
Starts $0.99/mo.
Free domain
24x7 technical support
Unlimited storage & emails
Drag & Drop site builder
Great speed
Latest technology server
Starts $5.99/mo.
SSD drives on shared hosting
24x7 technical support
Free data backups
100 GB storage with basic plan
Great speed
Hosted on latest technology
# What are the pre-requisites of an ideal web hosting company?
Since we’ve already read what exactly is web hosting and why its important for an online business. Now, the question is “How to choose best & reliable web hosting“. Ok, let’s get on it.
You must subscribe with a web hosting company that provides you with below:
- High configuration servers
- Secured web servers
- 24/7 support
- Online chat
- Technical staff to handle troubleshooting
- Minimum downtime
- Fast loading speed
- Data backup plan
