Every business needs a great web design, there’s no arguing that point.
There’s one detail about business websites that sometimes doesn’t get enough consideration though and that’s picking the right hosting.
Hosting is how your website is presented online so customers can find it.
Experienced web designers stress that the wrong hosting can send an erroneous message to a potential audience, while the right one can help your business soar.
The Many Kinds of Web Hosting
There are many types of hosting to manage your web design, each one with different pros and cons:
- Shared Hosting - A basic and inexpensive hosting available, hosting resources are shared with many websites on the same server; however, it is not recommended due to reliability concerns.
- VPS Hosting - Virtual Private Server hosting, which is technically also shared hosting but with far fewer websites so the resources go further for each site and cloud hosting is a type of virtual VPS hosting.
- Dedicated Hosting - A private server just for any company’s website design to structure how you need it with all paid resources for use only by your website.
- Website Builder Hosting - Affordable hosting provided by some website builder companies specifically to host sites built on their platform. Generally not used by web designers although WordPress hosting, which is a designer favorite, is technically a type of website builder hosting.
- Specialized Hosting - Niche hosting that serves specific types of websites like ecommerce sites, gaming sites. WordPress hosting is also considered by some to be a niche.
What Is Needed By A Good Web Host?
The biggest differences between all hosting types revolves around four things: resource availability and allocation; included services; scalability and customization; and reliability.
- Resource Availability - Cost is one last differing factor among host types, as web design professionals find that overall, you get what you pay for in hosting options.
- Included Services - Dedicated hosting remains an optimal option for businesses that can afford it, as all server resources are made available and allocated as designated by the web designer setting up the site.
The second best option tends to be VPS hosting including cloud hosting, as this option is very affordable in relation to resource availability and allocation and available services, which is usually much greater than what comes with shared hosting plans and most website builder hosting plans.
- Included Services - Specialized hosting can be great for certain website designs since the host has built up its resources and services to provide specifically for those types of websites.
- Customization and Scalability - In terms of customization and scalability, dedicated hosting is a optimal choice in both categories, allowing businesses to build the exact website they need although VPS hosts also offer a degree of customization and scalability that’s not available with shared and website builder hosts.
A Reliable Web Host for WordPress Websites
As a recommended favorite of most web design professional, WordPress hosting stands apart from all of these options as it’s a little bit of many of the different hosting types.
Technically a website builder option, WordPress is also a niche host designed to provide users all the resources, service, and tools needed to get optimal results from a website built using the WordPress CMS.
A VPS type of service, WordPress hosting offers some features that you’d get with a dedicated hosting plan.
What Are The Hosting Traps To Avoid?
The biggest problems that any growing business might face that would affect website hosting is resource allocation, lack of the available hosting tools and services needed to run a business, downtime, lack of customization options, and the inability to scale your site as necessary with business growth.
While this lack of features and resources may not seem like a problem starting out, any website designer will attest that running out of options with an established website that can no longer serve all customers leaves only two choices: stay restricted and lose business or move the entire website to another host.
As such, shared servers and most website builder hosting are not recommended except for WordPress, as that will quickly become too restrictive for a growing business.
Web designers also suggest that specialty or niche hosting must be very carefully analyzed to ensure that a site can be customized as needed and scaled as required in the future.
Choose Suitable Web Hosting
With so many options available, getting your website hosted with the right service can be a challenge.
Ultimately, website design professionals recommend starting out by planning how your site should work to best service customers both now and in the future, then choose the option that can offers all of that.
Although all offered resources may not be immediately needed, a hosting service that offers room to grow and the tools needed to do that, your website and business can painlessly grow together and keep your customers happy without a hitch!