Do you want to start a blog or online shop? Then you need a website. But did you know that you also need web hosting to get your website online? There are many aspects to web hosting and you may not be sure what it entails. You need to choose a host, hosting type and many other things. That’s why we wrote this guide to help you understand what it is and choose the right host for your website!
Key insights
- Web hosting makes your website accessible online, requiring you to choose a host and the type of hosting.
- Choose between fully hosted and self-hosted options depending on your control and data ownership preferences.
- When choosing a host, consider server location, storage space, audience size, and additional services offered.
- Familiarize yourself with the different types of hosting: shared, dedicated and VPS hosting to find out what suits your needs.
- For WordPress.org websites, there are special hosting plans that are optimized and may include support for security and updates.
What is web hosting?
Let’s start with the basics. Web hosting is a service that ensures that your website is accessible over the Internet. The pages and files that make up your website reside on a server. Whenever someone visits your website, this server sends the necessary “files” to display your website to website visitors. This server is owned by a web hosting company and you can rent space to store your website files on a server that suits your needs. Without web hosting, your website simply cannot exist.
It’s also good to know that while your choice of hosting may not have a direct impact, it does impact your SEO. Reliable hosting improves the security, speed and availability of your website. All factors that tell search engines that your website is trustworthy and a good option to display to their users. Therefore, upgrading your hosting plan or switching to a new hosting company can improve your website performance. However, make sure you choose reliability and your website needs over low prices.
So where do you start? By looking at web hosts or hosting companies. These companies provide servers and internet connectivity in a data center. In other words, they provide space for your website’s data to exist and be found by other people.
Fully hosted vs. self-hosted
The first decision you need to make when choosing the right host for your website is whether you want to create a fully hosted or self-hosted website. The difference is pretty self-explanatory. Fully hosted means that each site on the platform is hosted on its own servers. These companies take care of all hosting matters for you, such as: Shopify And WordPress.com.
Self-hosted, on the other hand, means that you have to organize the hosting yourself. A good example is WordPress.org. Now you might be thinking: Why would I want to do everything myself? And while it’s true that self-hosting means extra work, it also means that you own all the data. You also get access to the full codebase and can choose your own hosting company.
How to choose a hosting company
Today there are thousands of companies to choose from. They all have their own benefits and hosting plans. So how do you choose the right host for your website? What should you focus on? First, it’s important to consider a few things.
Server location
As they always say on real estate TV shows, location is everything. When it comes to hosting, it’s not necessarily everything, but it’s important. The location of your host’s servers is an important factor in the speed of your website. Why? The closer the distance between your audience and your server, the faster your website is. For example, if your audience is based in the US but your host is based on the other side of the world, this could slow down your site for visitors, which is something you want to avoid.
Storage space
Second, consider what type of website you want to create. This affects how much storage space you need to purchase. For example, a small blog requires significantly fewer resources than a large online shop with thousands of products. Think about how many pages your website will have and how much content it will have. If you already know that you want to create a large website with lots of large images and videos, you need to look for hosting plans with more storage space.
How big is your audience?
We know that this question is difficult to answer. However, you may already have an idea of how many page views you want to achieve. Consider this number when choosing a hosting company and hosting plan. Because every time someone views a page on your website, the bandwidth you use increases. In other words, all text and images on this site must be downloaded to each visitor’s computer before they can be viewed in their web browser.
Other services offered
A final consideration is the need for additional services related to your website. Many hosting companies offer additional services such as email hosting, SSL certificates, automated website backups, and website builders. The website plan you choose should provide the services you need to operate, preferably beyond basic hosting. For example, if you choose a hosting plan with a website builder, you can create your website immediately.
Bluehost recently launched an AI website builder. You answer a few questions and your website is created for you. You can make changes via chat and see changes in real time, no programming or design skills required. Just describe what you want. Hosting and a domain are included in the price, and human support is also available if required. Ideal if you’re setting up a website for your small business and want it to go live quickly. If your website is a bit more complex, such as if you want to create a membership portal, this may not be the best option.
In addition to server location, storage space, and number of visitors, there are numerous other factors that determine your ideal hosting company. That’s why we’ve put together a few additional questions you might ask yourself (and a hosting company) when choosing the right host for your website.
- Do I need help or support with the setup?
- Does the company offer live chat and phone support and is it responsive?
- What happens if my website gets hacked or goes down in the middle of the night? Will they help?
- How much is my budget?
- Do I need the ability to add more websites?
- Does this hosting company have good reviews?
- And what kind of hardware, like SSD storage, CPUs and memory chips, do I need for high-end packages for my site?
Different Types of Hosting
Finally, let’s look at the different types of hosting. In this guide, we’ll focus on the three most common: shared hosting, dedicated hosting and VPS hosting. But there are many other options.
Shared hosting
Shared hosting means that you share the same server resources with multiple customers. These server resources determine how much disk space, bandwidth, mailboxes, etc. are available to you. This also means that each hosting package has resource limits. Don’t worry, sharing resources doesn’t mean other customers can see or access your data. Shared hosting is probably the cheapest option, but may not be the best choice if you expect to need a lot of server space and bandwidth.
Dedicated hosting
Dedicated hosting does exactly what it promises. You will receive a dedicated, fully assigned hardware server that is available exclusively to you. This means that you do not share the server with other customers. Instead, you have your own personal server with its own processors, hard drives and storage. This makes dedicated hosting an interesting choice for larger websites, such as large online stores or corporate sites.
VPS hosting
VPS hosting stands for Virtual Private Server. A VPS is a virtual machine on a physical server that is divided into different sections. On this server you get your own storage space with access to a certain amount of resources such as memory and processors. Unlike shared hosting, these resources are only available to you. Additionally, you can optimize your VPS server to your liking. For example, you can determine what software it runs and customize the settings to your liking, like dedicated hosting.
Hosting plans for WordPress.org sites
If you are planning to create a WordPress.org website, then we have good news for you. There are countless hosting companies that offer hosting plans specifically for WordPress.org sites. The advantage? The plans are fully optimized for WordPress based websites. Usually WordPress is already installed, so you don’t have to worry about it anymore. Sometimes they also offer security and update services. This means you don’t have to worry about the security of your website or updating WordPress and the plugins you install.
To help you, here is what you will find a list of WordPress hosting companies.
Diploma
Now you know all the basics about hosting companies, hosting plans, and the different types of hosting. Still, it’s good to consider what factors are important to you before choosing a hosting company and hosting plan. Because the hosting of your website can affect factors such as website speed and the amount of content you can host.
If you would like more information about hosting, we recommend checking out our Technical SEO course. The course covers considerations when choosing a host and provides practical tips on how to make your website easy to find for search engines. And much more!
FAQ
It’s possible, but it depends on your facility and where you’re moving to. Luckily, most hosts offer great support. They usually walk you through all the processes you need to go through. These processes include moving your files, your database, and possibly some configuration information.
When choosing your host, it’s worth getting in touch with their support team to find out what kind of services they offer and how much they can help you.
Oh, that’s difficult! There are many tools on the internet to help you choose a hosting provider, but it’s a bit of a minefield. We recommend taking a look at yoast.com/hosting.
But really do your research. Understand what your budget is, what features you might need, and talk to the support staff. Many of these companies and websites also offer live chat.
It’s good that you think about the bandwidth beforehand, but don’t let it dictate your choice. Instead, research how much different hosting companies charge for their different packages and how prices change when you need to scale. Maybe you can start small and upgrade later. Take another look, check prices and packages, and talk to support staff.
