It is critical to understand how to choose a web host best suited for your needs.

For either commercial or personal sites, you should pick your hosting provider wisely. Your ultimate goal should be to have as much exposure to your website as possible.  To accomplish this, it is critical to review certain fundamental yet critical elements that will increase the exposure of your website.  Here we go!

How to Choose a Web Host

There are myriad web hosting providers and packages available today, and they all have unique strengths and weaknesses . So how does one choose a web host that meets your requirements the best?  It will take a bit of research, so read on and discover how to proceed.

Even once you’ve narrowed your search to a certain provider, you still need to select the hosting package that’s right for you. Every hosting entity provides a wide range of options from which to pick. The ‘Unlimited Bandwidth’ bundle is a mainstay clarion call for all would-be web owners.

The following element reviews should support your quest to choose web hosting .

1. Server uptime and customer service:

The most fundamental need for a website to be found on the internet is flawless server uptime.  Uptime means that the server is functioning properly, and 99.99 % uptime is the gold standard in the web hosting world.  Let’s face it; if your site is ‘down’, you lose customers/visitors, and that is not good.

How to choose a web host requires some research and look for remarks from the provider’s customers on internet forums or elsewhere online. Most new users decide to go with hosting businesses that have a solid reputation and years of experience. as established hosting firms have several redundant power and server backups to apply in case of emergency.  A few claim 100 percent uptime, and they promising money refunds in the case of any downtime.

Another critical aspect of a top notch web hosting service should be customer support. If you don’t have online or phone access to support 24/7, 365 then move on.  Should you you need reference to guides, a robust collection of lessons, FAQs and tutorials should be easily available on their YouTube channel or website. This access is critical for you to develop your website. You will be surprised at how often you will depend upon these resources, so choose a provider with excellent ones.

2. Costs and included features

The cost and services offered in web hosting packages vary quite a bit. You’ll want a blend of features and functionality that will satisfy your requirements. As with any other product, inexpensive typically translates into lower quality. Conversely, some costs might be expensive without providing useful function, so be aware of over subscribing.

The pricing of hosting packages is typically related to the number of features provided. These include constraints on bandwidth and data storage, on permissible access to extra domains and subdomains, how many FTP accounts and email accounts, shared or virtual or dedicated server plans, databases and programming languages, site tools, shopping carts, and so on. With so many alternatives and no experience with them, it’s common to feel overwhelmed.  Don’t worry, we’ll explain the significant ones in the sections below.

When pondering how to choose a web host, dollars and cents count.  Good value, standard cost for a shared hosting bundle  starts at about 6-8 US dollars monthly. Moving up the service ladder, dedicated or virtual / private servers rates are between $30 and $50 monthly, and for 60 to 80 dollars monthly you can rent a Dedicated Server.

Savings suggestion: If you don’t have a domain name picked out as of yet, several hosting options provide a domain name for free.  If you have a domain name already, you can still get the free domain and then have two sites!   Take advantage of that deal if you can.

3. Data Storage and Bandwidth Restrictions

Important note: don’t be too concerned about this . Even the most seasoned professionals will tell you that. Because your requirements will change as the amount of traffice to your website increases, you will learn everything as you go and make changes to adapt to your needs along the way.

Data Storage Space:  

Data Storage Space:  Normal webpages seldom exceed 40-50 MB (megabytes)  of storage space in size. To give you perspective on costs, a 10 GB (gigabyte, which is 1000 MB) hosting option will cost $4.99 monthly currently on a top hosting provider reviewed on this site.  You’ll have to read our  reviews to find out which one !

Bandwidth Limits: A bandwidth limit is the data transfers quantity allowed each month by your hosting provider. This is determined by your traffic and the asset mix you on your site, which commonly includes video clips and images on simple web pages. For standard websites there isn’t anything to be overly concerned about, as even on low-cost shared hosting packages, most hosting companies will include “Unlimited Bandwidth.”

A word of warning, however, for anyone planning to host video/movie clips or high-resolution images. Don’t be duped by Unlimited Bandwidth Shared Hosting plans. If you read the “Terms of Use” and “Common Consumption Policy” for most shared hosting packages, you will certainly find a clause stating that “abnormally high data bandwidth usage” is not allowed or would result in additional charges. You’re probably better off going with a dedicated server or VPS, host on the cloud, or high bandwidth alternatives if you are going heavy with video clips and high res images.

4. Shared Hosting vs. VPS Hosting vs. Cloud Hosting vs. Dedicated Server

How do you decide which sort of hosting to use?  Simply  pick according on how much traffic you anticipate your site will have, i.e. Shared / VPS / Dedicated / Cloud, in that sequence.

Shared Hosting: an overwhelming percentage of websites utilise shared hosting. It is suitable for single and minimal size websites, and provides the least expensive hosting option. Between 10-100 hosting accounts are housed on a single physical server in shared hosting. Each has access to communal server storage and broadband connection.

Shared hosting: is especially suggested for newcomers and small to medium-sized personal and business websites that forego image/movie/video downloads.  Their price ranges from $5 and up to $15 monthly.

Virtual Private Servers (VPS): This form of hosting is typically utilised by medium-sized websites with moderate bandwidth and  storage requirements. Virtual Private Servers are housed on their own IP addresses (for example, 182.170.1.4) and mimic a dedicated physical stand-alone server, but for less expense. Up to 10 accounts are stored on a single physical server, with each account having a unique host id or ip address, room for data storage, and level of bandwidth all managed separately by software.

VPS hosting may range from $30 to $150 per month for a one-year contract, services dependent. Please keep in mind that the price of all hosting packages drops as the length in years of your contract increases. You pay more up front, but save in a monthly cost comparison.

Dedicated Servers:  are employed by medium to large websites for their storage and bandwidth scalability.  These websites are hosted on a different physical server. In other words, they have a separate server that is not shared with any other user. They enjoy total command of the server, and its own IP address, bandwidth, RAM and hard drive.

The cost of renting a dedicated server is determined by the server’s physical components, hard drive capacity, CPU version, quantity of RAM, and broadband connection. Prices per month might range from $65 to $200 or more.

Cloud hosting:  is the next generation of web hosting and is a relatively recent phenomenon in the industry. In lieu of a single isolated server, cloud hosting makes use of several servers situated in different places that are linked together.

The key benefits of cloud hosting are low cost per service and ability to scale. The advantages are greatest for large websites. When a website’s capacity exceeds its present capacity, all that is required is the addition of another server to the networked set of servers.

Depending on the storage and bandwidth needs, using the cloud as host can range in price from $100 to $550 and more.

5. Additional Domains and Subdomains

Addon Domains are website domain names, such as “http://www.yoursite1.com”, “http://www.yoursite2.com”, that you want to be hosted. If you require more than one website, you must select a package that enables it. Most of the cheapest web hosting services only allow for a solo website.

Sub Domains: as you progress as a webpreneur, you may wish to set up subdirectories, such as “http://directory1.yoursite.com” or “http://directory2.yoursite.com.” The amount of Sub Domains permitted varies depending on the bundle. This is different from multiple folders, such as “http://www.yoursite.com/folder1” or “http://www.yoursite.com/folder2.” There is no limit to the number of folders.

Accounts for email and FTP

Email Accounts: These are specific and unique email addresses for your website/s, such as “name@yoursite.com.” You may make them and gift them to anybody, including friends, guests, and clients. The majority of hosting services will allow plenty of space to make as many email accounts as you require.

FTP Accounts: FTP is an abbreviation for “File Transfer Protocol.” FTP accounts are used by web applications to work with your hosting files. If you are a webmaster they are required since they enable you to edit, remove, or enable new files and directories on your host using web design and ftp software. Most packages include more than ten accounts which you can allocate amongst team members.  Most folks reading this article will not be concerned with ftp for some time to come, don’t have a ‘team’, and so won’t have to be concerned with ftp until they accumulate more web master experience.

7. Databases and Programming Languages

There are many database and programming lanuguages utilized for shaping your functioning website, and providing management abilities.  You may have heard of PHP5, ColdFusion, MySQL(Win), amongst others.

They are the programming softwares and databases that your hosting server makes use of. They are used for more complex web capabilities such as automated content management, user administration, scripting and programme execution, and so on.  .They really are of no immediate concern to neophyte website owners, although they are critical to providing web management services in your Control Panel.

Your Control Panel, gateway to shaping your website,  will provide access to packages such as Geeklog, Serendipity, Joomla,  and Drupal amongst a host of others.  We will write another article that explains the function of each of these functions in detail.  These are ready-made tools for creating blogs, forums, and content management systems.