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It goes without saying that no matter what type of business you own, having an aesthetic, high-performing website is vital to the success of your venture. But before you can build the perfect website, you’ll need to decide on a service to host it – that is, give it a home on the web.
While there is a lot to consider when it comes to choosing a web hosting solution for your online business, we simplified the process with these three simple steps to help you find the right website host for you.
What is Website Hosting?
The primary role of a web hosting provider is to get your website on the internet so people can access it. A host will give your business a place to call home on the internet by providing three main components:
- Domain – your website’s address that people type in to access your site
- Server – the machine that hosts your site live
- Storage – the dedicated space where you store all of your website’s code and media such as text, images, and videos
3 Simple Steps to Finding the Right Website Host For Your Business
Step 1: Identify your website needs
When considering which type of hosting is best for you, you should not only consider your current business needs, but future growth. Choose a host that can grow and scale with your business. Let’s break down the four types of web hosting:
- Shared Hosting – Usually the most affordable option, this hosting environment allows your site to “live” with other sites on the same server, where the server’s resources, such as processor, disk space, and RAM, are shared by the other websites also living on that server.
- VPS (Virtual Private Server) – Similar to shared hosting, with virtual private hosting, your website still lives on the same server as other sites, but is isolated. In addition to more processing power, disk space and more RAM that other websites on that server do not have, this option enables your website to handle considerably higher traffic volumes and process more requests.
- Cloud Hosting – Cloud hosting has taken the web hosting scene by storm in recent years. The convenience of immediate setup (without server monitoring and IT involvement) and unlimited scalability make cloud computing the ideal choice for businesses that already manage a considerable amount of data and transactions.
- Dedicated Server – Unlike a shared server, a dedicated server means it’s yours and yours alone. A somewhat pricier option, but valuable if you want full ownership of all resources and to maximize performance of your site exclusively.
Step 2: Compare key factors and figure out what’s most important to you
Consider things like:
- Pricing – Website hosting companies typically have flashy sales and tout competitive pricing. However, renewal rates, tricky cancelation policies, and hidden fees often lurk in the fine print.
- Technical Needs – The host you choose will have a significant impact on your site’s performance, speed, and scalability. Make sure the host you choose is experienced and reliable and can meet all of your unique site requirements.
- Ease of Use and Customization – Who will be doing the majority of your website management? You or a web professional? Will you be able to customize and update the content as you’d like without dedicated IT support? What about technical security and website updates? You will need to consider your internal resources to figure out what level of support you need from your hosting company. These are questions you’ll want answered on the front end to ensure day-to-day management is easy and efficient.
Step 3: Ensure your web hosting company provides the value your business deserves
In this case, we’re talking about more than just attractive price points. What caliber of customer service do they provide? Do they have rave reviews from their customers? Are they familiar with your website and your business? Is there 24/7 support via email, phone, and chat? Don’t get lost in the endless sea of customers in an inbound call center queue when you need dedicated support the most.
Explore PixelPeople’s Web Hosting Services
PixelPeople offers customizable web hosting packages that are optimized for performance and come with a 99.9% uptime guarantee. With PixelPeople web hosting, you have one simple call to make for all of your website needs. And if you ever need support, you can rest assured knowing that you’ll be able to reach someone who is familiar with your website and wants to provide the best solution for you ASAP.
Learn more about our web hosting services or contact us to get started!
