At the time of writing this blog post there are billions of websites running on this planet which use hosting services to host their web contents, applications and e-commerce stores.

You will find information on the following in this blog post:

• What is Web Hosting?
• How does Web Hosting work?
• Types of Web Hosting Services
• Top 10 Factors to consider Web Hosting

I really do hope you enjoy and learn something from this post. So let’s get started with Web Hosting!

What is Web Hosting?

The basic function of any Web Hosting is to host websites and make sure that your website’s content is accessible from any part of this planet. Your website, applications and other media files are stored on a server which is connected to the Internet every time. The companies that offer such services called Hosting Provider have to make sure of 24/7 uptime and serve multiple client requests simultaneously.

How does Web Hosting work?

When the user accesses your website such as The Eplanethub (https://eplanethub.com/) the DNS translates the IP address and forwards the user request to that IP which is configured on a web server located in the Data Center of a hosting company. As soon as the server connects to the user it sends back with the requested web page files like text, images, video files.

These servers are managed by a highly technical team which require 24/7 support service. They have to fulfill their SLA and maintain a policy to earn and maintain trust with their customers. A minute of downtime will highly impact this business.

To fulfill this need, hosting providers install redundant electricity power supply, cooling systems and internet connections. All of these are also maintained and managed by highly qualified and skilled people. 

Types of Web Hosting Services

When you want to host your website there are many types of hosting available. Let’s discuss it. 

1.Shared Hosting:

It is the most basic and affordable hosting option available as your server space and internet bandwidth is shared by several websites. Only benefit for this type of hosting is you get a cheap and easy to use hosting platform. This is good for beginners, learners and bloggers. But if you want to host a business website I would recommend you to go for an upgrade hosting option. As shared hosting sometimes slows down or even has downtime which will impact on your business.

2.WordPress Hosting

Again this type of hosting is usually used by bloggers. I would recommend you to go with this if you want to launch a WordPress blog or website. This type of  service provides a pre-wordpress installed server, which means you don’t have to install it and manage it. It helps your site load faster and minimize potential issues. Best WordPress hosting plans come with features such as pre-installed themes, plugins for core functions like caching and security, and other tools.

3.Dedicated Hosting:

This type of hosting comes with a physical server for each website. I would recommend it for those who want to launch a website for the online business which requires heavy traffic. Lots of customization you can do.. configure the server, install operating system and software you want, and configure the whole hosting environment as per your requirement.

The drawbacks are the cost and you require an IT person who could manage it if you do not have that skill.

5.VPS hosting:

Virtual Private Servers, or VPS hosting, comes with a flavor of shared and dedicated website hosting. In this type the owner of the website has the opportunity to enjoy a complete control environment on a Virtual server. You get additional resources than you would get with a shared server while being a shared hosting service. I would recommend this type for startups or midsize companies.

The good news is that you now have a basic understanding of web hosting and types of hosting services. Let’s go right to the most important considerations when choosing a web hosting package for our website.

Top 10 Factors to consider Web Hosting

There are many factors to consider while choosing a web hosting service. I have shortlisted the Top 10 out of them. Let’s uncover them.

1. Average Uptime 

The most important factor to gauge your hosting service is Average Uptime. As the name defines it is the average amount of time your website stays up within a given period of time. 

It will be a very embarrassing situation if your website has consecutive downtime. You will not receive good web traffic if visitors can’t access it when they visit. 

You might lose several business opportunities if your website is down for an hour.

The ideal average Uptime is 100% or equivalent to it. I would recommend you to go for another hosting provider if average uptime is below 99.90%.

2. Load Time / Page speed

Suppose you load a website and it takes too much time to load, what would you do? Definitely you will jump up to another website. This is why Load Time or page speed is also the most important factor to consider. It is very similar to uptime, your page load time directly impacts the website traffic. 

Once your viewers get frustrated with the page speed they will never land your website again. There are some hosting providers available in the market who provide a good page speed for computer users only. I would recommend you to go with those who provide good speed for mobile users as well. Because Google already revealed that 53% of mobile site visitors leave if it takes more than 3 seconds to load a page. It’s for this reason that you want a web host that can provide page load times of 3 seconds or less. 

If you already know a little about SEO, you know that Google will always prioritize the pages that load faster, always aiming to offer the best experience for its users.

So, check if the website hosting service you are hiring offers a good loading speed. It’s worth remembering that it may seem an insignificant difference in theory but, in practice, it’s the difference between a user remaining actively consuming your content or being annoyed by the delay and abandoning your page.

3. Customer Support

This is the most key factor while considering the web hosting provider. Because at any point you’ll need their support assistance. Customer service is the deciding factor for many users, and the provider’s availability to assist you might be the difference between a crisis being addressed swiftly or a website being down for several hours. You will deal with website problems more efficiently and quickly if your web hosting provider has the best support team.

Your life can be a miserable hell when you face an unresponsive or unhelpful support team.  Web hosting usually offers many channels for customer support which are follows:

• Ticketing system
• Email
• Live Chat
• Direct Phone call

4. Monthly traffic

You need to check before finalizing a web hosting plan whether it comes with a ‘traffic limit’? If yes, this means that after a specific amount of access, they will either charge you additional fee for the ‘Extra Visitors’ or will stop displaying your website on the web.

So, I would recommend you go with an unlimited data traffic plan to avoid such hassles.

5. Website Security

Cyber attacks are increasing day by day. There is nothing 100% safe from cyber threats which are connected to the internet. Your website is 24/7 online which means that this is most vulnerable to cyber attacks. Many websites are hacked or compromised by cyber attackers having weak security.

Most hosting providers do provide security features like DDoS, SSL, monitoring and backup service like RAID. However, I would recommend you to go for additional security options like safeguard from hackers.

6. Pricing and renewal

Every organization wants to earn a profit. You must first be willing to invest some money in order to do so. You may not need to spend your life savings on an expensive hosting plan, if you are just starting off. In contrast, if you’re operating a website for a large company, you might not want to skimp on functionality.

Another thing you should keep an eye out for is the cost of renewing your subscription. You might be startled to learn that the renewal fee is significantly larger than the original payment you made when you joined up.

You should remember following points regarding web hosting pricing:

• The price should not be the deciding factor when selecting the best service, but it may assist make the selection simpler. 
• Being cheaper does not ensure a poor quality service, just as being more costly does not guarantee a high-quality provider.
• Determine what sort of requirement you have and seek for a strategy that balances your needs with your budget.
• Remember that many website hosting providers provide savings based on the length of time you choose to engage them. In general, the longer the duration of use, the cheaper the ultimate cost.

7. Refund options

I hope this is not a new thing for you, that money-back guarantee offered by some web hosting providers for a specific duration after subscription.

It’s great to have easy return options when testing out a web hosting provider. This allows you to pay to test their service and determine whether it meets your demands. If you don’t think their service is worth the money you paid for it, you may easily get your money back.

Many people end up not obtaining refunds from their web hosting company and generally vent their rage on the internet. I would recommend you to check these complaints which are available on online forums and review sites. This will give you a clear picture of the provider’s money-back promise as painless as they advertise.

8. Backups

Suppose you delete your homepage mistakenly or any cyber attacks happened on your website.. Then backup is the only way to live up your website as it was previous. It prevents you from losing all your website progress and data if something unfortunate occurs

Auto backup of your website would be an ideal feature or at least a simple GUI based backup service so that a non-techie guy can do this job. 

9. Free domain

A free domain is often provided by many web hosts for a full year. After then, utilizing that domain will need you to start paying a charge. The average cost of a simple domain is 10$ / year (I am not talking about expensive domains). So it is good to go with that package which has a free domain option.

Some hosting providers also offer you to launch your website on a subdomain like in form [yourname.webhost.com]. I would not recommend you to go with that because it may not look very professional and you cannot flip your domain if you want.

10. Add-on Features

If you’ve already shortlisted web hosting providers,but are still undecided, looking at their add-on services.

Some useful add-on features are as following:

• Unlimited or free email accounts
• Free site transfers
• cPanel availability
• CDN availability
• One-click WordPress installation
• Site builder access
• Specific data center location

Conclusion

In this post you have learnt about web hosting, their types and top 10 key factors on which you have to focus on while subscribing a web hosting plan for your website.

I hope you have enjoyed this post a lot and you will undoubtedly have a lot more confidence when deciding how to get the finest web hosting.

Tell me which hosting provider you have subscribed to and why?