The battleground to become a top-of-mind brand used to be billboards and high foot traffic places in the mall to give out brochures. It used to be commercial spots on radio and TV, and interviews by big newspaper agencies, whether local or national. Right now, though, it has become the Internet and the game is about going viral.
To go viral means that a lot of people are sharing your content. This can range from videos to articles that users find relevant. Indeed, the Internet has changed the way businesses reach out to their target audience. It has given start-ups and big corporations an even and level ground to have a chance of getting people’s attention. For this reason, lots of websites have sprung up. The entrepreneurs who have created a stake online in the years when Internet marketing was a new concept are now enjoying the fruit of their labours- and now new entrepreneurs want the same success.
But having an online presence is more than just sharing content and thinking about the design of your website. It can be technical, sometimes filled with jargon you would not understand at first. Starting with the easiest, albeit technical, component of them all called web hosting.
Understanding web hosting
Without going into jargon, web hosting is simply about using bandwidth and disk space from a web hosting company. Domain registrar and Internet hosting companies like Crazy Domain can immediately provide you with web hosting even before you finish purchasing your domain name. They will offer you different web hosting plans, each will come with only a certain amount of allowable bandwidth and disk space.
Let us put it this way: web hosting companies are like a village. There are different houses there owned by different people in each lot provided by the village. Your website will be one of those houses, occupying a specific lot space. You each pay village fees to keep living in the space – that is basically how web hosting works.
Different kinds of web hosting
You might be overwhelmed when it comes to choosing the right plan, so here is a short primer on the different kinds of hosting.
- Shared web hosting – Among the choices here, this is the most low-cost option. Shared web hosting is when many websites are sharing just one hardware server. The only downside is if one of those websites suddenly has an increase in traffic and a lot of people are using, the performance of all the other websites sharing that hardware server will suffer just so that one website can perform optimally.
- Dedicated web hosting – This would be the most expensive web hosting, but is the best choice if you want sole ownership with the hardware server. Basically, your website will have its own hardware server.
- Windows VPS web hosting – When it comes to pricing, this option is the most cost-efficient. Think of this as a combination of the shared hosting and dedicated hosting. Windows VPS will divide a hardware server into smaller virtual machines, and this allows lots of users to share that one hardware server. However, because of its system of allocation, it works as if you have a dedicated server – meaning, website performances will not suffer if one website sharing the server suddenly increased in traffic and use.
When choosing web hosting companies, you should factor the following when comparing companies:
- Server reliability (read up on reviews)
- Allowable disk space per kind of web hosting
- Website platform they use (e.g. WordPress)
- Uptime score
A web hosting company offering an SSL certificate is also a plus. This means that they prioritise secure and safe communication between your web server and the user. Keep these things in mind when you are shopping for web hosting, and make sure you choose one that can offer you the full advantages of having a website.