Web Hosting Made Easy in 5 Simple Steps

Web hostingFor many years, Internet users have seen and heard the success stories of people and companies earning millions through the considerable help of their own websites. In effect, a lot of them are looking into creating their own, drawing inspiration from founders of social networking sites and companies that brought their business to the Web via online shopping. While it’s becoming easier to create your own website by simply referring to resources available in various media, the goal of having it available to users all of the time and making it accessible no matter when and where, are the challenges that concern these individuals and companies. Solutions to such challenges are now becoming clearer with Web hosting services.

There are Web hosting providers that offer a range of this type of service, with different prices, plans and even add-on features. What’s important is how these things would benefit the website and you. Here are five steps to follow to get you started and most of all, benefit from Web hosting:

1. Know What Web Hosting Plan is Suited For You and Your Needs

The goal is to make your website visible as much as possible, anytime and anywhere to prospective users. For this to be done, you need to hire someone, a Web Host provider. This provider would then store your website in a reliable Web server (host), to do that goal for you. This process or service that you would most of the time subscribe to and pay for is, a Web hosting plan. A prerequisite to this is to create your domain name and have it registered, although some providers offer domain name registration as part of their Web hosting packages.

2. Decide What Kind of Website You Need

There are two basic types of websites, a static and a dynamic website. You can create a single or multi-page static website with even just Microsoft Notepad by using HTML (Hypertext Markup Language). This is done manually by following a series of codes. Upload the output to the host’s server by using an FTP (File Transfer Protocol) software like FileZilla. Since this is static and would never change by itself, edits and updates would have to be done on your computer and have it uploaded again. And, if the FTP software is an issue, some providers include website builder software in their service package. Dynamic sites like a photo gallery or forum site, on the other hand, requires you to install CMS (Content Management System) software like WordPress . This software allows you to change and edit content directly on the website without the need of other tools on your computer.

3. Consider the Kind of Web Hosting Technology Your Site Requires

Static websites can use any Web server technology, while dynamic sites can be supported by two main Web hosting technologies: Windows hosting and Linux hosting technologies. Windows hosting typically is used if the platform in developing a dynamic website is a Microsoft product like Expression Web, while Linux hosting is used when a website service runs on Linux systems. Among the two, the latter is said to pose less compatibility issues when using site builder software.

4. Consider the Level of Service You Need For Your Website

As discussed earlier, there is a wide range of services offered by Web hosting providers with varying prices to consider. The first type is free hosting. This is similar to a shared hosting and would generally be full of advertisements, which in turn make it load slower than usual sites with minimal ads. This can work with small or private websites. If your website is fairly new, you can go with free Web hosting while you’re working on your site, since this would cost you nothing at all.

The second type is shared hosting. Prices for this level of service range from $4 to $10 per month. With this type, a rather large server would host different websites of a number of clients with individual accounts.

The next type is the Virtual Private Server with a mid-range price of $30 to $40. This is similar to a shared hosting plan, with the only difference being the separation of websites from one another, making it appear like your website is hosted in an entirely different server. If you are more into securing your data, then this is the service level you might need.

Another type is the dedicated server where, as the name suggests, you get your own server. This is the Web hosting package that is more secure and faster compared to other Web hosting plans. However, it certainly comes with a price. A dedicated server can cost you $79 up to $399 per month. Note that  price ranges given are prices for a monthly subscription. This may vary, depending on your agreement with the provider, what plans are available to you and what other features are included in the service plan.

5. Choose Your Web Host

At the end of the day, the sum of all the factors presented may not suffice if the Web host’s level of customer and technical support, the actual performance of your website and its uptime are not included. It is sometimes hard to just take in what you were promised. A good way of proving if that is so is to check on a particular website hosted by your prospect Web hosting companies. If it’s loading fast enough and the site is still working fine upon checking a couple of days after, then you’re making the right choice. There are also other means on how to go about this last step. Resources such as reviews and the actual site of the provider can shed light on which Web hosting company to choose.

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