Having a website has become integral to most businesses, as the amount of business leads that can be generated from online marketing can be very significant. For bigger businesses, an IT department or dedicated web developer will take on the work involved in getting a website set up. For smaller businesses though, they don’t always have the luxury or resources to have a specialist involved.
However, with the level of progress that has been made in website development over recent years, it has become much easier for those with little technical knowledge to get a website up and running themselves.
There are now a whole host of themes offered by companies such as WordPress and similar ones that are really easy to use with a bit of willingness to learn some basic fundamentals. A simple website can be up and running in less than a day, as many website services use in their advertising campaigns. There are a few things that people will need to consider when they are setting up a website for the first time and one of the biggest is web hosting.
Assuming you have never heard the term web hosting before, you may be unsure of whether this is something that you require. The simple answer is yes. Every single website requires a web host to enable it to go online and for people to be able to find it through the internet. In essence, a web host rents out some server space for websites to live.
The types of web hosts that are available vary greatly. You can get a completely free website through popular providers such as WordPress, Wix and similar. Of course with most things that are free in life, this comes with drawbacks. A free website will have a number of restrictions, from the limited amount of storage to being able to use your own domain. Additionally, you have no control over how your website is used, so if the provider decides to cover your websites with awful ads, hard luck. You won’t get any customer support with the free hosting options either so if you do get into a bit of trouble with setting things up then you’re going it alone. That is, unless you want to fork out a small fortune to get a web developer to look at it for you.
So free websites and hosting are good to some extent but might not necessarily be the right option for some. If you are trying to promote professional services then you probably won’t want to have ads popping and annoying your potential customers. Sometimes it is better just to pay a little bit and get a better service and that is pretty much the case when it comes to web hosting.
Businesses who have moderate sizes of traffic to their website can opt for shared hosting packages that allows them to keep costs relatively low but still getting a high level of service and features. Some of the cheaper web hosts start from just $2 per month you can get a package with any of the top rated web hosting providers, which will usually provide customer service and many offer unlimited storage and bandwidth. Some even offer additional features like ramped up security, guaranteed Uptime (percentage of time that your website will be online) or a free trial period to see if it works for you.
Web hosting doesn’t have to be difficult to get your head around but one thing is for sure – you can’t get a website up and running without considering your web hosting solutions.