There are millions of websites on the internet and each website is hosted somewhere. Different websites require different web hosting services depending on the type of website and other factors.
Web hosting services range from a a few dollars per month to thousands of dollars per month. The differences in pricing are brought by differences in features and capabilities.
If you are completely new, then what you need is a simple shared hosting account which most hosting providers have. This is because they are cheap and easy to maintain. If you are new, you most probably don’t have a lot of traffic. When the site grows in future you can upgrade.
Also Read: Find Out When ‘Google Domains’ Is Available In Your Country
The web host you choose totally depends on the website(s) you want to host. I’t current state, size, level of security you need, amount of traffic expected and your technical know-how. Here are some of the questions you need to ask yourself.
How Much Traffic Do I Expect?
The amount of traffic you are getting now and the amount of traffic you expect to be getting when your website is performing at it’s peak are some of the questions you need to ask yourself. The more traffic a website gets, the more bandwidth it requires. If you expect your website to get a lot of traffic, choose a web hosting service with a lot or unlimited bandwidth.
Size Of The Website?
Different hosting services offer different storage space on their servers. If your website is small and mostly contains text, then you don’t need a lot of storage space. That will change dramatically if your website has many images and videos hosted on the server. Images and Videos naturally occupy a lot of space on the server.
Server Reliability / Uptime Scores ?
When your website goes online, you want it to be available 99% of the time. Nobody want to use a web hosting service that has down times. If you have a money making website, downtime will hurt your earnings. Choose a web hosting service that is reliable and has a high up time score.
Technical Know-How?
Some web hosting services will let you configure the server for yourself. If you know how to, this is the best way to do it because you get to customize the features and security measures for yourself. But not having this skill should not stop you; there are plenty of managed hosting services that will not require you to do the hard work. You’ll obviously pay more but the difference is not that significant.
Extra Features?
When choosing a suitable web host, also take a look at some of the extra features offered by the service. These extra features include @yourdomain email addresses, extra security features, back up features to mention a few. Look out for the extras you need and let them guide you to your hosting service.
Scalability:
Every website owner expects their website to grow in size and in audience over time. Make sure the hosting service you choose allows you to expand bandwidth and storage space. Be careful about hosting services that want to give you long term subscriptions.
