As more businesses embrace digital transformation, there’s a website influx on the internet. An efficient website is a powerful tool you can leverage to attract more online traffic and increase your revenue.
However, launching an online platform doesn’t automatically mean it will be successful. Most online businesses crash due to poor user experience and website functionality.
Simply acquiring a domain name isn’t enough. Your website requires hosting to ensure internet users can see and access it. You can purchase a web hosting account or work with a web hosting company.
Let’s explore the benefits of web hosting, the qualities of a good web hosting company, and why you need to work with one.
What Does Web Hosting Involve?
Once you create your website, web hosting offers the space to store it on the internet. Initially, you share a server and networking space with other website owners.
As you scale your business, your storage needs increase, so you can choose a separate space for your website on the server. The hosting provider manages the storage space on your behalf, ensuring your website remains accessible via the internet.
When website visitors search your domain name on their browser, their device links to the server hosting your website. The server, in turn, directs the files with the website’s display to the user’s browser.
There are two primary forms of web hosting services; free and paid hosting solutions. The free services are available at no cost for the website owner, but they heavily rely on ads to remain active.
In contrast, paid hosting services are safer and more reliable. These solutions offer more storage flexibility to accommodate heavy traffic and traffic spikes.
Free hosting solutions are ideal for non-commercial websites and personal blogs. Business websites require more capabilities that only paid solutions can offer.
Types of Web Hosting Plans
There are three primary categories of web hosting, each with different features, strengths, weaknesses, and pricing structures.
1. Shared Hosting
Shared hosting is the most popular web hosting plan and is also the most affordable.
Web hosting providers have powerful servers that store multiple website files. When you choose a shared web hosting plan, your website exists on one server with numerous other websites. This means you share the available resources with other users on a first-come-first-serve basis.
Shared hosting is cheaper because you also share the costs with other users hosted on the server. However, it’s only suitable for simple websites because you only get a fraction of the server’s bandwidth and storage.
2. VPS (Virtual Private Server) Hosting
VPS hosting is an upgrade from shared hosting. Although you still share one server with other users, your website has a dedicated virtual environment.
This means you have access to dedicated resources, so you don’t have to worry about heavy traffic to other websites on the shared server. When your resources are idle, they become available to other users until you need them. This allows VPS hosting more performance flexibility.
3. Dedicated Server Hosting
Dedicated hosting offers the highest security, customizability, and performance out of all web hosting plans. It’s ideal for established businesses requiring an entire server due to high traffic.
It’s also suitable if your website requires the highest security levels since you can customize the virtual environment to your particular needs. However, these outstanding benefits come at a price. Having a dedicated server is like purchasing the entire server since you’re the sole user.
This means all maintenance processes and costs are your responsibility. You’ll have to hire and train skilled technicians to maintain the server and maximize the resources.
It’s best to work with a web hosting provider to avoid these high expenses. You’ll enjoy the most benefits of a dedicated server without the burden of storage and maintenance.
Specialized Web Hosting Plans
Some hosting providers also customize hosting plans based on particular web applications. These plans are re-branded versions of VPS and shared hosting plans.
Popular custom plans are:
- WordPress hosting
- Magento Hosting
- WooCommerce Hosting
Benefits of Web Hosting
- Web Hosting Provides Your Domain
Your website’s domain name is your identity on the internet. Although you can host a website with an IP address and no domain name, online users won’t locate your website or remember the name.
Web hosting companies offer a platform to register and retain your website’s name or domain with minimal tech support.
- Storage Space
All website files require storage on a server to make them available to online users. Your website needs server software to ensure a stable, high-bandwidth internet connection.
A web hosting company provides the necessary server and takes on the responsibility of ensuring your website remains accessible to users.
- You can Easily Assess Your Website Status.
Web hosting guarantees your website’s uptime and simplifies website monitoring. As long as you have a secure and stable internet connection, you can check your website’s status remotely.
What Makes a Good Web Hosting Company?
Web hosting companies are not equal, so your choice primarily depends on your particular needs. Making a smart initial investment is best to avoid endless issues as you scale up.
Below are the essential aspects you should consider to help determine the best hosting company for your website.
1. Security Level
Your website is only as secure and efficient as your hosting service. Without a good web hosting service, all the hard work you invested in developing your website goes to waste.
Besides an ineffective website, your data can become compromised through security and privacy breaches.
At the Valley List, our cloud hosting is fully secure and includes SSL. Our robust security measures include the following:
- Brute Force Protection
- Firewalls
- SSL certificates
- Malware protection
- Anti-spam
We also maintain regular backups to ensure you can restore your website swiftly in case of a disaster.
2. Your Technical Needs
Your website’s complexity determines the hosting features you require. For instance, your website may run on a unique programming language that some hosts don’t support.
Our cloud hosting solution allows custom hosting for SQL Databases and apps.
3. Customization Level
Most web hosting providers provide standard website-building tools but have limited capabilities.
It’s essential to determine the level of customization your hosting provider offers. Customizing your website means more than just modifying the content but twitching everything, including the structure.
4. Scalability, uptime, and Reliability
Ultimately, you need a hosting provider to accommodate and keep up with your growth. As your business expands, your hosting provider should be able to handle the traffic spikes.
Our hosting avails the necessary processing power and memory to meet the dynamic needs of your growing business.
We ensure your website remains accessible 24/7, regardless of the traffic level. We deliver 100% uptime, resilience, and reliability.
5. A Positive User Experience
In the current competitive environment, loading speeds play a significant role. If your website is slow, visitors will switch to competitors offering a better experience.
An effective web hosting service should ensure that users around the globe can easily access every page on your website. Our team updates, tests, and monitors your website to ensure it remains safe and accessible to your visitors.
6. Better SEO Ranking
Your website’s ranking is crucial in generating organic traffic and visibility on search engines. Reputable hosting service providers should enhance your website’s SEO, improving your rank on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).
Our website maintenance services include white hat SEO. We use your customers’ organic search data to adjust your meta information and content accordingly. These regular updates ensure your website ranks high and generates quality leads.
Another sure way of improving your SEO performance is maintaining optimum website performance. Our experts run regular functionality tests on buttons, links, forms, orders, and more to ensure your website functions as expected.
Don’t Settle for Less
The Valley List is your ultimate solution for all your website needs. If you’re starting, our savvy website design team will take the time to help you design and build a sophisticated yet easy-to-use website.
As you grow, we are ready to take charge of the website maintenance as you focus on your business. Our experts will ensure regular website updates, maintenance, and necessary fixes or repairs.
If you’re yet to have a large marketing team, we’ll serve as your technical resource. We’ll empower your team with the necessary website data to maintain a solid online presence.
Get in touch today and transform your website into a virtual powerhouse.
