After getting to know the importance of having an e-commerce website, Tolani, out of curiosity decided to read more on websites and stumbled on Web Hosting Services, she got a little bit confused and wondered who would help her out. She decided to pay Femi a visit, where she told him about everything she had found out about web hosting services, he sat her down and decided to explain it to her.
A web hosting service is also known as a web host is a type of Internet hosting service that gives individuals and organizations the chance to make their website accessible via the World Wide Web.
When planning on building your website, you have to think of hosting your website as well. Without your website being hosted, it won’t be available for website visits.
To host a website, you don’t need to have any experience in coding or configuring a server. The technicality part is already taken care of. Although, there are some hosting options like Virtual Private Server or Dedicated server where technical knowledge is needed to get it working.
What do you need?
So for this, you will need three basic things; your website, the domain name and a web hosting service.
Your website is the site you have built, are building or plan on building. There are several ways in which you can build a website, the most popular way is through the use of a CMS (content management system) such as WordPress, which is very popular for building websites.
Your domain name is the address where your website is situated; it is what people type in the search bar when looking for your website. There are several domain extensions examples are; .com, .org, .net and country-level domains such as; .co, .UK, .ng etc. It is what people will type in when they want to visit your site.
Your web hosting service is where you would host your website.
Depending on the type of website that you have, or will be building, you will choose the hosting option most suited for your requirements.
The Different Types of Web Hosting Services
As we mentioned previously, there are different hosting options available. The one you use will depend on the website you want to build, but most people use the Shared option mostly as it is more practical and affordable.
Below we will look through the various hosting options you’ll find available at the majority of hosting companies.
Shared Hosting
Shared Hosting is a popular hosting option simply because it is cheaper compared to the other options. Here, the people share the resources allocated by the server that they are using. This means there will be limits to certain features (e.g., disc space, data transfer, emails and domain accounts that you will be creating and using). Most hosts give different choices of shared hosting options and each option having varying limitations.
So in Shared Hosting, you don’t need any technical knowledge or experience and a lot of hosts tend to use the cPanel management system. This is because the management system is very easy to use and the administration panel helps to manage your hosting account.
VPS Hosting
A Virtual Private Server (VPS) can be likened to shared hosting, but here, you will have the ability to run your own virtual server while using the provided resources allocated to you by the web host. Virtual Private Server hosting gives you access to greater resources than the ones gotten from shared hosting. It is a better web hosting option for people who have medium-sized businesses or run e-shops and have a reasonable amount of traffic coming to their sites.
Here, the user must have at rudiment knowledge/experience on how to run a server, for a beginner. Virtual Private Server Hosting is not advisable because they may find things a little difficult to understand.
Dedicated Hosting
This is the Oga Pata Pata of them all. This is what we call the ‘Premium Service’. In Dedicated Hosting, the entire server, and all its resources are for you i.e., you are the only one on the server. You have full control over the server. You can install software, operating system and whatsoever addons you want to be on the server. It will give greater power which will result in a better performance unlike other types of hosting. It has a range of options as well, so you can pick the one you want.
Technical knowledge is highly required to use and maintain the server. Some Hosts offer services of helping naïve users manage the server. This arrangement is quite expensive.
After knowing the different types, she asked him the right type of hosting that is suitable for her?
Usually, I encourage people especially novices to pick the Shared Hosting option as it is the most suitable option. This is choice is for those who are just getting to know about the world of hosting and websites; this is because this option does not require any technical know-how like all the technical aspects of the server is being managed completely by the web host. It is the best choice for new websites or websites that do not have a heavy amount of traffic.
If you own a website that is quite large (e.g., an e-commerce site or educational website having several courses and members), then I will advise you to pick something a little more advanced than Shared Hosting. The Virtual Private Service would be the most preferable web hosting service. A website that has a heavy amount of traffic should use a dedicated server.
Before picking a web hosting package, speak to the host or an expert so that they can suggest the best option for you based on your requirement. Also, ask your host if there is a clause for upgrading your hosting account with little or no disruption on your website.
