Every website is hosted somewhere. When choosing a host, you might assume the decision doesn't matter that much. However, the wrong plan can have a serious impact on your business. Poor performance and slow page loading times can result in higher bounce rates and a loss of revenue.
The good news is that with the right plan, you can avoid those potential pitfalls. Keeping your business website up and running as smoothly as possible helps make your customers happy and prevent interruptions to conversions. In other words, it's crucial to maintaining a reliable revenue stream.
In this piece, we’ll briefly describe the various available types of hosting. Then we’ll talk about why this decision is so crucial to your business, and what key criteria you'll need to consider. Let’s get to it!
An Introduction to Web Hosting
Every website needs hosting. To get your site online, you'll need access to a physical server somewhere in the world to store its files. With a hosting plan, you are renting space on a server to use for your website.
There are various types of hosting, with the three main options being shared, Virtual Private Server (VPS), and dedicated. With shared hosting, your website is stored on a server with other websites:
The number of sites on your server can range anywhere from dozens to hundreds. Shared servers are designed for simple, static sites, and businesses that don't yet receive a lot of traffic.
VPS hosting can be significantly more powerful than shared plans, providing your website with the performance it needs to handle higher traffic and increased storage:
Although your website is still hosted on a server with other sites, you get access to your own partitioned segment. This prevents other sites from affecting your speeds and security.
Finally, the last main type of plan is dedicated hosting:
With this option, you will have a dedicated server exclusively for your site's files. This is the most powerful choice, although it is also the most expensive.
In addition, it's important to note that hosting plans of all types can also be either managed and unmanaged. Managed plans handle such tasks such as updates and security scans for you, while unmanaged plans provide you with server space and let you do the rest.
Why Web Hosting Matters for Your Business (4 Key Reasons)
Picking your hosting plan and provider carefully is vital, since the wrong choice can have a negative impact on your business. To give you a clearer idea about why this decision matters and how you can meet your needs, let's take a look at four of the reasons web hosting plays such a key role.
1. Your Website Needs to Be Dependable
As a business owner, it's important that your site is working all the time. If the server goes down, so does your website, which can lead to lost business. You never know who might be visiting your website at any given time, and an outage can affect your bottom line.
Of course, all servers have occasional downtime for updates and maintenance. However, a quality host should schedule these times well in advance so you can prepare for them. If your host has too many interruptions of service, that may be a sign it's time to consider a different company.
As far as dependability is concerned, you shouldn't have any problems with a VPS or a dedicated server. On the other hand, shared hosting plans can experience decreased bandwidths and even crashes if multiple sites on the same server are attracting unusually high levels of traffic.
For example, if your business is holding a special sale that causes an upsurge in visitors, the last thing you want is for your website to slow to a crawl. A more reliable hosting plan should be able to handle the needs of your business, whatever they may be.
2. Growing Businesses Require Scalable Hosts
Part of running a successful businesses involves planning ahead for growth. This means you also need a host that can scale with you. Just as a sale may cause a jump in traffic, you may need additional server capacity during peak hours, or your regular traffic might simply begin to grow quickly.
In situations like these, a managed plan can provide added resources as and when you need them. Here at Hosting.com, our managed VPS hosting starts at just $25 per month:
A VPS, or even a dedicated server, can supply your business with the means to grow and evolve over time. As a result, you'll be ready if your marketing efforts begin to pay off and your website becomes flooded with customers.
3. Hosting Can Impact Your Site's Security
Another critical factor for online businesses is website security. This is especially important for sites that handle payment details and other personal information. A site with compromised security can lead to lost data, and even privacy breaches
Therefore, it's crucial to choose a web host you can trust, in addition to a plan that meets your needs. Different plans come with various security features. Specifically, shared hosting can be somewhat less secure. Your site may be vulnerable to attacks that affect the entire server, even if the target is a different site.
On the other hand, many hosts offer additional security features, some of them specially designed for VPS and dedicated hosting. Here at Hosting.com, we've implemented a Perpetual Security initiative to help protect your website from malware and other malicious attacks. You can also use a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate to safeguard your data and that of your customers (including credit card numbers).
4. Customer Service Matters
Last, but certainly not least, a web host should offer more than just a server. Many hosting companies provide top-notch support, to help you troubleshoot issues when they do occur.
The best hosts are managed by knowledgeable and friendly people. If yours is not, it may be time to find another company. With this in mind, our managed plans have techs on standby 24/7 in case something goes wrong. You're free to contact them with questions and concerns whenever the need arises.
For example, let's say your business recently redesigned its website, but now the site appears to be running slow. You can call up support and discuss options to help you optimize its performance, such as scaling your images for better loading times or assessing whether or not you need to upgrade your hosting plan.
Conclusion
Every business should be backed up by a reliable web host. Choosing the proper plan can keep your website running day and night, with optimized page loading speeds so you never miss a customer.
To help you decide on the best plan, we’ve broken down four key reasons web hosting matters for your business. Let’s recap them now:
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Your website needs to be dependable.
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Growing businesses require scalable hosts.
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Hosting can impact your site's security.
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Customer service matters.
Image credit: ColossusCloud.
