It’s time to make the next step and take things up a notch; it’s time for your business to officially go online or it’s time you upgraded to a more serious hosting service. But the challenge is that there is a myriad of web hosting services and there are different types of web hosting. Naturally, if you are not informed about the different types of web hosting, you are bound to get stuck wondering which one is the best for you. As a business, you want to go for the type of web hosting that will cater to all your business needs and at no extra cost. I understand your concern and that’s why I’ve prepared this to help you learn about the best kind of web hosting that suits a business. Take a deep breath and let me walk you down the street of web hosting and help you find your way around.
Types of Web Hosting
The types of web hosting available have increased over the years due to the rapid development of internet technologies. Be that as it may, the main types of web hosting you are likely to come across today are: Shared Hosting, Dedicated Hosting, Cloud Hosting, Managed WordPress Hosting, VPS (Virtual Private Server) Hosting, Free Hosting, Reseller Hosting, and Colocation Hosting. Just to reiterate, these are the main types of hosting you are likely to come across today, but they are not the only forms of web hosting out there. Considering that the objective of this article is to inform you about the types of web hosting that are the most suitable for businesses, we are going to focus on that.
Things to Consider When choosing the Type of Hosting for Business
Before I let you know the types of web hosting that suits businesses the most, I first want to let you know what you should be looking for in a hosting service for business so that as we go through the various hosting services that fit a business, you’ll have a clue why they are the most suitable.
In choosing the best kind of hosting for business, you should consider security, uptime, support, prize, and features.
Security will mostly have to do with how secure your data is (passwords, clients information, and the databases containing your company’s data). Uptime concerns how long is your website online. A business website should rarely be offline. You want to pay attention to that. Customer support is important 24/7; in case of any technical issues, you want to be working with a hosting service that will sort you out instantly. Of course, you should consider whether the hosting service is within your price range or if the features being offered are worth the prize that’s being asked of you. Ultimately, features are important. If you are running an e-commerce website, SSL support is a must. You should also consider things like support for PHP, MySQL, and any special plugins necessary for your website. Okay, now let’s explore the best types of hosting for business.
Dedicated Hosting
This is one of the best types of hosting for business; particularly a large organization or something heading toward that size. With this kind of hosting, your company’s website will be given an entire server dedicated to it by the hosting provider; that’s why it’s called dedicated hosting. Often, this means your site will hardly ever experience any downtime because your website won’t be sharing any bandwidth with other sites. Your website is also less likely to experience any performance issues, again, because you have the entire server to yourself.
Cloud Hosting
Dedicate hosting may be one of the best types of hosting available but cloud hosting is the absolute best. With cloud hosting, you still get dedicated hardware resources for your website but the most attractive thing about cloud hosting is the capacity it provides. Cloud hosting is suitable for really massive organizations because it provides unlimited resources in terms of storage, bandwidth, and features. It is one of the most expensive forms of hosting. So if you think this is the kind of performance you are after, you should be prepared to handle the expenses. Cloud hosting is also one of the most secure forms of hosting. In as much as it may be expensive, it is worth it.
Virtual Private Servers (VPS)
This kind of hosting is similar to dedicated hosting but the difference is that instead of having a physical server dedicated to your site, you’ll have a virtual server dedicated to it. The key word here is ‘virtual’. It may be more affordable compared to dedicated hosting because the hardware real estate is considerably reduced. Your site may be sharing a server with other sites, but the other sites cannot affect the performance of your website in any way, manner or form. You get the same benefits as you would with dedicated hosting but at a more affordable price. If dedicated hosting is too much for you, this may be a good option. As a rule of thumb; for your business website, you should avoid sharing server resources with other websites.
Colocation Hosting
If you are a control freak or you have special hosting needs, this kind of hosting may be for you. With colocation, you buy your own server and then take it to a company that provides hosting services, and they lend you’re their networking infrastructure. If you are really a control freak, they will let you maintain the server yourself, but you’ll have to pay for using their networking infrastructure. This means that any technical issues with the server are on you; maintenance and all that stuff is your business. However, if you feel all that maintenance stuff is too much for you, you still have the option of paying the hosting provider to manage the server for you. You should, nevertheless, be prepared to pay dearly. Some consider colocation as one of the most expensive types of hosting both financially and emotionally. Like I said, this one is for when you have special needs like you need special hardware, or if no hosting providers have the kind of hardware resources and services you need. Colocation is ideal for business of all sizes. It’s your pockets that will ultimately determine the capacity of your equipment.
The above are the best types of hosting for business. They provide the best performance since your website will have sufficient resources to ensure optimum performance, they facilitate the best security like SSL support, they facilitate support for conventional web standards and technologies like PHP support, MySQL support, and even support for various plugins like WordPress. Companies that provide these hosting types also probably provide excellent customer support and your website will be online 99% of the time. I mentioned more types of hosting than I’ve discussed above. Like I wrote, I have only touched on the best types of hosting for business. You are free to check out the others and see what they have to offer. As far as your business is concerned, the above are the ones that will serve you best; Guaranteed!