What Is Web Hosting?
The Difference Between Hosting & a Domain
We recently looked at ‘What Is a Domain?’ in our article on ‘How a Simple Mistake With Your Domain Can Cost You £10 000+‘ and I briefly want to recap before I look at ‘what is web hosting’, since it’s often confused with web hosting.
Your domain name is the name that you type into the browser to get to your website.
What Is Web Hosting Then?
The domain is the NAME and where your data is stored is the HOSTING.
Your website is made up of a number of files and sections of code. This code needs to be stored somewhere.
Same with your emails and data. They need to be stored.
This data is stored on a server.
We call this web hosting. So now you know, ‘what is web hosting’!
It’s easy to remember, whoever is hosting your website and emails is “storing your emails and data.”
It’s that easy. Now you know, ‘What Is Web Hosting’!
Whether or not you are powering your website through SitePRO, knowing that your website and email hosting is in safe hands is a vital step in building online success.
What’s Important About Web Hosting?
You require high quality web hosting that is fast, reliable and flexible. When you are using a web hosting service for your website, the major benefit of letting the web designer manage your web hosting is that changes can get quickly done and they can configure everything to ensure that it runs smoothly.
Learn why website seo is great for you. Check our detailed article!
As mentioned there are some seriously technical aspects to ensure that your emails get reliably delivered and are not ending up in people’s spam folders.
On that note, how often do you check that your emails are getting delivered?
What’s The Alternative?
The alternative is that you keep you keep you web designer and web hosting provider separate and you then act as the middle man. The ‘switchboard’ per se.
The designer needs something done, they email you, you email the web hosting company and everybody waits. The web hosting company responds, you forward the response, the designer reviews the response.
Maybe the web hosting company didn’t do it correctly or didn’t understand (happens often!), and the designer then emails you the middleman, you email the web hosting company, and everybody waits again! What a nightmare!
That’s why it’s often good practice to let your web design company manage your web hosting for you.
Keep your web designer and web hosting provider separate and you then act as the middleman.
Save Yourself a Lot Of Time & Hassle With These Web Hosting Tips
As you know faster computers cost more than slower computers. It’s the same with servers. The faster the technology, the more expensive it is. I also want you to remember what I shared about the importance of website speed for conversions.
For Amazon.com a 1s slower website would cost them £1.6 BILLION per year in lost sales. That just shows you how important speed is.
So the question is which web hosting is right for you?
Each host offers different packages, and different options and the major differences between them are:
- resource allocation/speed
- number of domains allowed per package.
- number of email accounts allowed per package.
- amount of data storage per package.
- limits on the bandwidth per package.
- server location
Then it’s a case of matching your requirements for the web hosting with the various packages they offer. Ideally you should select a server location that is nearest to the majority of your website visitors as this will impact speed as your data has less distance to travel.
Don’t Compromise On Speed
It’s important that you don’t compromise on speed! So whatever you do, let this be a primary decision point.
Make sure you read this! Case Study: Improving Website Speed By 600%.
Trying to decide between hosting options? Have a look at some of these helpful tips.
One of the most useful articles that I have come across is this great guide on how to choose the right hosting. I’ve outlined some of the concepts, but this article really gets into the nitty gritty details of what you can expect when the hosting provider throws around terms such as ‘unlimited storage’, ‘free domains’ and dealing with questions about backups, long-term contract and the provider’s reputation.
We’ve Mastered This
We’ve perfected the ideal web experience and part of that is your hosting solution.
We offer high quality hosting that is fast, reliable and flexible. We also have servers all around the world, so wherever your clients are based, we’ve got it covered. If you are using our services for your website, the major benefit of letting us manage your hosting is that changes can get quickly done and we can configure everything to ensure that it runs smoothly.
As mentioned there are some seriously technical aspects to ensure that your emails get reliably delivered and are not ending up in people’s spam folders.
On that note, how often do you check that your emails are getting delivered?
As you know our support times are remarkably fast, so if you need anything we’re there to help!
Get affordable, reliable email and data hosting. It’s quick and easy: https://bit.ly/1FHolQ8
We provide a comprehensive hosting service that offers high speed performance, great reliability at an affordable price. We have servers around the world and have an amazing up-time record.
You SHOULD Get SSL!
In 2017, Google started labeling any websites that do not have SSL as ‘Not secure’! Imagine what this does to conversions when your site visitors are getting an alert like this!
SSL Encrypts Sensitive Information
In a nutshell, Secure Sockets Layer is used to secure the data transmitted over the internet between your computer and the destination servers. This could be the password you used to log into Facebook or your credit card information when you are purchasing something online, basically any important information you wouldn’t want others to know.
With an SSL certificate, any information that is transmitted becomes encrypted by inserting random characters into the original message making it unreadable to everyone except the intended server. This makes it nearly impossible for hackers to steal your information.
What’s Next?
Read our next article in the website development first steps series:
The Importance of Website Speed. How 1 Second can Cost £1.6 Billion
