The Fundamentals of Web Hosting 101

Every website on the internet is hosted. Hosting serves as the invisible foundation of the edifice we know as the internet. Every website needs a space to keep its files and other content that can be accessed with ease regardless of the time and location. This is what hosting provides. It is space that you buy analogous to a plot of land to give a home to your website.

A website that is well-hosted will be fast to access with minimal downtime. When looking for hosting options, you should look for affordability, minimalistic maintenance needs, and scalability to keep up with your business goal. Hosting is a fundamental building block that is essential for keeping your website up and running.

This article will discuss how to host a website and the most popular method to do so. In a nutshell, you can either do it yourself or pay a service provider to do it for you. More specifically, the options are:

  1. Using a Hosting Service Provider Platform
  2. Locally Host your Website

Both methods have their ups and downs and setting them up depends upon the experience of the user. Resorting to a hosting service provider is quite a popular option and far more straightforward. They are usually cheap as well as reliable and take care of all the technical stuff for you.

Local hosting using your server, requires technical knowledge and maintenance exercise that might not be for everyone. It can prove to be a good option if you are technically literate.  The page ranking does not depend upon the hosting method. It means that you do not have to consider that as a factor when choosing the best option for you. 

Let us now discuss the hosting service provider in detail.

Using a Hosting Provider

As discussed before, the hosting company takes care of the hosting in return for a monthly fee. The traffic needs and data is taken care of by the technical staff of the service provider. A significant chunk of the websites uses this option. There are four steps to follow when resorting to this method:

  1. The first step is to compare various hosting providers and select one that best aligns with your business needs. You have to list down your business requirements and choose which provides the best value for you. Some options might have better uptime, other better customer service, reliability, or even shared hosting. 
  1. The second step is to choose a hosting service depending upon various factors such as WordPress support, value for money, guaranteed money return, speed and bandwidth, free domain name, etc. Your priorities will dictate the features you should look for. Always look for better uptime and value for money. Other factors like a free domain name do not matter if you already have one. Every service provider glimmers in different areas.
  1. The third step is to decide on a hosting plan. It can be shared, cloud, VP, or other options. You can only secure the best possible deal if you have an understanding of your needs. A $2 monthly plan might provide more value than a $10 monthly plan in some cases. Shared hosting is the cheapest followed by cloud, VPS, and then dedicated.
  1. The final step is to get a domain name. It serves as an address using which others will be able to locate your website. An example of a domain name is www.google.com. A right domain name is easy to remember and free of any numerical. You can choose “.co”, “.edu”, etc. as well if that aligns with your business.

Conclusion

That is all. The process is quite simple and seamless. Just follow these steps, and you will see your website Rockin google like never before. Choose a plan with the best features, and you will be able to devote all attention to what matters, i.e. your website.