How Much Do You Need to Spend on Web Hosting?

When websites are up and running, they have files that go along with them. These files need to “live” somewhere, and this place is a server. It takes a lot of technological know-how to maintain a server, so most small businesses pay a web hosting company to rent its server. 95% of small businesses will be completely fine with a hosting package from a company like GoDaddy. With packages for just $5.99 a month, they will take care of all the maintenance for you, and are available 24/7. However, there are other package options out there, so we’ll take some time to outline them for you.

Shared Hosting:

This type of package typically costs less than $10 per month, and the GoDaddy package mentioned earlier is an example of this type of hosting. While companies are pretty good about allocating resources to websites at their peak times, this type of shared server means less control for the small business.  How does GoDaddy compare to other shared hosting providers? Click Here

Virtual Private Server:

Generally costing anywhere from $20 to $150 per month, this is still a form of shared hosting, but your website gets a certain amount of server space set aside for it. With the higher price tag comes a little bit more control.

Dedicated Server:

This option is pricier ($100 to $250), but like the name indicates, you have a server dedicated to your website, and full control over the configuration. This type of web hosting is better for larger companies.

Co-location Facility:

Costing over $200 per month, in addition to the cost of equipment, this type of web hosting is the same as having a dedicated server except that instead of renting the server, you buy it. A great perk of this type of package is that the maintenance is taken care of by someone else, but you still have full control over everything.

Cloud Hosting:

This option is great for websites that have unpredictable traffic because in this case, you pay for what you use. The drawback is that there is no server that is reserved specifically for your website, so, as with shared hosting and a virtual private server, you have little to no control over the configuration.

Now that we’ve gone over the different types of web hosting, let’s talk about some terminology that you might encounter as you are doing research.

Bandwidth:

This is the traffic that travels between the internet and your website. While some companies cap the amount of bandwidth, many other companies offer “unlimited” bandwidth. This means that there is no limit on the amount of traffic that can travel to your website; however, a limit will eventually be reached when the server reaches capacity for your site. The good news is that most small companies will not meet a limit even if there is one, so unless your site has a lot of downloadable audio and video files, your business’s website should have enough bandwidth.

Space for Data/Disk Storage:

Again, if your website is typical of most small business sites, then storage capacity, or the amount of space that your site takes up on the server, should never be a problem.

Linux Vs. Windows Servers and My SQL Databases:

Much of the explanations having to do with these two topics are extremely technical, so the important things to remember are that you should almost always go with a Linux server, which is the most popular, and for My SQL databases, there should always be one database per web application.

E-mail Address

Many web hosting providers will provide the ability to have an email address with your website's name. Your email account provided by your web hosting company may fall far short of the performance and features of google email. Luckily, you can set up your hosting so it works with Google email and you web address! Learn How

SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) Certificate:

When you visit a website and see the https instead of http, this means that you are on a secure connection. Unless you accept payments through your website, this is not necessary for your business site.

Now that you know the basics of web hosting, pick your package and get your website up and running!