When building a small business website, one of the first decisions you’ll make is which web hosting service to use. But how do you know which type of web hosting service you should choose, and which web hosting service is best?
Disclosure: This is a guest post and the author’s views here do not necessarily reflect those of the blog owner.
Whoishostingthis.com explains the different types of web hosting, and share our recommendations for the best web hosting services. These recommendations are based on several important factors, including uptime, load speed, customer support, and optionality.
The web hosting service that is right for you will depend on your website’s purpose, how much traffic and growth you anticipate, what your budget is, and other factors. However, there are some key things to consider, including the type of servers available, uptime and load speed, and customer support. We used these criteria in choosing our picks for the best web hosting service:
See also 3 additions for your website to improve your online image.
Decide Server Type
There are multiple server types available, and each one is suited to specific website needs. Therefore, we broke down our recommendations by server type — once you determine what type you need, it’s easier to narrow down the right service. Many companies offer multiple server types. We included the following five types of servers on our list.
- Shared servers are ideal for newer websites that don’t get heavy traffic. A shared server means you are sharing server space with other websites. While this means significantly lower costs, a popular site on the same server can adversely affect your site’s speed.
- Dedicated hosting is the opposite of shared hosting, in that the company rents the server specifically to you, and your website is the only one stored on it. You have more control, and your site can handle large amounts of traffic. This exclusivity comes at a price, so dedicated servers are ideal for more established websites that can justify the cost.
- VPS, or virtual private servers, are a middle ground between shared and dedicated servers. While your website shares physical space on a server, it is hosted virtually on a private server. This is ideal for users that need more control over their host, but don’t necessarily need a full dedicated server.
- WordPress hosting is ideal for users who are building their websites through WordPress. While these services are typically shared servers, they are specifically tailored for WordPress websites, making for a smoother support and solutions experience.
- Cloud-based web hosting is a newer type of hosting technology that lets individual servers work together to create one large server. This is ideal for sites that are expected to grow rapidly because it is easier to quickly add more resources.
Uptime & Load Speed
Load speed measures how fast your website loads and uptime refers to the amount of time that a hosting system is operational. If you’ve ever been on a site that loads slowly, or not at all, you know how critical this is. We verified uptime and load speeds for the recommended web hosts via a third-party website, to confirm that we were only including hosts with fast load speeds and reliable uptimes.
Customer Support
You never know when you may need assistance with your website, so we only recommended web hosts that offer 24/7 support. We also sought web hosts that offer support in a variety of ways, including phone and live chat, so you are always guaranteed to get the assistance you need to resolve your issues quickly.