What is Website Hosting?
When you are starting a business within or outside Nigeria, you will always need a physical structure to set up, store and sell your products. This makes it possible for people to reach out to you at your physical store and patronize your business.
Now when things are being set up in the digital world, you equally need a digital space where people can connect with you, contact you, view your products and services and possibly place orders as well.
In setting up an online business, you will have access to series of files, images, and HTML codes that are carefully combined to make up your website. These files somehow occupy some space and need some form of accommodation online where they can live. If these files are just on your private computer you will be the only one that will be able to access them.
Who is a Website Hosting Provider?
This is where your hosting provider comes in. A Website hosting provider will provide a space on what we refer to as a web server to store all your files. Their sole responsibility is to make these files visible or make your web page load whenever a request is made by typing in your domain name on the web browser. So when payment is made to a hosting company you are simply renting storage space on their server to keep your files so that they can be accessible to everyone all over the world when they are called upon. It's just like renting a physical space for your services in the real world.
Examples of Web Hosting Providers
Bluehost – Sign up now to get special offers
Hostinger – Sign up now for amazing discounts
What is a Web Browser?
A web browser is used to access websites on the internet. Common examples of web browsers include internet explorer, Mozilla Firefox, google chrome, etc.
What is a Domain Name?
When you need to start a business one of the very first things you consider is having a business name and in most cases, you will register your business name which will be unique to you and your business. If you are in Nigeria for instance you register your business with the corporate affairs commission.
Now on the internet, you also have what we refer to as a domain name which is a unique name that identifies your business on the internet usually in the format www.mycompanyname.com. This is what we refer to as a domain name.
Another way to look at it is that when you have a physical store and someone needs to come you give them your business name and physical street address.
In the same way, if someone needs to visit your business online you give them your domain name which will be resolved by the browser to show up your business website with your own products and services. Whenever you start a new business name you get the opportunity to choose a business name that truly reflects what services you offer.
Examples of Domain Providers.
Bluehost – Sign up now to get special offers
Hostinger – Sign up now for amazing discounts
Namecheap – Sign up here for cheap domain names
HOW TO CHOOSE A HOSTING PROVIDER
Whenever you decide to choose a web hosting service company it is very key to consider the different types of web hosting services that are offered.
Below is a list of a few things to look out for when choosing a website hosting company.
- The kind of website you are building e.g eCommerce, business, blog, forums, etc
- The amount of bandwidth needed to run your website based on the website of your choice
- Do you need email addresses for your website and if you do how many email addresses do you need.
- What types of hosting options are available
- Your yearly budget for web hosting service is pocket friendly
- What is the volume of people that you expect to visit the website daily monthly and yearly
- What is their support team like when there are issues with Webhosting
- The average uptime of your Webhosting company
Types of Web Hosting
You definitely need a Webhosting service that offers a wide variety of services. We will recommend Bluehost for you if you are just starting. Once you have finally settled for a Webhosting service, then you can go ahead and choose a Webhosting provider and create a hosting account that best suits your needs.
- Shared Hosting
This is the most common type of website hosting available usually because it is affordable and it is usually the best option for startups. Think of a shared website hosting as a flat with many rooms but each room is occupied by different individuals.
In a shared website hosting service the website hosting company provides one server that is partitioned and shared by many different websites. This makes it affordable than a small company having to pay for one big server that they might not even utilize to maximum capacity.
BENEFITS OF SHARED HOSTING
- It is suitable for startups and small businesses
- It is easily affordable by most people
- It is easy to use as your files are well organized and most of the technical details as per setup are taking care of by your website hosting company.
Where can I get Shared Hosting Service?
You can get a shared hosting service from Bluehost.
- Dedicated Hosting
A dedicated server as reflected by the name is one pretty big server that is committed or dedicated to processing all the workloads and resources of your company alone. With a dedicated server, you do not get to share your server space with anyone instead you have the entire server for use to yourself alone. Dedicated servers are usually more expensive than shared hosting
Dedicated web servers are superb and they are scalable robust and, super fast and the services are more reliable.
A dedicated server is not suited for startups usually because of cost. Most multinationals use dedicated servers because they have a lot of resources that they are processing. And at the same time, they can easily afford such servers.
ADVANTAGES OF DEDICATED SERVER
- When using a dedicated server, the speed you get is far better than when you are using a shared hosting service.
- A dedicated server can handle and process a lot more resources with bigger bandwidth and bigger disk space than a shared hosting service.
- All software and hardware used in a dedicated server can be well managed to handle your individual specific requirements better. Summarily with a dedicated server service, you are fully in charge.
The first question we need to answer is what does VPS stands for. VPS can be defined as Virtual private Servers. These Virtual Private Servers try to combine all the features of a dedicated hosting service but at affordable pricing close to that of a shared hosting service. There are a lot of options when trying to choose a Webhosting service for your business. VPS happens to be one of the popular hosting services you can easily identify with and choose for your business. VPS thrives with a technology known as virtualization technology to process and handle resources on a single server with multiple users as if it were operating as a dedicated server. This functionality makes it a better alternative to shared hosting services because it means you can get better processing speeds and fast load times with your web services.
The solution is well secured and stable when compared with a shared hosting service. It operates on a much smaller scale and is cheaper than renting an entire server in the long run.
VPS hosting is usually recommended for users whose traffic level is at the medium size and whose usage of resources exceeds the limit of shared hosting plans. and in most cases, they still can not afford a dedicated server or do not completely need a dedicated server for their services.
VPS service providers normally offer more than one hosting plan depending on the hosting company involved. Different options also come with different pricing options so that you have the opportunity to purchase something that relatively fits your budget. These different options also make it possible for you to scale your website seamlessly when you need to.
Where can I buy VPS Hosting?
You can buy VPS Hosting from Bluehost
ADVANTAGES of VPS HOSTING
- VPS hosting is usually built on a technology referred to as control panel or Cpanel which makes it easier for users to navigate easily and it also comes with a lot of very useful tools for a web hosting service.
- VPS also comes with someone click to install software that makes it possible to easily install software and content management systems like WordPress, Magento, Joomla, etc
- VPS is usually has a very clean and simple user interface that makes navigation seamless.
4 Cloud Hosting
Of all the hosting services mentioned above, the cloud hosting service is usually referred to as the most reliable of all the hosting services. Cloud hosting does not rely on the disk space of a single server as we have in the other options listed above, it pulls its power from several sources, which ensures that you do not have any downtime at all.
Cloud hosting also helps you scale your options to increase or reduce your cloud space at any time.
Cloud hosting also takes care of downtime that may arise as a result of server failures. Your files are stored in the cloud so the issue of downtimes is reduced greatly.
