Despite its virtual existence, a website has a physical location. Your website host gets a request whenever someone types your domain into their browser. This then delivers the requested files to their computer—in the form of your website.
Setting up and managing the physical home of your website is its web host. It’s both easier and less expensive to set up than you might think.
Which Kind of Web Hosting is Best for You?
There are several different types of web hosting services out there, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. (It seems like the answer to EVERY tech question is “it depends”, but that’s usually the case!) Some of the most popular types of web hosting are:
Shared hosting:
In a shared hosting environment, multiple websites share the same server and resources—they’re roommates! This is a great option for small websites that don’t get lots of traffic. Under 100,000 page views per month. This is the most affordable—we offer shared hosting for less than AED1 (US$.0.30) per day!
VPS hosting:
Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting delivers more resources and flexibility, making it a good option for medium-sized websites. Your site would have its own dedicated resources, such as CPU, memory, and storage. You share the physical server with other websites. This is like moving your site into its own apartment, and it’s a more expensive service than shared hosting.
Dedicated hosting:
Dedicated hosting is exactly what it sounds like, you rent an entire server for your website. Basically, it gets its own house. You then have complete control over the server and its resources, so it’s ideal for high-traffic websites.
It is a good option for large websites that receive traffic to the order of 100,000 views per day. As you may have guessed, this is the most expensive kind of web hosting!
Cloud Hosting
As website owners its important to be flexible responsive with your online world. Cloud hosting offers you this flexibility. Its a fully managed cloud hosting featuring cPanel, Softaculous, WHM, Free SSL Certificates, twice-daily backups, and a powerful speed booster!
Find out more on the types of hosting in our previous article.
Types of CMS
So you picked the right type of hosting for the traffic you expect (at least at first). So now you need a content management system (CMS). A CMS is a useful asset that allows you to easily manage the files that make up your website. Most modern CMS’s allow you to easily change elements of your website.
WordPress
The most popular CMS is WordPress, WordPress websites are very common and feature for free on most hosting plans.
It’s the dominant CMS in the world by far, with a dedicated global base of contributors. It’s free, open-source, easy to use, and easy to customise… even if you have zero coding knowledge. Tasjeel.ae offers one-click WordPress installation, as well as hosting packages where we manage your WordPRess upkeep, updates, and upgrades.
Joomla
Joomla Is another popular CMS application. It is free and open source just like WordPress, but it offers features for more advanced users. These include applying different themes for parts of the same website. Also, Joomla offers native multi-language support.
Drupal
Mainly large-scale websites use Drupal CMS because of its power. Also free and open source, it can be more difficult to use than WordPress or Joomla. However if you’re an experienced website administrator you will likely be fine.
Drupal offers more flexible content types as well as more user-permission roles than WordPress. Its taxonomy and tagging system is good for managing vast libraries of content.
Wix
Wix Is a drag-and-drop website builder that makes it easy to create a website without any coding knowledge. Wix offers a variety of templates and features. It is a good option for users who want to create a simple website quickly. However, it’s not as customizable as WordPress.
Squarespace
Squarespace Is another drag-and-drop website builder that offers a range of templates and features. You don’t even need a domain name, just a Squarespace account. However, it has significantly less flexibility than WordPress, since it has no third-party plug-ins. Also, owning your own domain name is VERY important for a business.
Shopify
Shopify is a very specific CMS, its main focus is on E-commerce. This is the process of selling physical or digital goods online. Shopify websites are brilliant if you’re new to website development and want a quick easy solution to selling online. However, Shopify’s simplicity can cause issues if you’re looking to develop your website further.
Shopify is also not free and most of the additional features you might want are extra and paid monthly.
As you can see, you have options; though we are quite partial to WordPress. Along with 60% of the websites out there.
Might be of interest: Explore WordPress hosting options
What is a Managed Web Hosting?
Some people like to tinker with their websites. To be honest, it’s kind of addictive—it’s like digital gardening. However, if you’re running a business, you’ll not want to dedicate too much time. Or too many of your own team’s resources to running your website, that’s where managed hosting comes in.
Why Managed Hosting?
Managed hosting is great for many hosting needs. Whether you’re on shared, VPS, or dedicated hosting. Managed hosting is a layer of service in which your hosting provider takes care of the details.
Our Managed Hosting
Our managed WordPress hosting plans are for high-traffic websites. Large ecommerce sites, and agencies that want the hosting side taken care of. Let us worry about security updates, server management, tech stack, and optimisations, while you run your business.
CTA: Our managed hosting options
Hosting Business Emails
Your web hosting company should give you email addresses connected to your new website. Well, at least if that hosting company is any good!
Why a Business Emails
Having your email address connected to your website gives you legitimacy. This is in the same way as having your own domain name does. Email recipients will know right away that they’re communicating with someone from your company or organisation. Gmail, Yahoo, and Hotmail just can’t deliver the same impression of professionalism.
Connection To Mail Apps
You will be able to access your email through a web browser, or through the email apps you already use. Apps such as Outlook, Mail for Mac, Thunderbird, or whichever tool. As as you get taps on the shoulder and say “You’ve got mail!”
No matter which web hosting provider you use, the process will usually be this simple:
- Log in to your web hosting account and click on the “Email” tab.
- Select the option like “Create New Email Account”.
- Create a username and password for your new email account. (And don’t use “12345” as a password!)
- Select “Create Account”.
Besides free spam filtering and automatic sync to your computers and mobile devices, Tasjeel.ae’s specialists can move your email account to our web hosting. It’s fast, easy, and of course we’ll make sure everything works perfectly.
Might be of interest: Which email plan is right for you?
Use the Right Domain Name
To get to your website, visitors have to know your domain name. This is the address of your website on the internet. For example, the domain name for Google is google.com, and ours is Tasjeel.ae.
Delivering Website Files
When someone types your domain name into their browser, your host’s server handles the request. The server then delivers the requested files to their computer. Wait, did we already say that? Yeah, we did—but hopefully it now makes more sense!
Buying a Domain Name
When you purchase a domain name, you are basically renting the name for a set period of time. The cost of domain name registration varies, and many hosting packages (such as ours) include the domain name registration.
Picking Your Domain Name
We wrote a whole article about domain names which you definitely should check out. But the gist of it is: choose a memorable, easy-to-say domain name. Something that reflects what you do as exactly as possible.
Registering a Domain Name
Registering a domain name is very easy but first you will need to decide on the right domain name for you. Then see need to check if it’s available. Ideally you’ll want to secure the exact match domain name for your company. Or your brand, or project, or get as close as possible we have an easy tool for this:
Might be of interest: See if your domain name is available
Choosing a Web Hosting Plan
Okay, now it’s time to choose your web hosting plan. This is where everything you just learned comes into play.
The size of your website:
If you have a small website you’ll be fine with a shared hosting plan. This is great for something like a personal blog, portfolio, or small business website. This is because your site would have a small number of pages and not a lot of CPU requirements. However, if your site has lots of moving parts or e-commerce elements, you should consider a VPS hosting plan.
The amount of traffic your website gets:
If you expect to get lots of traffic, you will need a web hosting plan that can handle the increased load.
The features and functionality you need:
Some web hosting plans offer more bells and whistles than others. You’ll want to choose a plan that has the features and functionality that you need. Think seriously about how much time you want to spend personally managing your website.
Hosting Your Dats
For some businesses, local laws require that certain types of data storage. This data needs to be within the country where the business operates. For those who live in regions with poor data connectivity, hosting in region with faster connections makes more sense.
For example, we base our servers in the United Arab Emirates, which has blazing-fast connectivity. While also fulfilling the requirements for all those Emirati companies who have to store sensitive data within the country.
Might be of interest: Explore web hosting plans
Learning How to Host
Its refreshingly easy to start your website hosting journey. Here are a few things you need to learn.
Steps to host a website
Once you have chosen a web hosting plan, you will need to set up your account. This process is very straightforward. Mostly contact information, establishing the domain name, picking passwords, and setting up email addresses associated with your new website.
How to install a CMS:
You will may want to install a content management system. This will be on your web hosting account, because nobody wants to be Dump-the-Briefcase Person!
This process is also pretty straightforward, even if you’re doing it yourself… just click “Install”! We’re not trying to be funny—it really is that easy in most cases. Modern CMS management software (such as cPanel, which we use) is quite intuitive to use.
How to create and manage the content on your website:
Once you’ve installed the CMS, you can start getting creative! With WordPress, it’s as simple as creating new pages from the main menu and then adding text, pictures, and video. If you’re building an e-commerce site, applications such as Shopify are plug-and-play. As well as configurable on their own.
Hosting Platform Customer Support
… But Sometimes You Need Customer Support
Sometimes you may want to update or change your website. Or something may break that you don’t know how to fix. Don’t worry: if you ever need help with your web hosting account, most web hosting companies offer customer support.
Web hosting customer support is a specialty of ours, actually: Tasjeel.ae’s own support team enjoys a five-star rating for being awesome at solving our customers’ issues. We solve them quickly and in a friendly way.
See? That’s Not So Hard!
When you’re ready to do something amazing on the internet we’re ready to help. Whether as a blogger, artist, entrepreneur, design/web agency, or influencer.
Start right here by exploring our varions hosting options, no matter what size or kind of website you want to build. Whether you’re doing business in the Middle East or reaching a worldwide audience of fans and customers. We have a hosting package that will make you happy and help you succeed.
Might be of interest: Tasjeel.ae web hosting options
