Are you starting an online business? If so, then you’ve probably heard that website hosting is important. In fact, it’s one of the first things you should focus on, along with registering a domain name (the address for your website).
But what is website hosting, how does it work, and how much will it cost you? In this easy-to-follow article, we’ll explain everything you need to know. Let’s get started on our guide to web hosting…
Web Hosting: The Basics
A website is really just a collection of files. When internet users visit a website, what they’re doing is opening those files in their web browser.
Some files include text. Some files include images. Others include instructions to the web browser on how to lay out the text and images on the user’s screen.
To make these files accessible online, powerful computers that are on the internet 24/7 store these files. We call these computers ‘servers’.
What Web Hosting Means For You
When you take out a website hosting plan, you’re actually renting storage space on a server provided by your web host. You can then upload your website to that server and link it to your domain name (your website’s address).
Now, when someone types your website’s address into their browser, they’ll be connected to the server where your website and its files are stored. (The same thing happens if they arrive on your website via a link on Google, or anywhere else online.)
The result: Your website appears in their web browser and they can begin reading your content or buying your products. Simple!
So Now You Know What Website Hosting Is
We’ve answered the question we started with – what is website hosting – in simple terms. If you’re interested to learn more about the technical details, we recommend Wikipedia’s article on web hosting. Otherwise, keep reading to learn about some of the different forms of hosting available.
Types of Web Hosting Services
There are plenty of options open to you when you take out a web hosting plan. Here are 6 of the main types of web hosting available today:
Shared Hosting
Most providers offer shared hosting as their standard option. It’s the most popular of all the types of website hosting.
Shared web hosting involves hosting lots of different customers’ websites together on one server. This makes it very affordable for each individual customer. Shared hosting is usually the best choice for small businesses with fairly small, simple websites.
Start Now: Explore our range of shared web hosting plans.
Dedicated Server Hosting
If you choose dedicated hosting, your provider will rent you a server for your website alone. Because you don’t need to share the server’s resources, this could boost the speed and performance of your website.
If your website is very large or attracts very high numbers of visitors, you might need to step up to a dedicated hosting plan. This is also the best option if you want to set up your server yourself, just the way you want it. However, unless you choose a managed plan, this will involve more work on your side.
Cloud Hosting
Cloud hosting is one of the fastest growing types of web hosting. Instead of using one server to host your website, cloud hosting uses many. These interconnected servers work together to pool resources and boost reliability.
Like dedicated hosting, cloud-based plans are popular with business owners whose needs are more complex. Cloud hosting is also commonly used for websites that see big spikes in visitor numbers.
Learn More: Cloud servers are a little more complex than most forms of web hosting. If you’re interested to learn more about this technology, you might like to read our recent article on cloud servers.
WordPress Hosting
WordPress is the most popular CMS – or Content Management System. (Content Management Systems help build websites and manage the content on them – such as text, images, videos and more.) WordPress hosting uses servers that are specially set up to handle WordPress websites.
The WordPress software is often preinstalled on the server, making it easier and quicker to get started. If you’ll be using WordPress for your website, then you should consider these plans carefully.
Managed WordPress Hosting
Like all software, WordPress should and needs to be up to date to maintain its security and performance. Some – but not all – WordPress hosting plans include ongoing WordPress management. These managed hosting plans are ideal for website owners who don’t have the time or expertise to update and maintain the system.
Learn More: Follow this link to learn more about WordPress hosting.
Start Now: Our own WordPress hosting includes ongoing expert maintenance. Explore our managed WordPress hosting.
Website Builders
Many web hosting providers also offer easy-to-use WYSIWYG website builders. (WYSIWYG stands for What You See Is What You Get.) This kind of software makes it easy to build a website. You can use simple actions like dragging and dropping instead of complicated code.
Of course, it’s possible to build a WordPress website without code, but beginners sometimes find this difficult. Most website builders are much simpler. They offer an ideal way for novices to build simple-but-effective websites.
Start Now: Our own Website Builder is super-simple, but surprisingly powerful.
You can use it to build anything from a one-page brochure site through to an ecommerce store. You can even test it for free, with a trial plan. Why not explore the tasjeel.ae Website Builder now?
As you can see, there are many types of web hosting available. It’s important to choose an option that suits your needs – and your budget. With that in mind, let’s look at the costs involved.
Hosting Cost Per Year
The cost of website hosting depends on the plan that you choose. Generally, shared hosting plans, website builders and WordPress plans are relatively affordable.
Dedicated hosting costs are usually significantly higher. The exact price you’ll pay will depend on how powerful a server you need. Likewise, cloud hosting costs vary according to the resources you need for your website.
How to Pick a Hosting Package
When picking your hosting package it’s important to make sure you look at features of the hosting plan to ensure you get the best deal. These areas include:
FREE DOMAIN
Choose the perfect domain name for your website for free. Hosting suppliers such as tasjeel.ae offer a choice of .ae, .com, .me, .net or .org for free. This isn’t an essential, but, a free domain name with your hosting is a big plus and a good sign your hosting provider sees you as a valid customer.
EMAIL ADDRESSES
Take advantage of our free mailboxes and communicate on the go, with email access on whatever device you choose, whenever you need. Email addresses included are important as it means you can get instant access to @yourdomain emails. Making you look more professional and giving your company more validation.
SECURE HOSTING
Security is a number one priority and you should make sure your hosting is watertight. Premium hardware keeps platforms super-fast and super safe. Security is very important when it comes to hosting, all of your data and customer data is stored on your server. As we mentioned before, your server hosts all of the website files, if these get hacked you’ll lose yours and your customers data.
UNLIMITED BANDWIDTH
Free bandwidth allows your website to thrive, no matter how much traffic you get and should be a feature of your hosting plan. Bandwidth is important as it’s what is used to send and download your website for users. Higher bandwidth means you have space to grow without extra cost.
99.9% UPTIME
No interruptions, no downtime – just fast, high-quality service. You need your website to be running 24/7, so your hosting needs to have high up time. Uptime refers to the time the server is actively working, we wouldn’t recommend choosing any plan with less than 99% up time.
UNBEATABLE SUPPORT
Contact experts whenever you need help with your hosting package – they should be highly-trained and ready to assist you. Websites can be a complicated tool and with the complication requires knowledge and experience. It’s important to find a hosting provider that can offer you support to help you break into this complicated world.
Added Extras
Some web hosting providers just offer hosting plans. Others offer domain registration and additional related services too. This will allow you to register a unique domain name (website address) through the same company.
At tasjeel.ae, we provide both domain registrations and web hosting. Better still, all of our web hosting options come with a free 1-year .ae or .com domain registration when you take out a 1- or 3-year plan.
This is just one of many added extras we offer alongside our web hosting. It’s all part of our plan to make it simple, fast and affordable for UAE businesses to get online.
