Do you want to start a blog or online store? Then you’ll need a website. But did you know you’ll also need web hosting if you want to start your own website? There are many aspects to web hosting. You have to choose a host, a type of hosting, and many other things. That’s why we wrote this guide, to help you pick the right host for your site!
Web hosting 101
Let’s start with the basics! Web hosting is a service that makes sure your website is accessible through the internet. Without web hosting, your website simply can’t exist. So, where do you start? By looking at web hosts or hosting companies. These companies provide space on a server, and internet connectivity in a data center. In other words: they provide space for your website’s data, so it can exist and other people can find it.
Fully-hosted versus self-hosted
The first choice you have to make when picking the right host for site is whether you want to create a fully-hosted or self-hosted website. The difference is pretty self-explanatory. Fully-hosted means that every site on the platform is hosted on their own servers. These companies take care of all the hosting stuff for you, such as Shopify and WordPress.com.
Self-hosted, on the other hand, means you’ll have to arrange hosting yourself. A good example is WordPress.org. Now, you might be thinking: why would I want to do everything myself? And while it’s true that self-hosting is extra work, it also means you own all the data yourself. Plus, you get access to the full code base and you can choose a hosting company yourself.
How to choose a great hosting company
These days, there are thousands of companies to choose from. They all have their own benefits and hosting plans. So, how do you pick the right host for your site? What should you focus on? First, it’s important to take a couple of things into account.
Server location
As those house-buying TV shows always say: location is everything! With web hosting, it’s not necessarily everything, but it is important. Where your host’s servers are located can be a very important factor. Especially when it comes to the speed of your site. Why? Because the smaller the distance between your audience and the location of your server, the faster your website is! For example, if your audience is located in the US but your host is based in Singapore, that could slow down your site for your visitors. Which is something you generally want to avoid.
Storage space
Second, take into account what kind of website you want to create. This impacts how much storage space you need to acquire. For example, a small blog needs far fewer resources than a big online shop with thousands of products. So consider how many pages your site will have and how much content will be on the pages. And if you already know that you want to build
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This article was written by Willemien Hallebeek and originally published on SEO blog • Yoast.