{"id":89,"date":"2023-07-13T08:15:23","date_gmt":"2023-07-13T02:15:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/freshbake.xyz\/blog\/?p=89"},"modified":"2023-07-13T09:09:39","modified_gmt":"2023-07-13T03:09:39","slug":"what-is-web-hosting-and-how-does-it-work-an-ultimate-guide-for-entrepreneurs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freshbake.xyz\/blog\/index.php\/small-medium-business\/what-is-web-hosting-and-how-does-it-work-an-ultimate-guide-for-entrepreneurs\/2023\/","title":{"rendered":"What is web hosting and how does it work? An ultimate guide for entrepreneurs."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>In many cases, entrepreneurs don&#8217;t pay enough attention to the web hosting of your website or application. As a very crucial part of a website, you should know more ins and outs of this. At present, web hosting may sound a bit complex, but hopefully by the end of this article you will get a good grasp of web hosting in easy words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Web hosting is a service that enables you to publish your website on the<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Internet. When you start using a web hosting service, basically you rent some space on a physical server to keep your files and data on your website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A physical server is nothing but a powerful computer that runs at a well organized setup to keep your website available always for anyone. It is your web hosting provider\u2019s responsibility to keep your website alive for 24\/7 and deliver your website content to anyone around the globe anytime to your visitors browser.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let me share the whole process in simple words, when you start a new website, your web hosting provider gives you the space for your website. In that space, all your contents (files, text, images, videos etc.) are kept. Whenever someone types your domain name into the address bar of their browser, your hosting provider transfers all the necessary files to that visitor\u2019s browser.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Types of web hosting<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cOne size doesn\u2019t fit all\u201d, this is also true for web hosting. Almost every web host company offers different types of options for entrepreneurs. If you are just starting your online journey, your requirement will be the same as someone who has millions of monthly visitors to their site, but keeping your website ready for million visitors from day one may not be a good investment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To meet these different type of requirements here are some most popular &amp; common options available &#8211;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>Shared hosting<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>VPS hosting<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Cloud hosting<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Dedicated hosting<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>WordPress hosting<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Let\u2019s discuss each option in detail to have a better understanding of your needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Shared hosting <br><\/strong>Shared hosting is the most common form of hosting. It is an excellent solution for small to medium business websites and blogs. As the name suggests, this hosting lets you share a server with others.<br><br>With shared hosting, you will share server resources, such as memory, computing power, disk space and others, with hundreds or maybe thousands of other websites. However, the server is well partitioned to keep your website safe and secure. As you are effectively splitting server resources with other users, your hosting cost will be very low.<br><br><strong>Pros<\/strong><br>&gt; Low cost, perfect for small to medium business websites<br>&gt; Very few configurations needed.<br>&gt; No technical knowledge needed for server maintenance.<br>&gt; Regular server maintenance and administration is taken care of by experts.<br><br><strong>Cons<\/strong><br>&gt; Very little control over server configuration<br>&gt; Sudden traffic surges at other websites of your server can affect your website by slowing down<br><br><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>VPS hosting<\/strong><br>VPS means Virtual Private Server. With this option, your web host provider will dedicate a specific amount of server resources with memory.<br><br>In this case, you will also share the same server with others, but the technology behind this VPS gives you the feeling of using a dedicated server. You will have much more controlling options than shared hosting. With proper configuration with VPS hosting, you can achieve a much more powerful environment for your website.<br><br>This type of hosting is ideal for business with a rapidly growing number of website traffic.<br><br><strong>Pros<\/strong><br>&gt; Dedicated server resources<br>&gt; Root access will enable you to have much more control<br>&gt; Sudden traffic surge at other websites can\u2019t affect you.<br><br><strong>Cons<\/strong><br>&gt; Expensive than shared hosting<br>&gt; Technical and server management skill is must<br><br><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Cloud hosting<\/strong><br>Cloud hosting is a relatively newer form of hosting. Though it has become one of the most popular hosting options available today.<br><br>With this hosting, you will be facilitated with a cluster of servers and all of your necessary files and resources will be replicated on each server. This comes in handy, when there is a traffic surge at your website. During a time like this, your visitors are automatically routed to another server without any disruptions. This ensures a very smooth experience for your visitors with zero downtime.<br><br>Cloud hosting is an extremely reliable form of hosting, which can be scaled up and down according to your needs in real time. This enables you to pay only for the server resources you\u2019re currently using.<br><br>This type of hosting is a good choice if you own a very busy\/high traffic website.<br><br><strong>Pros<\/strong><br>&gt; On demand resource allocation<br>&gt; Little to zero downtime<br>&gt; Pay-as-you-go, payment only for what you use<br>&gt; Much more flexible than other hosting options<br><br><strong>Cons<\/strong><br>&gt; Root access is not always available<br>&gt; Primarily it is tough to estimate the actual costs<br><br><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Dedicated hosting<\/strong><br>Dedicated hosting is self-explanatory. Getting a dedicated hosting is just like owning an entire physical server for yourself. The only difference is that you don\u2019t have to be bothered about the physical maintenance of the server i.e. uninterrupted power supply, cooling system etc.<br><br>With this type of hosting, you\u2019ll get incredible flexibility over how you want to manage your website. You can choose the operating system of your choice and other software as you like. But this flexibility also demands superior technical skill of you and your team. Without proper manpower, it is impossible to use this hosting option as per your requirements.<br><br>Usually, this hosting is more suitable for large online businesses with heavy traffic.<br><br><strong>Pros<\/strong><br>&gt; Root access to your server<br>&gt; Highly secured &amp; reliable<br>&gt; Complete control over your server<br><br><strong>Cons<\/strong><br>&gt; Technical and server management skill is a must<br>&gt; Costly, suitable for larger businesses<br><br><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>WordPress hosting<\/strong><br>WordPress is a wildly popular website building software, which is best for blog sites but also offers great functionalities for other types of website. As of 2022, WordPress powers more than 40% of the total websites all over the world. If you are running a WordPress powered website or planning to have one, this hosting option could be beneficial for you.<br><br>With WordPress hosting, your server will be pre-configured specifically for WordPress. If your website has low traffic, then you probably won\u2019t notice a difference in performance. but , if your traffic is increasing, then you could see decent performance improvements.<br><br>This hosting option is suitable for WordPress website owners.<br><br><strong>Pros<\/strong><br>&gt; Best for WordPress websites<br>&gt; Low cost<br>&gt; Better security for WordPress websites<br><br><strong>Cons<br><\/strong>&gt; Recommended for WordPress, this could be a problem if you want us to use another CMS other than WordPress.<br><br><br><br><strong>FAQs<br><br>Why do I need hosting?<br><\/strong>You already know, your website files are<strong> <\/strong>kept at some servers. Servers are nothing but just powerful computers. So, it is not unnatural to think, why can\u2019t I host my own website?<br><br>Technically, you can. But, unless you are an experienced webmaster or if you have a team of experienced webmasters, it\u2019s more of a headache than it\u2019s worth.<br><br>Here are a few challenges you\u2019ll face, if you want to self host your website.<br><br>&gt; You need a very fast internet connection. In most connections we use at our offices or homes, we usually measure the connection quality by the download speed. But if you want to self host your website, the upload speed will be your biggest concern. So, you should have a high quality internet connection with high download and upload speed.<br><br>&gt; Dedicated power supply is a must. Power outages are common. It can happen anytime. But in-house hosting can make your website go offline, unless you have a dedicated power supply facility for your server.<br><br>&gt; Regular maintenance is vital. Running servers is not an easy job. Most host companies have big teams to manage the servers regularly. If you host your own website, you have to solve the issues by yourself or you have to assign expert webmasters for it.<br><br>&gt; It is costly to self-host. As a business person, you should calculate the ROI for any type of investments. Just calculate the cost for all the above mentioned facilities. Your self-hosted solutions cost is way higher than spending just a few dollars every year. So, just do the simple math and the decision is yours.<br><br><br><strong>What features are vital to consider, when purchasing your hosting?<br><\/strong>Web hosting companies offer a wide range of packages for different needs. You should choose the package according to your needs.<br><br>Here we are explaining some key features for your better understanding.<br><br><strong>&gt; Bandwidth\/Traffic<\/strong><br>The bandwidth determines how much traffic you can receive each month, along with the number of pages each person views. If you have a good number of visitors per month, then you should go for higher bandwidth. Otherwise, go for minimum bandwidth, if you are just starting out, then increase the bandwidth as your visitor grows.<br><br><strong>&gt; Storage<\/strong><br>Most people think bigger storage space results in better performance. But this is not always right. This storage space is mainly used for storing your website\u2019s data. In many cases, basic websites do not contain very large images,videos or other media. If this is your case, you can use relatively lower storage space. In case, if you have a site, which stores a lot of user data, you should choose a bigger storage space.<br><br><strong>&gt; Email accounts<\/strong><br>You have a website, why shouldn&#8217;t you have an email address with your domain associated email address? Many web hosts provide free email addresses with your hosting, but some web hosts charge separately for it. So, check out what your web host is offering, before taking any purchase decision.<br><br><strong>&gt; FTP<\/strong><br>FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. This is needed if you need to upload a large amount of files to your host. This comes in handy in some cases.<br><br><strong>&gt; Support<\/strong><br>It is very vital to have a good support team at the back of your web infrastructure. A good support creates a really big difference in any critical case.<br><br><br><strong>What is the difference between domain and hosting?<br><\/strong>Your domain name is the URL or address, which people type in the browser search bar or address bar to visit your website. For example, the domain name for Google is www(.)google(.)com. But, if you do not have a hosting service with your domain name, your visitors will see nothing but an error page. Your hosting provider will give a space in their servers to store all of your website files for a limited time.<br><br>With a properly setup domain and hosting service, when a visitor types your domain name in the search bar or address bar of their browser, your hosting provider will transfer the necessary contents to the visitors browser from their server, so they can access it.<br><br>Hopefully, you already have got a good understanding of web hosting, its working procedure and why you need it. I suggest you bookmark this article for the future to make the right decision, when building your web presence.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A comprehensive web hosting guide for entrepreneurs to choose the best hosting for themselves. <a href=\"https:\/\/freshbake.xyz\/blog\/index.php\/small-medium-business\/what-is-web-hosting-and-how-does-it-work-an-ultimate-guide-for-entrepreneurs\/2023\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":94,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,6],"tags":[11,17,18,10,14,13,15,16,19],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freshbake.xyz\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freshbake.xyz\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freshbake.xyz\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freshbake.xyz\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freshbake.xyz\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/freshbake.xyz\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":95,"href":"https:\/\/freshbake.xyz\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89\/revisions\/95"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freshbake.xyz\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freshbake.xyz\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freshbake.xyz\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freshbake.xyz\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}