Just like building a house, you need to buy a piece of land from the land seller where your building will be erected. Same way, you need to buy web hosting from a web hosting provider such as WeHostAfrica, where your website will be built on.
Having a website for your company, no matter how big or small is essential. Even if you have a physical store, taking your business online provides incredible benefits by allowing you to showcase your products/services globally.
As a result, it’s important to understand everything there is to know about web hosting before deciding on one. In this article, I’ll introduce you to the world of web hosting, its various types, and the best options for each to help you choose the best one for your business.
So what is the meaning of web hosting?
web hosting is a service that allows individuals and companies to create and make their websites accessible to online users. It is online storage you will use to store your blog data, starting from CMS installation to all the files and images you want to share on your website. All web hosting happens on a server, which, in the simplest terms, is a remote hard drive connected to your computer by the internet.
Simply said, every website requires a web host to rent a space on the internet where all of your site’s information can be stored and made live. And companies that provide web hosting services are known as web hosts. Web hosts give web space on a server that clients lease or own for use.
Example: Wehostafrica etc.
Types of Web hosting
Before you choose a web hosting provider, you should understand your options because it must be based entirely on your needs and budget.
So, let’s go over the various types of web hosting.
1. Shared Hosting
As the name implies, you share the resources allocated to you by the server with other people who also have similar interests in hosting their website. This keeps prices low but makes you dependent on the other websites you will need to share with.
However, shared hosting includes basic features and may not be as adaptable in terms of updates and software. Because resources are distributed, each site will have limited resources based on the hosting plan you choose.
It’s similar to sharing a house with roommates. Although you have your own bedroom, you must share amenities and resources such as electricity and water with your roommates.
Benefits
- Simple to set up and comes with a pre-configured server • No technical knowledge required • Excellent site management features
- Provides numerous add-on services such as a free domain name, an SSL certificate, a website builder similar to WordPress, security features, auto-backups, a control panel, and so on.
- Economical, with monthly fees of $5 or less.
Disadvantages
- It has limited resources such as storage space, bandwidth, CPU, RAM, and so on.
- It performs poorly during traffic spikes.
- Low uptime and page loading speed
- Only a few programming languages, such as PHP, are supported
- Plans with the best rates require you to sign up for more than one year
A perfect example of a web host that offers shared hosting services is wehostafrica. They have very affordable plans with features like free SSL certificates, 24/7 live support, WordPress, cPanel and Customized email service.
2. WordPress Hosting
This is the custom-built plan for WordPress users and includes tools and services to make managing your site easier.
WordPress hosting is appropriate for those who are not comfortable with the technical aspects of hosting their website.
This type of hosting is ideal for WordPress because the host handles everything, including framework and plugin updates. You can manage your back-end details on your WordPress dashboard rather than CPanel or Plesk.
WordPress’s technical support is always excellent. It is ideal for website owners who do not want to deal with technical issues caused by hosting.
3. Dedicated Hosting
The dedicated hosting allocates a specific server as well as a dedicated pool of resources just for you but it is expensive.
In this kind of web hosting a server is completely is dedicated to your own resources, no other websites or resources are stored on your dedicated servers. A website who handles a lot of traffic is using this kind of hosting service.
Other hosting types will not provide this kind of feature, because the server is completely dedicated to you. Generally, you need to know how to manage a server if you want to host in a dedicated server plan. Or else you should need a server administrator to manage your dedicated server
Hosting providers such as wehostafrica are offering managed and unmanaged dedicated hosting services at your convenience.
4. Virtual Private Server (VPS)
With a VPS, you still share a physical server, but you get a virtual computer
with dedicated resources for better performance and a higher degree of isolation. A large number of shared websites are hosted on a single server with few restrictions.
A single server typically hosts 10 to 15 websites, with server space divided into small slices. Each slice serves as its own server.
5. Reseller hosting
Reseller hosting is a type of web hosting service that allows you to sell various planned services.
The individual has control over billing for storage, CPU, and RAM usage, as well as access to the control panel. This enables the individual to provide various service schemes to their clients that meet their needs. Many web designers use this reseller hosting service to host their clients’ resources on their server space while also earning a monthly income.
Reseller hosting includes a variety of features such as private name servers, technical support from the host to the client, and much more.
Things to Consider Before Purchasing a Web Hosting
Web hosting is a foundational part of any website. Choosing the right web hosting provider is important for a few reasons:
It can affect the speed and performance of your website, which is key to ranking high in search engines. It can help you ensure your business website is secure and capable of withstanding any potential threats. It can help you back up your files and the whole website so that it doesn’t get lost under unforeseen circumstances. On top of that, different web hosts provide various levels of service in terms of customer support or flexibility to make changes in your website settings (such as DNS settings). Fortunately, here at WeHostAfrica, we have lots of experience when it comes to web hosting and we provide all the features you’ll need.
How to Sign Up for a Hosting Plan
In this blog post, we will use Wehostafrica as an example and sign up for a shared hosting plan, however, you can sign up for any package, and the signing up process is pretty much the same.
To get started, go to https://wehostafrica.com/clients/index.php
from the menu, select store and click on shared hosting, and choose a Business plan. Click order now
Now type your domain name. In this case, mine is, car tracker and from the domain extension choose the .com.ng and click check. N/B: I Chose .com.ng extension because it is free and it shows that my business operates within Nigeria.
If your domain name is available, scroll down and click on continue.
Review your order and click on “continue”
Review your order and and click check out.Fill the form to complete your order.Once payment is made you will receive 3 emails.
You can see that, the cost of the domain is free.
Fill the personal and billing information form and select a payment method.
Congratulations, you now have a web hosting and domain name.
Conclusion
The foundation of your website will be web hosting. It must provide you with adequate resources such as bandwidth, CPU, RAM, storage, and so on, as well as good performance, scalability, and security, in order for your business to grow.
As a result, select a suitable web hosting service that can provide you with these features to assist you in creating a site that your visitors will appreciate. Finally, choose web hosting based on your company’s needs, usage, and budget.