School, college, company, bank, etc. everyone, these days have their websites. There may be multiple reasons for creating a website but, the sole aim is advertisement and marketing. Websites help people connect without geographical barriers improving the performance of your business domain. Apart from ads and marketing, websites play a vital role in increasing the profitability of your business.
A general analysis states that the company having a website outgrows faster than the one without a website.
There are several reasons which clearly states the importance of a website. Few of the advantages of having a website are
Availability: The details of your company are 24*7 available on the website despite you being unavailable.
Credibility: A website gives you the chance to be creditable. The consumers can reach out to you at any given instance of time and share reviews or issues through the website.
Expansion of business in the market: As you have a website available 24*7 on the World Wide Web, anyone from any geographical area can visit your site. Having a website, one can generate leads and convert them into potential customers.
Cost reduction: With a website, you are eliminating the brick-and-mortar cost and other overheads.
Advertisements: Sharing the domain link of your website on social media platform will help you reach the maximum audience. You can use LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc., for link sharing.
Also, adding good content to your website will increase the traffic rate.
After understanding the importance of a website, it is vital to know about hosting the website.
What is web hosting?
The cooked food is in vain if not served. Similarly, if you have created a website but have not hosted it, it remains to you and you only. It is essential to host a website when created.
Let us understand about web hosting.
Making space for your webpages on the server is web hosting. There are different types of web hosting namely shared, cheap VPS server, WordPress, dedicated, reseller and cloud hosting.
Metaphor
Having an empty water bottle is of no use, and having water but nothing to serve is also useless. Let the empty bottle be the server space and the water be your website. Ultimately, you are making the water available to everyone by pouring it into the water bottle.
Similarly, you are making the website available when you are hosting it on the server. The process of hosting makes your website available on the internet.
Shared hosting
The shared hosting resembles sharing PG rooms, where you share the room with other facilities like electricity, water, etc. In shared hosting, your website shares common space with other websites. The shared space is the physical server, which stores hundreds and thousands of websites. Each user has access to various resources like database, bandwidth, disk space, email accounts, FTP accounts, etc.
Shared hosting is an entry-level service capable of providing the number of services needed by a start-up, local corporation, or private site. People entering the world of hosting prefer shared hosting as it is affordable and provides sufficient resources. Linux Shared hosting comes with many easy-to-use packages that allow the users to manage the website efficiently. For multiple sites, shared hosting gives ample resources.
Benefits of shared hosting
Flexibility: I am saying it is flexible because you can upgrade the shared hosting plan to other plans if and when needed.
Cost-efficient: Shared hosting plans are the cheapest compared to any other hosting plans in the market. As the server space is shared, the cost is distributed amongst users using the services. India’s biggest web hosting company MilesWeb provides the basic web hosting plan at ₹40/mo, providing attractive resources.
Self-manageable: The hosting service providers provide a better control panel that facilitates manageable resources for your website. You can manage various administrative tasks and monitor server status with the help of a control panel.
Multiple domain choice and hosting: You can host multiple websites, for example, one of your businesses other related to hobbies and, one blogging site. Make sure the domains connect to your website.
Dynamic website hosting: You can host dynamic websites, which means the sites change continuously and look different on different browsers and devices. Different programming languages and CMS systems develop dynamic websites.
Professionally managed: The hosting company provides technical assistance for things like malware attacks, software updates, backups. You may also opt for a self-managed hosting service, but that may give you overheads initially. It is always better to go with managed web hosting services until and unless you become accustomed to the hosting environment.
Points to consider before purchasing a hosting plan from a web hosting service provider.
Resources: Buy a web hosting plan that fulfills the needs of your website. If your website is attracting traffic, that will create a problem for other websites on the server. Check the plan for their fair use policies when choosing shared hosting.
Speed: Sharing your website with multiple websites may reduce the load time and performance of your site. The hosting provider should manage websites with higher traffic rates, so the load time of your website doesn’t get affected.
Traffic: If you expect large traffic on your website, shared hosting might not go well with your website, or you will have to switch to other plans for scalability.
Uptime: It is a must for a web hosting service provider to give a minimum of 99% uptime.
Support: 24*7 customer support is essential. If you plan to get a hosting service, see that the provider is furnishing remarkable service.
Shared hosting provides a viable platform to host your websites. It furnishes various resources at a cheaper cost, and therefore, it is widely used for hosting a brand new website.