Web Hosting Requirements: Assess Your Needs

Web hosting makes the digital world go round! Its evolution from the very first hosted website in 1991 up until today has been astounding.

From one website to now over 1 billion, websites have grown exponentially and are a big part of our daily lives. Of course, web hosting is not far behind, having grown from a market worth $102 billion in 2020 to a market predicted to be worth over $320 billion by 2025.

Now, let's move on to learning about web hosting and its requirements in more detail.

In simple terms, web hosting is an internet service that hosts websites for clients. It offers clients a safe space on the Internet where their website will exist and be accessible to clients.

Web hosting offers website owners the resources to create and maintain a website, and it stores its online content on a secure server. All clients need is an Internet connection to see your content and visit your site.

Each website plays a distinct role for each business. So, to get the web hosting that is right for your website, you first need to develop a website strategy and determine the role your website will have for your overall business.

It's best to determine your website strategy based on your business's long-term goals, such as growth plans, the introduction of new products, etc., and look for a provider that will satisfy these goals. This way, you will avoid making significant changes later on and confusing old customers with a brand new website.

Other needs that you should assess before picking a provider include:

Decide how your website will be used

this will help you answer many of your questions regarding your web hosting needs. By determining how you will use your website as part of your business, whether as an eCommerce store, a blog, etc., you will know what features you'll need, thus making the choice of an appropriate plan easier

Management level/time investments

deciding between using managed or unmanaged web hosting is a must before picking a provider. Here, you need to decide whether:

• You want to essentially do everything yourself and want to be in charge of operating and maintaining your website and all that comes with it. For this, you will need to have technical knowledge and expertise or have an IT department that is well-versed in website and server managing. If this is your choice, you should go with unmanaged hosting because it gives you complete control over all aspects of your website, including installing the scripts, operating system, control panel, hardware, etc. Unmanaged hosting is also the cheaper choice, but it requires a lot of work on your end

• If you don't have the time or technical expertise required to manage and maintain websites and servers, you should go with managed hosting. With managed hosting, you get full support, and the provider does all the work. Server reboots, hardware, software, managing and maintaining websites and servers, etc. – all of this falls in the provider's court. The security, configuration, network, and other components are not your concern. So, if you want more time to focus on the business and its growth, this is the choice for you. However, it's worth noting that managed hosting is more expensive than unmanaged hosting. For a more in-depth analysis on managed vs. unmanaged hosting, click here

Storage needs

this depends on the size of your website and the amount of data and content you work with. To get a feel of how much storage you might need, you can check the amount of disk space usage on your cPanel or apply an online tool that will tell you each page's size and add them to figure out your website's size. Usually, if you have a blog and a small amount of text content, then you most likely will not require a lot of storage. However, if you run an eCommerce site with many images, a site that stores a lot of user information, a music store with files available for download, a site with PDF documents or Flash play files, and other similar sites, then you will need a lot of storage. For these types of websites, not having enough storage can be detrimental to their operation because, without enough storage, the websites will experience issues. However, regardless of the type of website you have, you should always get a plan that offers more storage than needed so that your site can handle traffic spikes and upgrades

Bandwidth

is an essential factor that makes sure that many customers can access your website simultaneously. Limited bandwidth means that only a limited amount of customers can access your website. If your website can't handle a lot of traffic, it could cost you a lot of customers and, therefore, profit because your website will not load for every customer who visits it. With limited bandwidth, your website is even more likely to crash if it has content in the form of videos, animations, images, etc. So, if you want to make sure that your website does not experience crashes and that many customers can access it at any point in time, you should get a plan that offers unlimited bandwidth. Unlimited bandwidth prevents all these issues from happening and ensures that your site can handle major traffic spikes

Expected volume of traffic

is important to know because it helps you determine how much bandwidth your site needs. If you have low traffic and not many customers visit your site simultaneously, you probably won't need unlimited bandwidth. However, if your goal is to expand your site and increase its traffic, then unlimited bandwidth is the right choice. Also, if you have a large website with thousands of simultaneous visits, usually over 5000, look for a plan that offers unlimited bandwidth

The level of security

is crucial for all types of websites. The security features that a provider offers will be your defense against cyberattacks. Most hosting providers offer the basic security features that you'll need, like firewalls. The basic features could suffice if you have a site that doesn't deal with payments, sensitive customer information, large data, etc. However, if you need a higher level of security, like SSL Certificates or malware protection, then you should look for a provider that includes these and similar features in its plans. Some providers include SSL Certificates and malware protection for free in their hosting plans

Necessary tools and options

it would be highly beneficial for you to have a list of all the tools and options you need to know precisely what you're looking for. This list will help you determine whether you need advanced features or not. If you do need features like widgets, plugins, email addresses, linked social media accounts, etc., you should choose a provider that offers these features in an easy-to-use manner. However, if you don't need them or you have an IT expert to help you, then the provider you choose doesn't have to offer these features

Level and amount of support

can be detrimental to your success because having full technical support from your provider and its experts can help avoid and quickly fix many issues, like cyberattacks, website downtime, etc. It would be best if you looked for providers that offer live support, email support, web chat, have considerable knowledge bases, blogs, and of course, 24/7 support

Budget

plays an important role in choosing a hosting plan because different plans come at different prices. The hosting budget you have should reflect the long-term goals you have for your business. Your budget should allow you to achieve these goals through your website. When choosing a plan, make sure to compare the prices for similar plans that different providers offer so that you don't end up overpaying

Server requirements

help you decide whether you should go with a shared, dedicated, or managed server. It would help if you decided based on what you want to do with your website and how much you want it to grow. Shared hosting will suffice if you don't have a lot of money to spend and have a simple website. However, if you intend on growing your website, thus increasing other needs like bandwidth, then you should choose dedicated hosting. And if you want to support the growth of your website but have the provider maintain and manage the server, managed hosting is the answer because all the technical aspects will be handled by the provider, unlike with dedicated hosting, where you maintain the server on your own

Domains

are essential because they are the address your site will have on the Internet. Look for a provider that offers a free domain in its plans. Also, if you're looking to transfer from one host to another, choose a provider that will allow you to do this for free

Money-back guarantee

is important because this way, you can try out different providers to see which one suits you best with the guarantee that you will get your money back if you don't like the provider you've chosen. The industry standard money-back guarantee is 30 days. However, if you need more time to make a decision, choose a provider that offers a more extended period, like 60 days, for example

Backups

are crucial because they save your content and data when you have issues with your site. So, make sure your provider includes daily backups in its plans to ensure you don't lose your content

Control Panel

is where you do virtually everything, so it's important to look for a provider that works with a user-friendly and intuitive control panel, like the cPanel

• Shared hosting – is when many websites are hosted on a single server. It is the most affordable type of web hosting where resources like CPU, storage, bandwidth, etc., are shared among all websites. For more on shared hosting, click here

• Cloud hosting – offers users on-demand resources like data storage and CPU over the Internet. Websites are hosted on a network of connected virtual and physical servers. It enables you to use as much or as little of the resources as you need, with options to remove or add more of them at any time. For more details on cloud hosting, see this article

• WordPress hosting – is web hosting that is tailored and optimized specifically for WordPress sites. If you have a WordPress site, using this type of hosting will ensure that all your performance and security needs are adequately met. Also, you'll have many tools and services specifically made for WordPress at your disposal. For more details, visit this link

Having a sound and practical web hosting strategy will help you determine what your website needs to achieve your business's long-term goals. Depending on how you want to use your website, these needs will differ and change throughout the lifespan of your business.

So, it's essential that you create a web hosting strategy and assess your web hosting requirements before you pick your plan and provider because you can end up buying something you don't need or not buying enough, which can hinder your progress and future aspirations.