Ultimate Guide To Web Hosting

It started with a vision.

Maybe a passion project that turned into a side hustle. Or building your dream business from scratch.

Now you’re ready to take it online.

You look for how to get started with a website and learn that you need web hosting.

Simple right?

Until you dig deeper and fall into the swamp of technical jargon.

Shared hosting, Cloud, VPS, SSD, CDN, caching, bandwidth, CPU cores, SSL certificates…

Suddenly, you feel like you need to be a trained IT professional.

It’s overwhelming.

You don’t want to waste money or go through the hassle of moving your website to a new web hosting plan if you choose the wrong one.

You want to pick the best option for you right now and only change if your business growth requires it.

This guide is intended to serve as a map. Leading you through the world of web hosting.

I’m going to translate all the technical terms and turn them into plain English.

I’ll explain the different types of hosting available, the key features to boost website performance and user experience, and the things to avoid so you’re not wasting money.

Afterward, you’ll be armed with the right knowledge.

No more overwhelm. No more guessing.

You’ll clearly understand what matters and be able to confidently choose the web hosting provider that truly fits your business needs, budget, and technical comfort zone.

In simple terms, web hosting is the service that allows your website to be stored and accessed via the Internet.

Just as a brick-and-mortar business rents space in a mall or office building, your website rents space on a powerful computer known as a server.

It’s a high-performance computer designed to store all the text, images, code, databases, and other content that make up your website.

Web hosting companies own data centers where their servers are kept. These centers are secure and have reliable high-speed internet connections, ensuring anyone can access your website.

And you pay the hosting company a fee to rent space on their servers. The price varies depending on the type of hosting. I’ll talk about this later.

You might be thinking to yourself…

“If web hosting uses space on a computer, why should I pay someone else to use it?”

“I’m using a computer. I can use it to host my website and save money.”

Well, it’s not that simple. Here’s why…

Your computer must remain connected continuously, 24/7/365. If it crashes, loses power, or restarts, your website will go offline.

Servers in data centers are designed for nonstop operation, with backup power, and administrators to minimize downtime.

Home internet isn’t designed for servers. It’s great for downloading but not uploading, which is how servers serve web pages.

You may have seen numbers for your home internet speeds, like 500/50, which means 500 Mbps download and 50 Mbps upload. This means your upload speed is one-tenth the download speed.

If multiple people were to visit your website simultaneously, it would easily max out your connection bandwidth, making your website slower or inaccessible to everyone.

Hosting data centers have incredibly high-speed, reliable connections designed to handle multiple visitors simultaneously.

Unless your personal computer has an advanced configuration, it will not have the same security measures as a server.

Firewalls, intrusion detection systems, and security patches help protect the server from online threats, such as hackers and malware, while safeguarding visitors.

Setting up a server requires technical expertise. You must install and configure software, manage databases, troubleshoot issues, and perform other tasks as needed.

There’s a reason why System Administrator is a full-time occupation.

Unless you have the training, it’s best to let the hosting company handle everything.

It’s rare for a personal computer or laptop to have the processors, memory, and storage needed to handle even hundreds of visitors.

Hosting company servers are high-end, high-performance computers specifically designed and optimized to handle thousands of visitors at once.

An IP address is the unique identifier for your computer on the internet. It’s how other computers connect to your website using your domain name.

An Internet Service Provider (ISP) such as Comcast or AT&T offers home internet connections. Therefore, it can change the IP address assigned to your computer at any time.

This is referred to as a dynamic IP address.

When this occurs, visitors attempting to access your website using your domain name will be unable to because the domain name will no longer point to your computer’s IP address.

Servers require a constant IP address, called a static IP address. Getting one for a home connection can be difficult or expensive.

As you can see, hosting a website on your computer isn’t an option unless you’re highly competent in server management, and have money to purchase a high-end computer with a fast dedicated internet connection.

It’s more cost-effective to rent server space with the features you need and let the company handle the technical management.

So you can focus on building your business.

Before I explain the different features web hosting offers, you need to understand the types of hosting and how to choose which is best for your business needs.

It’s best to think of it like this…

The type of hosting is based on the configuration of the hosting company’s servers.

In real-world terms, you can view them as different types of retail stores.

This image illustrates the primary types of web hosting services and their corresponding types of commercial spaces.

I’ll break each one down in simple terms and point out the pros and cons to help you decide which one is the best fit for your business website.

Shared hosting is similar to renting a small retail space in a large shopping center. Each retail space is a self-contained store but must also share the mall’s resources such as elevators, electricity, and parking lot.

Likewise, your website has its own space to store website files, and visitors can access it directly. But it must also share the server’s processing power, RAM, hard drive storage, and bandwidth with other website accounts.

Because there are hundreds, or even thousands, of retail spaces in the building, the shopping mall owner (hosting company) can split the cost of maintaining the resources and infrastructure across all the stores; making the amount for each cheaper to pay.

This is generally the cheapest option, and most affordable, for those getting started or on a tight budget.

Similar to amenities offered in a shopping mall building, this hosting will come with a preinstalled control panel called cPanel or some other type of control panel to manage your website.

If you’re not a technical person, the control panel makes it easier to manage your website files, domains, and email accounts.

It will also include applications like Softaculous, which offers one-click installers for popular software such as WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal.

Just like with renting a retail space, if something breaks, you call the landlord, and he sends someone to fix it.

Shared hosting includes system administrators and support.

They manage all server maintenance, security updates, hardware upgrades, etc. You don’t need to worry about handling any of it.

Now imagine if the majority of stores in the shopping center start consuming a lot of electricity.

What would happen to the overall capacity of the shopping mall to provide electricity to other retail spaces?

Yeah, it would drop significantly.

With shared hosting, if websites on the same server as your website experience a sudden increase in traffic, it can negatively affect your website’s performance.

They also limit the amount of traffic allowed to your website. If it’s consistently near the resource limit, it’ll impact performance. This may cause the hosting company to request that you upgrade to a higher-tier plan.

Even if they advertise “unlimited” resources, there’s always a policy in their terms of service that allows limits. I’ll cover this and other things to avoid later.

Retail spaces have limited access to the shopping center infrastructure, outside of their rented space, to prevent them from doing anything which may affect the entire building.

Likewise, shared hosting doesn’t grant administrative access to the server. Otherwise, someone can do something to harm their server or other accounts on their server.

Therefore, you won’t be able to install server software or customize the server beyond the limits they set up in the control panel.

If a store in a shopping center catches fire or has a water leak, its neighboring stores can also burn down or receive water damage; since they are not completely separated from each other.

It is possible that another website can get hacked and negatively impact your website.

However, hosting companies do their best to keep each account isolated, so this is less likely to happen.

If you’re creating your first website and lack technical skills, shared hosting is the best option for a few reasons:

• the barrier of entry is low
• it requires the least technical knowledge to manage
• it’s great for those with a tight budget

It’s where I started.

They generally have multiple tiers to choose from. Each tier increases in price but offers additional resources in the form of storage, bandwidth, and memory. Allowing for more traffic.

But instead of renting a small retail space in a large mall, it’s better to have a bigger place with fewer neighbors.

Here are some of the hosting companies I recommend for shared hosting. I’ve either used them for my websites or for former client websites. They all offer great performance value for the price.

• ChemiCloud
• NameHero
• Scala Hosting

Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting is like a mini-mall, or strip mall. There’s still a shared property or building but resources are split among the tenants. Each store has an allocation and is more separated from the others.

The server’s resources are not shared among everyone. Rather the server is divided into several virtual compartments that act as sub-servers.

Instead of everyone sharing the water and electricity, your website is allotted a dedicated slice of resources, and the neighboring websites have theirs.

This results in better performance compared to shared hosting because there are fewer websites on the server. And you get a bigger slice of resources.

Each VPS plan displays the resources: CPU cores, RAM, storage, etc. allotted to your account.

These resources are not shared with other websites, which leads to better stability and increased performance to handle more visitors.

This also means that if other websites on the same physical server experience traffic spikes, they are far less likely to affect your website.

Since the main server is divided into virtual servers, your account is more isolated from other accounts. Therefore hosting companies can grant you root access to your virtual compartment.

Root access allows technical individuals to install custom server software and configure the server environment to their needs.

Virtual isolation also provides better security between accounts compared to shared hosting. You’re less likely to be negatively impacted by another account getting hacked or installing malware.

As your website grows and increases traffic, it’s easier to scale by adding resources.

VPS plans usually offer upgrades for CPU cores, RAM, and storage as needed, without moving to a different type of hosting.

With more control comes more responsibility for maintaining and managing your VPS.

If you’re not familiar with or comfortable using the command line, you can be easily overwhelmed.

However, some hosting companies offer managed VPS plans that handle security updates, maintenance, and other tasks, similar to their shared hosting services.

Unlike shopping center-styled shared hosting, the cost to maintain a server is spread across fewer accounts, but you get more resources and control.

And if you choose a managed VPS plan, as explained above, expect the cost to be slightly higher.

If you consistently have tens of thousands of visitors per month and if it’s impacting your website’s performance, then you’ve outgrown shared hosting and need to switch to a VPS.

Even if traffic isn’t the issue, some websites are extremely resource-intensive, and it’ll make sense to upgrade to a VPS to have dedicated resources.

E-commerce stores can also benefit from improved stability and security that a VPS has compared to shared hosting. But there are also specialized hosting solutions for these, which I’ll discuss later.

A VPS is a great solution if you or your system administrator requires more control over the server environment or wants to install custom server software, but doesn’t need a dedicated server.

Most hosting companies have switched from having physical VPS machines to VPS on a cloud infrastructure. I noted which ones use cloud for VPS.

• MechanicWeb
• ChemiCloud – cloud VPS
• Scala Hosting – cloud VPS

Cloud hosting is different than traditional hosting. Instead of thinking of your website as renting retail space in a building, it’s best to think of it as being connected to a network of utility companies for electricity, water, and gas.

If any single utility company experiences an issue or goes offline, the other companies in the network pick up the slack so your website continues to run unaffected.

Your website doesn’t reside on a single physical server but is mirrored across a network of virtual servers.

The power of this type of hosting is its redundancy.

If you had four power companies providing electricity to your business, you would not be worried if one of them temporarily went offline. You wouldn’t even notice.

Likewise, having your site mirrored across multiple servers means if one server fails, the others take over.

This results in high uptime, making it less likely your website goes offline.

If your business is featured in the news, or if a marketing campaign goes viral, the sudden increase in traffic will be easily handled.

Traffic spikes can cripple website performance on shared hosting. However, cloud hosting can automatically allocate more resources and servers to handle the surge.

You only pay for the resources you use, making it more cost-effective for those with extreme traffic swings.

It’s easier to budget for the fixed price of shared and VPS hosting compared to the variable cost of the cloud resources you use.

There can be times when unexpected traffic drives the cost above what you planned to spend that month. So, it’s best to have a reserve fund to cover these instances.

Having your site mirrored across a network of servers can require a complex setup compared to traditional hosting types.

If you are not a technical person or don’t have a system administrator, it may be a headache for you.

However, some cloud hosting providers offer simplified packages to help make it easier for non-technical people to manage.

The biggest advantages of cloud hosting are the scalability and reliability.

If your business website must be available with as little downtime as possible, or if you have unpredictable traffic patterns, then cloud hosting is the best option for you.

It is also a good fit for those who are interested in paying according to usage.

These are not traditional hosting companies, but rather server management platforms to deploy and monitor cloud servers from Vultr, Linode, AWS, and more.

• RunCloud
• xCloud

Dedicated hosting is similar to renting a standalone commercial retail building for your business.

You have complete control over everything. You don’t share anything with anyone.

All the server’s resources are yours and yours alone.

Since your account is the only one on the server, your website’s performance is limited by the server hardware you choose.

So it’s best to have some knowledge about server hardware. This will give you the best possible speed and performance.

Complete root administrator access is yours.

You can customize and configure the server exactly how you need it.

Any software. Any security systems. Whatever you need.

You won’t have to worry about other websites on the server getting hacked or installing malware.

However, you still need to be cautious of outside threats.

The cost to maintain the server falls solely on you. Making it significantly more expensive than shared, VPS, and even cloud hosting.

This is the most expensive option costing $100+ per month.

It should not be an option for anyone starting out or on a tight budget.

You are responsible for everything, including: installing an operating system, security systems, software patches, and troubleshooting issues.

If you’re not a server administrator, you need to hire one. Although some providers offer managed dedicated hosting, it adds even more to the already high expense.

For most small businesses and entrepreneurs, this type of hosting is not recommended.

But you may one day grow large enough to need it.

Large ecommerce sites doing many transactions, or high-traffic sites needing the best performance could benefit from dedicated hosting.

Any site requiring specific HIPAA, PCI DSS, or additional security compliance, that can’t be done with other hosting plans, may have this type of hosting as the only option.

• MechanicWeb

Specialized hosting doesn’t exactly fit into a “type” of hosting as it is mostly found in VPS and cloud hosting offers.

Think of it as a building designed for one distinct purpose.

These hosting companies build servers optimized and configured to work with a specific platform.

WordPress is the specialized hosting that most companies offer; however, other specialized hosting can be created for the e-commerce platform Magento.

In other cases, the platforms will include their hosting as part of the monthly price, such as BigCommerce and Shopify e-commerce platforms.

Since the server only runs one platform, it’s easier to fine-tune server configurations.

Typically, it will include speed enhancements like caching, database optimizations, etc. to improve performance and page loading times.

It can also include convenient features like automatic backups, staging environments for testing changes, and other development tools.

Being limited to one platform means the hosting company only needs to maintain security to protect against the platform’s vulnerabilities.

Only the necessary patches for the specific platform will be installed, and they can also proactively run scans.

Updates are also automatically applied, saving you time, and ensuring your website stays secure.

Customer support is highly knowledgeable when troubleshooting problems since they specialize in the specific platform rather than a general hosting provider.

They will be uniquely trained to handle common problems clients may run into when using the platform.

To keep performance high, specialized hosting doesn’t have as many accounts on a single server compared to shared hosting. So the expense to maintain the servers is spread across fewer accounts.

Expect the cost to be around the prices of VPS or cloud hosting.

You won’t be able to install WordPress on Shopify or Bigcommerce specialized hosting, and vice versa.

These servers are only designed and optimized to host a specific platform. If you want the flexibility to install and use other software, it’s best to choose from one of the hosting types covered above.

It also means this type of hosting doesn’t include email services. So if you want to use business email, you will need to sign up for an email service provider like ProtonMail or FastMail.

Plugins and additional applications are often limited to those compatible with the platform, and hosting companies may also restrict which plugins you can add due to potential conflicts.

Plugins for WordPress have the least restrictions, but not every plugin is properly coded or updated regularly, which could cause performance or security issues.

Some managed WordPress hosts restrict plugins known for causing performance issues or duplicating built-in features. If you want to use a specific plugin, contact the specialized hosting company first to verify it is not restricted.

For those who value speed, security, and convenience, and want to use one platform, then specialized hosting is the best choice.

Those who aren’t technical have nothing to worry about, as experts manage specialized hosting. Upgrades, security updates, optimizations, etc. will all be maintained by the hosting company.

E-commerce platforms such as WooCommerce or Magento can benefit from the performance of specialized hosting if it’s within your budget. But Bigcommerce, Shopify, and other platforms can only be used with specialized hosting.

• Rocket.net – for WordPress/WooCommerce
• Shopify – for e-commerce store

Now I’m going to cut through all the confusion and technical jargon. And take a deep dive into the essential features you need to understand.

You may feel like this is calculus, but I’ll break it down so you can grasp these concepts as simple as addition and subtraction.

These are the things that set up your website to have the highest chance of success.

You can take notes and use them as a checklist when you’re comparing different hosting companies.

Uptime is the amount of time your website is available and accessible online to visitors.

The higher the uptime, the more reliable the hosting company is at keeping the server running without interruptions. So you want this number to be as high as possible.

When looking at different hosts, you’ll see uptime guarantees displayed as percentages. Cheaper hosts will have uptime guarantees of 99%.

While it’s impossible to guarantee 100% uptime, 99% still isn’t that great.

As you can see in the image above, 99% means your website can be down for up to 3.5 days per year to still be within the guarantee.

Whereas 99.99% only allow for just over 52 minutes of downtime per year.

That’s a huge difference!

Also note that this does not include downtime for scheduled server maintenance.

Trying to save a few extra dollars on hosting can cost you more in the long run.

• potential customers will likely go to a competitor whose site is working
• no visitors means no leads or sales and results in lost revenue
• an inaccessible website looks unprofessional and can damage your reputation
• if search engines find your website down, it can hurt your page rankings also resulting in fewer visitors
• you could be wasting money if you’re sending visitors from paid advertising to a down website

This is why it’s crucial to invest upfront.

You should look for hosting that guarantees at least 99.9% uptime. If there’s a price difference and you can afford it, I recommend getting 99.99% guaranteed uptime.

However, things can happen. Even the best companies can fail to meet their guarantees due to unforeseen circumstances.

Check their policy to see if they offer reimbursement, like account credit, should they fail to meet the guarantee.

Also, read recent reviews or comments on their social media pages to see if there are any complaints about frequent outages.

People have so many things grabbing their attention today that it has caused them to become impatient.

Why should they wait when they can move on to something else?

Every second it takes your website to load increases the chance of them leaving your site immediately.

Slow websites frustrate visitors and make them less likely to convert.

That means fewer sales, fewer sign-ups to your email list, etc.

Major search engines like Google use page speed as a ranking factor. They give more ranking favor on their search results to faster websites.

Their goal is to give the best possible user experience and a slow-loading website is detrimental to that experience.

The following features are what you should consider to give you the best chance at having a fast website.

SSD drives are significantly faster than the older Hard Disk Drives (HDD).

HHDs have discs that spin at certain RPMs and heads that move around on the discs to read and write data. Similar to CD, DVD, and Blu-ray discs.

SSDs don’t have any moving parts, allowing them to read and write data much faster. They act similar to a USB flash drive or an SD card.

At the very least, you should use hosts that use SSD drives in their servers. This will speed up loading your website files and images to the visitor’s browser.

But I highly recommend using hosting equipped with NVMe drives.

NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express) drives are SSD drives that use a newer protocol (compared to SATA) to transfer data 5 to 10 times faster.

How all of this works inside the server is beyond the scope of this guide. Just know that if you’re looking at a host’s website, check their features to make sure they are using SSDs…preferably NVMe drives.

The server’s location will be in the hosting provider’s data center.

Most larger hosting companies have multiple data centers across several countries and allow you to choose which location you want to host your site.

You should choose a location that is closer to your target audience.

For example, if you are located in a European country and the majority of your audience is in the USA, then choose a data center in the USA.

Wires are still used to connect to the internet. The longer the wire from your website’s server to your customer. The longer it takes the data to travel. And the longer it takes for your page to load.

However, Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) can help with speed if you’re not able to choose a location near your audience. More on that later.

This is a special type of memory where the server will temporarily store frequently used website files, like your website logo, the CSS stylesheet, or JavaScript files.

These files could be used on every page of your website or highly visited pages.

By having these files stored in cache memory, the server can quickly deliver them to the visitor’s browser without having to access the storage drive.

It is separate from the storage drive and is significantly faster than NVMe.

Look for hosting that offers built-in caching like Litespeed, Varnish, Memcached, etc., or allows you to use caching plugins, if you’re using WordPress.

A CDN is a network of servers spread across the world.

Their purpose is to store copies of your website’s static content such as images, CSS files, JavaScript files, etc. as long as they don’t change frequently.

When a visitor comes to your site from a different part of the world than your server’s data center location, the CDN’s closest node to the visitor will automatically send the static data it has stored to the browser. The rest of the page will be loaded from your server.

This reduces the distance your data has to travel and can significantly speed up page loading times if the majority of your content is static.

A bonus is that the CDN reduces the amount of work your server has to do retrieving files for each visitor. It only needs to deliver dynamically generated content. Meaning your website can handle more visitors using fewer resources.

Some companies will include a third-party service like Cloudflare, or their proprietary service, in their hosting plan.

If they don’t include a service, check to make sure you can easily integrate with a third-party CDN.

This includes things like CPUs and RAM, which are crucial for server speed.

CPUs will usually be shown as the number of cores. Each core is like a mini-processing unit. The more cores you are allotted, the more processing power you have.

The number of cores available on shared hosting varies depending on the tier. More expensive tiers are given more cores. They typically range from one to four cores.

RAM is a high-speed type of memory. It assists the CPU by temporarily storing data necessary for processing tasks.

The more RAM a server has, the more data it can store for processing, and the faster the server will be.

For shared hosting, this also increases as you pay for higher tiers.

RAM allotment will typically range from 1 GB to 4 GB.

I recommend looking for at least 1 GB of RAM per CPU core.

Depending on the type of website you intend to build, storage space and bandwidth can be an important part of your decision.

As mentioned above, the plans you look at should already have at least an SSD drive or preferably an NVMe drive. But the amount of space you need is also important.

This will vary depending on the type of website you build. Simple businesses with information and blogs won’t need as much space as an e-commerce site with high-resolution product pictures or videos.

If you have too many large files, you can quickly run out of storage space. This can disable your ability to upload new content, receive emails, or cause your site to go offline.

Plans list storage space in Gigabytes (GB) and the lowest shared hosting tiers typically start around 10 or 20 GB.

Some plans will offer the ability to purchase additional storage space for a monthly fee if that is all you need to increase.

I recommend avoiding plans that offer unlimited storage, as they always have something in their terms of service that limits the amount of space you can use or force you to upgrade to a higher plan.

This is the amount of data transferred from your website server to the visitor’s browser.

Every time someone visits your website, the text, images, videos, stylesheets, and JavaScript files are counted toward your bandwidth allotment.

Plans will have bandwidth stated in GB or even terabytes (TB).

Shared plans will start around 100 GB per month which should be more than enough for the vast majority of websites.

If you run out of bandwidth, you may be forced to upgrade to a higher plan or get charged an extra fee per additional GB over the limit.

Most plans now offer unlimited bandwidth, but again, check their terms of service to see what their “within reasonable limits” means.

If you use a CDN as mentioned above, this will help serve your website’s static content. And this doesn’t count toward your traffic bandwidth.

Your website server will only need to send the dynamic content, therefore the amount of bandwidth you use will be low.

If you’re just getting started, you’re looking for plans that are affordable and only have the resources you need for a small amount of traffic.

But what happens if your business gets featured in the news or has a viral marketing campaign?

Can your website handle a sudden spike in traffic?

Scalability allows you to add resources and upgrade to different types of hosting (from shared to VPS). Allowing your website to grow with your business.

Look for hosting providers that have multiple tiers of shared hosting, especially if you’re starting on the lowest tier. This allows you to seamlessly add more resources while staying in the shared hosting environment.

Also, look for a provider that offers higher-performance hosting such as VPS or cloud plans.

This way, you can use the same provider to upgrade to a better type of hosting. They’ll generally have tools to move your site to the new hosting with little to no downtime.

In some instances, it makes sense to switch hosting providers. Sometimes you can get more resources for less money by moving to another hosting provider’s higher performance plans.

But you’ll need to consider if the hassle of switching providers is worth it. Some migrations can be technical, time-consuming, and cause downtime.

However, most providers will offer free migration if you’re using the WordPress platform. This makes your move hassle-free and minimizes downtime.

The internet is a hostile environment with malicious actors seeking websites with vulnerabilities to exploit.

Website security protects your files, database, and data from unauthorized access, hackers, malware, and other threats.

Here are some security features to consider when looking at hosting plans.

Every website should be using SSL certificates.

You can see if a website is using it by looking at the URL. It should have “https” or show a padlock icon in the address bar.

This encrypts any data between your website and the visitor’s browser, like login details or credit card information.

If you don’t use SSL certificates, major search engines will unlikely rank your website and most browsers will display a warning page to visitors informing them that your website is unsecured, deterring them from continuing.

Look for hosting plans that offer free Let’s Encrypt basic SSL certificates. They are easy to install and automatically renew.

There’s no reason to pay for any SSL certificates unless you have an e-commerce store and your payment processor requires a higher-level certificate.

Malware scanning will regularly scan your files to detect if any malicious software is present. If it finds any, it will notify you, and can automatically remove it.

It’s similar to anti-virus software you may be running on your computer.

Firewalls act as gatekeepers, monitoring traffic to your website. If it detects malicious traffic, like hacking attempts, it will block it from reaching the server.

These features are generally included in higher-tier shared hosting plans and high-performance types of hosting.

However, some providers offer these features as add-ons for an extra fee.

For those who store sensitive information, like customer data, or are worried about your website being hacked, I recommend either finding a plan that includes these features or paying extra for the add-ons.

If you are not a technical person, having good customer support available is crucial.

Sooner or later something is going to go wrong.

Your website might stop working after an update. You might do something you thought you understood, but it ended up breaking your website.

Having available and reliable help will give you peace of mind and prevent a minor issue from turning into a major nightmare.

I highly recommend looking for hosts that have 24/7/365 support. Problems don’t only happen during business hours.

They should have multiple ways to get support such as:

• Live chat is quick for simple to moderate issues.
• Phone support for more complex problems where conversation with a person is needed.
• Email/ticketing system for non-urgent matters, detailed explanations, or where sharing logs may be required.

Look for indications customer support is knowledgeable and responsive.

How quickly do they resolve issues?

Scan their TrustPilot reviews for any mentions of their support’s quality and speed.

You can also see if their website has a knowledge base available. This should have documentation, tutorials, and FAQs so you’ll be able to find how to resolve common issues without contacting support.

Backups are your insurance policy to quickly recover from catastrophic events like hacks, malware, server errors, etc. They help restore your website if you accidentally do something to break it.

They give you peace of mind knowing all your hard work to build your business is safe.

Look for hosting plans that offer automatic backups.

The backup frequency should be daily, especially for frequently changing websites. They should be retained for at least a week to 10 days before being automatically deleted. The longer they save them the better.

While having your host do automatic backups is an essential layer of protection, I highly recommend you also implement an independent backup solution stored on a separate server.

For WordPress, using a backup plugin like UpDraftPlus or WPvivid can save copies to a cloud storage platform such as Google Drive or Dropbox.

This allows you to have access to your website backups in case the host’s server fails. You can retain them in the cloud until you delete them, unlike the older backups on the host’s server which are automatically deleted.

You also want to have the ability to easily restore from a backup without contacting support. Look for companies that offer a one-click backup restore. You can choose the backup version you want and the tool will do everything necessary.

Most hosting companies will include email hosting so you can create email addresses using your domain name rather than using the free @gmail.com or @yahoo.com domains.

This allows you to send and receive emails to your business email address; making you look more professional.

Look for plans that allow you to create at least a few hundred email addresses. Preferably, the only limit should be the amount of storage your plan has as a lot of email can take up space.

Hosting providers will also offer for you to choose a domain name when you sign up for their plans.

This means that they are not only a hosting provider, but a domain name registrar.

The domain name registration adds another annual fee to your hosting plan. The price can vary greatly from one company to the other.

I’ve seen some charge anywhere from $10 to $20 per year for a .com domain name.

Sometimes the higher-tier shared hosting plans will include a free domain name. But make sure to check if the domain name is only included for the first year, or for as long as you continue to pay for the plan.

I recommend using a dedicated domain registrar, like Cloudflare or Namecheap, for your domain name to keep it separate from your hosting provider.

You get better pricing, more control, and flexibility.

Registrars don’t add as much of a markup, if any at all, to their pricing. For instance, Cloudflare prices their domain names at cost, without markup. So if it costs them $10 for a domain, they charge $10.

While having a plan that includes a domain name may be tempting, consider the consequences of going that route.

Some companies that offer these free domains with hosting can make it difficult or expensive to transfer your domain away from them.

With a domain held by a registrar, your domain name won’t be tied to the hosting provider. If you ever switch hosting, you only need to point your domain name to the new host.

I wish this weren’t the case, but every hosting company, with a few exceptions, uses introductory pricing to lure you to purchase their plan.

Then after a year, when it’s time for your plan to renew, you’re hit with a massive bill compared to what you paid before.

Those super cheap, low prices (e.g. $1.99/month) you see advertised on hosting websites are the bait for you.

It’s great if you’re getting started and don’t have a lot of money, but you’d better start making money before you have to renew because the price will jump.

The $24 you paid for a year of hosting becomes $120 ($9.99/month) to renew for another year!

The introductory rate is only valid for the initial contract length you purchased when signing up.

After that, you pay the renewal rate, which is the actual price for hosting.

Be sure not to get drawn in by the cheap introductory price, but look at what’s the renewal price and determine whether or not you think that price is fair for the performance you’re getting.

If you find a host you like and it’s towards the end of the year, you may want to hold off purchasing until the Black Friday deals start.

That’s the time you get the highest discount for introductory pricing.

Even though I’m not a fan of introductory pricing practices, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take advantage of when the best deals occur.

When you sign up for hosting, you’ll have the option to choose how long you want the contract to be.

The default is 1 year, but some companies allow you to go up to 3 years, even for the introductory rate.

The longer the contract, the bigger the discount you’ll receive. So a renewal rate of $9.99/month for 1 year could be $8.99/month for 2 years and $7.99/month for 3 years.

While this may seem like it saves you money initially, you’re locked in for the whole contract term.

If you decide to switch hosting providers, you will not receive a prorated refund for the remaining contract period.

So carefully consider if you’re comfortable committing to a contract for more than one year.

These are offered to allow you to try out the service to see if it’s a good fit without risking any money if you’re not satisfied.

Trial periods can range anywhere from 30 to 90 days.

However, read the refund terms carefully. There could be non-refundable fees, such as the domain registration fee, if the hosting plan included a domain name.

Now that you’re armed with a better understanding of the different types of hosting and features, you may want to dive in and pick the one that checks the most boxes.

But before you do that, let’s cover some things to avoid. All that glitters is not gold. And some of these shiny offers are not what they seem.

Knowing what to avoid is just as important as knowing what to look for. It will save you time, money, and headaches in the future.

I touched on this earlier in the Key Features section but here’s more detail.

You’re a smart person. So when you hear things like “unlimited storage,” I’m sure a red flag pops up in your head.

You’ll mostly see this in shared hosting plans as they are the most competitive for people getting started.

Since shared hosting can have hundreds of accounts on a single server, all of them can’t have unlimited storage because the server only has a finite amount of storage, which all the accounts must share.

In other words, everyone can’t have unlimited slices of pie if there is only one pie.

These plans will have restrictions buried in their terms of service that limit you to not go past an allocated amount of space.

It could be a limit on the number of files, called inodes, you’re allowed to have (typically 100K to 200K), a limit on the file size you’re allowed to upload, or a “fair use” or “acceptable use” limit defined in their policy.

Be skeptical when you see “unlimited” and always check their terms of service to see what are the actual limits.

Look for hosting that has specifically defined limits explicitly shown in the plan breakdown and not buried in their terms of service legalese.

Endurance International Group (EIG), now known as Newfold Digital, is a large web hosting conglomerate, owning over 80 hosting brands, and is also behind big brands such as Bluehost, HostGator, and more.

This company has a bad reputation among the web hosting community.

There are stories of customers who were happy users of a hosting company before EIG acquired them. Afterward, there was a noticeable drop in service and quality.

That drop in quality was in the most important areas that make a good web host.

Customers complain about poor customer support with longer wait times and unhelpful responses.

They’re known for overselling server resources, meaning they put too many accounts on a server that can’t handle the demand.

And they don’t invest in upgrading to newer, faster, and better server technologies. They lag far behind many of the independent hosting companies when it comes to server resources.

All of this causes the websites hosted on the server to have slow and poor performance.

If EIG/Newfold is so bad, then why are so many people recommending their brands like Bluehost and HostGator on YouTube and review sites?

One word…affiliates.

They have an aggressive affiliate program that pays out some of the highest commissions, about $200 per sale.

Unfortunately, this incentivizes people to recommend these companies so they can make more money from their audience rather than recommend a good product.

But not all affiliates put profits over people.

There are those of us who look to recommend products that are helpful to our audience first. If the company has an affiliate program, then we sign up for it.

So, if you watch a video or read a review article that praises Bluehost, HostGater, or any other company under the EIG/Newfold Digital umbrella, then know that the person values money over people.

There is truth to the saying, “You get what you pay for.”

You’re starting on a budget and you need to stretch your money as far as possible.

I get it.

However, cheap hosting will cost you more in the long run. And I’m not talking about the introductory rates, but the cheap $2.99, $3.99, and $4.99 per month renewal rates.

For hosting companies to make a profit after the costs of maintaining the server, they have to cram more accounts onto each server.

This negatively affects your website, making it slower, frustrating visitors, and causing them to leave before they see what you have to offer.

Your website will likely have more downtime due to the less reliable equipment the server is running on. These companies won’t offer the same 99.99% guaranteed uptime as the quality hosting providers.

If anything were to break your website, good luck getting it resolved in a timely fashion. Customer support won’t be quick to respond and you’ll have limited ways to contact them.

These are all problems that will affect your conversion rate, or cause you to spend valuable time dealing with website issues instead of working on growing your business.

I recommend not using any host that doesn’t have a renewal rate of at least $9.99/month for their lowest shared hosting tier.

When you sign up for a hosting plan, they will try and upsell you on services you don’t need or would already be included in quality hosting plans.

Seeing these types of upsells should be a sign that you are not choosing a quality hosting provider. They are trying to sell you these things to offset the cheap price they are offering you.

Every site should use a basic SSL certificate to encrypt the traffic between the website and the visitor’s browser.

However, there is a free tool called Let’s Encrypt that generates valid SSL certificates and automatically renews them.

This should already be part of the hosting plan, and there’s no need to buy basic SSL certificates.

The only time you would need to purchase SSL certificates is if you are running an e-commerce store or are processing payments through your website.

These activities use higher-level certificates that require vetting your organization’s legal and operating status.

A quality web host already provides and maintains a secure server environment for your website. And they generally include malware scanning to find malicious files.

Plus, a lot of risk can be avoided if you take care to do the following:

• only install plugins from people you trust
• install plugins that have released recent updates
• only run code from sources you trust
• keep all your software and plugins up to date

But if you’re using WordPress and still want extra protection, a plugin like Wordfence is a good alternative compared to paying the hosting provider.

Quality hosts have plans that include automated daily backups, retaining them for at least 7-10 days on their lowest shared hosting tier.

And while having automated backups is nice, off-site backups are better. This is the best way to ensure you’ll always have access should something go wrong.

I discussed this in more detail in the Key Features section.

Whatever SEO tool they try to sell you will pale in comparison to the free tools you can use.

Google Analytics and Google Search Console will give you loads of valuable information about your site, along with any issues that can affect how your site ranks on results pages.

And for WordPress, there are plugins like RankMath, Slim SEO, and others that are either completely free or have free versions that will do much more than any tool a hosting company can offer.

Due to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) requirements, the contact information when you register a domain name has to be valid and accurate.

Domain privacy will keep this information from being publicly available when someone does a WHOIS lookup on your website’s domain name.

Instead of showing your information, they will show the registrar’s company information. This helps prevent you from getting spam mail and emails.

Some hosts will charge you an annual fee for this service. Others will give you a free year when you sign up for their hosting, then charge you a fee.

I don’t recommend registering your domain name through your hosting provider since those are two separate services.

Register your domain with a registrar company like Cloudflare or Namecheap, and point the domain to your hosting company.

Quality registrar companies like the ones I mentioned should include domain privacy. I also covered this in the Key Features section.

Email hosting allows you to create email addresses, send emails, and receive emails using your business domain name.

With general web hosting plans, this should be included and not offered as an add-on.

Usually, the add-on is advertised as “premium email” which gives you more storage or collaboration tools. If you need those features, I recommend paying for dedicated email hosting from providers like FastMail or ProtonMail.

These email hosting services will give you more features and their server hardware will be optimized for email.

However, for specialized web hosting such as an e-commerce platform like Shopify, an all-in-one website builder like Squarespace, or managed WordPress hosting like Rocket.net, email hosting typically won’t be included and you will need to purchase it separately from a provider.

The general rule I give for all add-ons is to skip anything they offer when you first sign up. you can always add it later if you need something.

Congratulations!

If you’ve made it this far, you should have a much better understanding of how to match your business needs with the right hosting plan.

You’ve learned the difference between shared, VPS, cloud, dedicated, and specialized hosting. And the importance of paying for quality resources over cheap solutions.

The right web hosting provides peace of mind and saves you money by eliminating unnecessary add-ons.

That overwhelming feeling you had is now replaced with confidence.

Now, ask yourself the following questions. The answers to these will help you decide which type of hosting to use.

• What is my expected traffic? – be realistic, personal blog vs online store with paid traffic ads
• What kind of website am I building? – brochure style, content-heavy blog, e-commerce store
• What is my budget? – make sure to look at the renewal rate and not the introductory price
• How technical am I? – do-it-yourselfer, need managed hosting or 24/7 customer support

Next, look over the “features” section again and make a prioritization list.

When comparing hosting plans, focus on the ones that check the most boxes. You can use the companies I recommend as a good starting point.

Then, sign up for the plan and start building!

Your journey to helping others begins here. And now you have a solid foundation for success.