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Know More About Your Hosting Options

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When you’re building a business on the internet, web hosting is one of the foundational services that you’re going to need. Whether you’re building an empire of hundreds of websites or you’re just focused on a single one, web hosting is critical to your success. Choose the wrong type of hosting and you could be setting yourself up for failure before you even get started.

In this report, we’re going to compare the various types of hosting that are available and look at some of the things that you should be aware of when choosing a host. You’re not going to need all of these things at the beginning, but it’s important to know what’s available (and when to upgrade) to keep your business running smoothly as it grows.

Let’s dig in…

Types of Web Hosting

There are several types of web hosting that you can use:

• Shared server
• Reseller hosting
• VPS (Virtual Private Server)
• Dedicated server
• Cloud hosting

Each of these is more powerful than the previous, with shared hosting being the most basic.

A shared hosting account means you’re literally sharing the server with a number of other websites. You all share the same IP address, and the server – which is really just a computer that’s running in a datacenter somewhere – is sharing its resources among all those sites.

Shared hosting can work great for many people, but there are a couple of things you need to keep in mind.

First, because you’re sharing the server with other sites the performance can vary wildly. If one of those sites is running a script or doing something else that takes a lot of resources (which can include dealing with a lot of traffic) it can seriously impact how quickly your website loads.

It’s much like running a whole bunch of programs on your own computer. The more things it’s doing, the slower everything runs. Shared hosting works the same way.

And second, you want a host that doesn’t overload its servers. Some hosting companies put hundreds of websites on a single shared server. Even if none of the sites are doing anything particularly resource-intensive, this can still slow things down a lot.

Before signing up for shared hosting, check to see what the hosting company’s policies are for the number of sites on a single server, as well as whether or not they allow their users to run resource-intensive scripts.

Note: Another important factor is what kind of sites are sharing the server with you. If there is a site that is doing something shady or even illegal on that server, it’s going to share the same IP address as your website. This can wind up getting your website “blacklisted” by Google and various other services simply by association. Make sure you double-check your hosting company’s policies for what types of sites it allows as well.

Reseller hosting is similar to shared hosting in many ways, but it gives you the ability to add multiple websites, each with their own account. The idea behind reseller hosting is just what the name says – you can resell hosting services to other people and you have a “management” control panel that gives you more control than what you normally would have for a single hosting account.

Of course, you can simply “resell” hosting to yourself. In other words, use it to set up multiple accounts, one for each of your own websites. This is more effective than the “add-on” domains that some shared plans offer, but it’s a lot less expensive than having to pay for a separate hosting account for each site you build.

Just keep in mind that reseller hosting is still running on a shared server, so you have all the same considerations as a single shared account.

Virtual Private Server, or VPS, hosting gives you more resources and separates your websites from other sites on the same physical server.

The way it works is the server runs special software that creates “virtual” systems, each appearing to be an independent server. You have control over one of these virtual servers, so nobody else is directly sharing the same resources you’re using.

Of course, the physical server that’s running the VPS is sharing its resources between however many virtual servers the hosting company is running on it. The better VPS hosting services limit the number of virtual servers on any given machine so it won’t be overloaded.

A VPS gives you most of the advantages of a dedicated server (which we’ll cover next) at a much lower cost:

• Isolation from other users
• Complete root access to your server
• The ability to run any scripts you want
• Complete control over the configuration
• More resources dedicated to your sites

A higher degree of control can be an important factor once you start building more sites and getting more traffic.

You may want to run more intensive scripts or even your own mail server or some other such functions. A VPS lets you do this, provided you’re comfortable with the technical aspects of it of course.

And even if you’re not interested in being a system administrator, the better VPS hosting services offer fully managed VPS hosting, which means they handle all that kind of stuff for you. If you want a particular script installed or some other feature enabled or disabled, their support will usually handle it all for you.

A dedicated server is just what it sounds like – a server that is dedicated strictly for your use. This is like having your own computer in the datacenter, one that you have complete control over and exclusive use of.

Dedicated servers can be configured however you want so if you have some very specific needs, you can get a server to meet them. They also have all the same advantages that we already discussed for VPS hosting – more control, higher resources, etc.

A dedicated server will give you even more resources, however, because they aren’t being shared in any way. The server running a VPS might have 4GB of RAM, for example, of which you might get access to roughly 512MB (assuming there are 8 virtual servers on the machine). On a dedicated server with 4GB of RAM, you get access to the full 4GB.

Dedicated servers can be necessary if your website gets enough traffic, or if you want to have the most resources possible. But they aren’t necessary until you reach that point, quite frankly.

Cloud hosting is a relatively recent addition to the list. This includes services like Amazon’s S3, which is hosted by Amazon on their immense network. You get virtually unlimited resources, because they have such a huge infrastructure in place to run their own business.

Cloud services like this can be considerably more difficult to manage, so they’re not suitable for most people just starting out. But the big advantage they offer over all the other types of hosting is the fact that they’re on “distributed” networks.

In other words, your website is not running on a single server somewhere. Services like Amazon’s S3 have many servers in various locations around the world that all share the load. So if a single server goes down, it doesn’t affect your site – it will continue to work as normal.

And if your site suddenly gets a huge influx of traffic for some reason, cloud hosting is much more scalable. So instead of the visitors getting an error, or the site just loading indefinitely, the site will continue to work fine.

 

Operating System

Another choice you’ll need to make when deciding on web hosting is what operating system you want to use. This is a little like the “Mac vs Windows” debate for personal computers, but instead of the Mac OSX and Windows you’ll be choosing between Unix and Windows.

There are actually several variants of Unix that you’ll commonly see – FreeBSD, Linux, CentOS, etc. – but they all work essentially the same way. (In fact, you can even get Mac OS X hosting if you’re a total Mac fanatic, but it’s really just another form of Unix.)

In most cases, Unix-based hosting is the most effective because it is compatible with more applications and scripts. This includes content management systems like Joomla and WordPress, as well as many of the server-side scripts you’ll find useful for internet marketing.

While some of these applications will work on Windows servers, it can be more difficult to get them up and running, as well as to maintain them, because they were really designed to be used with Unix.

There are some applications that require Windows hosting, mind you. And if you’re using something that does, you’ll more than likely be aware of it so you’ll need to look for Windows hosting specifically.

There is one big advantage of Windows hosting that many people overlook.

That’s the fact that you can run most Windows applications directly on the server itself, and log in remotely to use them.

This can be very useful if your primary computer is a Mac or if you use a portable computer with less RAM or other resources. By running your applications on the server, you can access them via any internet connection and they run via remote access – no matter what operating system you have, or how powerful your computer is.

For example, let’s say you use a program like Micro Niche Finder, a keyword and market research tool. This is a Windows application so it could be installed on a Windows server instead of your own PC and accessed from any type of system, even an iPad or other mobile devices.

Incidentally, this can also be very effective for outsourcing since you can give your VA’s remote access to the software on your server.

What To Look For When Choosing A Web Host

There are a number of things to look for when choosing a web hosting company:

• Disk (storage) space
• Bandwidth limits
• Technical specifications
• Backup services
• Customer support
• Control panel (cPanel)
• Fantastico and other auto-installers

No matter which type of hosting you choose, two of the most important things are disk space and bandwidth limits.

The amount of disk space you get will determine how much you can load on your host – scripts, applications like WordPress or Joomla, content, etc.

When you’re first getting started this may not be too much of an issue, but as you add more content and if you’re building multiple sites within the same hosting account, you want to be sure you’re not going to run out of space. And keep in mind that things like images and especially video can take up quite a bit of space.

Bandwidth is another important factor. This is the amount of data that you are allowed to transfer every month. Every visitor to your site, and every page that is viewed, uses some of this bandwidth. If you build a site that winds up getting a lot of traffic, or you host any large downloads on your site that get accessed a lot, you can chew through a lot of bandwidth pretty quickly.

If you hit your limit, one of two things will usually happen. You’ll either get charged for any bandwidth over the limit (which is usually quite pricey) or visitors to your site will see an error telling them you’ve exceeded your bandwidth allocation.

Neither of which is good news so make sure you check the overage policies for any hosting companies that you’re considering.

Technical specifications are more of a concern when you’re dealing with VPS or dedicated servers. This includes many of the same things as you would consider when buying a computer for your own use – RAM, processor speed, hard drive size, etc.

Backup services are another very important factor.

Servers are no different than any other computer. Things can go wrong and parts can break down, causing data loss. In the case of your web server, data loss means your websites and all their content, so it’s important to make sure that you have good backups in place.

Most hosting companies do backup their servers on a regular basis, but you should always have a couple of failsafe options in case their backups don’t work for some reason.

That includes things like keeping a backup copy of all the files on each of your websites and backing up your MySQL databases regularly, in the case of WordPress and other such applications that use a database to store their content and settings.

The single most important thing you should do when it comes to backups is to test them. Set up a test site that you can delete completely without causing any interruptions for visitors (that’s why it’s best not to use a live site). Delete the entire site and then try restoring the backup to see if it works properly.

If you’re using your own backup service, you’ll need to do the work but it’s a good idea to test the hosting company as well. Submit a support ticket requesting them to restore the site from the most recent backup. See how long it takes them to do so, and whether or not the site is back up and running properly afterwards.

Always be sure to test your backups before you need them. If something goes wrong, that’s a much better time to find out than when one of your money sites is suddenly offline.

Technical support is also important, particularly as your sites get more and more traffic and start generating more revenue. If your site only gets a handful of visitors every day, a several hour delay in getting a problem fixed may not cost you much.

But if your website gets thousands of visitors per day, that delay could cost you quite a bit of money.

Much like backups, it’s a good idea to test your host’s technical support to see what kind of response you get. This can be done before you even sign up for their hosting services, to give you an idea of how quickly they respond and how effective the response is.

The control panel is the management interface for your hosting. This is where you can do things like set up MySQL databases, configure email addresses, manage the files on your server and various other things.

Some hosts don’t include control panels, particularly when you’re dealing with VPS or dedicated servers. All the same functions can be accessed, but you need to do it from the shell which is much more complicated. A control panel is a simplified interface to handle the technical stuff for you.

There are several popular control panels, the two most common being Cpanel and Plesk. Many internet marketers prefer Cpanel and there are a number of applications used by internet marketers that require it.

Some hosts will offer different options for your control panel, some of which may have an additional monthly cost associated with them. Cpanel, for example, costs the hosting company money to buy a license so they generally pass that cost along to you.

 

Upgrading Your Hosting

One of the most common problems internet marketers have when starting out is skimping on their hosting service. This can seriously limit your growth down the road, and may even make it difficult to expand later on.

You’re much better to start with a good host, even if it might cost you a few dollars more every month. Many of the better hosts offer different types of hosting services, some right from basic shared hosting to dedicated servers.

If you choose a host that offers all these services it can be much easier to upgrade your hosting in the future because they can handle all the technical work of moving your websites to a better class of server. There may or may not be a cost associated with this service, but it can save you a lot of time and headache to let them handle it for you.

This is another area where your control panel can have an effect as well. The Cpanel control panel has a function to copy an entire site from another server. This is only available on reseller hosting and higher plans – shared hosting won’t offer it.

But it automates the entire process of copying everything from your old server to the new one, so starting with a Cpanel host will often save you a lot of time and work in the future, when it comes time to upgrade to a higher class of host.

Some hosts even offer to handle this for you when you sign up for a new hosting account, so it’s worth asking if the service is available, particularly if you have a lot of sites to transfer.

 

Conclusion

Your web hosting is one of the most integral parts of your business. No matter what business model(s) you use or what types of websites you’re building, you need web hosting to make it work.

But it’s not something that you want to have to change very often. Jumping from one host to another can impact your sites in several ways that can affect your revenue – glitches can creep into the mix during the move, your search engine rankings can be affected, your site may be unreachable for a period of time during the move and more.

You’re much better to make a good decision in the first place, and stick with the same host until you outgrow it, rather than until you find a better deal.

While you don’t need to spend the money on a higher class of server right off the bat, saving a few dollars a month by choosing a cheaper host that may not have the same reliability and level of support can ultimately cost you a lot more than you save.

Make sure you weigh all the factors – not just the cost – before making your choice.

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