Web hosting is necessary if you want to put a website online. If you don’t have a web host, no one can actually access your website.
Yet, if you’re just starting out with your own website, you might wonder what web hosting is, and how it can benefit you? There are many advantages to having a website, besides the obvious one.
The following section describes how web hosting works, the distinct benefits of web hosting services, and the overall benefits you will receive when you choose to use a quality web host for your website.
Why do we Need Web Hosting?
Web hosting is a service offered by hosting companies. Your website’s files are hosted on their servers, making them accessible on the Internet.
Consider it this way. On your computer, you have a lot of different files, and you can access them just by opening the file. If you wanted to show someone else this file, they would need to be present with you, or you would need to send them the files.
Your web hosts represent the sender in this metaphor. The files of your site are stored on the server owned by your hosting provider. The server then sends these files to the web browser whenever a visitor types in your domain name.
A website is simply a collection of files and media elements, like photos. Thus, you rent a space on a web server and store all of your files there.
Additionally, you will receive server maintenance, support, email accounts, and more from your web host. Your server will also be managed by tools that don’t require technical expertise.
When you purchase hosting, upload your site’s files to the web server, and point your domain name to your hosting account, you’ll have a website accessible to anyone in the world.
There are several types of web hosting available to you. The type of hosting you choose will depend on your website even though there are many types. Here are some suggestions to help you select the right type.
Shared Hosting
Shared hosting is the most popular form of hosting, and is probably the best option for most website owners. Shared hosting is incredibly cheap. This is one of the biggest advantages. You can use shared hosting even if you don’t have much money.
You share server resources with hundreds to thousands of other sites, which makes it so affordable. As a result, you won’t have to pay for the entire server yourself.
Sharing hosting is not only easy to use, but because it is designed for beginners, it’s also one of the simplest environments to set up.
VPS Hosting
There are many different types of hosting, but VPS hosting stands out from the rest. Virtual dedicated servers are created using a technical process called virtualization. Despite this, it is still pulling resources from multiple physical servers you’re sharing with others.
One of the biggest benefits of VPS hosting is that you have access to much more resources. The performance of your website will therefore improve. Moreover, you have the option to scale your server resources up or down as needed.