When you’re setting up your website, you want to ensure that it is well-optimized and offers good services and content to attract visitors. However, the success of that endeavour is also supplemented by the hosting platform you choose for your website. The web hosting market is inundated with choices – Shared Hosting, Cloud Hosting, VPS Hosting and Dedicated Hosting. While each offers cost-effective features and an efficient hosting solution, the goal is to find the best affordable web hosting platform for your business.
Consider Shared Hosting – an affordable and simple way to get your website started. Before you choose, let us tell you a bit about Shared Hosting and why it may be an affordable web hosting option for you.
What is Shared Hosting?
The practice of Shared Hosting refers to when a single server hosts multiple websites – meaning that you would share the server’s resources with other websites. In this Shared Hosting environment, as the server space and resources are divided between all the users, the cost of the server gets split between them. This shared nature of the platform makes Shared Hosting incredibly popular and affordable for many small to medium-sized websites.
Similar to computers, shared servers have hard drives, CPU and RAM. These resources are shared by all the websites and hosted by that server. So, you can store all saved files, information and data that makes your website what it is. If a customer requests access to your website, the stored data from your website is then sent to the customer. Shared Hosting, essentially, takes advantage of a server’s optimal performance, as each website draws in different amounts of traffic, during different times in the day.
Advantages of Shared Hosting for Small Businesses
Apart from being an affordable web hosting choice, these benefits make Shared Hosting a cost-effective option too.
- Maintenance and Support:
When you choose Shared Hosting, highly skilled web hosts help in the maintenance of the server, hardware and other components. Due to rapid response rates and strong customer support, your website downtime is greatly reduced. Since Shared Hosting involves multiple websites sharing one server, technological issues on one website may affect the others. That’s why companies are proactive about maintaining the server and responding quickly to heal security breaches and to solve technical issues. Therefore, it is ideal to choose Shared Hosting for small businesses because it doesn’t demand in-depth know-how to manage and maintain the servers. You can focus on growing the business. - Growth:
Shared Hosting is a viable choice for websites that bring in a lower level of traffic. Shared Hosting gives the website room to grow and expand until the online presence of the website and the resources it needs exceeds what Shared Hosting can offer. You can take advantage of this flexible and affordable plan and invest your money in the growth of the website until you need to transfer your website to higher hosting tiers to deliver faster content and handle higher volumes of traffic. - User-Friendly:
Shared Hosting allows you to configure, set and customise your website with the help of easy and efficient tools. Once you have chosen your hosting package, you have incredible control panels and platforms like cPanel and Plesk (for Linux and Windows, respectively) to manage your website and applications. You can install a variety of applications with just a single click. A good Shared Hosting provider will also offer you email accounts, marketing tools and statistics to better understand and attract new visitors to your site. - Accessibility:
Affordability and easy availability of Shared Hosting allows anyone to open an account, sign a contract and set up a site. Most hosting providers offer Shared Hosting plans that allow small and medium sites to set up and start functioning quickly and smoothly. Features like one-click installations and easy website building tools are included with a new account. With great hosting plans and features for you to consider, you don’t need to worry about how to get started.
Windows or Linux Shared Hosting?
You’re going to come across this choice when you decide to opt for Shared Hosting. Linux and Windows are two different types of Operating Systems. So, when you’re making a choice between the two, it comes down to the infrastructure your website needs. Both are affordable web hosting choices, but there are some key needs that each OS addresses.
- Linux: A Linux hosting package is ideal for individuals who want access to a large reservoir of ready-to-use, open-source and free applications. If you wish to host your website on WordPress and HTML/CSS, then Linux Shared Hosting is the best affordable web hosting for you.
- Windows: For those individuals who are looking to build or manage more complex websites, they need languages like ASP, ASP.NET and MySQL, which are better suited to a Windows server.
Choosing the best affordable web hosting platform isn’t just a matter of choosing Shared Hosting; it also depends on choosing an excellent hosting provider. Make your website lightning fast with Caching-enabled Linux Shared Hosting. Also get a control panel so that you can install website applications, and manage and maintain your website. If you’re currently hosted by a hosting company that does not match your needs, you can take a look at the Shared Hosting plans we provide. With state of the art infrastructure, the chance to build your website with advanced programming languages (PHP, Apache, Curl, Python, MySQL), an easy to use control panel and professional email hosting, you can finally find an affordable online home for your website, and watch it grow and flourish.
To know more about the other web hosting categories and to choose the right option for your business, visit our Hosting Blogs Category.