What is Web Hosting? 5+Types and How It Works Awesome!

There are a lot of factors that influence your website’s success, and I can guarantee that the quality of your hosting account plays a big role, too.

What is Web Hosting

Web hosting services are digital spaces where websites are stored and hosted.

When you look to invest in a new domain name for your business or personal site, one of the first questions you should ask is, now where you should host your website.

In this article, I will go over what web hosting is and how it works so that you can make an informed decision before signing up for any Web Hosting service. Read on to learn more!

What is Web Hosting?

Web hosting is a service that allows you to store, maintain, and share your website with the world.

It’s essentially a way to store your website on someone else’s computer, also known as server, and it’s a vital component of online business.

Web hosts, which are companies that operate, maintain, and set up physical servers that hold websites, generally offer web hosting.

Web hosting companies make sure that your website will load as soon as possible when someone types your domain name into their browser.

They are also responsible for ensuring security against Hackers and malicious programs, keep your Website always available to the world and give your customer support whenever you need it.

Why Web Hosting Important?

There are a few different reasons why hosting is important, and they all involve the way your website appears online. The first is that hosting is the first step towards building an online presence.

This essentially means that you can’t have a successful online business without hosting! Without hosting, you’ll have a hard time growing your business because no one will be able to easily access your content.

Your website can be created and managed more easily with the help of some tools and services that are available through web hosting services.

For instance, a lot of web hosting providers offer website builder services, which let you make a website without any coding or design knowledge.

Additionally, some web hosting providers provide features like email services and separate databases for Information and media such as images, that can assist you in managing your websites.

What are the Types of Web Hosting?

There are many different web hosting services available because every website has different needs.

The type of Web Hosting that works best for your company will depend on a number of factors, including the kind of your company, the volume of internet traffic, and the number of visual assets you have on your website.

The following are the different types of web hosting services for you to consider.

1. Cloud Hosting

Cloud is a Metaphor for Distributed interconnected Server network. A cloud server runs in a cloud computing environment, and stores data across a network of servers.

A hosting solution can be called cloud hosting which enables you to host your website on numerous servers.

Your website will be able to scale up or down with cloud hosting as necessary and automatically.

The best cloud hosting can also provide greater scalability because websites can be instantly transferred to multiple servers in response to traffic volume.

PROS

  • Greater Bandwidth
  • High Up-Time
  • Unlimited Software Options
  • High Security

CONS

  • Difficult to configure and debug
  • It’s expensive Require higher skills

2. Dedicated Hosting

As the suggests this kind of server is dedicated to only your Website and apps.

This has lots of advantages. You don’t need to share your server with any other websites if you use dedicated hosting.

With more control over your server and the resources at your disposal thanks to this, For companies or websites that need a lot of resources, dedicated hosting is a terrific choice.

Due to the fact, that you are effectively renting a complete server for your website, dedicated hosting accounts are often more expensive than shared hosting plans but costs less than Dedicated ones.

PROS

  • Strong database support
  • Unlimited software support
  • Powerful e-mail solutions Complete root access to your servers

CONS

  • Its very expensive Requires superior skill sets

3. VPS Hosting

A Virtual Private Server (VPS) is something in-between a Dedicated Hosting and a Shared Hosting. Multiple virtual spaces are created by partitioning a single physical server, each of which serves as the host for a separate website.

You will have a set amount of resources, such as bandwidth and storage space, with a VPS.

Businesses or websites that need more resources than what shared hosting provides may consider a VPS Hosting.

PROS

  • Cost to Value is High
  • Highly Scalable
  • Highly Secure High Performance

CONS

  • More Expensive
  • Limited resources Require more technical knowledge

4. Shared Hosting

The most common kind of web hosting service is shared hosting. A server is shared by your website and other websites when you use shared hosting. As the name suggests, you will therefore be sharing resources like bandwidth and storage space.

Businesses or Individuals, looking for the cheapest alternative for their small and simple websites with moderate traffic can opt for Shared hosting.

PROS

  • Easy and affordable
  • Secured by hosting provider 24/7 Technical support

CONS

  • Shared resources can slow down the whole server
  • Less flexible than dedicated hosting

5. Managed WordPress Hosting

In managed hosting, the server setup, management, backup and support are taken care of by the hosting provider; in unmanaged hosting, the customer in this case you are in charge of these tasks.

This is not a type of hosting by itself; rather, it is a service that web hosting companies provide to their clients, primarily those who use dedicated or VPS hosting.

Since managed web hosting is a Add-on service on top of the VPS or Dedicated hosting, usually the Price is a bit Higher.

Though there are ton of benefits as you can focus on your Website operation without getting bothered about server Backups and Management.

PROS

  • No Technical Knowledge Needed
  • You Can Focus on Site Data
  • Improved Security Backup & Restoration Service

CONS

  • More Expensive
  • Forced Updates Only Selected Plugins

6. Reseller Hosting

As the name suggests, this hosting model enables users to buy server space, split it up, and resell it to other users.

You can easily understand that this is for people or organizations with high technological know-how and who seek to make money by renting out server space to other clients.

Here You need to subscribe a Bulk amount of Space from a Bigger Provider, and you need to find Clients whom you can sell this on a Resell basis.

PROS

  • Best for Businesses
  • Room to Expand
  • Income Opportunities
  • Build Your Brand

CONS

  • Need Dedicated Customer Service Team
  • Dependent on Reseller Hosting Company
  • High Level of Difficulty

7. FREE Hosting

This is an unpaid, totally free web hosting service. Numerous well-known websites, such as Hostinger, that offer to host a few web pages for free provide this form of hosting.

But a word of caution, as you know Free stuff has it’s own caveats. So this kind of Hosting is also no exception of that rule.

This has very few resources allocated to the server and one day or the another if you need to upgrade to a Better paid plan. Saying that Hostinger does have very good beginner friendly paid Plan which are inexpensive and reliable.

PROS

  • Free of cost
  • Best for One page Website
  • Website can Show Information and Images

CONS

  • Customer support is missing
  • Low bandwidth and lesser data transfer
  • No control over your website

How to Host your Website on a Hosting service

Now if you are wondering how to setup your Website on a Hosting Space then you can follow along the below steps.        

-Decide your Hosting type

Depending on your personal and business need this has to be taken care of. Whether your website is one page informative  website, or a Blog or a online store or a Web application, this will dictate your choice of type of hosting. Certainly you can start with a Shared hosting server for a blog or informative website. But a Dedicated server or a VPS is best suited for Online store.

– Register with a Hosting Provider

While registering with a Hosting Provider. You need to fill in some personal information such as Name, email, phone and Billing information.

Once you verify your email and setup the account. There should lots of other options to upgrade your Storage, customer support, ram etc. You can choose these at this time or even later.

– Select Hosting Plan

Here you will be shown different types of hosting plans. Most Hosting providers have multiple hosting plans to offer. You can choose wisely which one you will like to go for. Look for ram for speed. Disk space for file storage, CDN for global availability.

– Connect a Domain Name

A domain name is the Online identity of the website. You may have already have one, which you have booked with a prior Domain registrar or Most Hosting Plans comes with a Free Domain Name while booking a hosting plan.    

You need to connect a Domain name with your Hosting Plan by editing the DNS Nameserver (NS) records. This may Take a couple of Hours to 48 Hours, to detect the Nameserver and Domain name to propagate.

– Set up Site Builder

Once the Domain name has Propagated to your Hosting server. The next will be setting up a website on your Hosting server. You may wish to have a WordPress site which end of the day lots of DIY tasks, or start with a Website builder which is a mostly Drag and Drop visual interface, to get things done.

You can create a Logo, add Images and text from simple editors provided by the Website builder. There are many other provisions like creating Contact forms and email marketing connection depending on which Website Builder you choose.

– Launch your Website

Once the site is build as per your expectations. You are good to go. Type your domain name in the URl section of your Browser and you should see your Website up and running. Congrats your site is Launched.

How to Host a E-Commerce Site

When you decide to create a E-commerce site, normally the stakes the change to a Higher side. Keeping in mind you need to have a Product Catalogue with High quality images. The server needs to be strong enough to handle that kind of Load. I don’t recommend a Shared Hosting for E-commerce site purposes. Whereas VPS, Dedicated Server or a Cloud Server is Great option for a E-Commerce site.

The design needs to appealing enough for your Visitors to buy products from your Site. There are several ecommerce platform providers like Shopify and for B2B ecommerce BigCommerce which are popular choices.

If you are using WordPress as your base site, the WooCommerce Plugin can be the Best Choice to setup your E-Commerce website. Being said, WooCommerce is a heavy plugin and needs loads of server resources to cater it needs.

There are few aspects of setting up E-commerce site that are Crucial for your success that are listed below.

Traffic:

Without quality traffic of online Buyers, an ecommerce site is as good as dead. Your products should come first in the ranking of Search Results, so that buyers can land on to your site and Buy Products.

There are various methods to drive traffic to your site and doing site optimization with SEO tools is the first step to Look for. Next will be running some paid Ads in Google and other social media platforms to gain visitors to your online Store.

Payments

A payment processor serves the purpose of getting Paid when someone buys your online Products.

While choosing a Payment service you need to consider their Commission rates and delay of remittance of Funds to your Bank account.

Most popular choices include PayPal, Stripe, and Square. You need to create an Account with them first, to get an API url which will link to your Website, to make this a seamless process for your Customers to buy products and you getting paid.

Shipping

Shipping is one of the crucial aspects of your e-commerce success.

The products that your customers buys, at the end of the day needs to reach to their door-step.

If there are delays and damages along the way, quite obviously you will get irate customers writing negative reviews, also you need to make refunds and incur losses.

There are several Shipping solutions available, but choosing the right Order Fulfillment service is important for your online success.

How to Host a Blog Site

A blog site can be a personal Blog, a Business Blog with Affiliate Marketing theme or a Promotional Blog for a Online SaaS Software or Ecommerce site.

There can be several different types of Blog, so as the design and functionality of the site.

Blog Design:

For a professional Looking yet elegant Blog web design software tools can help you out.

Since we are taking about Blogging, WordPress hosting is best recommended for this Role.

There is an excellent plugin, Elementor Pro which can be helpful in transforming any ordinary template to the design of your choice.

Content Creation:

As we are talking about blogging, content is the key  and the king to success. A well written compelling content can take Time and Effort to produce.

You should ensure that your content is Key word optimized, valuable, unique and serves the need of Human Readers and also Google crawlers.

But n todays world there lots of options to make your life easy.

Using AI writing software, you can create content that is not only keyword-rich but also engaging, well-written.

Bringing Traffic:

As a beginner bringing traffic to Blog can be struggle. Building Internal and external Links with outreaching established sites for Guest Blogging is of foremost importance.

Reaching out to social media using Social Media Tools to connect with a broader audience can be another strategy.

Of-course paid Ad campaigns role plays a huge part in bring traffic to your Site.

How Website Builders can be Helpful?

Website builders are probably already included as part of your web hosting package.

These are convenient websites that allow you to create your own website without any experience.

If you’re just getting started, this is a great way to design a website without having to know how to code.

Plus, there are a lot of free website builders available that make designing your website easy.

There are many different website builders to choose from, so it’s important to research which one best meets your needs.

Make sure your website meets the needs of your target audience, and make sure it’s mobile-friendly.

If you can’t find a website builder that suits your needs, consider switching hosting providers to find a hosting provider that better suits your needs.

Wrapping Up:

Now that you understand what web hosting is, how it works, and what hosting services are available, you should be better prepared to choose the right one for your business.

There are many different types of hosting, and you’ll want to research each one to find the best fit for your needs.

I hope that this article has helped you to better understand what web hosting is and how it works.

If you have any questions or would like to share your own experiences or insights, please feel free to comment below!

Himadri Sengupta
Business Consultant

Himadri Sengupta

As a seasoned Product Consultant, I have helped numerous businesses turn their product visions into successful realities. Whether you’re a startup looking to launch your first product or an established business seeking to revamp your product line, I can help you achieve your goals..

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