Which hosting should i choose

Also, be sure to look at reviews of users who have already used a certain service. This is essential to finding out if it really meets the requirements you demand. Speed is one aspect you should take very seriously because if you were to choose a host that makes your page load slowly, you run the risk that users will be annoyed and switch to another website.

This will lead to a lot of short clicks when people quickly return to search results and choose a different result , which is definitely a bad sign for Google. Google has even announced that speed is a landing page factor for Google search. You can either sign up for a local or an international hosting service.

If you choose the second option you must know if the provider has their servers located somewhere close to your region or in the area where your visitors are located. What type of hosting service should I choose? The answer to that question will depend on your type of business and what the goals and projections for your website are. Some hosting types that you will come across are the following:.

However, you should keep in mind that although the price may influence you, there will also be other websites receiving this service from the same server as you, so it may affect the load speed of your web page - remember what we said about speed! Dedicated hosting: With a dedicated hosting package, you will have a hosting server that is exclusively for you and your company. This kind of service is ideal for large ventures.

The price is set higher to cover all the benefits that you get. With this hosting type, you will have a service that will be at your complete disposal and control. Virtual Dedicated Server: If we look at a virtual dedicated server, it shares characteristics of the two aforementioned options. On the one hand, you have the possibility to control your page with some liberties, but you will also have to share some server services with other websites. The price may vary as there are different options to choose from with this type.

In order to be successful in the long term, a business must choose the best web hosting service for their particular set of circumstances. There are many criteria to consider when choosing a web hosting service; some are obvious and measurable e. This TechRepublic cheat sheet will explain what web hosting is, why it could benefit your business, and what features you should consider when choosing your web hosting service partner.

Advanced features like scripting support, shopping cart processing infrastructure, and guaranteed uptime will vary depending on the web hosting company. These additional and advanced features are what separate one web hosting service from another and will be the factors that determine which service is right for your business needs.

The servers provided by web hosting services are generally classified into one of these four categories. The type of web hosting server your business ultimately chooses will be dependent on your service requirements. A thorough assessment of your business needs with regard to your website should be made before you begin to consider any web hosting service.

In addition, thought should be given to future needs and the potential for your chosen web hosting service to be accommodating and flexible. According to an infographic of internet facts published by The Hosting Institute , there were 4. One of the best ways to reach those billions of potential customers is with a website, and the most efficient and least expensive way for a small business to get a website is through a hosting service.

SEE: TechRepublic's cheat sheets and smart person's guides. In this digital age, the website has become the public face of many organizations; it is often the way a business makes first official contact with a potential customer and is therefore extremely important for customer acquisition and retention. If your small business does not have a website, it is operating at a severe disadvantage to the competition that does.

In the modern world, a website is basic standard operating procedure. By contracting with a web hosting service, small businesses can establish a digital presence with international reach without having to purchase hardware, install an operating system, deploy the proper web server software, write the required HTML, JavaScript, PHP, etc. With a web hosting service, a small business can concentrate on what it wants its website to look like and what information it wants to convey--all of the infrastructure maintenance and troubleshooting can be left to the professionals.

When choosing a web hosting service provider, there are over a dozen features to consider. Beyond checking whether a provider offers a feature, organizations must also consider the quality and the reputation of the service.

Beyond even that, choosing a web hosting service provider for your business essentially means choosing a new business partner. Choosing a web hosting service is a long-term commitment and should never be made without serious and comprehensive research. Probably the most obvious and the least important detail to consider is cost. Most web hosting services will offer their basic services at a reasonable price.

Be sure to read the fine print on your contract because many services will offer low promotional rates for the first year or two and then raise the price to "standard" levels once the promotional time-period is complete. Understandably, additional services beyond the basic levels will add to the overall cost of the service and will vary, so businesses requiring advanced features will want to get every thing in writing, most likely in the form of a service level agreement SLA.

According to Hosting. Customers have very little tolerance for slower loading websites, so the performance capability of a web host is a crucial consideration for the decision-making process.

When comparing the performance capabilities of various web hosting services, note what hardware the provider will use. You will also need to consider what type of server you want to use for your website: Shared, dedicated, or cloud-based. Your choice will determine what performance you can expect from your web host. Beyond the sheer speed of performance, some businesses require a web hosting service that can scale performance in an instant when requested and scale back when demand wanes.

We also use Load Impact k6 service to send virtual users VU to each website to see how the hosting server would handle increased requests from multiple connections at once. This helps us see how the individual WordPress hosting company would perform during peak traffic times. Last but not least, we use Bitcatcha service to test server response times across numerous geographical locations including United States, London, Singapore, Sao Paulo, India, Sydney, and Japan.

This helps us decide which hosting company is best for which geographical location. Bluehost is one of the largest hosting companies on the planet, and they are an official WordPress recommended hosting provider. Their hosting packages come pre-installed with WordPress by default.

As you can see, our test site loaded in less than two seconds. After the speed test, we ran the Load Impact test on Bluehost servers. We gradually built up to unique visitors at once to see how the server would handle increased requests from multiple connections at once.

The green line is the number of active virtual users on the site, and the blue line is the server load time. As you can see the server load remained stable throughout the test even at peak traffic. After the load impact test, we used Bitcatcha to test more accurate server response time from various geographical locations. The Bluehost server performed exceptionally well in the United States loading under a fraction of a second.

In other locations, response was a bit higher but still under less than a second. In our detailed Bluehost review , we also evaluated their customer support team, features, and pricing. After our analysis, we rate Bluehost as the 1 WordPress hosting provider for small businesses to make a website. Get Started with Bluehost. They offer premium hosting plans that are specifically optimized for WordPress with unique in-house speed and security solutions. As you can see, our test site loaded in less than a second ms to be precise for a server in Dallas, Texas.

Next, we ran the Load Impact test on SiteGround servers where we gradually built up to unique visitors at once to see how their server would handle increased requests from multiple connections at once. The green line is the number of active virtual users on the site, and the blue line is the server response time.

SiteGround performed consistently throughout the test without any hiccups. Our SiteGround test site server performed really well in the United States and it responded in less than a second for all other locations. SiteGround allows you to change your server location, and you can choose a datacenter closer to your target audience for even better response times in that particular region.

In our detailed SiteGround review , we also evaluated their customer support, features, and pricing. After our analysis, we find SiteGround to be a great option for beginners because their support is incredibly helpful.

Their server infrastructure is powered by Google Cloud, and they have built high performance optimization features like Ultrafast PHP, SG Optimizer, and more to give even an entry-level website a cloud hosting experience. Get Started with SiteGround. DreamHost has been around for 18 years and is known for their reliable web hosting.

They offer one click install for WordPress, and they are also an official WordPress. As you can see our test site loaded in just under a second for a server in New York City. After the speed test, we ran the Load Impact test on DreamHost servers to see how it would perform during peak traffic hours.

The blue line is the number of active virtual users on the site, and the green line is the server load time. As you can see the server load remained stable through out the test even at peak traffic.

The DreamHost server performed well in the U. S loading under a fraction of a second, and the response time were pretty good across the world. In our detailed DreamHost review , we also evaluated their customer support, features, and pricing. After our analysis, we find DreamHost to be a great option for businesses who value privacy. They offer free domain privacy with each of their domains.

They also recently fought the U. Get Started with DreamHost. HostGator is a popular web hosting company that hosts over 8 million domains. Similar to Bluehost, they offer specialized WordPress hosting services. As you can see, our test site loaded in 1. However, this is a new website with no traffic at all, so speed test alone is not the best way to judge its performance.

We wanted to see how it would perform under peak traffic. We ran the Load Impact test on HostGator servers where we gradually built up to unique visitors at once to see how the server would handle increased requests from multiple connections at once. The blue line in the chart is page load time and the green line shows the number of users on the site. As you can see, our test site performed really well throughout the test with an average response time of milliseconds. These results are particularly good for a shared hosting account because you share server resources with other sites hosted on the same server.

Our HostGator review site performed really well. The server response time remained less than a second. In the United States, it was merely 26 ms. In our detailed HostGator review , we also evaluated their customer support, features, and pricing. After our analysis, we find HostGator to be a great option for growing businesses because they offer plans that grow with your business. Get Started with HostGator.

Our test site loaded in a fraction of a second, which is great. However, this test alone does not show the full picture because our test site has no traffic at all.

We gradually built up to unique visitors at once to see how their server would handle increased requests from multiple connections at once. The blue line represents page load time and the green line represents the number of users on the site. As you can see Hostinger performed really well on this test. As we increased virtual users, the response time remained steady. What this means is that if you have a small business website, an online store , or a growing blog, your website can easily handle sudden traffic spikes.

For all locations, Hostinger hosting responded under a second. The response time were great across the board particularly in Europe and North America. This makes sense because Hostinger offer seven different data centers to choose from located in various parts of United States, Europe, Asia, and South America.

If majority of your target audience is located in North America, Europe, Asia, and South America, then Hostinger is extremely fast and reliable. In our detailed Hostinger Hosting review , we also evaluated their customer service, features, and pricing. After our analysis, we find Hostinger Hosting to be a great option for small businesses who value fast and cheap WordPress hosting.

Their plans grow as your business grows, but they make it really affordable to get started. Get Started with Hostinger Hosting. For your convenience, we have created a table with a side-by-side feature list, so you can easily compare the best WordPress hosting companies.

In our in-depth WordPress hosting review, we came to a conclusion that if you are looking to start a blog , then you cannot go wrong with Bluehost. They all offer great uptime, fast servers, quality support, and extremely low prices. This is a great option for those of you who are more technically advanced. InMotion has VPS plans that are optimized for ecommerce shops as well. Shared WordPress hosting works the same way as regular shared hosting, except WordPress might be pre-installed.

Managed WordPress hosting provides added benefits like enhanced security, server caching, staging, and faster loading speeds. The best WordPress hosting plans come with one-click WordPress installations as well. Since WordPress is the most commonly used CMS across the globe, those websites are a higher risk for cyber crime.

So that added security is definitely a great benefit. WordPress hosting is for WordPress users. If you want your hosting to be optimized for your WordPress site, then you should look into this type of web hosting.

But for those of you who have some experience with web hosting and plan to build a blog or business website with high-traffic, WP Engine is your best bet.

The speed and security is the best part of WP Engine. They offer managed WordPress hosting services, so everything is handled at the server level. Another reason why I recommend WP Engine is because they have excellent customer support. Dedicated servers are typically considered the best choice in web hosting. You typically get more benefits with dedicated hosting too such as more uptime and faster speeds. Websites being hosted on a dedicated server have complete technical control over the server settings.

You choose the software, configurations, and anything else you need. If you get a dedicated server, you should expect extremely high uptime rates and lightning fast loading speeds. A dedicated server is like owning a house. If you want to build a fence, plant a tree in the yard, build a patio, or renovate the kitchen, everything is completely up to you.

Dedicated hosting plans are typically reserved for enterprise-level websites. That means more than , monthly visits — not to mention plenty of revenue coming in to afford the server. Large ecommerce sites and enterprises should consider a dedicated hosting plan because they can have complete control over the functions of their server. Sites that require the highest levels of security, such as websites that store financial data or medical information would benefit from a dedicated server.

Dedicated servers come with varying management levels. You can look for a hosting provider that will manage your server for you, or you can manage it on your own. Only consider a dedicated server if you can afford it. In most cases, a dedicated hosting plan will be out of your price range, especially if you are starting a new website. HostGator is my top recommendation for dedicated server plans. One of the reasons why I like HostGator is because they offer fully managed plans.

If you want, their team of technicians can handle system monitoring, software patching, updates, offsite backups, data migrations, and more. So if you think your website needs a dedicated server, check out the plans and options offered by HostGator. Cloud hosting plans come with multiple remote servers. Each server has different responsibilities. If one of the servers is compromised or has a problem, the other servers on the network will take over those responsibilities and pick up the slack.

Your site will remain fluid and perform at a high level. With traditional hosting, there is always a constant dilemma between server resources and price. Unless you know exactly how many page views your site will get per month, then this is nearly impossible to predict.

But website traffic is never an exact science. You just need to make sure your plan can accommodate that traffic. The best cloud hosting plans allow you to scale your resources on-demand. Cloud hosting is the best option for medium and large business websites that are growing at a rapid rate. Any website with more than 50, monthly page visits could consider a cloud plan. Websites that have outgrown their shared plan and need to upgrade could seek cloud hosting as an alternative option to a VPS.

Siteground has always been an industry leader in web hosting.