Are you having trouble learning how to host a website? In my mid-twenties I often asked myself ” when I push my business online how will I host my site?” then later found out that the process was easy compared to how difficult I thought it was.
There are a lot of website builders out there, like WordPress, which gives you the freedom of building any sort of template that you want for your site.
Now, the challenge that people face which beginners don’t know is the best approach to hosting a site.
Many are probably reading this thinking that it requires a special skill or technical expertise in hosting their site.
Itay Verchik says that, The truth is if you choose the right approach, then it would be very easy to host your site in just a few minutes. In some instances, it may just be easy as creating a social media account.
Here in this article, I would be showing you the beginner’s guide in hosting your website without the use of any technical expertise.
What does hosting a website mean?
By hosting a website it means that you are placing all your information on a server. Now, with these servers, all your website files would become accessible over the internet.
Therefore, anyone around the world would be able to visit your site. In other, for people to view your contents online then the servers have to use special software called web servers. The job of a web server is to receive and respond to data flowing.
All these might sound too confusing, well you don’t need to learn how to do all these to host your site.
Luckily for you, there are companies out there that offer their services in other for things to go smoothly for you. Only a few big companies like Google and Microsoft host their websites.
Things needed to host a website
There are only two things that are needed to host your site.
- A service provider
- Domain name
The main purpose of a web hosting service provider is to provide you with a ready and functioning web server to get your website ready. These companies handle all the technical stuff and provide the owner with easy tools to use.
How do you know if a user reaches your site? This is where the domain name comes into play.
A domain name is simply the address of your website which people type to gain access to your information. For example, google.com would take you to the official home page of Google.
The purpose of the domain name is to connect user’s browsers to any other browsers which can be connected to the domain name.
Types of web hosting services
Keep in mind that not all websites are similar. There are some that small and would generate little traffic while others are big and would generate a large amount of traffic.
As said earlier, a smaller website generates a little amount of traffic, then it would require a very little amount of resources. Web hosting companies provide different types of services.
- Shared hosting
This web hosting service is best for small websites or businesses that are just starting. Because of this, it is possible to reduce the cost by letting other websites share the same resources.
- VPS hosting
This is also known as Virtual Private Server hosting, this is a shared hosting environment because it handles large traffic it is very flexible in its resources. You would be given a private server and allow you to manage it from your control panel.
- Manages WordPress Hosting
This hosting service is made suitable for WordPress. On a manages platform, it is responsible for updates, backups, and many other things on your website. This would give you time to focus on the content on your site and also grow your business.
- Dedicated Hosting
A dedicated hosting company is responsible for giving you a personalized server dedicated to your website. This way you would be able to get all the resources you need.
Since it requires you to manage your server, it means you may have to have some technical skills. This is an option for advanced sites who would need better performances.
