“Your website is the center of your digital ecosystem, as a brick and mortar location, the experience matters once a customer enters, just as much as the perception, they have of you before they walk through the door.” – Leland Dieno
Are you considering setting up an online presence either for yourself or your company? If so, are you aware of the different types of websites as well as the different kinds of web hosting available to set up the perfect ecosystem for your brand?
Before we discuss the different types of web hosting that there are for you to choose from, let’s look at the following concepts as they bear relevance to the choices you make:
Digital branding
Irrespective of whether you are an individual setting up a personal blog or a multi-national company creating a unified eCommerce platform, it is vital to be mindful of the fact that, to attract customers or visitors to your site, you must develop your personal or company brand.
Additionally, the quotation mentioned above by Leland Dieno correctly states that a website is, and must be, the center of any individual’s or company’s digital presence. Furthermore, a website, especially a site’s front page is similar to a company’s brick-and-mortar shopfront.
The Internet or World Wide Web
Even though these phrases are used interchangeably, there is a subtle difference between the two.
“The Internet is the global network [including undersea cables, network routers, and computer servers] that allows computer networks around the world run by companies, governments, universities and other organizations to talk to one another.”
“The World Wide Web is an information system where documents and other web resources are identified by Uniform Resource Locators (URLs), which may be interlinked by hypertext, and are accessible over the Internet.”
Different types of websites
Even though there are many different types of online content available for consumption, the two most common types are websites and blogs. A blog is a type of website. The fundamental difference between the two relates to their form and function. A blog is a dynamic site with regular content updates. Its principal purpose is to inform and entertain web users. Blog content is either specific to a particular niche like finance, business, or high-tech. Or, it can be a general blog that covers most topics.
A website, on the other hand, contains mostly static content. And, its primary purpose is to attract and inform a brand’s target audience of the value proposition that a brand offers.
Web hosting: Choosing an appropriate type
Many different web hosting companies offer different web hosting packages. Therefore, the question that begs is which option will provide the optimal fit for your brand’s online presence?
As an aside, it is essential to note that different hosting companies give their packages different names; however, underneath the differing names, you will find the package contents are similar. Consequently, when researching the best option for your requirements you can pay attention to this service and find out more on its page. InterServer web hosting offers shared web hosting for competitively low prices.
Thus, by way of answering this question, let’s consider some of the more common web hosting packages.
Shared web hosting
Wikipedia.com defines shared web hosting as a “web hosting service where many websites reside on one web server connected to the Internet.” This is the most cost-effective form of web hosting and most hosting companies offer three basic packages:
- Regular or personal hosting allows subscribers to host one website on a shared server. It also includes benefits like one email account, 10GB bandwidth, access to cPanel, 10GB SSD, and a single domain name.
- Standard shared hosting includes one free domain, the ability to host five websites on the server, ten email accounts, 20GB SSD, 15GB bandwidth, access to cPanel, and automated weekly backups.
- Enterprise or plus shared hosting includes one free domain, the ability to host ten websites on the server, an unlimited number of email accounts, 30GB SSD, and 25GB bandwidth, free SSL certificates, and daily backups.
Managed WordPress hosting
This hosting type is similar to the shared hosting packages except that your hosting company manages the complex aspects of installing, developing, and maintaining a WordPress site. Again, as with shared hosting, the different packages offered by a hosting company limit the number of WordPress sites you can host.
It’s also perhaps worth noting that WordPress is the most popular Content Management System (CMS) available on the market today. Statistics show the following:
- 35% of all websites are built on a WordPress platform.
- Circa 400 million Internet users visit WordPress sites every month.
- 2016 figures show that about 118 billion words were published on WordPress sites for the year.
- While WordPress is primarily used as a blogging platform, it is not only suitable for content management (blogging). The latest numbers show that over 28% of all eCommerce sites use WooCommerce, an eCommerce tool designed for WordPress, to manage their site’s purchase funnel.
Virtual server hosting
Wikipedia defines a virtual private server (VPS) as a virtual machine that is sold as a service by a web hosting company. It is a virtual dedicated server. In summary, it is a computer server that is hosted “in the cloud,” and it behaves exactly like an onsite server. Company technical staff have access to the server as if it were in their server room, and all the software applications that the company needs to function proficiently are loaded onto this server.
There are several benefits of paying for a virtual server instead of buying computer server hardware and installing and maintaining an onsite server. Some of the more critical advantages include, the web hosting company is responsible for ensuring that the server stays up 100% of the time. If a virtual machine crashes, it is far easier to copy existing data across to a new virtual machine than it is to fix and reboot a psychical server.
Finally, one of the fields in IT that is becoming more prominent by the day is cybersecurity. Find more information here about strengthening your cybersecurity. And, any reliable web hosting company well employs highly qualified and skilled cybersecurity experts who specialize in setting up and maintaining firewalls that are designed to repel the most sophisticated attacks by hackers.