Moving from a traditional business approach to fully online requires a website that has a strong web hosting engine as a backbone.
The role of a web designer is to design your website according to your needs and with the latest trends, meanwhile, the role of a web developer is to take care the backbone of your website or any custom coding features.
To kickstart an online business there are two primary things you’ll need to consider first before hiring a web designer, web developer or web design company;
a) Domain Name — You’ll need a domain name in order for people to search for your website and business information. Learn more on how you can pick a good domain name.
b) Web Hosting — This is a billion dollars industry and fundamentally it’s an engine that power up your website performance, speed, security and scalability for a tsunami of customers that come visit your website.
What can you do with a Web Hosting?
Power up Websites
There are many types of web hosting, all come with different power modes that enable your website contents which include image, text, audio, video and any multimedia to perform at its best to “serve” your customers. Hence, the name Server or Web Hosting.
Private Emails
Other than the processing powers, chips or those geeky CPU numbers, you can use the web hosting for your business private email.
For example; you can have own your email alias (i.e. tony@airasias.com). You can also set the number of web storage spaces you need for your email. Similar to the hard disk storage principal, you can have storage spaces from 2GB, 200GB or more, dedicated for email exchange only.
Furthermore, you can also have a list of email aliases for your entire organisation. So everyone has their own email addresses that look professional.
Backups / Files Management
Uploading and saving files from your computer to a server (web hosting) gives you an extra safety net in case anything goes wrong with your computer — you still have a copy on your server.
Access to your files becomes easier from other devices or computers through secure login access, and only you can have the access credentials. The more storage space you have the more files you can save.
Web Hosting with Different Power Modes
Here we will elaborate on the four most common web hosting type for business starting from the cheapest up to meteoric level pricing. That is, if you are on a mission to Mars, do not opt for the cheap engine to get you there, or risk getting lost in space. IMHO.
Shared Hosting
A Shared Hosting is something that you share your files and information with others, with proper privacy and login access control of course.
For any basic websites or micro-businesses that only requires an online presence, subscribing to this shared hosting will be good enough for a start. Prices can range from $50 to $250 per year. Again, this depends on the amount of web storage space you need.
Think of this as an Apartment that host 3-5 people sharing the space in the living room, and only separated with beds/deckers, but you’ll still get your space nonetheless — all at the bare minimum price. A slide upgrade from this, you’ll have your own room, but sharing the same bathroom.
Virtual Private Servers (VPS)
VPS or virtual private server is a mirroring technology that runs a whole new server within a server. It is like installing computer Windows inside a Windows but runs with the same machine specification.
Oftentimes, this gives better performances for businesses who has a larger scale website or wants to run tactical marketing campaigns through the website. It has a better edge in terms of security and performance.
However, there is a limit of how many VPS can run on a particular server. Think of it like a Townhouse that each unit has its own living room, one bedroom with en-suite bathroom.
Dedicated Hosting
Dedicated hosting means you’ll get the entire server on your own. All server resources are solely focused to serve your online purposes only. In short, you will not be sharing any resources with anyone.
Businesses that have a good budget range and desire to have their own privacy, should opt for this plan. This way the speed and performance of the website can be fully utilised. You’ll have your own highway, instead of sharing lanes.
Back to layman real-estate analogy, this is like owning your own Bungalow unit with your backyard, garden, swimming pool and et cetera. Plus 24/7 private security guarding your compound.
Cloud Hosting
Cloud hosting is where all your files and privacy are guarded by the angels or archangels blessing from the above — except that this isn’t the actual case, although many would think of it this way.
It is still a machine operates like Dedicated servers that have CPUs, Memory and Motherboard. However, the core capability of Cloud Hosting is that it can upscale and downscale anytime that works with your campaign objective, budgets or any ad-hoc requirements. The best part, you don’t need to rent like the entire Dedicated server yet not able to fully maximise it.
To put into real-estate metaphor, it will be like having 100,000 acres of lands with ready-to-build any forms of property you want. Today, you can have a small apartment, and tomorrow you can have a bungalow and the next day back to the apartment. Charges are subjected to a pay-per-use basis. Pay as you go. It’s like Disneyland, some said.
How Do I Get Started?
Now, the most vital question is how much resources do I need?
Any successful web design company will be able to suggest the type of web hosting you need together with the price plan.
It will be based on the scale and needs for the website, and your business requirements (i.e do you need a large number of emails).
For some cases, compatibility could be an issue if it’s subscribed on hosting (usually cheap hosting), only to know later that your website may not fit the requirements. This could end up with unnecessary expenses.
Get some ideas from your web designer or web developer before subscribing it.
Why is there a Free Hosting? Just Curious…
For some reason, it exists, it is free to use, but not free from problems. The next most important question is who is using this free hosting anyway?
We bet; rookie digital explorers, students, and cyber hackers are amongst the commoners. You should also know that web hosting is literally many mega computer machines that require billion dollars of investment and maintenance every year. So who’s paying the bill? Last check, not the angels.
Therefore, free hosting is mainly used for mild research purposes, testing a feature and by means of sending not so confidential information or whatsoever.
While free hosting is literally free, it can also offer you these three things;
1) Free data uploads and downloads. Unless you don’t mind about your data privacy. Check out wetransfer.com.
2) Volatile website uptime. Sometimes it’s up and sometimes it’s down — Just like Elvis Presley favourite moves.
3) Malware. Lots of it and it spreads like a global pandemic.
Web Hosting Providers You Can Consider
These are some of the favourites Web Hosting providers that we used for many years and for many websites. You can consider these providers;
Local Malaysia Providers;
1. IPServerOne, Dedicated Hosting, VPS
2. Serverfreak, Shared Hosting, VPS
3. Everworks, Dedicated Hosting, VPS
International and Cloud Hosting Providers;
1. Amazon AWS (Recommended)
2. Digital Ocean
3. Alibaba Cloud
Getting Started
If you are ready to kickstart your website and have already subscribed to a Web Hosting, just let us know the specs and we can build your website around it.
Alternatively, we can help you bundle up, no-headache “done-for-you” services, all that only a comprehensive web design company can provide you — Contact Us today.
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