Of course you want to spend as little money as possible on infrastructure and there are plenty of cheap web hosting options available nowadays. The good news is there are some very good deals out there and most are fairly easy to set up. A lot, though, will depend on your needs.
Sometimes the cheapest option is not always the most profitable in the long term.
The Different Kinds of Web Hosting
The cheapest form of web hosting is shared where different sites are lumped together on a particular server. It’s the most expedient way of providing web hosting but does have some downsides, namely that if one site is getting more traffic than another it can affect the speed on your site. The more expensive option is to go for dedicated hosting where you have your own, enclosed space so to speak and can control your web hosting environment more closely, including your security.
The Benefits of Low Cost Shared Hosting
- Easy to use and manage: If you don’t have much experience or technical aptitude for building websites then low cost webhosting is quite a good choice and a great place to start. It’s relatively easy to set up for a novice and there are fewer parameters to manage. With providers such as Bluehost and Justhost, you can set up a website almost immediately and start putting up your content with a range of high quality templates.
- Lower cost: Of course, the main draw of shared hosting is the cost effectiveness, particularly for start-ups and small business that operate on a strict budget. Shared hosting basically spreads the costs of running a website and means you don’t have to pay for individual provisions such as extra bandwidth and security.
The Downside of Cheap Web Hosting
There’s no doubt that shared hosting is ideal for small business but if you want something more tailored to your specific needs then it’s best to consider the more expensive option of dedicated hosting.
Overall, with cheap hosting you get less resources and restricted bandwidth. If you are running a small company that is plodding along quite happily then this isn’t a problem. If you suddenly find visits to your site increasing and popularity growing, then a cheap service can often find it difficult to cope with demand.
That could mean, in extreme circumstances, customers not being able to download your site because you have exceeded your bandwidth. If you are worried about problems such as downtime and some nefarious neighbor on your service crashing the system, dedicated hosting is more for you, even if it does cost more.
Most of the tools that you get with cheap hosting are fine for small businesses but there are issues. If you want to, for instance, add a static IP address to your site, you could be hard pressed to find a shared web host that will let you do this. Dedicated hosting gives you a lot more flexibility across the board, including adding scripts and changing server parameters when you need to, and usually comes with access to better tools that can work more effectively for your business.
The other issue is scalability, of course. What happens when your business starts to grow and you need a more responsive website? The good news is that most reputable hosts allow you to upgrade from a cheap hosting solution to a dedicated one. Of course, other options to consider are VPS and cloud hosting which are all becoming popular, mid-range solutions nowadays.
Our advice is always to match your current needs and choose the web hosting package that meets your needs – paying a little extra might be more expedient, especially for your future growth, but you can always review your host service when things start to grow.