Tackling the Ambiguous Web Hosting Decision Using the Three S’s

By Caroline Hughes

You are ambitious. You’ve decided it’s finally time to kick your entrepreneurial energy into high gear. You’ve experienced every symptom of start-up nerves, ranging from those 3:00 AM highs when your fingers are flying off the keyboard with million-dollar ideas to those 3:00 PM lows when self-doubt takes over. In the end, this cyclical process has fine-tuned the ins and outs of your start-up, ensuring perfection down to a T.

It is now time to share a slice of your genius with the world. All of this quarantined time spent alone with your psyche has washed upon you a sense of clarity. Your passion to run your own business has grown too massive to be ignored now. Take pride in this decision to take the leap.

We all know business ideas aren’t successful just because they exist. Distribution, labor, capital, and other factors are incredibly important in the development of businesses. However, if you cannot communicate your product to your customers, it will float around aimlessly in space. 

In this era of digital communication, a custom-tailored website that operates seamlessly is crucial for success. The state of quarantine has only further developed this growing demand for a perfect website—all beginning with a perfect web host. 

Web hosting lends itself to be an ideal service for new business owners to connect their audience to their domain. Two forms of web hosting you might consider are Shared Hosting and Virtual Private Server (VPS) Hosting. 

Shared hosting means one web server is shared by multiple websites. It is the most basic form of web hosting, and it’s generally easy to operate. A simple way to comprehend shared hosting is to compare it to an apartment complex. All residents have their personal customizable space while sharing the same physical resources to help them succeed. Plans of various sizes are offered to accommodate all residents. 

VPS hosting allows your website a dedicated wedge of the server on which only your business operates. It’s more complicated to manage but comes with an abundance of advanced features. This is more comparable to owning your own home, but still having support from relators, a handyman, and more. 

When deciding which is appropriate for you, consider three easy-to-recall factors: size, spend, and skill. 

Size Up Your Opportunity

Now that you have established the basis of your business, it’s time to visualize where you want your company to go. Is this a side-hustle intended to take up seven hours of your week, or is this your Steve Jobs moment when your product changes lives forever? The future size of your business may help determine if you need shared hosting or VPS hosting.

Websites with traffic of less than 500 visitors per day can efficiently use shared hosting without data overload or downtime. If you are building a local business or starting a blog, shared hosting will allow you to reach beyond your goals without any technological background.

However, sites anticipating tens of thousands of daily viewers should opt for VPS hosting. Shared hosting indicates shared resources, so sites experiencing high traffic volume may experience a shortage of supply.

As IT-solutions company Cloudnine explains, smaller sites with fewer visitors can negatively impact your server. Their performance may bring down your SEO rankings if shared hosting is being used. So, if you’re launching a large company in which growing SEO will be a primary goal, VPS is advisable.

Spend Wisely

Price is undoubtedly an essential consideration in any business decision; web hosting is no exception. Shared hosting is less pricey, but sacrifices high-level features, while VPS hosting gives you those features at a higher price. Performing a cost-benefit analysis is essential to decide which is optimal.

Shared hosting is offered at affordable prices with services that still meet all of your business or blogging goals. If you’re aiming for standard functionality, have one or two domains, and don’t anticipate severe growth, this option is apt.

VPS hosting is offered at a higher rate, but the payoff can be large. If you are running a business where increased security is needed (ex: health care), will be managing multiple domains at once, or expect significant growth, the price is justifiable.  

Know Your Skill Set

Your technological capabilities also factor into this decision. Web hosting services require different levels of digital expertise.

If you prefer a hands-off computerized experience where you can focus more on the content of the site, shared hosting is for you. The shared hosting maintains the backend programming aspect of the website, leaving coding-neophytes free of stress. 

However, if a high degree of customization is your priority, VPS hosting provides flexibility and control over how you maintain your server. An entrepreneur with a technological background will feel more confident taking the reigns, while the web host still offers support. 

Don’t let the ambiguous world of web hosting paralyze your ambitious nature. The Three S’s will help you get web hosting down to a T. From starting a local hairdressing business to creating an acclaimed hotel service to igniting societal change, a good website is indispensable for success. Choose a web host today and begin changing lives tomorrow.

Caroline Hughes is an honors student at Texas Christian University obtaining a Strategic Communication degree with a minor in Business. Caroline is a Content Creator with Magnus Opus, as well as publishing thought pieces on her personal lifestyle blog.