What You Need to Start Your Website
Starting up your own website is a great way to boost your business or brand. A well-designed and active website can greatly improve your online presence and help you find new clients or customers. But there’s a lot you need to do before you can get online, including finding the right website hosting provider. By taking the time to get everything in order before you start, you can ensure your website has a successful launch with minimal issues.
Website Design
Getting your website online involves having a website in the first place. Without the core data for your website to run, you won’t have much to offer users. There are a couple of different ways you can build your website. Which you decide on will depend on your budget and comfort level with computer programming and coding.
From Scratch by Yourself
If you have a working knowledge of coding or are willing to learn, you can design your website yourself. Designing a website from scratch requires a lot of work and energy. It means you won’t have as much time to spend on other aspects of your business. However, it’s also the cheapest option, especially if you utilize free methods to learn your coding languages. While starting a website from scratch can be frustrating, it’s also extremely rewarding.
From Scratch by Hire
If you don’t have any coding skills or aren’t confident in them, you can hire a website developer to create the code for you. While this can get costly, it comes with the peace of mind knowing that someone experienced and knowledgeable is handling the process. The more complex a website is, the more developers you may need to hire to help get everything ready. If you plan on changing or updating your website regularly, you’ll also want to keep those developers around to help with each move. Hiring a developer to build your website from scratch can be expensive, so make sure you have the budget for it.
Using Website Builders
Having a website is practically a requirement, but not everyone has the coding knowledge or money available to create one from scratch. That’s why dozens of website-building applications have started to crop up. These website builders, such as WordPress, allow users to create a website using a drag-and-drop/visual editor. You don’t need to know anything about coding to make a professional website. The downside is that website builders don’t allow as much customization or as many complexity options as building from scratch does.
Photo by Christopher Gower on unsplash
Website Hosting Provider
With your website design determined, you’ll also need to find a website hosting provider. In order to get online, you need to have a server that will connect your website to the internet. Buying and maintaining your own server is extremely expensive, but a website hosting provider rents out server space to help users get their work online. There are a few different website hosting plans to choose from. Which you decide on will depend on your budget and your website’s resource needs.
Shared Hosting
With a shared hosting plan, you share server space with many other website owners. This helps cut down on costs because you’re all also sharing the expense of a server. However, this also cuts down on power and resource allocation. While you can still host a simple website, you may find that a more complex design with increasing popularity isn’t able to operate as it should. The more traffic you have, the more resources you need to keep your website up and running. If you don’t have the power you need, your site can become sluggish or even suffer periods of downtime.
VPS Hosting
Virtual Private Server hosting is a step up that can help add extra resources without too much additional cost. In this plan, you’re still sharing server space with others, but only a limited number of users can be active at once. Because of this, each website gets a set number of resources and power allocated to them. You are still limited with your customization and power, but you have much more to work with. This middle-ground option offers a decent amount of power for more complex websites while still saving on costs by sharing server space with others.
Dedicated Hosting
If you really need a lot of power for your website(s), your website hosting provider can host you on your own dedicated server. It’s the most costly option, but it does come with a lot of perks. For starters, you don’t have to share your resources with anyone else, so you can devote the full power of the server to your needs. You can also fully customize your hardware and software to make the server work for your website. Your hosting provider will also be able to offer management services, so you don’t have to worry about your server overheating or suffering other damages.
Where to Find a Website Hosting Provider
If you’re ready to get your website online, you need a good website hosting provider. At HostForWeb, we offer a wide range of online hosting packages to help any website get up and running. We also offer a free migration service should you already have a website online. With 24/7 customer support and the integration of hundreds of apps, you can build and maintain the website of your dreams with ease. To get started, you can browse our available hosting plans on our website or give us a call at 1-833-201-8322 for more information.