From Idea to Website in 3 Steps
Setting up a Website can be tricky, but doing some research and planning ahead of time can make the process much easier.
Here is a guide that will help you make a good plan before setting up a Web Hosting Account.
1. Choose a Web Hosting Type
The three major hosting categories are described here in brief including both advantages and disadvantages.
Shared Hosting
Shared web hosting is an excellent choice for beginners and for small businesses that don’t expect a lot of website traffic.
Shared hosting’s the cheapest of all web hosting variations. By signing up for a shared hosting plan, you will get one portion of a physical server.
Other portions will be assigned to other websites who your site will share resources with. Thus, the resource limitations here are pretty intense. However, the number of websites can vary from one to unlimited depending on the provider’s plans.
One of the biggest concerns in shared hosting is how the other clients residing on this server will affect your site’s performance as well. If any of them draws in too much bandwidth, the speed of your site will go down and the users will suffer.
If you expect your site to have a relatively small amount of website traffic, shared hosting can be an easy and affordable option for you. Not every business finds it mission critical to have a lightning fast website that can handle a large number of simultaneous visitors.
Dedicated Server Hosting
Dedicated server hosting is designed for the big corporations and enterprises who regularly require massive amounts of resources at their disposal. One whole physical server is assigned to a client in dedicated hosting. So by choosing dedicated hosting, you don’t have to worry about someone else eating up the resources of your server or accessing your website.
Besides, this will give you the maximum control of all intricacies of your website including the essential configurations, customizations, third-party app integrations, and advanced security measures.
As a result, it can guarantee top-notch performance for the site and keep the associated data safe. The only catch is that all such privileges come at a high cost. Dedicated hosting plans are always the most expensive options for any provider. Even the lowest price for them comes in three digits.
VPS Hosting
VPS or virtual private server lets you have a little bit of both dedicated server experience and shared server experience. In VPS hosting one part of a physical server is assigned to you but this fragment will work as a standalone server through virtualization. It runs a separate instance of the operating system to restrict other clients from accessing their website. Most importantly, unmanaged VPS hosting provides you the privilege of root access. With this access, you can make all kinds of configurations and manipulations to your website.
However, since all such virtual servers still run on the resources of the container physical server, they cannot be scaled that easily. If you need more resources than what the VPS hosting plan is offering, you need to sign up for a new plan entirely.
But if you own a business that cannot run on the limitations of shared hosting and cannot afford the expensive dedicated hosting either, you can get the best of both worlds through VPS hosting along with the unique power of root access.
2. Register a Domain Name
After you have secured a spot in the server (or the whole server), now it’s time to get your website address a makeover. Humans do not find it convenient to remember thousands of ordered digits to find a website.
That is why you must assign a unique and relevant domain name for the site. This will appear on the address bar instead of the IP address letting users have an effortless experience.
Pick the Source
You can register the domain through a hosting service that also acts as a domain name registrar. Most web hosting providers include domain registration in their hosting plans.
To ensure you’re choosing an outstanding web hosting service that can also serve as your domain name registrar, choose one of these top-rated domain hosting services.
You can see if your desired domain is available by searching for it using this Whois Domain lookup tool.
If you sign up with a host who does not include domain registration services, you will need to look for a domain registrar. This can be a little inconvenient.
Choosing the Right Domain Name
The domain name will be the first thing your potential visitors will see. So this needs to be good enough to leave a strong first impression.
The name must be relevant to your industry or business category and also must reflect your company’s culture, values, and motto.
At the same time, it should be short, pronounceable, intuitive and attractive enough to establish your brand and carry it forward.
Ideally, choose a domain name with a .com, .org, or .net extension as many (but not all) of the newer domain extensions have established bad reputations: Absolutely avoid these 10 domain extensions.
3. Choose How You’ll Create Your Website
Now that both the host and the domain name are set, it’s time to decorate your website the way you want.
For this, you can go to any of the three methods described below depending on your requirements and budget.
A Website Builder
The most popular and convenient way to build a website is by using a website builder.
These applications are available through some hosting services that offer a website builder included with hosting services.
Just like a professional interior designer, these website builders also give you the freedom to customize the look and feel of your site.
They blend in the preferred color palette, the latest web design trends in your industry, the office culture your company follows and the flawless user-experience you want to ensure for your visitors.
If your hosting provider does not include a website builder in the plans, you can assign one yourself. Some of the most dependable ones in the market at present are Wix, Squarespace, and Weebly.
Use a Content Management System (CMS)
CMS or Content Management Systems have made a name for themselves in the last few years. They bring incredible convenience to the table by making the whole designing process just a matter of a few clicks.
The most prominent among them is WordPress. That is why some web hosting providers include a one-click WordPress installer in their plans by default. Look for a service that focuses on WordPress hosting.
This free open-source platform does not add more expense to your hosting budget. Rather, it streamlines the designing tasks with unlimited resources including templates, themes, and plugins.
Code Your Website with HTML and CSS
If you have commendable expertise in the web designing area or know someone who does, you can even take up the challenge of creating a website from scratch.
If you want to learn to create your own website, there’s no substitute for actually doing it. Courses and books can help but you’ll really learn by building websites.
As you start to feel competent in coding HTML and CSS you can make your site interactive with JavaScript. All web developers should obtain at least a working knowledge of JavaScript.
Conclusion
Setting up a website may seem like an intimidating task for a beginner. It does take a while, a lot of commitment and a clear vision.
With some planning and choosing a good hosting service, you will have a solid foundation on which to achieve your objectives
To discover our recommendations for the best shared web hosting, click here at this link.
