Hosting
Your website has to reside somewhere
Your website consists of files and a database that not only need somewhere to live but also need to be pushed to your client’s browsers on request.
This service is called hosting and there are a great many out there to choose from but like everything else, you very much get what you pay for.
The cheapest type of hosting out there is called Shared Hosting and I do no use this. Shared hosting is cheap but it comes with drawbacks. Your website is hosted on a server with hundreds of other websites you have no control over. The resources of that server are shared amongst all the sites so if one site needs more resources, they deplete everyone else’s. Put simply, the performance of your site depends on how well everyone else maintains their site.
VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting is the next level up and used by many people in my line of work. In this scenario, I would have my own virtual server with a hosting company and use it to host all my client’s websites in a shared environment. Much like the cheaper Shared Hosting, your site would be affected by the resource demands of the other sites on the server, but in this case, all the other sites are built and managed by me so there is a lot more control.
Better again than a VPS is a cloud hosting service, which is what I use. In this scenario, I’m subscribing to large amounts of resources from the hosting provider and allocating them to my clients. The advantage of cloud hosting comes with scalability; I can simply increase the number of resources available to your site if needed, without drawing down on resources from other sites on the server.
As well as the hosting itself, you have to be aware of the software that is powering your site. In my case, I use WordPress over PHP. As with all software, things are always evolving and there are always updates coming out. If you don’t keep up to date, your site becomes vulnerable. I do not allow this on my servers. All websites hosted with me must use my monthly maintenance package which will not only subscribe your site to online security services but also give you peace of mind that the software behind your website is always up to date.