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How to Choose Web Hosting for Designers
This is a guestpost from Joanna from Webhosting Search.
When you are a web designer and you are really devoted to your profession, you live on the Web. This is quite normal – pros are like that. If you want your life on the Net to be comfortable, you need to find a nice place for you – i.e. a good web site hosting offer where to host your and your clients’ sites.
With tons of offers for business website hosting and for web site hosting in general, there is no reason to complain about not having alternatives to choose between. However, when there are so many options to choose from, the choice isn’t easy.
Sure, you can pick one type of web site hosting with a provider you randomly choose but if you make the wrong choice, migrating your sites later won’t be much fun. This is why it is much better to do some research before you sign up for a web host as you will become aware of what web hosting options that are good for you as a designer.
What are our Options?
Basically, the options for web site hosting are shared hosting, dedicated hosting, VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting, and reseller hosting. In theory, you could choose any of these but in reality shared hosting and reseller hosting are really the best alternatives for you. Dedicated hosting and VPS hosting aren’t to be totally excluded but for a web designer they often aren’t the best alternatives.
Picture by LBhosting
For a Web Designer, Shared Hosting Is a Cheap Alternative
Shared hosting is the most popular type of web site hosting and there is for a reason this. This form of hosting is especially good for personal hosting but for it could also be considered for small business website hosting. Here are some of the features of shared hosting you as a designer can benefit from:
- Shared hosting is cheap. The low price is obviously one of the great advantages with shared hosting. With monthly fees in the low single digits (i.e. $3-5 dollars a month or even less), shared hosting is pretty much unbeatable in regards to how much, or little, money you will have to spend.
- Shared hosting is hassle-free. Unlike unmanaged dedicated hosting and reseller hosting, where you are in charge of the administration of your server, with shared hosting you don’t have to deal with configuration of the operating system or the web server. The only thing you administer is your account and your sites.
- Shared hosting gives you all you need. The fact that shared hosting is cheap doesn’t mean that it is of no use. For a small business site and for almost any personal site (i.e. a portfolio one or a blog) shared hosting is exactly what you need.
You can start with shared hosting. If you notice that shared hosting is a limitation for you, you could consider VPS, which is also a form of shared web site hosting but it offers more (and costs much, much more than shared hosting). However, if you plan to get really serious and if you have clients whom you can resell business website hosting, reseller hosting is a much better option for you.
Reseller Hosting Is Business Website Hosting for Web Designers
Reseller hosting is the best option for web designers that have a large clientele. Reseller hosting is dedicated hosting plus the right to resell the space and bandwidth, making it possible to offer clients a complete package. Here are the advantages of reseller hosting for web designers:
- Reseller hosting gives you freedom. You get the whole server and administer it the way you like to. Well, if you aren’t willing to be a webmaster on a large scale, this kind of freedom can be a burden.
- Reseller hosting makes it easier to administer client sites. When your clients’ sites are hosted on your server and you have full control over them, these sites are much easier to administer because you don’t have to deal with third parties (i.e. another web site hosting provider where your clients host their sites).
- Reseller hosting is a chance for an additional income. With reseller hosting you pay for the whole server and then you sell space and bandwidth to your clients. This is really a way to make $100-200 or more a month from one server. The money might not be a fortune but everything counts.
Reseller hosting is a much better option for a web designer, especially if he or she will use it as business hosting. Still, the risk you need to be aware of is that if you can’t find clients to whom you will be able to sell the web hosting space and bandwidth, you might get stuck with lots of it and you will be paying for something you don’t need.
This is a good rundown on the basics. There is so much competition out there that prices are great
There is so much competition out there that prices are great
Very well written. Some directions to follow for any beginner.
I’ve been thinking about writing an article like this for awhile, so this was some great research, I wish you had discussed VPS a little more though. To see my post check out Cape Cod Web design
It’s great to see all the competition in the webhosting world. I most cases you can get one for less that 10 euro a month, including a domain name.
Yeah, it’s nice to see it so affordable. If you end up hosting a lot of websites, it might even be worth setting up a dedicated box and self-hosting. $100 a month will provide you with enough hardware to run 500 simple sites easily. That’s $2500 of income per month if you charge $5 or so.
You might be able to get a virtual dedicated for about $50 a month and get great performance.
well, i don´t know…i mean money isn´t evertything.
I dont think you can beat the managed boxes, the only downfall to buying a nice dedi box is when it breaks and the bill is footed by you. There are so many cheap options nowadays the worry about a broken box can just about be ruled out.
What a super post. Thank you! Check out my posts for some healthy tips on a healthy eating and drinking lifestyle.
You raise some excellent points. Reliability is a key factor for me when I choose, cost is less of a factor.
Definitely true. Reliability is most important for an online business!
Virtual Dedicated is the way to go.
You get great performance at great prices. Right in-between shared & dedicated.
great article for beginners! thanks for sharing
Very Good. A group of us were just discussig this. I’m sharing this with them. I feel like Shared is great when you don’t have a lot of sites. That way your paying about $10 and you can resell it and really make a profit. Most clients don’t even need a cpanel and can get away with you just giving them ftp access.
Yes indeed, but they will email you whenever they need anything like a MySQL database and so.
Don’t forget to monitor your websites for their uptime. There is nothing worse that sending the customer a link to a preview site that… is unavailable because of a server failure.
Here are two blog posts that compare free and commercial availability monitoring services:
15 website monitoring services compared
12 Free Website Monitoring Services
Cheers,
I would always choose a not expensive reseller hosting. The important is their resources would be enough for our uses. The surplus could be used for a little income, i.e..
Another factor that I did not see being mentioned: Some hosting companies can host your various website designs so that it appears as though they are not being hosted by just one company. (I can’t remember exactly what it’s called). Why is this important? If your clients allow you to link to your own site on theirs, google will see that websites from “all over” are linking to your site, which helps with SEO.
First of all I’d like to say, awesome post! I’ve got a big question nagging me, I really love the layout of your blog and tried to download the same theme on my Worpdress site. Stil, there is some kind of strange php error in the sidebar. Do you have any hints, which version are you using? Please PM me on Twitter @FitnessGuru or per e-mail.
Hello,
I am a web developer/designer… I have been using reseller hosting… its really cheap I use host gator (not a link)
You see the perks of using reseller is that you can sell the hosting really easiy I make my money back easily and so the hosting for all my own sites are all covered
Danny
This was very helpful and I have took all of your words into my new search for s host!
Regards,
Tom.
One of the best shared hosts I’ve used is Dreamhost. And no, I don’t work for them or get anything for saying that. And unlike others where you have to give 60 days notice of canceling or they automatically bill you, with Dreamhost, you can actually cancel your account at any time with the click of a button (imagine that!).
Hi Stefan,
Thanks so much for your insightful blog entry. Obviously, when choosing any hosting company, one should find out the host’s data transfer limit and disk space allocation.
We’ve run into “space issues” before, only to upgrade the account which obviously costs more money.
Thanks again for the informative information.
Best Regards,
Andy Lax
Hi Andy, that’s important, but many hosting companies offer enough to fullfill all your hosting needs. However, there are more pointers to look at!
This is excellent information. Anyone have to send it to Reddit.
Nice article and a good start for people that don’t know the ropes.
Thank you.
Dedicated however costs more but if you really want to get into the hosting business it is the right choice. Shared hosting however, is definitely best for designers, not too pricey, a lot of options, really nice…
Good article, nice advice for newbies. I use a re-seller account which allows me 50 domains for a small fee every month. It’s the best value even if you don’t design for others.
Ste
Great article…and even greater thing is that web hosting is soooo cheap these days…even if it’s dedicated…
You should not jump into being a reseller unless you are for sure going to be in the internet field forever, the reason is if you quit you are still responsible for hosting their websites even though you are no longer do it.
Much better just for them to get their own hosting and you get vps for working on their website.
Indeed Philip, that is something you have to consider in all times. Good tip!
A reseller hosting account is recommended for web designer so that they can also host for their clients.
i agree with philp
If you have offshore clients, it might be better to get offshore hosting as well.
Great stuff and very informative feedback. Thanks