12 Essential Web Hosting Features to Choose Right Hosting
If you want to start your online business then you might be heard about domain registration and web hosting and to make it visible online, every website requires these two factors to setup their online business first one is domain registration and second is web hosting.
And both are considered as the essential factors to start any website, because both, domain and hosting are completely dependent on each other which means by purchasing only domain you can’t make your site live on internet.
And, similarly for hosting, when you’re ready to purchase hosting services, first you need to enter your registered domain name to buy hosting and if you don’t own any web address or domain name address then it gives you the option to first register for the domain then only you’ll proceed to buy website hosting storage. So, without having registered domain name, you can’t buy website hosting.
So, when you’re ready to buy domain and hosting, make sure you purchase both of them from reliable web hosting providers like GoDaddy, Bluehost, Siteground and Hostinger etc.
Also, you can buy them separately according to your requirements, means this is not necessary for you to buy them from one place which means if you want to purchase domain name from GoDaddy, then you can easily make a purchase solely for domain from GoDaddy and likewise you can purchase hosting from another hosting providers like Siteground to make your site visible.
So, to make your hosting purchase easy, I’ve curated some necessary points for you that can help you to better understand which hosting will gonna fulfill your all website requirements and on what factors you should more focus on.
So, In this article, we will gonna learn about those significant features that a good web hosting relies on.
But before moving forward, let study them briefly that what are domain and hosting refers to ?
Let’s discuss them briefly…
What is Domain Name ?
Well, this is quite simple to understand, Domain is the name of your website address through which your site is accessible to the internet users.
So, Domain names are the address of the website and to own a domain name, you just need to register a name from any domain & hosting services providers for a dedicated time period.
What is Web Hosting ?
Web hosting refers to the space or storage that your site requires to store all your site’s data like website pages, posts, media files and all documents in the web server.
In other simple words, we can also say that website hosting is the online space or storage you purchase from hosting services providers to make your site alive in the internet.
And when you buy hosting for your website from hosting providers then they provide you online storage or web space into their servers, where you can store all your files to make your site work properly.
Now, lets moving forward…
And discuss them briefly all those web hosting essential features that you should know before buying any web hosting services…
1- Disk Storage Space
In a web hosting, Disk storage space is the fixed amount of space available on web host server where all your site files that includes code files, database files, text files, audio, video and high resolution images, and graphic files are placed, space allotted to website owners by hosting providers.
To allocate these file your site requires sufficient disk storage on web host server. Technically, All web hosting providers have their unique hosting packages associated with different disk sizes and bandwidth availability. So whenever you are searching for web hosting provider, always choose disk storage space according to your site usage.
2- Bandwidth
Bandwidth is the amount of traffic and amount of data transfer on your site from the server. Bandwidth works as a communication channel over content delivery network between site visitors and hosted web server.
But ! Have you noticed, All Web host providers offers unlimited and unmetered bandwidth, In technical terms both bandwidths are different. All web host providers have their set amount of bandwidth in their hosting plans for website owners.
The unlimited bandwidth refers to the amount of bandwidth limit that is predefined set to exceed the capacity while unmetered bandwidth refers to the set amount of predefined limits for data usage. You should always choose unmetered bandwidth because it has a particular defined amount of bandwidth that has set limits and clear picture for data transfer.
But unmetered bandwidth is most preferred because unmetered bandwidth has set limits to its usage whereas unlimited bandwidth also offers limitations too because here unlimited means exceeding over the limits which seems impossible to cross.
Bandwidth usage completely depends upon the content on your site. Heavy sites with lots of video and images require a maximum amount of bandwidth than average text-based sites. So you If you are planning to buy hosting services, first analyze what type of website and also what type of content you want on your site and then wisely select your hosting plan that fulfills your site’s desired amount of bandwidth.
3- Domain Name Mail Services
Email is an extremely important hosting factor for an easy communication. So pay attention, Whenever you purchase web hosting, Check that they provide hosting for both IMAP and POP3 secure email support with their webmail interface and automated spam filtering features and must have an integration with services like G Suite and Microsoft Outlook.
4- 24/7 Expert Technical Support
Customer support becomes mandatory whenever you face any technical problems while developing your site or in its maintenance, you need an expert to resolve your site issues and if you have your business online that provides services 24/7 then you also need technical support that helps you 24/7.
5- Security Services
Site’s security is the primary concern for all business that are running online and also another crucial feature to protect your site from hackers and illegal cyber-attacks, whether your business is online and offline.
While selecting hosting plan, always take some extra care to your business and ask your web host providers via customer support that what are their security services and measurement techniques for any site’s protection and how they provides security to other sites.
Yeah! I know it takes more efforts, but security services is the reason that why you are going to choose their services from your web host provider.
6- Control Panel
Control panel is an admin panel of your site. To make any changes to your site you need admin panel login access. Also known as the back-end of your site. C-panel is the most popular control panel for Linux web hosting while Plesk is the best platform for windows panel.
C-panel is an integrated and graphical user interface that provides all tools to an administrator to manage hosting services in a more efficient manner.
Control panel have full access over mentioned services–
- Account Management
- Domain Name System Management
- One-Click App installer
- Mailbox Management
- FTP Access
- Database Management
- File Management
- Backups
- Security and Support Updates
- Language Support i.e. Mysql, MongoDB, PostgreSQL database support
7- SSL Certificate
SSL certificates are trusted security indicators and provides the strongest encryption to secure information in the web world.
Nowadays, HTTPS protocol becomes essential for secure transactions as well as to protect your site from hackers. And it establishes secured connection between client and server, as SSL certificate encrypts data while browsing, that’s why highly recommended for eCommerce sites by Google guidelines because, for unsecured eCommerce sites, google doesn’t allow to make transactions without having an SSL certificate and directly restricts your transaction to make payment.
To build trust, to make secure payments and authenticity among your customers and visitors, surely you need an SSL encryption.
For secure sites, Google also boosts their organic ranking and brand value. SSL certificate affects Google ranking in SEO in a negative manner if you don’t have.
9- Site Backup
Backing up your website plays an essential role in website security and prevents your site from internet disasters. To protect and retain your site’s data, content and files from loss, you need daily site backups from your host providers.
You need your site backup when your site gets hacked, and maybe your computer crashed and malware and virus issues. To protect your site from cyber-crime and hacking, We always recommend you to maintain your site’s content backup on server.
Backups are a lifesaver in any technical troubles.
9- Site Speed
No doubt, We all want high speed internet along with high speed performing site navigation while browsing. Similarly, Your site’s visitors also expecting the happy user experience while they’re accessing your site.
Site speed is a new Google ranking factor and slow site loading is the barrier for your sites visitors, customers, and readers that’s why site performance in terms of speed is important when choosing a web host provider.
It is also recommended by Host providers that, To provide the best user experience, Always choose the nearest web-server to your location or your targeted audience that gives you standard speed without any inconvenience.
Off Course, Faster sites bring you happy and satisfied user base that gives you more revenue if you’re running your eCommerce business.
The standard loading time for any site is 2 seconds and for SEO purpose, To decrease sites bounce rate you also need high speed.
10- Guaranteed Uptime and High Availability
Uptime measures your site availability. Generally, web host providers offers 99.9% uptime which is acceptable but if your web host provider offers less than 99.9% availability it can harm your online presence.
High availability gives better user experience to retain your visitor’s, customers and prospects while site downtime may lose your visitors and readers, site’s downtime puts negative impact on your online business, while greater site uptime boosts your user level experience and increases google ranking as well.
Downtime is a term when a site unavailable to use and usually very slow.
Your site availability works as a pillar between your potential users and server.
Slow uptime generally includes-
- Site Traffic loss
- Bad user experience
Your site uptime should always be greater than 99.5%.
11- Migration Cost And Services
Simply, Migration is the process of transferring your site containing all site’s content data from current hosting provider to another hosting provider and Migration cost is an additional site transfer cost which hosting providers charges to customers ad to make changes you will have to pay to move your site from another host.
It is not always necessary to use migration services, But you actually need this service whenever you face some technical or other issues related to your site performance and uptime, etc.
Let us assume a situation in which you are facing site’s uptime related problems with your current web host, then surely you want to overcome from these kinds of problem, to resolve all these problems you need to change your web host, and then migration services are used.
All web hosts providers have their separate site transfer charges if paid. Migration services are necessary whenever you require to change your site host servers.
Always choose a web host that provides site migration services whether it is free of cost or paid with their policies.
12- Domain and Subdomains
This is the biggest advantage nowadays all website hosting sites provides to their customers and that is… Unlimited domain and subdomain names in their premium plans and If you are an owner of a company or an organization and want to run multiple websites with the single hosting plan, then selecting plan containing unlimited domains and subdomains is the best choice for achieving your desired goals.
Subdomains works as same as the site sub-directories.
Subdomains provide easy access and navigation to users. Subdomains are always dependent on your standard domain name. Let me clear you, for example : www.classicspecs.com , is a parent domain name and www.shop.classicspecs.com, is child domain name, most commonly referred as subdomain of your site, here shop is the part of subdomain.
Thoughts on Web Hosting Essential Features
Now, we all know the fact that, how important and essential a reliable web hosting is for your website to run your business online because hosting services offers complete package that your site requires to reside online that includes several features like website storage, bandwidth, domains and sub-domains services security services, backup services, and site up-time services etc.
That’s why above explained several features are supposed to be the most predominant features of hosting that needs your more attention before buying them.
So guys, If this article helped you to understand website hosting essential features then share this article with your social media friends.
And, let me know in the comments section, which hosting services are you using currently to host your website ?
Till then, Happy Learning 
and Thanks for Reading .
