What is hosting?

Hosting is buying space on a server for your website files to live. If the domain is like the address to a house, then the hosting is the plot of land where your house is located.

Why should I buy hosting?

You should buy hosting if you want complete ownership of your content. Additionally, if you’re looking to place ads or customize your site beyond the basics, buying hosting is the way to go.

Where can I buy hosting?

There are a ton of hosts out there, which makes choosing one difficult. In the end it comes down to what you’re looking for in a host. If you just want basic shared hosting that can grow with you as your site grows, A Small Orange (affiliate link) is a great choice (it’s what I host my sites on!). If you want WordPress only hosting, I’ve heard great things about Flywheel.

Shared, Reseller, VPS, English please?

Shared – you rent out space on a server. One server might house hundreds of sites. Because of this, shared hosting is usually the cheapest option.

Reseller – gives you the opportunity to sell hosting to other people. You are responsible for managing their hosting and acting as customer service.

Dedicated hosting – you rent out a server that is dedicated solely to you and your site. This gives you flexibility and control over the server. Usually you won’t need dedicated hosting unless you have extremely large amounts of traffic or if you have special server needs that can’t be supported on a shared server.

VPS – stands for Virtual Private Server. When you buy VPS hosting, you are buying server space on a shared physical server. However, the space you purchase is acting as a dedicated server, running it’s own operating system. This means that you’re getting the best of both shared hosting (lower cost) and dedicated hosting (flexibility and control).

WordPress hosting – your host manages all the technical stuff that comes with hosting and you’re left to manage your site. In terms of hosting, this one is probably the simplest. The only downfall about this is that it’s for WordPress only, as the name implies. If you’re running something other than WordPress, then you’ll have to look into a different hosting option.

How much does it cost?

Hosting prices vary depending on the amount of space you want/need. Typically, prices range $5-$15 a month, but can go well beyond that depending on your needs. As I mentioned before, shared hosting is the cheapest option, while dedicated will be the most expensive. I should also note that hosting is not the place to cheap out. You usually get what you pay for, so keep that in mind.

Anything else I need to know?

Plans that say you get unlimited anything are usually not telling the 100% complete truth. Think about it… if a hosting company is offering unlimited space for a shared hosting plan, there has to be a limit somewhere. Everyone on that server can’t use unlimited space as space is not infinite. In most cases, when you reach a certain threshold, you will receive a notice and it will be time to upgrade. This is exactly why I love A Small Orange (affiliate link). You are given a certain amount of space and bandwidth, which you can keep track of and know when you’re approaching the limit. So while an unlimited plan may sound better, it might just be too good to be true. So know that even if your plan is unlimited, there is a limit there somewhere.

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