Step-by-step website hosting instructions
Follow these instructions and in just four steps, you’ll have a hosted website for everyone to view online.
1. Buy a domain name
In order for your hosting service to start working, you need to register a domain name. The vast majority of hosting providers will help you purchase a domain name. By purchasing a domain name and hosting plan in a bundle, you’re often looking at a better price than buying separately.
There are also hosting companies that do not offer domain name registration services. In this case, you need to purchase the domain name from another registrar.
It is worth remembering that a joint purchase greatly simplifies the process of further customization. This option should be considered for beginners in order to avoid the need for additional settings.
NB: If you already have a domain name that you secured some times ago before you finally decided on hosting, you can update the nameservers and point to your new hosting service
2. Choose a web hosting service provider
The next step is choosing a web hosting company. This is an important step because, in order to have your website available on the Internet, you need a place to host it. Although you can self-host (which we’ll come to later) this space is commonly provided by a web hosting/web host provider. To choose the right hosting provider for your website, there are a few important aspects to consider, which we’ll discuss next.
How do I choose a web host?
There are lots of factors involved in choosing a web host. There are hundreds of hosting providers available, ranging from local outfits to global providers, like HostNesta. All differ in terms of the price and the services they offer.
Web hosting incorporates more than just making your website available online. Hosting providers also offer other indispensable services, such as technical assistance, firewall protection, email services, domain name registration, and more.
The best way to judge a good host isn’t on price. You’ll never know whether you need to spend $20 versus $200 a month unless you know your website’s technical requirements. What follows are tips on the features a web host provides. Consider the specifications your website might have, as well as other features you may need, in order to factor into your hosting selection.
- Uptime Guarantee
First things first, you want to make sure your website is available 24/7/365. The last thing you want your visitors to see is a blank screen when they type in your address into their browser. Look for a hosting provider with an uptime guarantee of 99.5% or above. If you plan on running a small website with modest traffic levels, uptime might never be an issue. However, if your website grows, uptime is incredibly important so you can avoid any downtime or upgrade complications. - Redundancy
When a small website goes down due to hosting provider problems, it might bounce back unaffected. When downtime happens to a business that relies on their website as their main source of income, this can result in revenue loss. So when a hosting provider offers “redundancy,” this simply means they’ll compensate a website if an outage occurs as a result of server issues on their side.
- Database Type
The most common type of database used by WordPress and other content management systems (CMS) is MySQL. Some websites require other databases, such as SQLite, so check what type your website needs first and then see if it’s available with your respective hosting provider. When using WordPress, databases can be easily managed by using plugins like WP Reset. - Bandwidth Offering
Bandwidth is an indicator of the amount of data (or traffic) that has been transferred between the website and users during the customer’s interaction with your resource. To determine what type of hosting you need, think about what your website will be like. If you plan to rely on media materials, e.g. video clips or advertising videos, audio recordings, or even intend to broadcast to your audience in real time, you should definitely consider plans with a higher bandwidth quota of up to 150 GB per month. Website owners who rely mainly on text content and use additional platforms to store their podcasts, movies and images, in most cases, a basic 10 GB will be enough. - Scalability
When thinking about hosting needs of your website, don’t forget about your future goals and prospects. Any smart project or business venture comes to a point when the limits of the purchased hosting plan simply starts to be insufficient. Make sure to pay attention to the hosting provider’s tools to increase capacity of the current plan or move to another type of hosting, without additional complications or added fees. - Accessibility
Accessibility simply means that the hosting provider is equipped with the tools necessary to manage and configure your hosting plan. Many hosting providers use cPanel to manage their customers’ accounts. This popular and reliable dashboard is an industry standard, allowing you to manage your databases, monitor and customize backups or emails, and more. If your chosen hosting provider does not provide a control panel with your hosting plan, this means you’ll be left to do the technical heavy lifting.
- Customer Service
Hosting is a rather complex product. A lot of things can happen behind the scenes and are invisible to ordinary users. That is why 24/7 support is a huge advantage for any hosting provider. The ability to get help from your provider, at any time, and in a form that’s convenient for you (chat, correspondence, phone call to hotline) should be considered as a very important factor when choosing a hosting plan.
- SSL Certificates
If you want to protect your visitors’ security and/or you plan on collecting credit card information and processing online transactions, you’ll need an SSL certificate. Now a key component in Google’s ranking algorithm, if you want to improve your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) standing, an SSL certificate improves your chances. Some hosting providers, like HostNesta, provide SSL certificates for free, depending on the chosen hosting plan. - Backups
Why perform a backup yourself when your hosting provider can take care of them for you? In case the unexpected happens and your website gets attacked by hackers or your computer system shuts down, it’s best to run regular backups to have a recent version of your website to revert back to. Solid hosting providers offer backups every 24 hours, so in the rare event that something goes wrong, you’ll be in safe hands. - Email Service
If you’d like to have an email address from your hosting provider, make sure to check that email service is offered from your hosting provider. Most hosting plans, no matter the provider, include email with unlimited accounts. It’s always best to double-check, though, that they provide enough for what you need.
Now we’ve covered the basic types of services you can expect from a web host. Getting these benefits from one place will save you time and money, so before you sign on the dotted line, be sure to get a clear picture of what you will receive in your service plan.
Picking the right web host is easy if you know what your website needs from a host. To help with that, ask yourself the following questions.
What type of website am I building?
Different types of websites come with different technical requirements. For example, a WordPress website will have different technical requirements than a static HTML website. First and foremost, think about how your website is going to be built. You’ll then be more familiar with things like the coding languages and databases your web host needs to work with.
Do I need email hosting?
We’ve discussed the benefits of setting up email addresses associated with the domain name of your new website. It would be a shame to miss out on this by overlooking whether your web host provides email hosting that fits your needs.
How much data will I be storing and serving?
The bandwidth you’ll require from your web host is not just a matter of traffic; it also depends on the file loading size of the webpages. If your website is packed with data-heavy pages, the more storage and bandwidth you’ll need your web host to have. On the other hand, a predominantly text-oriented site, such as a personal blog, will need a smaller amount of storage space and less bandwidth, while a photographic gallery with lots of high-quality images will need larger amounts.
How much traffic do I expect?
Most likely your traffic will start pretty low but, if you plan to build it up to higher levels, you’ll need a flexible plan where you can increase your bandwidth capacity as time goes on.
What is my hosting budget?
Think of a ballpark idea of how much you can afford to spend on hosting. If your budget is limited, your service might not include all the bells and whistles. If your budget is a bit more flexible, you might get some extra perks, such as free SSL.
How technically proficient am I?
The beauty of the Internet these days is that it’s possible for anyone, no matter their expertise, to set up a website. Certain types of website management tasks will require a bit more experience. If you don’t have the experience to administrate your server, leave it to the professionals and use a fully-managed web hosting service where everything is done for you.
3. Choose a web hosting plan
Now that you’re up to speed on some of the features web hosts offer, it’s time to choose a hosting plan to bring your website online. When you browse between various web host’s products you’ll see five main packages on offer: Shared, Reseller, VPS, and Managed WordPress. Let’s outline briefly what each of these hosting types are.
Shared (Website) Hosting
More or less considered the “entry-level” of hosting, Shared Hosting is when you and other customers are given access to one physical server so you’re essentially sharing or “renting” the same key resources (e.g. CPU, RAM, disk space, etc.). And, because you’re not paying for the full server costs – only the parts you’re using – the price is super affordable.
Advantages
- Cheapest hosting available – Shared Hosting from HostNesta starts at $0.50/month.
- Ideal for any first-time, low-traffic, or low-bandwidth website
- Requires minimal tech expertise
- Easy to set up (the Softaculous app instantly installs any CMS like WordPress)
- Includes a free Website Builder with a drag-and-drop interface
- Includes 50 free Positive SSL Certificates (first year only)
- Automatic backups
Disadvantages
- Has specific LVE limits (may be not enough for high-traffic websites)
- Limited amount of storage space
- Website performance can fluctuate, depending on other customers’ usage levels
Shared Hosting is the most popular type of hosting because it’s cheap and easy to set up. It’s ideal for any brand new, low-traffic and low-bandwidth website.