When a hosting provider allocates space on a web server for a website to store its files, they are hosting a website. Web hosting makes the files that comprise a website (code, images, etc.) available for viewing online. Every website you’ve ever visited is hosted on a server.

The amount of space allocated on a server to a website depends on the type of hosting. The main types of hosting are shared, dedicated, VPS and reseller. They are differentiated by the kind of technology used for the server, the management level goes directly choosing the level of management provided, and the additional services offered.

What is Web Hosting?

In simple terms, Web Hosting is the process of renting or buying space to house a website on the World Wide Web. Website content such as HTML, CSS, and images has to be housed on a server to be viewable online. 

How to pick a web host?

Your selection of an appropriate and reliable web hosting service provider is an important step in coming online, especially if you are launching a business website. Hosts not only make your site available to others, but they also offer services related to managing these servers and their software, support, bandwidth, speed, and so on. Important factors to consider the best web hosting provider for small businesses:

1. Price: Even though web hosting services typically list a low starting price, this cheap hosting price will usually require you to pay upfront for two to three years of service -- so it's not, say, $3 a month, but $72 in advance for two years. And once that promotional period is over, the price to renew your service can end up being way higher. 
2. Choose the Right Hosting Package: Many small businesses turn to shared hosting as a way to save money, but with the smaller price tag comes a bigger risk of slow website response times. Slow websites turn customers away. An option like a Virtual Private Server (VPS) is slightly more expensive, but it provides a faster, higher quality web performance and delivers a better customer experience.
3. Read Web Hosting Reviews: Refer to reputable websites when researching the reliability and reputation of web hosts. Researching a web hosting company through third-party reviews is very useful in discovering any consistent issues or persistent complaints from current or past users. Pay attention to how the company responds to complaints if the company responds at all. This will give you an idea of how the company deals with unhappy customers.
4. Available storage: You need to know how much data storage is available for your websites, email and data dases.
5. Data security and backup: According to Forbes contributor James Lyne, more than 30,000 websites are hacked each day. Target, Home Depot, and BlueCross BlueShield are just a few of the many top brands that have been hacked in the past two years. There is no perfect solution to prevent hacking. A reputable and reliable web hosting company will perform regular backups of your data to a secure and remote server just in case there's a security breach and you lose your data.
6. Read the Terms of Service: No, really. Read the Terms of Service. Don’t just skim through them. Read them. Most people accept the Terms of Service without bothering to read exactly what they’re signing. I’ve done it. We’ve all done it. Stop doing it. The Terms of Service usually include the refund policy, which might be good to know later.
7. Customer support: How effective and speedy is the company in providing support for technical problems? Try to choose a host that offers live support to their clients, 24/7. Also look for those who offer chat support, as well as social media visibility as opposed to email and support tickets.
8. Scalability: Most hosts have a variety of packages. The smallest package comes with the lowest disc space and bandwidth allotments and may only have a minimum of additional features. Then there are typically graduating packages that include additional features for a greater price. You can choose the minimum package you can get away with then upgrade as your site grows.

How to know the suitable hosting platform for your business?

• Understand server types: The very cheapest hosting is available on shared servers, where one box may run hundreds of websites. The performance of your site depends on the load all the other sites are putting on the host. Shared hosting also limits your access to the server's capabilities, generally limiting you to uploading files via FTP or SFTP, preventing shell access, restricting what programs you can run on the service, and limiting the amount of database access your site can perform. The next tier is VPS (for virtual private server), a full instance of a virtual machine (a simulated computer) running on a box. Usually, hosting providers run many VPS instances on one box, but performance is almost always better than base-level shared services. If you use a VPS, you should be familiar with basic server maintenance and management. If you don't want to share performance with other sites, consider a dedicated server, a physical box that's rented to you. It's the same as having a server sitting behind your desk, except it's located in a service provider's data center. Only those with system management skills need to apply. Cloud servers may be a better choice. They usually run on the giant public clouds, like Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure. Service providers can build whatever configuration suits the needs of their customers. The big benefit of cloud servers is that you can scale seamlessly. If you need to be able to handle that big traffic surge, just pay your provider more money. Nothing needs to be moved or rebuilt.
• Be wary of unlimited offers: Some hosting providers offer so-called unlimited storage and bandwidth for a few dollars a month. This deal often isn't what it seems to be. If you pay three bucks a month for hosting, there will likely be something in your terms of service allowing your hosting provider to either throttle your performance or shut you down after a certain usage level. 

Why Web Hosting?

1. Uptime (reliability): You would like to operate your website to run 24/7, and you’ll only get that from a web host with reliable servers and stable network connections. Without a good uptime, your site is hard to reach or frequently down loses visitors and negatively affects, customers and can hit revenue hard. When any user finds your site and tries to access it only to find it unavailable, they will go directly to a competitor site. Slow access is also very frustrating for dedicated visitors and may lead to less traffic with more bounce rate. 
2. Traffic/Bandwidth: Read and understand any limitations placed on the bandwidth you use and select an appropriate plan. Bandwidth translates to the amount of traffic and number of page views your website can handle every single month. If your site is going to incorporate video, audio, or other elements that require a higher level of bandwidth, you want a plan that matches your needs.
3. Control Panel: The purpose of a control panel is to allow you to manage various aspects of your website’s hosting account yourself. You can perform everyday maintenance tasks without having to wait for technical support to make simple changes. A ‘cPanel’ provides a simple dashboard to manage email addresses, account passwords, and basic server configurations.
4. Multiple Domains Hosting: It’s common to own more than one domain, they’re cheap these days, and it’s hard to resist owning a few. In this case, you need to accommodate extra domains with extra hosting space. To simplify the hosting process, it’s possible to host more than one domain from a single account. Each separate website hosted on the same account is called an add-on domain. Most shared hosting providers allow addon domains. It’s advisable to check in advance how they charge for it.
5. Technical support: You cannot be self-present every time at your site to engage with the users. Your definite Hosting service providers must have 24/7/ 365 professional support. You’ll want someone there to throw you a lifeline when you press the S.O.S button and to know the person picking on the other end is technically equipped with the knowledge to help you, there and then. To get a feel for this, read online reviews with accounts of real customer experiences.

Conclusion

For any successful website, reliability and high-performing web hosting plays a very crucial role. Many of the individuals keep the hosting part in the last while building the website but neglecting this may lead to bad effects for your site. You can think of web hosting as a foundation for your business and it must be strong with high quality. A web hosting control panel is a web-based interface provided by a web hosting service that allows users to manage their servers and hosted services. If you want to know about our control panel and the associated components with it, here is a glimpse of it.

OUR CONTROL PANEL

WEB HOSTING TOOLS

File Manager

FTP Accounts

Backup/Restore

Backup/Restore

Snapshot Backups

phpMyAdmin

MySQL Databases

Remote MySQL Database Access

Manage Domains

Manage Subdomains

Change PHP Version

Scheduled Tasks

SSH Access

Block Visitors

Hotlink Protection

SSL Certificate

Password Protection

Directory Indexing

Manage IIS Applications

Website Log Files/Download

Website Security

Website Builder

Manage VPS

Two-factor Authentication

EMAIL TOOLS

Email Accounts

Email Forwarders

Autoresponders

Send-Only Addresses

Receive-Only Addresses

Junk Mail Settings

Catch-All E-mail

DNS TOOLS

Manage DNS

Manage Contacts

Change Nameservers

Domain Lock

Transfer Away

Domain Redirect

Note* You can always upgrade and change your hosting plans at any time. If you are still unsure about choosing the best web hosting provider for your business, you can consult with our team here. We are always happy to help you.  Best of luck with choosing the best web hosting provider as per your needs.