The type of web hosting service you use for your business is an important factor that can impact your website’s performance and scalability. Most entrepreneurs and startup founders begin with shared web hosting services. This does the trick in the early stages, but as your business grows, it’s time to consider upgrading.
In an effort to maximize business growth and profits, let’s take a deeper look at the different web hosting services you can upgrade to when that crucial moment arrives.
Become a Web Hosting Affiliate
Many business owners jump on the web hosting affiliate (reseller) bandwagon when it is time to upgrade from shared hosting services. Hosting resellers can get a number of upgrade features that they can use for their own business.
These extras include:
- Website templates for free
- Private servers for large-scale appearance
- White label tech support
- Cost-effective pricing
Resellers leveraging web hosting affiliate programs also get WHM control panel access and plenty of tools to help resell and invoice customers. However, this is not for every business.
Take Website Hosting to the Cloud
The newest type of web hosting is cloud services. It essentially allows multiple servers to work together like one colossal server, only via the cloud. A cloud web hosting service is a beneficial upgrade from shared hosting because it is highly scalable.
For instance, when growth happens, the hosting provider can simply add hardware to expand the cloud for optimal site performance. Cloud hosting is perfect for websites experiencing a swath of traffic growth. It is also an affordable service, since you only pay as needed.
Upgrade to a Virtual Private Server
Cloud hosting services involve multiple servers, but act as one. On the flip side, virtual private servers (VPS) act like one server, but actually involve multiple servers. VPS is often known as the middle-range service between shared hosting and dedicated.
What sets VPS hosting services apart from shared is that websites that use this service have a dedicated piece of a server, instead of sharing a whole server at random.
This helps keep website performance optimized even if there is a large site with lots of traffic on the same server. Virtual private servers are also quite cost effective for businesses, starting out at around $50 for packages.
Get a Dedicated Service
There is a moment in a businesses lifecycle when traffic and site expansion is needed to do exponential growth. This is a fantastic problem to have. However, upgrading your web hosting service in this moment is vital.
Dedicated web hosting services give you 100 percent root permissions (control) and there is no need to ever worry about other sites sucking performance from your shared server again. This is important, since your business growth is tethered to site user experience.
Did you know that 88 percent of consumers will abandon a poor performing website and never return? This is a pretty clear call to action for any large-scale websites that need to stay on top of their industry to perpetually increase profits. But you will pay the price, with dedicated hosting packages starting at $100.
Renting Data Center Rack Space
This type of web hosting service takes it up a notch. Renting rack space from a data center is a fairly good-sized company endeavor. You need to not only rent rack space, but also need to bring your own hardware, power, security, cooling, and more.
This type of hosting is called colocation (colo), and it takes a team, or even a whole techie type department to do successfully. You need computer professionals to maintain the servers, the software, and all things in-between.
Be Your Own Host
When you have become a global corporation, it is time to upgrade your hosting services to DIY hosting. This is the top of the hosting chain and it requires a team of highly trained professionals to install servers, configure software, maintain hardware, and more.
The elements needed for DIY hosting includes:
- Data center space
- Servers (hardware)
- Bandwidth capabilities
- Assigned system admins
- Security protocols
This type of hosting is similar to colocation hosting services, but slightly more intense. If you’re a small business owner, you probably don’t need to worry about this hosting service. It is for large companies experiencing high-level growth.
Time to Upgrade?
Shared web hosting is great for the small sites just getting their legs online. However, shared hosting has obstacles when growth begins to take a turn for the better. It is important to approach web hosting upgrades as a positive. It may be a burden at the time, but it is a signal of your business’ success. Does your site need a hosting upgrade?
