What is your North Star? What is the point of the work you are doing right now? Starting a business is tricky, and achieving success is harder, so a goal must get implemented. A goal is the road map of where you want to go- it is your motivation. As Lawrence J. Peter once said, “If you don’t know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else.” The purpose of a young entrepreneur looking to start their own business is simple- to be successful.
Young entrepreneurs encounter various decisions to make when drafting their website and content. Choices range from the font size to choosing your brand’s domain.
What is Web Hosting?
One of those decisions involves Web Hosting. Web Hosting acts as the foundation for your business- it is the website individuals visit when browsing the market. Though there are multiple forms of web hosting, the two I find most beneficial and popular are:
- Shared Hosting
- VPS Hosting.
By knowing which Hosting service to use, you can benefit your business and achieve your goal. Websites may look the same from a consumer point of view, but when choosing between different Web Hosting forms, factors to consider include bandwidth, security, and even price. So what are these two hosting servers?
VPS Server or Shared Hosting Server?
When choosing a web hosting server, young entrepreneurs should take their goals into account. What do you want out of your business expenditure? What can get you the most traffic on your website? Does your business have the potential for traffic, or is your website more on the blog side?
With these questions in mind, we can dive into what server should be used and in which business scenario. There is no wrong answer when choosing a web hosting server, but there is a smarter choice depending on what you’re providing.
Shared Hosting is ideal for those looking to start a blog or startup
Shared Hosting requires you to share the server space with other websites. Meaning, less bandwidth, and less space for you and your content. Sites using Shared Hosting anticipate low traffic and generally do not take any personal information.
Personal information is essential when starting a business. Buyers do not want to have their credit cards get stolen or a security breach on the website. Shared Hosting is safe, but since the server is shared, if one site on the server gets breached, they all are.
So, if you were starting up a blog or a small company with no goal of expanding to a wider audience, shared hosting is ideal. It gives you enough bandwidth to reach your limited audience, and it is cheaper than VPS Hosting.
Say you start using your shared hosting server and realize you want to generate more traffic and expand your business. You can easily upgrade your hosting server to meet your goals. Hosting servers are not a binding contract, you can always test and see what works best for you.
VPS Hosting works for young entrepreneurs
VPS Hosting is within a shared environment, but it imitates a server dedicated only to you. With VPS Hosting, you get the server and all of the bandwidth with it. But, having a personal server requires a higher cost. However, this cost is worth the benefits of VPS Hosting.
Think of it in terms of dorm rooms. Shared Hosting is living in a forced triple, and your roommates are stealing your favorite snack- Peanut M&Ms (if you are nut-free, please consider something else). But VPS Hosting is you having a single in the residence hall with no one to take your Peanut M&Ms. You still live in a community, but you are alone in your room.
With Shared Hosting, all of the sites on the server have to split up the traffic that can be on the website- causing errors if a Shared Hosting site grows. While on VPS Hosting, you have all of the hardware and resources directed to your site- allowing more substantial traffic of possible consumers. If your goal includes being a big business, then why not take the risk and buy VPS Hosting to ensure you have the bandwidth and storage to be successful.
On the other hand, there is also a similar option known as cloud hosting – a relatively similar approach to VPS but in a more better way. Cloud servers also provide an isolated hosting environment just like VPS. However, your data will be hosted on many servers simultaneously. You might think as it’s better than VPS, it’ll cost more. Still, the truth is there is a variety of cheap cloud hosting providers offering as low as two and a half buck per month plans with unlimited customizability as well scalability on the fly.
Key Features to Look at When Choosing A Server Host
When browsing different hosting networks, everything may look the same. You may get confused about what is the difference between these networks. This makes it difficult to choose where to purchase your VPS or Shared Hosting server.
It was like when you were younger, and your family had that one grocery store you always went to. You never knew why or how that grocery store is “the one.” When all the grocery stores are the same, why does it matter where we go?
Well, your parents most likely took into account price, distance, quality, and if they give out samples. I mean when have you said no to a Costco sample?
Like grocery stores, there are factors to consider when deciding where to purchase your hosting server. Main factors to look out for include:
–Price: how much are you willing to pay?
–Performance: Bandwidth? Speed time?
–Security: What steps are taken to protect data and keep away from viruses?
–Scalability: Can the volume and size change? Can the size work for your site?
–Customer Support: is the company easy to reach?
Factors like these are important to consider so you can find the right hosting server for you. You can never do too much research on different networks to find the right fit.
When looking for a server host, the best thing to remember is that it is not a binding contract. You have the power to change what you want in order to find what works best for you. This is YOUR business, and YOU ARE dreaming big.
Author byline:
Lucy Long is a Strategic Communications major and Data Analytics minor at Texas Christian University. Currently, she is an intern writer for MagnusOpus.
