Why Businesses Need Web Hosting

Businesses need web hosting for several crucial reasons:

Scalability and technical support are additional advantages, allowing businesses to adapt to changing needs and receive assistance when technical issues arise. 

Benefits of Web Hosting for Businesses

Let’s delve into five advantages of web hosting for businesses.

Reliability and Uptime

One of the most significant advantages of using a web hosting service for your business is its reliability and uptime. Reliable web hosts have servers that are up and running 24/7, ensuring your website is always accessible to potential customers. Downtime can harm your business, leading to lost opportunities and revenue. Professional web hosting companies invest in redundancy and backup systems to minimize downtime, which is especially crucial for e-commerce sites and businesses that rely on their online presence to generate sales.

Improved Website Performance

Web hosting services typically provide robust and high-performance servers that can handle your website’s demands. This results in faster loading times, which is critical for user experience and search engine optimization (SEO). Slow-loading websites can frustrate visitors and lead to high bounce rates, negatively affecting your search engine rankings. With the right web hosting, your website can quickly handle more traffic and deliver content, enhancing the overall user experience.

Security and Data Protection

Website security is a top priority for any business; professional web hosting providers take this aspect seriously. They implement robust security measures, such as firewalls, regular security updates, and intrusion detection systems, to protect your website from malware and cyberattacks. Many web hosting companies also offer data backup and recovery services, ensuring that your business-critical data is safe in case of unforeseen disasters or data loss. This peace of mind is invaluable, especially for businesses that deal with sensitive customer information.

Scalability

As your business grows, your website’s requirements will change. A good web hosting service allows for easy scalability, so you can adjust your hosting plan to accommodate increased traffic, additional features, or more substantial data storage. This flexibility ensures your website can evolve with your business without experiencing significant disruptions or downtime. Whether upgrading your hosting plan or adding more resources, a reliable web hosting provider can help you do so seamlessly.

Technical Support

Technical issues can arise anytime; when they do, you need prompt and reliable support. Most web hosting services offer customer support around the clock, with knowledgeable technicians ready to assist you. This support can range from helping you with website setup and configuration to troubleshooting issues related to server performance, domain management, or email services. Access to technical support ensures that your website remains functional and minimizes potential business disruptions.

Conclusion

In conclusion, web hosting plays a crucial role in the success of your business’s online presence. It offers reliability, improved website performance, security, scalability, and technical support essential for maintaining a robust web presence. While various hosting options are available, selecting the exemplary web hosting service that aligns with your business’s needs is critical. A well-chosen web hosting provider can help your business thrive in the digital age, reaching a broader audience and staying competitive in the online marketplace.

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A safe and secure environment for your web surfers is necessary for a web hosting service to be excellent. It’s also a good idea to have secure data storage that is capable of preventing breaches. Here, we’ll list the best security practices for web hosting that you should follow.

1.88 billion websites are currently spread across numerous servers on the internet. Multiple websites can be hosted by a web server on the same physical machine. Depending on the hosting type, however, if one website is compromised, it may have a catastrophic impact on all other servers. As a business owner, you must therefore take the security of your website seriously.

Schedule Regular Backups

There is a lot of sensitive or important information on websites. The daily plans and operations of your business may suffer greatly if this information is lost. Including backups in your hosting strategies is the best way to deal with these problems. Your information can be backed up whenever you want or at various intervals, such as daily, monthly, or weekly.

Although some websites need more attention, the majority can create backups automatically. You can only backup your data so frequently with a few web hosts. Your chosen plan will determine the backup frequency; a high-priced plan typically provides unlimited backups per day.

To fully comprehend the backup options available, it is crucial to carefully read the terms set forth by your hosting provider. You can learn more about all the limitations imposed by that backup service by reading the conditions. There is no point in backing up your data if you can’t retrieve it, so make sure the provider provides a straightforward restoration point.

Perform Malware Scanning

Every good hosting plan includes the ability to automatically scan for malware. This service is provided by some web security companies, including SiteLock. The host has already taken precautions against any viruses or malware if you see a protection seal flashing on the website of your provider.

You can quickly scan for dangerous elements with the aid of many software programs. Rkhunter and ClamAV are two of the most well-known ones. To keep things secure, you must regularly run full scans on your server and check the software’s efficiency rating.

Monitor Network Regularly

Any web hosting operation must include network monitoring. Web hosts can spot and fix problems before they cause significant disruptions by keeping a constant eye on the network for performance and security issues. Additionally, it aids in hacker detection and defense.

Web hosts frequently stop attempts to take advantage of system vulnerabilities by keeping an eye on traffic patterns and spotting unusual activity. Make sure you regularly keep an eye on your network activity as a user. System administrators can instantly spot any attack or potential malware spread between servers thanks to this practice.

Firewalls and TLS

All hosting types require both Firewall and Transport Layer Security (TLS) certificates. Anyone attempting to intercept your data will only be able to see characters that are incomprehensible thanks to TLS encryption. Your sensitive data is safeguarded by TLS technology. Information like customer information or bank account information may be included. Web application firewalls (WAF) can be used in addition to TLS to filter and keep an eye on your HTTP traffic. WAF assists in defending and safeguarding against malicious web applications.

Website Access Restrictions

Every business depends on its business information, so limiting access to unauthorized users is essential. The majority of web hosts enable authorized users to connect to the servers and applications running on them using sophisticated authentication techniques like biometric verification or two-factor authentication. These techniques add a second layer of security to help stop data breaches and unauthorized access.

Additionally, it aids in limiting access to sensitive systems and data to authorized users. By turning off the user root level logging in privilege, you can prevent malicious intruders from using your resources.

Prevent DDoS Attacks

Attacks of distributed denial-of-service ( DDoS) interfere with website activity by flooding it with obscene traffic and preventing users from accessing it. Protecting your brand and content from these malicious attacks requires using strong security options.

SQL Prevention

SQL can be used by hackers to direct malicious code to your website’s code. One of the earliest and still widely used in cybercrime is this technique. These attacks are more likely to hit websites that use SQL databases. You need to provide your team with a handy cheat sheet so they can fend off these assaults in order to stop this.

However, providers have a variety of tools at their disposal to stop SQL attacks. They make sure you receive software, plugins, and themes updates on a regular basis. They can use cross-site scripting, investigate vulnerability to stop SQL attacks, and configure the web application firewall in this way.

Update Software

Regular updates are necessary for the majority of applications, including the CMS. Numerous security risks have been addressed in these updates. Patches are available from the companies that produce these software systems to close security holes. Update your software to improve the security of your website, even though it might seem like a small step.

Use Strong Passwords

A secure password is required for the majority of users who have access to important data on your website. The staff and administrators must think about changing their passwords in the event of a hacking attempt. Every user must abide by the website’s working password-strength policy.

Bottom Line

Thousands of users visit and leave data on successful websites. You should protect your users and accept accountability for this personal information as the owner. To protect your website, you can combine web proxy services with the aforementioned best practices. You can ensure the security of your website and the data it contains by selecting high-quality IPRoyal proxies. To find the best service for your needs, keep in mind that you can always compare proxy providers.

You’ll always be able to concentrate on your business or content if you combine this with the right actions to increase the effectiveness of your security measures.

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Companies that don’t have an online presence face many difficulties.  We live in a connected world where people discover products, businesses and even local stores through the internet. Creating a website can take months of planning, designing and execution but if you’re given the right tools, building a decent website does not have to be difficult. One of the most important tools is having the right hosting service.

Hosting Basics

A web host is basically a company that has servers that you can use to store and deliver the audio, video, photos, files and content that makes up your website.

There are different kinds of hosting services such as shared, dedicated, VPS and cloud. There are also many hosting companies like SiteGround, InMotion, DreamHost, BlueHost and HostGator that want to serve you. Companies can spend hundreds even thousands of dollars on dedicated hosting and VPS.

How Much Does Hosting Cost?

Generally speaking shared hosting is the cheapest kind of hosting because you share servers with other websites.

Dedicated hosting costs approximately $100 per month and that’s expensive for many small businesses. However, dedicated hosting also means that you have the whole server to yourself. You can take advantage of its full resources. Granted, you might need to take care of firewall and maintenance yourself but you can opt for a managed server which will cost you more money.

If you want to save some money, VPS is a good way to go. VPS falls mid-way between dedicated and shared hosting. Building a site on a VPS server means that you won’t need to share resources with other sites that live on the server like in shared hosting. In a VPS your site lives in a partitioned server area with its on RAM, operating system, storage and data transfers so you experience smoother and more stable site performance. VPS usually charge $20 to $30 per month.

But don’t just take a look at the monthly fees. Even if you opt for dedicated, shared, VPS or any other type of hosting, take a look at the features of each pricing tier. Some hosting companies charge fees for transferring websites, website builders and other features. There are also companies that require you to commit to a 3 year plan for example for a lower price. You need to consider these factors when choosing a plan for your hosting service.

What Features Do You Need?

When you’re looking for a good hosting provider, you need to make a list of the features you need. For example, you might need a host that provides unlimited transfers per month, free email, choice between SSD and traditional hard drive storage and customer service support. The OS is important too because Windows-based servers offer an environment to run scripts written in a Microsoft-centric framework, though Linux-based servers are also available (and more commonplace).

Small businesses that sell products should also look for a host that has Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate. This feature encrypts the user’s data between the customer’s browser and web host to safeguard purchasing info.

Uptime Is Important Too

The features of a web host like those mentioned above are important. However, uptime is very important too. If your site is down, this means that potential clients or customers cannot access your site. This can also cause regular customers to lose confidence in your brand. What if they needed to access your service today or if they needed to download your app immediately? Downtime means that they will go to your competitors and possibly lose their custom forever. Anybody who has tried to build customer loyalty knows how important trust is.

Small businesses have different requirements and needs when it comes to web hosting. This is because no two businesses are exactly alike. If you feel that web hosting is too complicated for you, a Sydney Web Developer can help you figure it out.

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But how can you tell which platform is right for your business? Here’s a look at the difference between these types of hosting and how to find out which one is for you.

Fully Hosted

In a fully hosted platform, all hosting including the software is handled by the platform. Good examples of this type of hosting include: Shopify, Volution and Big Commerce. These types of platforms utilize drag and drop web builders so people who don’t have experience will be able to create a website easily. They also have an easy-to-use shopping cart so you can accept payments.

Fully hosted platforms require less maintenance compared to self-hosted. This can be a good feature if you don’t have time to perform updates. They also take care of security patches and install latest version of updates which is great because it reduces your site’s downtime and ensures that your site is always up.

This type of hosting is also a great option for those who have limited coding knowledge. You will also have access to their customer service and technical support should you need help.

Best of all fully hosted platforms usually have a flat fee so your hosting expenses won’t fluctuate and all files are saved in the cloud.

Self-Hosted

Self-Hosting on the other hand requires you to install the software on your server. You can think of it as performing a WordPress installation but it will be an eCommerce platform instead. This means that all files are saved in your server. Popular self-hosted ecommerce platforms include Magento and WooCommerce.

Since you will be handling the installation, you will also have more responsibility. For example, you need to have a good grasp of security and fraud. You also won’t have access to technical support and customer service because you will be responsible for this area as well. There are many communities that can help you with troubleshooting issues but most of the time you will be left on your own devices to figure this out.

The good news is that you can really personalize your site with self-hosted platforms. You have access to open source code and tweak all elements of your website to your heart’s content. You also have more control over your files. You do need to perform everything yourself but you also have the option of handing over operations to a skilled programmer who can do changes and handle maintenance in your stead.

Which One To Pick?

Small to medium businesses really fare well with fully hosted ecommerce platforms. With this option you can have your website running in hours. You also enjoy perks like security and maintenance which can be a godsend if you don’t have time to perform these tasks. Most fully hosted platforms are paid monthly and have affordable prices so you won’t need a big startup capital to get up and running.

If you have your own IT team or want more control of your website, self-hosting is a better option. You will need to invest a significant amount of money to get started. You also need to deal with all website issues on your own but self-hosting gives you more control not only over files but over personalization too.

It all boils down to what your business needs. All businesses are different so you need to figure out what your business needs to help you decide the type of ecommerce platform to succeed.

Did you know about the different types of hosting? Which hosting type do you think is best suited for your business? Tell us by leaving your comments below.

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Cloudways- Worth Every Penny

Developing a Magento store and maintaining it means that you already have enough on your plate. Delayed response time or even a serious problem with the server affecting the operations of your store is the last thing you want. While you’re solving the problem, you are burning money and losing business.

Now imagine a scenario where you don’t have to spend resources to retain a system administrator and you still get someone to manage the risks of downtime with minimum server-related hassles.

Cloudways offers managed Magento hosting with optimized servers that are monitored professionally by the Cloudways team. This means that while you keep your focus on the priorities of your business, Cloudways takes care of your servers. Fastest page load times, effective monitoring of servers and applications and easy deployment are just some of the perks of hosting with Cloudways. Cloudways offers a range of well-known cloud infrastructure providers including Google, Amazon Web Server, DigitalOcean, Kyup, Linode and Vultr. Here are some of the most prominent features of Cloudways managed Magento hosting.

ThunderStack – A Recipe for Optimized Solutions

Websites hosted on Cloudways have better loading times thanks to the ThunderStack, the optimized magento hosting stack comprising of  Apache, Nginx, PHP-FPM and MySQL/MariaDB. Additionally, ThunderStack also includes cache solutions for fastest Magento performance: Cloudways Full Page Cache for Magento 1 and Varnish Cache for Magento

CloudwaysCDN for Fast Loading Websites

CloudwaysCDN fulfills the needs of a business by widening the reach of your Magento store and improving the user experience. With Cloudways you are able to build better websites and improve the performance without having to pay too much- CloudwaysCDN merely costs a dollar per month. As a result, you get faster load times of your website as CloudwaysCDN caches all static content and serves them from the closest server.

Additionally, you don’t have to worry about separate billing for CDN. Cloudways users can pay for all the related charges in a single invoice.

Team Collaboration

Team collaboration is one of the key aspects of development. You have to manage and collaborate with different stakeholders and different Magento applications at the same time. To solve this problem, Cloudways offers its Team Collaboration feature that lets you create separate login credentials for both servers and applications.

You can create different credentials that can be shared with your development team or your clients or anyone associated with the project, without having to compromise your master credentials. All you have to do is assign these team members specific applications/servers with access to only specific things.

To spice it up, Cloudways extends this feature by incorporating the option of creating Projects. You can use the Projects feature to further segment and classify specific projects and assign them to your specific team members.

Efficient Server Monitoring and Transfer

With Cloudways you have the ability to easily deploy and install (unlimited) applications on a single server. With just a few clicks, you can deploy your Magento applications and get started with the optimization. When you’re done installing, Cloudways lets you monitor all the server related issues from its user-friendly platform. You can make all the modifications and tweaks in just a few clicks on the Cloudways platform.

Additionally, if you are a development agency, you don’t have to fret over the billing of the server after you’ve handed it over to the client. With Cloudways, you can transfer complete control over to the client once you’ve done your part.

Multiple Staging Areas – Hassle-Free Testing Environment

One of the biggest advantages of hosting with Cloudways is that you have the ability to easily manage multiple applications by creating unlimited staging areas.

You can create clones of multiple applications for free and do all the testings you want. This means that you don’t have to mess with the live website and make all the changes on the dev website until you’re fully satisfied. Once you’re done, you can point your live domain to it.

All in all, Cloudways offers fully managed cloud hosting services, allowing its clients to keep their focus on what really matters – their online business.

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