The Best UK Web Hosting Tutorial

When it comes to finding quality website hosting in the United Kingdom, the sheer choice alone can be quite overwhelming. However, fear not – the actual choice can be whittled down quite easily. All you need to do is know where to look and what to look for in a good hosting company.

We’ll take a look at some of the most important determining factors that can go a long way to figure out just how good a hosting package might be for you. The best hosting UK, for example, is not always the cheapest – or the most expensive, either!

Instead, it breaks down to a group of very specific actions that can make a big difference. If you are trying to find a high level of accuracy in your hosting selection, then keep reading on. We’ll break down the most important factors that can go some way to determining where your hosting position is going to be.

The Key Factors to Good Web Hosting

Now, the main thing when you hire the potential best web hosting UK for you is the consistency. They can offer all the services in the world and give you all the bells and whistles, but do they do a good job of keeping you secure? Let’s take a look at some of the main things to take into account when buying hosting.

• The Backup Plan. The main thing you want to know is that the server does regular backups of all of your content. It’s not uncommon for attacks on the server, or simple hardware malfunctions, to see everything wiped. A UK hosting firm worth your investment can then provide you with a near-instant replacement. The best firms get the replacements up so far that nobody even notices it was gone. Don’t take on any form of web hosting that lacks a solid and reliable backup plan.
• Strong, 24/7 Support. When a problem appears on your website, you want to know that the hosting company has your back and will offer clear, distinct support. Get in touch with them to find out their policy on supporting you and your position. Do they offer backup assistance? Tutorials on how to best manage the site? Do they help you troubleshoot general queries or do they come across as very specific and rigid? Find out and make your choice from there. A good support team responds promptly with a detailed answer. If they can’t help, you at least want to know.
• Financial Guarantees. A great way to make sure that you get a decent response from your hosting investment is looking at their guarantees. If something goes wrong and you are not at fault, they should have you covered. If they cannot offer a decent response to you regarding financial guarantees and money back options, keep looking. You need to know that they value your financial input to the business enough to protect it, so keep that in mind when looking at any of the best UK hosting options around.
• Easy Upgrades. One of the major factors in running a good website today is scalability. When you work with a hosting company you want to know that they are able to get you up and down the plans as you need. If you are overly ambitious you want the option to downsize without hassle. If you see that your opportunity is hitting the heights, then you want to get an upgrade in place as soon as possible without delay. The best firms can do that for you without much fuss.
• Fair Renewals. One major issue that goes undetected a lot is renewal costs. Ensure that you get some kind of guarantee of a fair and honest renewal. A small increase in price is fine, but you want notice – or the chance to opt-out – if that happens. Renewals that just take place and expect you to shut up and accept it are not worth getting involved with, so be sure to take this seriously.
• Strong Uptime. The most important of all – how often are they there? 99.9% uptime is the standard and you should accept nothing less. Small times throughout the year where the website is temporarily gone are commonplace, but don’t let that mean you accept it happening all the time.

With this in mind, then, you should find it so much easier to start making waves about how to move forward. It also means that you need to understand which of the above are more important to you – eventually, you will need to make some kind of priority. Until then, though, you should know what matters most when it comes to getting a good deal on the best UK web hosting for you specifically.

What to Look for?

No matter what kind of web hosting that you need, or the company you choose, you always have some very specific needs. We want to take a look at what those needs may be so that you can best understand and ascertain the right hosting package for yourself. To find out what the best UK hosting for you personally will be, try and ask yourself the following questions:

• What kind of website are you planning? This determines the kind of hosting that you will likely need, for one. Nobody buys a VPS or Dedicated hosting package (see below) if they just want to run a small, simple blog. Likewise, you need more than a basic WordPress blog account if you want to have a full eCommerce store. Work out what kind of website you intend on building, and you should find it easier to determine down below.
• What platform is your website built on? HTML? WordPress? Joomla? PHP? There are many platforms to build a website on top of. The problem is deciding which one is the right pick for you. It also means determining if the hosting package you want to go with offers this. WordPress hosting is more or less universal these days, but the others can be a bit more daunting and selective. HTML is the easiest and most common, but you do need to know how to manage and upload it yourself – WordPress, for beginners, makes a good place to form a website.
• Do you require any specific additions? The vast majority of UK web page hosting services worth looking into offer a bespoke alternative to their own package. This means working with the knowledge that they can provide you with to try and find the right solutions. For example, do you need a customized form of PHP installed? Then you might want a Managed Dedicated hosting package. This gives you control and understanding of what can be done, with a site-based expert happy to put it into action for you. Either way, you can find that specific additions can shape your hosting.
• What level of traffic do you anticipate? While it’s nice to think “X million unique visitors per month” we all know it’s not quite as easy as that. If you are going to be running a small blog in a niche topic, then Shared hosting does the trick. If you intend on going grandiose with an eCommerce platform, though, that changes things dramatically. You have to successfully anticipate just how much you expect your website to be used and buy accordingly. While you can migrate to a more advanced package with ease, buy accordingly for your ambitions to start with.
• What is the overall cost? Obviously, price matters – it’s hard to ignore. If you want to make sure that you are on the right track with regards to getting a fine hosting package, ensure it fits into your budget. Hosting can be cheap on Shared hosting, and devilishly expensive on a Managed VPS package. Try and account for a specific percentage of revenue to go towards hosting – if you can stay within a few percentage points of your income then it’s a good investment worth trying. Don’t buy the most expensive package if you don’t have to, though – be smart.

Now that you know what the main deciding factors are likely to be, you should find it a bit easier to make a stable choice. Just remember that your website does not become tethered to a host because you signed up there. You can change if the conditions are more favourable to you on another platform.

Also, don’t feel like you need to just buy the first – or the “best” – hosting package. Buying the right one is far more cost-effective. If you are unsure of what hosting package best fits your needs, then keep reading on to find out what options exist.

Different Types of Hosting

Another factor we never touched on too much above, though, is the various types of UK web hosting out there. With so many to pick from it can soon become a little frustrating to try and contend with.

If you are unsure about what section is going to be the right pick for you personally, we’ll take a look at the various kinds below.

• Shared Hosting is quite a common form and many people choose to go with that for the simplicity. Basically, it means that it’s like renting an apartment; you share your server space with other people. It’s cheap, fast enough, and offers a good platform for those who just need basic, no-thrills-attached website hosting. This is a good place for the beginners to start at, offering an easy way for you to get all of the main resources you need, albeit shared with another group. The fact it’s low-cost makes it a good choice to go for, especially if you use one of the various offers that comes with cPanel installed. It’s a good place to start with at the bottom.
• Dedicated Hosting is for those who want it all to themselves. You have total control over this and essentially run the show; no sharing, no worries, no fears. It gives you far more power meaning that your website has much more resources to pull from, allowing you to reach your ambitions and to go much further in terms of website size and power. From a management point of view, this is extremely useful. However, you might not feel 100% comfortable doing the management side of things on your own – it’s a bit of a balancing act, and can be confusing.
• SSD Hosting gets a positive name these days for various reasons, but it’s main positive is the sheer rapidity of the hosting. It’s super-fast hosting and is important to consider for those who have limited time or appeal to their readers. They make use of Solid State Drives in the servers to ensure that data is picked up much quicker and that transfers can be far more impressive. This improves website loading speed, which is comfortably one of the biggest factors that Google considers today when ranking a website. Competing for a top spot? Then SSD hosting is an expensive alternative.
• VPS Hosting is a bit more advanced, but a good choice for those who want total control of the server itself. Essentially, this is a single physical server split up into tiny virtual mini-severs. You assume control of one of these. This is all about having the ability to change everything from security settings and PHP editions to having total control of the system resources such as the RAM. It also offers access to better quality hardware as well as cloud integration, making hardware downtime far less likely – or damaging should it occur – making this a wonderful option for eCommerce.

Conclusion

However, please be aware that with the two most powerful options – Dedicated and VPS – you can pay for a managed version of the same series. This means you essentially have a support member who does all the work that you want to, but lack the knowhow to do alone, for a fee.

Taking all of this into account, you can easily make a significant step forward in terms of finding the best UK web hosting. While the choice may seem daunting, using the above criteria can make it easier to select with.