How to Choose the Best Web Hosting for Your E-Commerce Website

As a business owner stepping into the online sphere, your main focus is likely to be on growth, reach, expansion and the tools needed to achieve your goals. One of the main tools needed to secure a stable and successful future for your business is top quality web hosting.  

What is web hosting and why do you need it? 

It helps to look at web hosting as a strong foundation for your online business. Essentially, web hosting is a service through which your website is published on the internet. It gives you a domain, provides the server and storage space needed to run your website’s data. If your website is not public and accessible to your target audience, it can bring no value to your organization. 

The right hosting can either make or break a business. That is because it plays a huge role in refining the user experience and influencing how well your products or services will sell. That is particularly important when it comes to e-commerce. 

As the owner of an e-commerce business, security should be one of the primary concerns. For that reason, most people in your position opt for secure, managed e-commerce web hosting services to get a foothold in their industry. That means the set-up, administration, and support of the server all fall within the service provider’s responsibility. 

What types of web hosting exist? 

Each type of website on the internet (and the client behind it) has individuals needs and requirements, so web hosting cannot be a “one size fits all” solution. Which is why there are several types of web hosting services out there, each tailored to a particular category of clients and businesses. Here are some of the most popular types of web hosting services available: 

• Dedicated hosting

This type of web hosting service is perfect for large businesses who can afford to pay more for the right equipment to carry the weight of their websites. Dedicated hosting implies that one server is rented exclusively to you. 

• Shared hosting 

At the other end of the spectrum, shared hosting is great for small websites with limited traffic, who don’t require a lot of resources. In this case, one server is shared between multiple users. 

• VPS hosting 

Virtual private server or VPS hosting can handle roughly the same amount of high traffic as dedicated hosting does, while offering some extra control and resources. 

• Cloud Hosting 

Cloud hosting is the most scalable hosting solution, ideal for small or medium websites who need room to grow in terms of traffic and assets. 

• E-Commerce hosting 

Finally, the type of web hosting best fitted for e-commerce is… well, e-commerce hosting. This kind of service includes a lot of dedicated features such as inventory management and payment functionalities and it’s designed to serve online retail websites. 

Making the right choice for e-commerce web hosting 

With the overwhelming abundance of web hosting providers out there, all promising to deliver the best results for your business, choosing the right one can be tough. Some of the top e-commerce web hosting providers in 2022, according to Forbes, include: 

• DreamHost – best overall  
• A2 Hosting – best speed 
• Liquid Web – most scalable 
• GoDaddy – easiest setup 
• Hostgator – most affordable 

In your search, you have a lot of factors to consider: security, reliability, speed, customization, ease of use, costs, support, PCI compliance, emergency backup systems and so on. To start, for an e-commerce website you mainly need a high degree of reliability and a large amount of computing resources. 

In terms of security, full protection against cyber-attacks, multi-layered encryption and minimal downtime are just a handful of features you should keep in mind as you’re browsing through different web hosting plans and service providers. 

Meanwhile, reliable uptime should be a major concern for you. The industry is a highly competitive one, and if you can’t rely on your website to be up most of the time, you’ll lose credibility and exposure, which in turn leads to lost opportunities and wasted investments. 

Take seasonal spikes in traffic and sales during the holidays, for instance. You wouldn’t want your website to crash during the busiest and most profitable periods of the year, do you? If not handled right, Black Friday, Easter or Christmas can often influence the success or failure of months of work.  

This is why you should arm your website with enough power and resources to withstand huge amounts of traffic and numerous requests and carry on as it would in the rest of the year. 

Finally, as mentioned earlier, consider opting for a managed hosting plan. Busy e-commerce website owners should not bother with manual administration of their servers. A managed hosting plan will save you a lot of time and headaches and will allow you to focus on selling your products or services and expanding your business. 

At the end of the day, the web host you choose will either help your business prosper or hinder its success. So, take your time to do the necessary research and find the best hosting solution for your e-commerce business.  

Once you’re all set up, we can take it from there. As an experienced and enthusiastic software development & digital marketing agency always equipped with expert knowledge and tools, Mejix can push your e-commerce dream all the way to the finish line!