Once you get your new site out of development and live online, you’re ready to launch the best sales staff member you’ve ever had. After all, do you have any other members of your sales staff who are ready to work for you twenty-four hours a day, seven days per week, 365 days per year? Your new site, though, can’t be ready to help you move more products or services without a good web host.

Wondering what a web host is? Here’s the basic definition. Your web host is essential a powerful computer that lives at another location, often a data center. These buildings offer power, even if the power goes out, cooling facilities for the computers, high speed net access, and security for your machine. While it is possible to have your own server, it’s often physically safer and more cost effective to use an outside web host.

There are three different kinds of hosting service packages most sites choose from: shared hosting, dedicated hosting, and cloud hosting. Here’s a quick overview of each service.

Shared hosting is one of the easies solutions for your budget, but there certainly are some concerns. Just as you ask your preschooler to share his toys at school, your site has to share hosting facilities. In fact, with shared hosting, you could be sharing hosting facilities with up to 500 different websites. If your site suddenly sees a huge increase in traffic, you could have a serious problem, because that much traffic just doesn’t mesh with shared hosting.

Dedicated hosting is the next option. You get your own server, so there’s absolutely no sharing involved. Think of it as moving from a one bedroom apartment to a full home. While you can have bigger parties than you could in your apartment, you still have to have some limits on your traffic.

Cloud hosting falls somewhere in the middle of the other two options. While you do have to share space, you can use additional server space occasionally if you get a large bump in traffic. You’re not quite as tied down as you might be with dedicated hosting, but you’re not as limited as you might be with shared hosting either.

endLayer is a high end managed website hosting and IT company that excels in detail and quality. Give us a call today or shoot us an email and we’d be happy to consult with you on the perfect hosting environment for your needs so that you can focus on what matters most, running your business!