How To Find The Right Hosting For Your eCommerce

When setting up your eCommerce site one of the very first things to consider are your hosting options. In order to provide you with some guidelines, this article will cover some basic elements you should consider when choosing a hosting provider.

The three types of hosting options you have are:

• Shared Hosting
• Virtual Private Server (VPS) Hosting and
• Dedicated Hosting.

Shared Hosting

This hosting plan, as the name implies, means that your website will share the hosting with other sites. Without a doubt, this is the most affordable option, but it does come with some drawbacks. The main disadvantage of using a shared hosting is the limited amount of traffic you can receive on your website at a given time.

Shared hosting is great for starting but if large amounts of traffic is expected then it is not the best option for your eCommerce. Once your limit is reached, the load speed of your site will be reduced. You can also experience impact to your website performance if another website that you share the server with is taking up too much data.

VPS Hosting

The main difference of VPS, compared to Shared Hosting, are dedicated resources for your website. In essence, it means that even though you are sharing the physical server, each client is allocated its own set of resources.

 With VPS you also gain control over the maintenance and performance of your website. Keep in mind that with your own set of resources, traffic to other sites will not affect yours.

Dedicated Hosting

With Dedicated Server Hosting you are choosing one of the best hosting options available. Website is hosted on an individual server, means that you have a complete control over both your website and the server.

This hosting option is more expensive than VPS hosting, in which you only pay for the space and performance you need.

It is worth noting that having control over your own server may mean you need a dedicated IT team to maintain your website. However you can opt to purchase “managed” version of this hosting plan. Choosing the managed dedicated server is particularly useful for clients that have the understanding of system administration concepts but do not necessarily poses deeper knowledge of syntax of the specific operating systems being implemented.

Main hosting features – regardless of hosting type

• The CPU (Central Processing Unit) is responsible for processing the data on any computer. So note that the provider’s CPU will determine the speed at which information on your site is processed and sent to your browser. Nowadays website visitors expect websites to load fast, so it is imperative that your host has a fast CPU.
• RAM (Random Access Memory) refers to the temporary data stored on a server. RAM is used to store information that is either waiting to be processed or information that needs to be accessed immediately. In essence RAM takes the instructions from a command (click) and directs the CPU what to process. A fast RAM is important because it makes sure that various tasks over your websites are consistently executed on time.
• Storage Memory refers to the amount of data you can store on your host server. eCommerce data can take the form of the eCommerce software, order data, customer information or images of your products.
• File Access (I/O) measures the speed at which files are processed. Keep this in mind when choosing the theme for your eCommerce, chose the one that reduces the amount of processing your site needs on user-to-user basis. The ability to display your online shop theme is directly related to how fast your host can access and assemble the files.
• Network Access Speed refers to the speed at which data is transferred from the host server to the client computer. After all the information is processed on the host server, sending it over to the user is paramount. Your eCommerce website will load slowly with poor network access speed. This means you will be losing potential customers.

Now that you are familiar with main hosting types, and hosting features that can impact the performance of your eCommerce website it is time to choose your provider.

EverData is a reliable hosting partner with extensive experience in hosting and supporting eCommerce websites. Browse your options and feel free to get in touch with our team to learn more about hosting plans, security solutions and other services that will help you successfully set up your online shop