Your company's website often serves as the primary storefront for your business in this digital age. An always-on and always-connected population marks it. Your website is where you make that all-important first impression, whether it's a site brimming with the latest technology that requires an army of IT professionals to maintain it or just a single webpage with contact information. In short, having a website for your business is exceptionally crucial. It holds for membership websites too. Choosing the best web hosting services for your website should be your top priority. Therefore, in this article, we will walk you through all the critical factors of selecting a trusted web hosting service for your membership site.
According to Firstsiteguide, As of 2020, there are more than 1.2 billion hostnames registered online. By 2027, the web hosting industry market size is forecasted to grow to $171.4 billion.
An important point to keep in mind is: A website cannot run without a hosting service. If you may ask, what is a hosting service? Customers can use web hosting services to host one or more services, either shared or dedicatedly. A web hosting service is typically used to host websites and host company email, files, and other content. Companies can outsource one or more web-based core functions to a hosting provider using web hosting services.
What Is A Membership Website?
A membership site is a website with password-protected content, products, or services available to paid members. Other benefits that membership sites can provide include product discounts and offline events.
Key Features Of A Membership Website:
- Run your business online, and you'll be able to work from anywhere.
- You will frequently be required to create content regularly.
- Create better clients by upselling them to your higher-value programmes.
- You'll have to put in more effort because you'll have to provide customer service and manage your online community.
- Create a recurring revenue stream.
Difference Between Hosting A Membership Site V/S Regular Website
Take a closer look before choosing the hosting services for your website. Here we have listed the major difference to help you understand how hosting a membership site is different from a regular website.
1. Hosting a membership site comes with a few unique considerations that you won't find with other types of websites, such as the need for additional security, performance, and bandwidth. One of the most notable differences is that membership sites have password-protected pages, which should not be cached. It is because membership site plugins must check if a user has access to a specific piece of content, and if caching is enabled, this feature may not function properly.
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2. Membership websites can be media-rich (with videos and live streams). They may include a lot of document sharing (including PDFs, Docs, and other formats), which can be challenging to secure and require access to server configuration files.
What Are The Major Types Of Web Hosting Services Available In The Market?
Every business look for fast, robust and, reliable hosting services. Seeing the current trend, it has become essential to look for a hosting service wherein one can get better website performance and keep things simple. Here we have listed some of the popular types of hosting services in the market.
The major types of web hosting services available in the market are:
- Shared Hosting
- Managed WordPress hosting
- Custom Enterprise Web Hosting
- Dedicated Hosting
- VPS Hosting
Each type of hosting has its own pros and cons. Here we have listed each of these types of web hosting services In Detail.
1. Shared Hosting Saves Cost
For membership websites with low traffic, shared hosting is the most cost-effective hosting option. The most critical aspect of shared hosting to remember is that you will be sharing server resources with other websites. It means that your website is shared with other websites on the same server. While shared hosting is not recommended for large-scale membership sites with a lot of traffic, it can be a good option if you're just getting started and don't have many members.
Pros:
- This option can help you save money that you could put toward other aspects of your membership site's growth, such as marketing or content creation.
- An excellent option for start-ups.
Cons:
- Not practical for membership websites with a lot of traffic.
- Shared hosting service will require updates with growth.
2. Managed WordPress Hosting Is Practical And Effective
Servers are optimized to work with WordPress-built websites in this hosting service, and the hosting provider should be able to provide additional WordPress-specific support. It can range from automatic backups and plugin maintenance to austere staging environments and caching solutions to make your WordPress site run faster. Of course, WordPress can accomplish most, if not all, of the above with unmanaged shared or dedicated resources. Still, the benefit of managed WordPress hosting is that it comes pre-configured for WordPress and requires no additional effort on your part.
Some managed WordPress hosts now use Google Cloud Platform for their infrastructure, giving you access to nearly infinite scalable server resources.
Pros:
- Derive all the benefits that WordPress has to offer.
- Increased scalability.
Cons:
- High Prices for premium services
If you're just getting started with your membership site and don't have much technical knowledge, you must connect with experienced web developers like 3DC Innovations.
3. Custom Enterprise Web Hosting For Added Features
Suppose your membership site grows in popularity or needs to build custom platforms to deliver your membership content or integrate with other services. In that case, you may need to switch to enterprise web hosting. You get more storage, processing power, visitors, and bandwidth with enterprise plans, as well as more control.
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Moreover, having more freedom to do whatever you want with your web space also means taking on more responsibility. Depending on your plan and how you use it, you may be on your own to ensure that everything runs smoothly, with less help available than with the managed hosting packages discussed earlier.
Pros:
- More freedom and storage.
- Increased flexibility for you.
Cons:
- High prices.
- Usually not required as WordPress servers suffice for the requirement.
4. Dedicated Hosting For Better Performance
As the name implies, dedicated hosting allocates 100 per cent of a server's resources to a single website. You won't have to share resources with other websites, and you won't have to worry about the security and performance issues that shared hosting solutions can cause. After all, performance is the primary benefit of dedicated hosting, which is critical for ensuring a consistently positive user experience on membership websites.
The disadvantage is that dedicated resources are generally more expensive than shared hosting, so hosting is probably not the best option if you're just getting started or have a small number of members.
Pros:
- More excellent performance and security than shared hosting.
- No sharing of resources.
Cons:
- Costlier than shared hosting.
5. VPS Hosting Strikes The Balance
Your website is hosted on the same server as other websites in VPS hosting, which is similar to shared hosting. The difference is that you get a virtual space on a server that acts as a separate device with VPS hosting. VPS hosting is a good compromise between shared and dedicated hosting, offering reliable performance at a reasonable price.
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VPS hosting has the advantage of providing better performance than shared hosting at a slightly higher cost. A good VPS solution is usually sufficient for medium-sized membership sites with a small number of concurrent users or a small amount of data to store.
Pros:
- Better performance compared to shared hosting.
- Reasonable prices for premium services.
Cons:
- Limited control on your end.
- More expensive than shared hosting.
In the end
Your hosting options will not be limited if you choose WordPress for your membership website. Almost all hosting plans include WordPress support. Some excellent WordPress-only packages are available to ensure that your website loads quickly, is always available, and is entirely secure. There's no reason not to sign up with a reputable company and start your membership site today, with shared hosting prices starting at just a few dollars per month. Similarly, there are advantages of choosing VPS hosting and enterprise hosting too. After seeing the clear and detailed picture of all the web hosting services for your membership site, which one looks like the perfect option to you?
If you are still a little confused and seek professional help to make these decisions, Owebest Technologies is a trusted name. We will be at your side right from selecting the exemplary hosting service to finalizing and running operations! With the team of experts you, we help provide the solution based on your business requirement. For more information, you can visit our website or connect with our customer service team for free consultation.