What to Budget for Before Getting a Shared Hosting Plan

You don’t need to spend mountains of cash to get great web hosting. And if you’ve got your eyes on shared hosting (which is famously cheap), we already know you’re great at managing money. Shared hosting is a smart choice for new websites, and, as a bonus, if you choose a great web hosting company, it’s really easy to scale up once your traffic increases.

If you want to know all the things you should be thinking about when you’re drawing up your web hosting budget, here are some practical tips:

Don’t spend too much on shared hosting

The whole point of shared hosting is that it’s a great way to get cheap web hosting. There’s no point in googling cheap web hosting services then spending an exorbitant amount of money on something that’s specifically designed to save you money.

Shared hosting means you’re sharing your website’s server with at least one other website. This shouldn’t cost any more than $25 a month. If you’re spending more than that, it’s time to start looking around for cheaper shared hosting plans.

1. Look for shared web hosting with cPanel

If you don’t know, cPanel (short for control panel) is a user-friendly website-management tool that lets you do things like install WordPress, manage your databases and check your site’s statistics with just a few clicks.

When you’re budgeting for shared hosting, make sure you look out for hosting packages that give you shared web hosting with cPanel. (Hostific even gives you cPanel free when you choose shared hosting!)

The best web hosting packages aren’t trying to squeeze every single cent out of you. They’ll be reasonably priced and offer a range of services that make you feel like you’re getting real value for your money.

So, if you’re choosing shared hosting because you want to save as much money as possible on web hosting (and, let’s be honest, that’s why most people choose shared hosting), getting your web hosting with cPanel is a great bonus. And it saves you money on extra IT staff.

2. You need to budget for a domain

There’s no point in having a website if nobody can find it. That’s why great web hosting services make it easy to register a domain.

If you don’t know what a domain name is, it’s the name you type into the search engine when you’re trying to get to a website.

Every website has an IP address that’s a string of numbers and dots. (They look something like 11.213.14.1.1.) Computers can find these just fine, but your clients aren’t computers.

A domain name makes it easy for people to remember your website, so they can find it (and tell their friends about it).

3. Budget for a website builder

You save quite a bit of money when you choose shared hosting. Use some of it to get a comprehensive, easy-to-use website builder.

Web design is hard. And you’re not choosing cheap web hosting because you want to make a hideous website; you still want a gorgeous website that attracts readers. You just don’t want to break the bank to do it.

The best web hosting packages will give you a website builder that gives you lots of gorgeous templates, so you don’t have to start designing your website from scratch.

That doesn’t mean you have to create a cookie-cutter site that looks just like three thousand other websites. A good website builder gives you enough creative room to put your own spin on your template. This way, you can create a beautiful website that reflects your brand, without spending tons of extra money on web design.

If you already have a website you think could use some sprucing up, good website builders will also let you migrate your website to your new web host. So, if you choose a good hosting service, you don’t even have to start all over.

4. Budget for secure web hosting

If you get cheap web hosting but skimp on your website’s security, we hate to break it to you, but … you’ve wasted your money. A website that’s vulnerable to hackers and data loss is nothing more than a ticking time bomb. It’s so important to budget for secure web hosting.

You don’t have to spend tons of money on this, either. Secure web hosting doesn’t have to mean expensive web hosting.

Something as simple as getting cloud backup could work wonders.

5. Why you need a great website backup system

A website backup is a copy of your website. Web hosting services that are cheap but don’t offer website backup are, to put it frankly, a colossal waste of money.

The best web hosting packages will not only offer website backup, but they’ll also make it easy for you to back up your website as often as you need to.

If something happens to your website, but the last time you backed it up was five years ago, that won’t do you much good when you’re trying to get your site up and running again. So, it’s important to budget for frequent website backups.

How often should you back up your website?

Well, that depends on how often you add content to it. The whole point of having a website backup is to make it so you can get your site up and running as quickly as possible after a disaster.

If you add new content to your website only once a year, then you can get away with backing up your website once a year. If you add new content every day, you need to back up your website every day. (By the way, new content includes things like changes to your website’s layout and additions to your mailing list.)

This way, if anything happens to your website, you don’t end up losing years of hard work.

Wrap-up

It’s smart to save money on web hosting. But there are three things you really can’t afford to skimp on: your website management, your website design, and your website security.

So, when you’re shopping around for hosting providers, go with a hosting service that gives you free cPanel. And remember to budget for a domain, a website builder and cloud backup.