Working from home has several benefits, particularly when you’re a mother. If you have recently had a child – or you’ve got many young children – it’s not always possible to go back to work right away. Someone needs to stay and look after the kids, and you’ve also got to physically and mentally recover from giving birth! Life changes when you have a child, which is why the concept of working from home is so appealing. It lets you continue down a chosen career path without compromising on time spent with your young family.
At the same time, there’s a lot to learn about and understand when you’re a work-from-home mom. If you’re pursuing a self-employed career, you will need to begin by creating a website. This can be relatively easy nowadays, but you will come across something that could be a bit of a stumbling block. As you build your site, one of the things that might confuse you is the concept of hosting it. Usually, you need to host your website on a server – but what does this entail, and what are your options?
Today, you’re going to see a beginner’s guide to web hosting for work-from-home moms. You’ll learn exactly what a server is, why they’re necessary, and what options you should choose from. So, without further ado, let’s get started!
What is a website server?
A website server – or simply a web server – is a combination of software and hardware used to store all the different files on your website. There is a physical server somewhere (this is the hardware) that will contain all the various files, and it utilizes technology to let you and everyone else access these files.
Basically, without a server your website wouldn’t be online – that’s the easiest way to think about it.
What is website hosting?
If the server is the physical hardware that contains your website’s files, what is web hosting?
Basically, this refers to how you get your website online. Typically, there are web hosting providers who will have access to servers. Here, they allocate some space on a server for your website, letting you store all of your files and making it accessible to other users on the web. So, hosting is simply the act of getting your site onto a web server.
Every single website is hosted on a server, but there are different options out there. We’ll talk more about these options throughout the guide, so don’t worry about this just yet!
Why is web hosting important?
As a work-from-home mom, web hosting is more important than you might think. Effectively, it determines how your website is put online for everyone to see. If you choose a poor host server, then your site might be extremely slow or harder to access. You can also run into issues such as the host server going down, so nobody can get onto your site until the server is back up.
Therefore, selecting the right host is absolutely essential. You need a host that can guarantee your site is always up and running, letting people load it up in seconds. With that in mind, let’s look at the biggest question in this guide:
What are the main web hosting options?
Effectively, there are two different ways you can host your website:
- Do it locally
- Do it via a hosting provider
How to host a website locally?
Firstly, what does this mean?
Basically, it means that you will host the website on a device that is with you in your home. For most people, this will be your computer. But, you can get things like Supermicro servers that could be used as web servers too. It’s just that most people do not have the space or resources to have their own mini-server room at home! Don’t worry, your computer can double up as a server for your website fairly easily.
You can do this on your Windows PC by downloading something called WAMP software, which basically turns your PC into a server. From here, you can add your website files to the software and your site is now hosted on a server.
Okay, there’s more to it than that, but it’s easier to watch than to read. So, here’s a video that does a very good job of explaining all the steps:
Why would you host a site locally? Well, it does give you more control over your website, and you won’t share a server with anyone else. However, this is never really seen as the most optimal idea. It is much harder to maintain your own server than you think. As such, most people opt for the second option: finding a web hosting provider. Still, it’s useful to know how to use your computer as a server, just in case you want to give that a go first.
How do you host your site via a hosting provider?
For all intents and purposes, this process is as simple as searching for a hosting provider and choosing a service. After you’ve done this, your site will be hosted on their servers and you don’t really have to worry about anything else.
Of course, there are more nuances to this approach. You see, there are many different types of hosting services out there. We won’t go through them all as most of them are irrelevant to someone running a small website from home. Instead, let’s look at the three main options you should look at:
- Dedicated hosting
- Shared hosting
- VPS hosting
Dedicated hosting is when you have a server that’s completely dedicated to your site. It is private, meaning no other websites are hosted on this server. Therefore, it has the advantage of giving you everything you could possibly need! It’s much easier to maintain the server and enjoy the fastest speeds possible. Seeing as other sites aren’t also on this server, there should be fewer issues relating to downtime as well. The downside is that it is the most expensive option out there and could be outside your budget.
Shared hosting is the most popular option for small business owners and self-employed individuals. It’s probably the most suitable one for you as a work-from-home mom. Here, you have a web server that’s shared by lots of other websites. As such, it is extremely cheap and can cost as little as $5 a month. You will have to share resources with others, so it’s not the most complete service out there. Still, for beginners and people just starting a website for the first time, this is the best way to begin hosting your site.
VPS hosting is similar to shared hosting in that you will share a server with others. The difference is that this server has sections that are virtually partitioned or cut off from one another. So, it gives you a dedicated part of the server, meaning you don’t have to share the same resources with everyone else. As expected, it’s a step up from shared hosting in terms of pricing, which is why it’s a good thing to progress if your website gets bigger and needs a better hosting plan.
Realistically, a work-from-home mom should look for hosting providers instead of hosting a website on their own server. It’s much easier, especially when you are just starting out. A good form of progression is to begin with a cheap shared host and see how that pans out. It could be perfect for you, but there may come a time when you upgrade to a VPS or dedicated host. Make no mistake about it, web hosting is something you have to understand when you work from home or follow a self-employed lifestyle. It’s super important to find a good host so your website gets online and has minimal connectivity issues.