Web Hosting Trends in 2021 You Should Know

In today’s digital age, ramped up by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic that ravaged the globe, the need for traditional entrepreneurs to become ‘tech-preneurs’ is becoming increasingly necessary. Technology and entrepreneurship should go hand in hand in today’s age if you don’t want your business to fall behind.

One of the best and most effective ways to do that? Websites.

Whether you’re an entrepreneur, a marketer, or just about anyone who’s looking to promote and give visibility to your products and services, there’s no better way to do it than the worldwide web. 

At an age where everything is accessible at the touch of a finger, it is time that entrepreneurs bring their products to the consumers whether it be doing viral marketing to starting an online store. While there are already various eCommerce platforms you can use, creating your website to sell your products and services’ personality is a big advantage.

There are various ways on how to start creating a website. The beginning of them all, though, is choosing the right web hosting platform for your website. Just like a well-built home, to be successful in the e-Commerce industry, you need a strong foundation. 

There are both free web hosting platforms and premium, paid ones. Start by looking and assessing which web hosting platform works best for your budget and needs. 

Just as the world is changing day by day, the web hosting platforms change along with it. As the demands of consumers keep changing, website owners also adjust to accommodate and define their target market, thus services offered by the website hosting are becoming increasingly diverse and advanced. 

With this, there are a few website hosting trends we should look forward to as website builders for a better e-Commerce experience.

Security Protocols

If there’s one thing about web hosting that you should never take for granted, that is security. The web is accessed by millions of people around the world, and the chances for web hacks, attacks, and data and privacy theft is becoming a norm. Maintaining enterprise network security to prevent cyberattacks and hacking and enforcing tight security protocols, especially for the eCommerce industry that takes, records, and keeps a lot of consumer data, is very crucial.

Check with your website host regarding the following: regular server maintenance, sound and regular back up procedures, the existence of SSL or Secure Sockets layer to make sure that your customer’s data is not vulnerable to stealing and FTP (File Transfer Protocol) or SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol).

Green Web Hosting

Just because we’re talking about the digital age doesn’t deny the fact that the environmental impact of web hosting is just as destructive as any type of pollution in the world. You may ask, why? It’s just web, files, internet, servers.

Yes, exactly. Servers. The files kept by website hosts to serve ‘customers’ when they visit the website are being kept on servers and they should be ready to ‘serve’ 24/7, which means those servers should be operating 24/7 as well. They are powered 24/7 by electricity coming from fossil fuel power stations and that operating these data centers alone, just in the US, is equivalent to five nuclear power plants. The environment these data centers should be in should be controlled, thus requiring massive amounts of energy.

It’s easy not to care because you’re just a user. What does that even have to do with you? It’s not like you can single-handedly stop CO2 emissions. But if you think about it, you’re the ones benefiting from indirectly destroying the world. What must you do to avoid it, or even just curb it?

One very viable option is to turn to green web hosting. Web hosts who are involved in green hosting help reduce the impact of website hosting on the environment by reducing their carbon footprints through a carbon offsetting scheme. By purchasing renewable energy called Renewable Energy Credits or REC for an amount equivalent to the usual energy they use when operating their servers, it would, at the very least, help lessen the overall impact of the damage caused by website hosting.

There are various green web hosts you can choose from, one downside to them financially is that they cost more than regular website hosts, but that’s understandable considering they pay for more than one source of energy to help the environment. 

DIY Website Builders

Do you want a way to personalize and create highly effective content that best pleases your target audience, but you have zero knowledge of codes and design? Do you have ideas for a website you want to come to life in the best and easiest way possible?

Web host providers now offer DIY website builders. DIY website builders like Wix are some of the most popular website builders to start and create your website from scratch or with a template. Another alternative for Wix is Squarespace, WordPress and Weebly, just to name a few. What’s advantageous about these online website builders is that they’re easy to learn and navigate, and some of them are free! 

Free plans have limitations and contain ads to make up for the web host’s revenue but they also offer premium plans for those who want to up their game in the web building area and attract more customers through website efficiency and personalization.

Managed Hosting Vs Unmanaged Hosting

Think about the traditional small-scale coffee shops to differentiate between managed and unmanaged hosting. When an owner manages his or her coffee shop from scratch down to every detail daily, that’s unmanaged hosting. But when an owner hires a coffee shop manager to oversee the shop’s operations on her behalf, that’s similar to managed hosting.

The uptick in the demand for managed hosting is that organizations can spend less of their time and resources hiring in-house IT managers to maintain the website. IT professionals’ salary can range from an average of $50,000 to $80,000 a year, in which the organization can use those costs to improve and innovate business operations.

Finding well-managed hosting providers also give organizations an edge when it comes to staying up-to-date with the recent developments in the technology and IT sphere.

At the end of the day, the increasing popularity of managed hosting boils down to effectiveness and efficiency. Having someone optimize, update, and secure your website 24/7 at a lesser cost while you focus on your operations makes managed hosting very attractive to organizations. It may just be one of the best web hosting options for small and large businesses out there. 

Whether you opt for dedicated, VPS, or shared hosting, all of these can accommodate managed hosting for you.

Cloud Hosting

Cloud hosting is a breakthrough in the hosting sphere that could change the entire game. Not only do you do away with taking space from a single server, but cloud hosting also allows more room for growth because resources are unlimited! Besides, speed can also increase three-fold, and uptime is guaranteed at 99.9%. 

Cloud hosting is mainly used by projects and organizations that generate high traffic. Why?

With cloud hosting, there will be no need to fear disaster or breakdowns. It’s relieving that we know how to manage when the crisis comes, especially in a field as specific as IT, but what if we can do without the crisis at all?

Because data is stored on a cloud which is a shared virtual space or a ‘cluster of clouds’, when one ‘cloud’ or server breaks down, you can simply switch to another and move on. In cases of website overload or traffic, for example, when a product launch causes huge traffic on your website, cloud hosting allows you to immediately answer this problem by increasing RAM and network bandwidth without the need for a server restart, thus greatly improving a website’s performance.

All cloud hosting servers are fully scalable, which means you get the best use of what you pay for instead of overpaying for a traditional web hosting service that you do not get to maximize resources. 

Cost-wise, this means that for cloud hosting, you do not pay for a fixed server as you do on traditional web hosting but pay for what you consume, which makes it a better choice for organizations who want better value for their money.

The transition from HTTP to HTTPS

Have you ever seen the message “website not secure” when clicking or being redirected to a website? When you look at the search bar, you can probably see a green padlock missing along with the message. Google’s effort into securing protection and giving warning to users if websites are free from danger from external party hacking. This is especially true for websites that take a lot of a customer’s information, most especially eCommerce and banking websites.

The Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certification given to HTTPS websites ensures that that specific website is protected and that the data tunnel through which our information goes through is safe from the interception of third party users.

Website hosts are responsible for providing these SSL certificates and will eventually remove the ‘not secure’ message on your website, removing any warning for your visitors and making sure that your website is safe and protected.

Pricing Competition

At the end of the day, one of the questions that will ultimately make or break an organization’s decision on what web hosting provider to use is the price. With the increasing competition between web-hosting providers, different teams will provide different price points with different locked in plans or offers.

The decision on what web hosting service to go with boils down to the cost. However, it is important to not compromise quality with it. Think about your vision and direction and carefully assess what kind of services you want your users to experience when using your website.

Are there instances when my website could potentially garner huge traffic? Will I and my customers be fully protected? What kind of web design principles should I do and follow to give my visitors the best experience? Will I opt for a traditional home page or build a landing page to direct my visitors to what I want them to do?

Am I getting the best value for my investment?

Assess what kind of web hosting service your organization needs. Time, money, and effort are just a few resources we are compromising by not being wise in how we choose our web hosting platform, so it is important to be able to allocate these resources wisely in a way the best benefits your objectives.

Between shared hosting, virtual private server hosting, and dedicated hosting, which one do you need? Questioning and finding the answers to these may seem like a daunting task, but believe me, it will save you a ton of problems, effort, and money in the future.

The Continuous Growth of Web Hosting

People’s needs and activities are generally influenced by the environment and the situation they are in. As the world continues to shift post-pandemic, people and businesses have started to move in ways we never have imagined they would move before.

Traditional markets are slowly losing customers because people would opt to shop online. Going to libraries isn’t the norm anymore when we could just buy ebooks and read with the tap of a finger. A lot of people take education and informative courses on online course platforms to enhance their skills in the comfort of their own home. Almost everything can be done on the web. 

Now, what does this mean for web hosting?

In October 2020, almost 4.66 billion people use the internet actively, accounting for 59% of the world’s population. Now imagine what will happen a few years later. The digitization of the world will keep on growing, and so will the demand for web hosting.

Everyone will want to start their websites for their reasons, and web hosting services must be ready to be able to provide for the needs of these individuals at the most efficient outcome with the most effective cost.

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