How to choose the right web hosting package?

A web hosting package: how to select the most ideal package?

To develop and put your (new) website live, you need a web hosting package to put the website somewhere. The data, information, images and other content are stored (hosted) on a server and made visible on the Internet through a website. About choosing the right hosting party, you can read our blog where we discuss all the all aspects like security, backups, location etc. Next comes choosing the right web hosting package. Or maybe you choose our Website builder. What to look out for when choosing the ideal web hosting package for you I explain below.

How to choose the best web hosting package?

First, we need to be clear that there are two distinctions when it comes to data consumption in hosting:
– The amount of data your website occupies (which is what this article is about)
– The number of visitors to your website who view/download data (data traffic)

At SQR.NL, no data limit is set with the web hosting packages. This allows unlimited data traffic. Other providers still like to charge for this. Your website will probably not be taken off the air if exceeded, but additional fees may be charged afterwards. This can be an unpleasant surprise, especially if you have created successful Web sites. So with SQR.NL, you never have this surprise.

Start taking inventory

Prior to ordering your web hosting package, check how many MB of space your website will take up. If you are going to create your first website, it may be a little difficult to determine. Then this article will already help you quite a bit. When creating a new website, you can use our domainchecker to check if your desired domain name is still available. If your website already exists and you want to move it then it’s already a lot easier because you already know the size of your current web hosting package. At SQR.NL, we offer the free relocation service for existing websites. Keep in mind that a website is not static and will grow over time and thus take up more space. On the other hand, you can also grow your web hosting package with you, and your hosting party will also give you timely warnings if you take in more data than is available in the chosen web hosting package.

To determine the right web hosting package, you can use the following size:

• Web hosting package S (10GB SSD storage)
  For simple blog sites with lots of text and a photo here and there

• Web hosting package M (20GB SSD storage)
  For informative corporate websites with news and blog articles and perhaps video content

• Web hosting package L (50GB SSD storage)
  For extensive websites or web shops that display many products and thus require many pages with images.

WordPress and Joomla! web hosting

Already know you want to get started with WordPress or Joomla! for your website or web shop? Then you can also go for WordPress hosting or Joomla! hosting. The CMS is automatically installed for you and basic updates are also automatically taken care of for you. Convenient to outsource this work automatically. There are 3 packages for both CMSs available to order online: Small (10GB), Medium (30GB) and Large (80GB).

Create a flowchart

Images require more disk space than text. So when you want to put a lot of images and or video on your website you need more disk space. Have you used a so-called “flowchart” to determine how many pages your website is going to have? Then look at how many images and text will be on each web page and how much MB of space those images take up per page or together. It might be helpful to put all the images together in a folder beforehand and see how much space this folder takes up. Do make sure you have reduced the images beforehand because you can work with a lower resolution on the Internet than in print. How big the images should be depends on the layout of your page. In a previous blog on image and search engine optimization, I explained what to look out for with images.

Your CMS also takes up space

If you do not choose automatic installation of WordPress or Joomla! you still need to reserve space for your CMS. Indeed, in addition to the number of pages with images and text, your content management system (CMS) such as WordPress, Joomla! or Drupal itself takes up space. An empty installation of WordPress takes up about 30MB. A web shop CMS like Magento, on the other hand, takes up over 100 MB. And within such a CMS, you probably want to use a specific theme and additional plugins that themselves take up space. This also affects the size of your web hosting package to choose.

Other specifications of a web hosting package

Check which PHP versions are supported on the server where you want to get your web hosting. Some web hosting providers support only one version of PHP and other providers give a choice of two or more versions. Not every website can automatically handle the latest PHP version. You -or the developer of the website’s content- are the most knowledgeable about which PHP version is desired or necessary. After all, it may also be a conscious decision to still be running an older PHP version, for example, because the developer of the CMS you are using has not yet released an update for it. Keep in mind, though, that sooner or later older PHP versions will no longer be supported and thus bring instability.

Email

In most cases, mail is also sent from the same domain. Suppose you have ‘www.janjansen.nl’ as your website then you probably also want to mail as ‘jan@janjansen.nl’ or some other email address. If mail is included with the web hosting package, then it is helpful to make sure that you also have enough server space for this with your web hosting package. You can set up your mail as POP or IMAP. In which IMAP offers some advantages, but may end up taking up more space (if you don’t set up autoarchiving) with your hosting party. There may be a maximum number of email addresses to set up per web hosting package.

The price of a web hosting package

You probably want to pay a fair price for your web hosting package. Comparing various web hosting packages from different providers is not easy. Rather, it is comparing apples to oranges. Do you get them from the quality vegetable farmer or do you take them at random along the road? Still, to make the comparison as fair as possible, we have created a handy web hosting package comparison form where you can compare specifications. Because in addition to the price, the service provided, the payment options and other conditions can also affect the price and therefore your final choice of web hosting package.

Ready for the big time?

We at SQR.NL also offer the opportunity to purchase even larger packages. So are you a web design company or programmer and want to buy hosting for a large group of clients? Then Reseller hosting is the solution for you. We have 3 packages online that you can easily order:

• Reseller 25 (for 25 unique websites with 50GB of SSD storage)
• Reseller 60 (for 60 unique websites with 120GB of SSD storage)
• Reseller 125 (for 125 unique websites with 240GB of SSD storage)

In conclusion

Inform yourself well before making a choice and still encountering unpleasant surprises later. It is advisable to check the reviews of the hosting company of your choice and also look at the support provided. You can view our customers’ comments on TrustPilot. If you still have questions about choosing the right web hosting package, we would be happy to help you by chat, email or phone.