How to Host a Website | The Complete Beginner’s Guide
Our independent research projects and impartial reviews are funded in part by affiliate commissions, at no extra cost to our readers. Learn more
Written and researched by:
Comments: 6
If you’re a website beginner, terms like hosting can be daunting, but by the end of our guide on how to host a website, you’ll be ready to tackle this particular task with confidence. After years of testing and research, we know that every site, however big or small, needs good hosting. But you also don’t want it to be super expensive. As we will show you in our list, you can have both.
There are two ways to host a website: pay someone else to do it for you or you can do it yourself. Or, to put it more technically:
- Use a hosting platform
- Host locally
From our own experience testing each methods, we recommend paying someone else to do it for you and using a hosting platform. While hosting locally gives you a lot more freedom, you also need some pretty advanced computational knowledge. Setting up your own server can be a good learning exercise, but is also complicated and requires a lot of time investment. Hosting platforms take care of all the technical stuff so you can focus on your site.
This page will walk you through both methods of hosting a website, with some nods to which providers meet different needs best. By the end, you’ll have all the information you need to get hosting. On we go…
What Does ‘Web Hosting Provider’ Mean?
A web hosting provider is a company that provides web hosting services for websites, usually paid for through a subscription model. Web hosting providers like Hostinger will typically own server space which they lease out to people so they can build a website on the web.
Hosting is typically offered in four forms of server space:
- Shared: A shared server with other websites. Low-cost and low-maintenance, great for beginners and small websites.
- Cloud: Uses a cloud system to host. 2x as fast as shared hosting. Great for small business sites.
- VPS: More storage than shared. Complete customization and scalable. Better for tech-savvy website owners.
- Dedicated: Owning a whole server. Can be quite expensive. Only really for huge websites or established businesses.
Option 1: How to Host a Website with a Provider
Follow these four simple steps to host your website with a hosting provider:
- Step 1: Compare hosting companies.
- Step 2: Choose a website hosting company.
- Step 3: Choose a website hosting plan.
- Step 4: Register a domain name.
Warning: steps 1 to 3, can take a lot of time and research; even when you’ve found a hosting company, you then still have to choose between their many plans and services. But we can help here: use our free, custom-built hosting plan picker quiz below to find your ideal hosting company and plan by answering a few questions.
Step 1: Compare Hosting Companies
A hosting platform is a company that takes care of hosting for you. In exchange for a monthly fee, the provider houses your site’s data and manages the demands of its traffic. They are cheap, consistent, and (crucially) they take care of the technical considerations. There are dozens of hosting platforms out there if not hundreds.
What a hosting platform does not do is build the website for you. Hosting is like renting a plot of land, but you will have to build the house. You should have already decided which website builder you are going to build with before you find your hosting provider. From our own experience, there are outliers that do actually offer a website builder with hosting, such as GoDaddy and Hostinger (which it offers for only $2.99/month). Additionally, many hosting providers have plans that offer direct integration with WordPress, the most popular website-building platform.
The first step to hosting your website is comparing providers. Size up the options and see which ones align with your technical requirements – and your budget. To help you along, we’ve conducted our own research to see how popular web hosting platforms hold up. Below is a data-driven ranking of our top hosting providers.
Chart Features Explained
More Information:
- What Is Web Hosting? – Our complete guide to web hosting services
- Best Web Hosting Providers – A research-based breakdown of the best platforms in the market
Step 2: Choose a Website Hosting Company
Once you’ve had a look at the top hosting companies, you need to pick one! Here’s a quick comparison table for you to browse through the key features:
 |  |  |  |  |
| Bluehost | GoDaddy | IONOS | SiteGround | Hostinger |
| Overall rating 4.8 | Overall rating 4.0 | Overall rating 4.0 | Overall rating 3.7 | Overall rating 3.6 |
| Starting from $2.95 | Starting from $6.99 | Starting from $0.50 | Starting from $2.99 | Starting from
$2.49 + 3 months free (with the 48-month plan) |
| Uptime 99.98% | Uptime 99.97% | Uptime 99.99% | Uptime 99.99% | Uptime 99.99% |
| Free backups | Free backups | Free backups | Free backups | Free backups |
| Free domain | Free domain | Free domain | Free domain | Free domain |
| Storage space 10GB – Unlimited | Storage space 25GB – 100GB | Storage space 25GB – Unlimited | Storage space 10GB – 160GB | Storage space 30GB – 200GB |
| Bandwidth Unmetered | Bandwidth Unmetered | Bandwidth Unlimited | Bandwidth Unmetered | Bandwidth 100GB – Unmetered |
| RAM 2GB – 16GB | RAM 512MB – 32GB | RAM 512MB – 12GB | RAM 16GB – 64GB | RAM 768MB – 16GB |
| Visit Bluehost | Visit GoDaddy | Visit IONOS | Visit SiteGround | Visit Hostinger |
There are a number of features you should consider when choosing a website hosting company. From our own experience with the hosting providers, we have made an overview of these in our rankings breakdown above. Below are some of the key factors to consider:
- Uptime
- Support
- Free domain name
- Value for money
- Bandwidth
- WordPress integration
- Money-back guarantees
What features you should focus on depends on your priorities. Some, like uptime and value for money, are always important. Others, like a free domain name, may not matter if you have one already. Different providers shine in different areas. Bluehost is especially good for WordPress sites, while Hostinger has great features for ecommerce-focused hosters, making it a prime choice for small business owners.
More Information:
Unsure which host is best for you? Check out these versus match-ups to see how each one performs in our research, and find the best fit for you
Step 3: Pick a Website Hosting Plan
Once you have a host platform you like the look of, you still need to narrow your decision down to a plan. There are numerous types of hosting (shared, cloud, VPS, dedicated, and more), and there is usually a selection of plan tiers within each type. For example, Hostinger has four shared hosting plans – Single, Premium Hosting, Business, and Cloud Startup.
But first things first. Let’s be clear on what the different types of web hosting are and why it’s important to know the difference. Getting the best deal possible depends on you understanding your needs.
From our own experience, people often get confused about what hosting plan they actually need for their site. There’s no sense in signing up to a $10-a-month plan when a $3-a-month plan will serve you just as well. Your site may grow to need that $10 plan, but why sign up earlier than you have to?
Below, then, is a brief overview of the main types of hosting and the brackets they typically serve best.
| Hosting Type | What is it? | Who's it for? | Recommended Provider |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shared Hosting | Shared hosting is when multiple sites are stored on one server. Sharing the space is more cost effective, but it also means resources are finite. | Small and starter sites with modest technical demands. If in doubt, start here and upgrade as your site’s demands grow. | HostGator: Baby Plan |
| Cloud Hosting | Cloud hosting is when your site is powered by multiple servers. It’s a much more flexible system than shared hosting. If one server goes down, another picks up the slack. | For sites starting to outgrow their humble origins. Cloud hosting copes far better with traffic spikes than shared does. It’s a good half-measure if you want to scale up but not not take the plunge of dedicated hosting. | A2 Hosting: Lift 4 Plan |
| Virtual Private Server (VPS) | VPS is a halfway point between shared and dedicated servers. You share server space with other sites, but a section of it is entirely yours. | This is a step beyond cloud. You’re really getting somewhere now. This mixes flexibility, scalability, and power. These plans are great if you’ve outgrown shared hosting but are still not yet ready to go dedicated. | Bluehost: Enhanced Plan |
| Dedicated Hosting | Dedicated hosting is where you are the sole tenant of a server. You get all those resources all to yourself. This exclusivity costs, but it’s worth it if your site is resource-intensive. | This is the big leagues. If you’re just starting out you won’t need anywhere near this tier of plan. Not yet anyway. | Bluehost: Standard Plan |
Most web hosting providers offer all the main hosting types, but others, like WPEngine, are specialists in one type: in this case, managed WordPress hosting. This is a hosting plan specifically for those using WordPress, and manages all technical aspects of your site on an ongoing basis. As a user, this means the hosting provider is responsible for managing all the routine maintenance such as speed, security, and backups, allowing you to spend time on other, more important tasks for your website.
If you expect to grow into different types of hosting that’s something important to keep in mind.
How Much Does It Cost to Host a Website?
How much do these plans cost? Good question. As a rule of thumb, shared hosting is cheapest, followed by cloud, then VPS, then dedicated. The variety of hosting types (and plans within those types) means the cost of hosting a website increases gradually, but from our own observations, the cheapest shared hosting plans offered by providers typically begin anywhere from $1.99 – $2.99 per month (billed annually), and the most expensive dedicated plans can be over $500 per month.
For example, Hostinger’s shared hosting starts at $1.99 per month, and its most premium VPS hosting plan is $21.99 per month, while Bluehost shared hosting begins at $2.99 per month and goes up to $149.98 per month for its dedicated plan. But while Hostinger is cheaper, its hosting pricing is actually less value for money in the long run than Bluehost, so we actually scored it lower for this value in our research, with Hostinger scoring 2.9 out of 5 and Bluehost 4.7 out of 5.
You’ll be relieved to hear that we recommend starting closer to the $2.95 end of the spectrum. Start there and look up until you find a plan that fits your specific needs. You can always upgrade further down the line.
Step 4: Get a Domain Name
It’s all well and good having a plot of internet land, but without an address no one will be able to find it! A domain name is your digital address. Ours is websitebuilderexpert.com. Google’s is google.com. You get the idea. Your site will need to get and register a domain name as well.
Nearly every web hosting provider includes domain name registration in its signup process. Sometimes it’s included as a freebie in the plan you’ve chosen (Bluehost, for example). With others you’ll have to pay for it separately (A2 Hosting). Alternatively, you can purchase your domain from specialist domain name registrars such as Domain.com and link it to your hosting account.
Linking your domain to your hosting account is actually a fairly simple procedure. Firstly, you must know your Nameserver, or DNS server. Once you purchase a hosting plan, your new provider will send you this in an email in the form of a web address. Remember to keep it safe in case anything happens!
Next, go to your domain registrar and log in. Find your Domain Manager and click the ‘Manage DNS’ option. From here, you can see your domains. Simply copy and paste your hosting provider’s DNS server and boom! Your domain name and hosting provider are now connected.
You will also need to choose your domain name as well. A good domain is simple, easy to remember, and usually number-free. Don’t feel bound to the .com convention either. More and more sites are playing around with atypical top level domains like .xyz or .co. So long as it fits with your brand, you’ll be fine.
If you already have a domain name it’s simply a case of attaching it to your new server. Many hosting platforms include this in the signup process and handle it for you.
It bears mentioning that you do not lose your domain name if you change web hosting companies. They are different services. If you change web hosts you can always transfer your domain with you.
Option 2: How to Host a Website Locally
Hosting a website yourself is a more hands-on approach, and not nearly as reliable. It’s an excellent education in how a website works, but that’s as good as it gets. Connections are slow, maintainance falls entirely on you, and your computer will need to be on all the time. Not ideal. That said, if you’re here you must be interested in the option, and it costs nothing to find out.
There are two ways to host your website from home:
- Use your Windows PC as a WAMP server
- Use a Linux machine
We’ll walk you through both approaches. Please do keep in mind that this is not an option for beginners. Free hosting is an attractive prospect, but you really do get what you pay for. Unless your home happens to be a data center we recommend using a hosting provider.
Hosting a Website Using your Windows PC as a WAMP Server
The Windows approach means turning your computer into a WAMP server. WAMP stands for Windows, Apache, MySQL, and PHP — the elements that make up the server. In our research the top Windows hosting provider was HostGator. But let’s guide you on how to get set up:
Step 1: Install WAMP Software
There are are number of free programs available (WampServer and XAMPP to name a couple). Download and install one, sticking with default settings where prompted. The software allows your computer to act as a server — a home for your website’s files.
Step 2: Upload Site Files
Once you’ve installed WAMP software you’ll need to add a site to it. Once you open the dashboard this is usually found in the ‘www directory’. This is where website files are housed. Your HTML should be written up in text files with the extension .php. Add these to the ‘www directory’ to add them to your site.
Step 3: Make your Website Public
Your initial tinkering on a self-hosted site will be private — only you will be able to see them. When you’re happy with what you’ve done, go to ‘Apache’ and selEct the ‘httpd.conf’ file. Make sure the settings read as follows…
Order Allow,Deny
Allow from all
… and you’re up and running!
Hosting a Website Using a Linux Machine
In our research of the best Linux hosting providers we found the top providers to be Bluehost and HostGator. Let’s get into how to host with Linux:
Step 1: Install LAMP Software
The other approach is setting up a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP) server. This is largely the same process as WAMP but on a Linux computer. To get started type the following command in the Linux Terminal:
- sudo apt install apache2 mysql-server php libapache2-mod-php7.0
During installation you may be asked to provide your MySQL password, so be sure to have it handy. Once the software is installed you’re ready to configure your server.
Step 2: Configure Site Files and DNS
Like with WAMP, you add files to the root directory to add them to your site. Again, be sure to use the .php file extension. It’s best practice to ensure PHP and My SQL are working correctly.
Step 3: Configure Apache
For your server to allow visitors to visit your website, you need to tell Apache to accept their requests. This involves setting up a directory and tweaking permissions.
Summary: How To Host a Website
And that’s it. Simple right? Follow these steps and you will be signed up to a web hosting service ready and waiting for your site.
If you’ve made your decision with one eye on the future – which you should – the plan you have chosen will have excellent support and be easily scalable. We usually recommend Bluehost as it has scalability in mind with some of the best dedicated plans on the market.
Just remember to really understand your website hosting needs, and go for the best hosting provider for your specific website needs.
Now you can focus on the really import thing – your site. Make sure to let us know in the comments below if you have any questions or just want to share your successes!
FAQs
On a more technical level, the host provides you with storage, bandwidth, domain, and all the things required to have your website up and running on the internet.
If you are dead set on getting hosting for free, then why not use a free website builder? You can build a website for free with hosting included.
Website Builder Expert aims to provide you with honest data. That’s why we conduct our own research and obtain direct, personal insight. Analyses and graphics in this article are based on authentic sources cross-validated by our in-house experts.
We take great care to ensure the information we publish is reliable and accurate. However, WBE takes no responsibility for any inaccuracy in information supplied to us by users, research participants, or other entities.
Please note the insight contained within this article is for general information purposes only. We’re glad to answer any questions you may have about this article and its supporting research. For further information, please contact Website Builder Expert directly via email at info@websitebuilderexpert.com.
Written by:
Found this article helpful?
Share this article or comment below!
6 comments