Contrary to popular belief, you don’t always have to pay out a fortune to get the best things in life. When it comes to web hosting, you really don’t have to throw money at the best host available in the market to get what you need. For some, a fairly cheap web hosting solution will provide all of the features and services that are needed. Others may need to get the top of the range package; it really does depend on your overall digital requirements.
If you’ve got a relatively simple set of requirements then a cheap web hosting package is more than likely to do the job. You might not need the luxury of having a dedicated host if you just need a small website without lots of features and no requirements for the additional security of a dedicated hosting package.
If this is the case then your best option is probably to go down the shared hosting route. This basically means that your website shares a server with other websites, with each website owner paying towards the overall costs of the server. This enables the host to offer the service at a lower price than dedicated hosting where you would have the whole server for your website. Smaller businesses ted to go for shared hosting to keep costs down, whereas a large business might need lots of website content and have high levels of traffic and therefore need a dedicated hosting package.
So lets take a look at the kind of web hosts that offer cheap packages. You can generally get most of these hosts for less than £5 per month:
Bluehost – Works well with WordPress sites, offers 24/7 customer service but doesn’t offer unlimited monthly data transfers, which is offered by most of the other top cheap web hosts.
HostGator – This host scores will in a lot of independent reviews but again this one doesn’t offer unlimited monthly data transfers with all of its packages. Good reputation for customer service.
1&1 – Again, works well with WordPress and this host offers unlimited data transfer. Reviewers rate this highly due in part to excellent scores in Uptime and ease for website creation.
GoDaddy – Well-regarded as having the best customer service amongst all of the hosts on offer. Doesn’t offer unlimited data transfers but does support the use of WordPress. Reviews also show good Uptime performance but is deemed harder to set up and the site builder costs extra.
Inmotion – With lots of free website building tools and good Uptime stats, this is another top host. Like most hosts, also offers 24/7 customer support.
Some of the technical jargon can be hard to get your head around if you’re not familiar with web hosting and the typical features and performance measures that are involved. If you want to get more familiar with some of the technology terms then you may find this article useful.
To summarise, you can definitely find a cheap web host that performs well and has features and service that will be enough for most website needs. It mainly comes down to whether your website will require more than these standard packages offer.
