Choosing the right shared hosting plan may be a hard task, especially if you are a newbie with websites, content management systems and website development. In the vast sea of shared hosting providers and hundreds of web hosting plans, you need to be sure you are making the right choice of a hosting plan, which fits your budget and matches your needs.
In this article, BGOcloud hosting experts will give you practical advice on how to choose a shared hosting plan and what it should include. We will also unveil the secrets behind our hosting plans and how we tailored them to boost your online success.
What is shared hosting and why your shared hosting plan matters?
Shared hosting is one of the most affordable and widely used hosting solutions. It allows multiple users and websites to utilize a single physical server. Each user orders a predefined shared hosting plans with limited resources – disk space, hosted domains, email boxes, etc. Although sharing the same server, all users enjoy virtual account isolation and act independently from each other.
To depict the essence of the main hosting services more clearly, we can compare them even to real estate rental services:
- A shared website hosting reminds of sharing an apartment with your friends. Each of you has their room, but you all share the main facilities (kitchen, bathroom, balcony). The same way you share some server resources like RAM and CPU with the other users on your server.
- A virtual private server is like hiring an apartment. You have an individual space and more freedom, but, you still share some facilities with the other people from the building
- Purchasing a dedicated server is like purchasing a house only for yourself. You have all the servers’ resources at your own disposal. Likewise, you can freely use all of the resources of the house for yourself.
What projects is shared hosting suitable for?
Shared hosting is a perfect solution for those, who are just getting started with their online business. It is ideal for blogs, non-profit, personal or small business websites, startups, portfolio websites which have low to medium amount of monthly or simultaneous visits.
This type of hosting is a great solution for those, who need a cost-effective service, which is easy-to-use and does not require advanced technical skills. The price of a shared hosting plan with good specifications usually varies between $2-10 per month with everything you need to be included in the price. Sometimes even with a free domain name.
Shared hosting plans offer you easy upgrade options. You need more disk space or want to host multiple websites in the same hosting plan? Just upgrade to the higher hosting plan.
The hosting plans essentials – the basic features included in our hosting plans explained
Disk space
This is the amount of space, which you get on the server to store your website’s content – pages, images, databases, etc. BGOcloud hosting plans are powered by last generation full SSD servers, to ensure the speed and performance of your websites.
Bandwidth
The amount of data and the level of traffic that can transfer among your site, its users and the internet, is known as bandwidth. The more data transfer through your website occurs, the more bandwidth it will require.
For instance, if your site consists of 10 pages, with 1 MB size for each, and you assume that there will be 1000 visitors per month, you’ll need at least 10 000 MB (or 10 GB) bandwidth.
Subdomains
Subdomains are used to navigate to a different section of your sites like the blog or helpdesk section. You can create a subdomain to serve as a testing or staging version of your main website. Or, you can move your blog or login page to a subdomain, if you like.
E.g.: main domain – www.example.com
subdomain – www.blog.example.com
Parked domains
A parked domain is a registered domain, which isn’t actively being used. It is not linked to a website or email hosting service. You can reach your main domain when entering the name of the parked domain into a given browser. You can use parked domains in some of the following cases:
- You want to reserve a domain name for later use, or your website isn’t ready yet
- You want to register different trademarks and versions of your business name to prevent typosquatting and cybersquatting
E.g. Main domain – www.example.com
Parked domains – www.example.org; www.example.info; www.exmaple.com
- You want to generate additional income by displaying advertising on your parked domains
- You want to park commonly misspelled versions of your domain name
Addon Domains
The addon domain is a new, unique website hosted in a new folder on the same shared hosting account. It can be created from your control panel. You can host a few fully functional domains and manage them from a single control panel (such as cPanel). All of the addon domains can be treated like your main domain – you can create email addresses, email forwarders, etc. under a single control panel, but on separate domain names. This feature is highly beneficial, because it saves you a lot of money, as you don’t need to pay for multiple web hosting accounts for each domain.
Email accounts (mailboxes)
The number of mailboxes refers to the number of email accounts available in a given hosting package. Having the email functionality in your hosting plan is useful and allows you to manage all your IT needs – website and communications from a single place. BGOcloud hosting experts strongly recommend you to use complex and secure passwords for your email accounts to prevent security breaches.
A variety of hosting features, which will boost your online business and make it stand out
BGOcloud is taking care for your online success and the quality of your service, by implementing a bunch of enterprise features into the shared hosting platform.
Enhanced security and reliability
CageFS
With the right tools and systems, shared hosting can become a highly secure hosting solution. CloudLinux OS file system CageFS perfectly prevents an attack on another user to affect your hosting account by encapsulating each customer on a virtual level. In addition, users can’t see server configuration files, and they only have access to safe files. The overall functionality of the users’ environment is preserved, and they are not restricted by any means.
KernelCare
This CloudLinux product automatically installs patches and bug fixes without rebooting the server, and thus, sustains its good overall performance. KernelCare increases the server’s efficiency and stability by ensuring maximum server uptime. It guarantees a safe Linux environment, by checking for new security updates every four hours. The installation of the patches is automatic and extremely fast.
Backups
Regular server backups are an easy and highly efficient way to prevent data loss. Thanks to them, you can restore the lost data when you need to. For our server backups, we rely on R1Soft backup. This highly reliable solution performs a daily backup of all files and databases for your website. It has 14 Restore points, and there’s an option to download files, folders or entire restore point to a local PC.
Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6)
IPv6 protocol has some significant advantages over IPv4. It is far more efficient in terms of handling packets. IPv6 provides better end-to-end connectivity, enhances security for applications and networks, and improves performance. Last but not least, it helps Internet service providers to reduce the size of their routing tables, by making them more hierarchical.
Website caching with CloudFlare content delivery network (CDN)
This service is unsurpassed when it comes to decreasing web page loading time. It decreases bandwidth usage, as it reduces the number of requests to the origin servers. CloudFlare has built a global network of data centers. It caches the static content of your website and delivers it from the closest location to the user. This way, CloudFlare CDN ensures exceptionally fast website loading speed. The faster your website is, the more likely it will rank well in the SERPs. It may help you reduce your website bounce rate as well.
SSD storage
Solid-state drives have clear advantages over traditional hard disk drives (HDD), especially when it comes to web hosting performance. It’s considered that HDDs read/write data with a 15-20 millisecond access time, while SSDs do it with a 0.2 access time. Now, imagine how fast your website can load if you use a hosting plan with SSD storage. By improving the speed of your website, you’ll provide better user experience, and you’ll improve its SEO as well. Solid-state drives are also more resistant to physical damage, which significantly reduces the risk of data loss. SSD hosting will not only make your website super-fast, but it will take care of your data as well.
Domains
All of our annual Linux shared hosting plans, except for ‘’Launch’’ plan, include a free domain name*. Cut costs on your shared hosting plan by getting the maximum possible value for your money!
*The free domain registration applies to the following extensions: .com,.net,.biz,.info,.org,.us,.eu,.uk,.es
Real IP addresses
Dedicated IPs have a positive effect on the reputation of the email sender as well. If you share the same IP with other users, and they get banned or blacklisted due to excessive spamming, your email service may be negatively affected, too. Our ‘’Popular’’, and ‘’Famous’’ packages include free dedicated IP addresses, so our clients are completely unaffected from the behavior of the other users on the server.
SitePad website builder
With SitePad website builder, you can create a professionally looking website in no time. If you need a tutorial on how to use Sitepad, we have prepared a useful one. This website builder has a drag and drop editor, which allows you to easily choose and place elements and design the website to your liking. SitePad website builder is integrated into every cPanel account at BGOcloud. After you build your website, it will be automatically uploaded to your cPanel account.
SSL certificates
By using SSL certificates, you can improve your website security. The sites, which are SSL-secured get the secure version of HTTP – Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS).
Our customers can take advantage of the free SSL certificate – Let’s Encrypt. Within 24 hours, customers get an automatically generated SSL certificate for every new domain or subdomain. This automated process is exceptionally convenient, as it saves you time and efforts.
24/7 expert support
You never know when you may need professional advice or assistance. That’s why it’s good to know that there are hosting geeks, who are always ready to assist you. And by ‘’always’’, we mean it – 24/7/365. You can get in touch with our experts via online chat, phone, support ticket, email, and our contact us page.
One-click web applications install
Thanks to Softaculous, our users can install web apps super easy. By logging into your cPanel account, you’ll find a wide variety of web apps, available to be installed with just a simple click. Among the most popular free-to-use web apps are:
- WordPress – you can build a fully-functional and great-looking website or blog using this web software. And, the variety of themes and plugins is just fantastic!
- Drupal – this advanced content management system is suitable for building dynamic and eCommerce websites
- Joomla – considered one of the leading content management systems, Joomla enables you to build various projects – from business websites to powerful and flexible applications, personal blogs, and others.
- Magento – this platform is perfect if you want to build a great eCommerce website. It offers a variety of extensions and attractive themes, as well as the option to deliver personalized content and promotions.
Some other great eCommerce apps are PrestaShop, WHMCS, OpenCart, and Invoice Ninja.
There are also many other categories of apps related to forums, ad management, RSS, mails, social networking, ERP, customer support, image galleries, file management, and others. Here you can see the full list of one-click install apps.
Building an attractive website with great content is not enough for it to be successful. You also need to make sure that this website is always online. And, here comes the term ‘’uptime’’ – the measure of system reliability. It shows the percentage of time a server (a computer or other machine) has been working properly, without facing downtime. A higher uptime ensures higher accessibility of your site. So, the higher the uptime guarantee, the better. All of BGOcloud hosting plans include a 99.9% uptime guarantee to ensure that our clients’ websites will be up and running as much as possible.
А diversity of hosting plans and solutions at affordable prices
We know how unique your business is, and that’s why we have crafted qualitative and fast shared hosting packages with different features and different levels of resources. But, how do you select the right plan for your project? Well, here are a few directions:
- ‘’Launch’’ plan – suitable for a personal blog or portfolio website. The plan is perfect for 1 website with ~ 5 000 monthly visits.
- ‘’Mainstream’’ plan – the best plan for your first company website. Includes everything needed to create a stunning website, where to present your services, products, and solutions. On one account you can host up to 5 websites with ~ 15 000 overall monthly visits.
- ‘’Popular’’ plan – the perfect option for a medium-sized company, which wants to have its website together with a reliable email service hosted in the same hosting plan. Our ‘’Popular’’ package can accommodate up to 20 websites with ~ 50 000 monthly visits.
- “Famous’’ plan – suitable for starting a small e-commerce website. The higher features of the plan allow you to host an unlimited number of websites. ‘’Famous’’ plan is suitable for ~ 100 000 visits per month.
Be informed and supercharge your online presence
Well, after all, finding reliable and at the same time, cheap shared hosting plans isn’t mission impossible. You just need to be well-informed what features, tools and services you need to help your website reach its top level of performance. Having everything necessary, you can just focus on growing your business. Your hosting provider will do the rest.