Hosting

What types of hosting are there?

Hosting types differ by whether you share a server with many other businesses, have one to yourself, or get it bundled with a website builder. For a small business website, you rarely need to rent a big server all to yourself.

Whatever the type, what you need to know is “who manages it, what’s included, and how easy it is to move.” Plans with the same name can include different things at different companies, so compare what’s included rather than the plan name.

These days many sites also use deployment platforms that spread pre-built pages across servers in many countries and serve them from the location closest to each customer. With this approach, the web agency usually handles the setup and management, and you often just check the result.

How much does hosting usually cost?

Hosting costs vary widely by type and what’s included, so there’s no single price. A small business website that mainly introduces your business doesn’t get a lot of visitors, so it usually doesn’t need a high-spec plan.

When comparing prices, look at “what’s included” before the monthly fee. Whether the plan includes an SSL certificate, regular backups, a traffic allowance and someone to contact when things go wrong changes what you actually end up paying.

Look closely at long-term payment discounts too. Paying for several years up front is cheaper, but if you want to switch providers midway, refunds can be hard to get, and renewal prices sometimes jump sharply.

If you leave your website with a web agency’s maintenance service, check whether hosting is included in the maintenance fee or billed separately. Two prices can look the same but cost you different amounts if they cover different things.

How much traffic and storage space do I need?

For a business website that’s mostly text and photos, you need less traffic and storage than you might think. Photos and videos take up the most space, so how much you need depends on “how big your photos are and how many you upload.”

An original photo taken on a phone is several MB, but resized for the web it usually drops to a few hundred KB or less. Uploading resized photos saves storage and traffic, and your pages load much faster for customers too.

Rather than uploading videos straight to your website’s server, it’s common to upload them to a video service like YouTube and embed them on your site. For example, a Pilates studio’s class videos or a craft workshop’s process videos put almost no load on your hosting when linked this way.

The web agency often resizes photos when uploading them. If you’ll be uploading photos yourself through the admin panel, check whether it automatically shrinks images as you upload them.

How do I choose hosting?

Start by choosing hosting that fits the type of website you have. A text-and-photo website that introduces your business, a website with an admin panel, and an online store with payments all need different server conditions.

Being able to reach someone when something goes wrong matters too. Check in advance whether you can ask by phone or chat if your website won’t load on a weekend evening, and how quickly they usually reply, so you won’t panic in an emergency.

For example, a lightweight plan is enough for a cafe website that just introduces the cafe, but a cafe that sells coffee beans online needs to look more carefully at stability and backups so checkout never freezes. Even in the same industry, the hosting you need depends on what your website does.

1. 01Decide on your website type. (Informational, with an admin panel, or with booking or payments)
2. 02Jot down rough estimates of your visitors and how many photos and videos you’ll have.
3. 03Compare whether SSL, backups, traffic allowance and customer support are included.
4. 04If most of your customers are in Korea, check that the site loads quickly from within Korea.
5. 05Put the contract and payment card under your business.
6. 06Ask how to restore from a backup and whether you can move to another provider later.

Will my website go down if I switch hosting?

If you follow the right order, it barely goes down at all. Upload the whole website to the new server first, switch the DNS to the new server once you’ve checked everything, and cancel the old hosting only after the change has fully taken effect.

The most common mistake is canceling the old hosting first. While the DNS change spreads, some customers still reach the old server, so it’s safest to keep both running for a few days.

If your website has an admin panel, it’s best not to post anything around moving day. Posts made during the move may stay only on the old server and disappear.

Be extra careful if you’ve been using the hosting provider’s built-in email as your business email. Canceling the hosting can delete your mailbox too, so pick a separate email service and back up the emails you need before you move.

What are common mistakes with hosting contracts?

The most common mistake is having the contract and payment card under the web agency or an employee who has since left. Nobody gets the failed-payment notice, and one day your website suddenly stops loading.

Many owners also hear that backups “exist” without ever checking how to restore them. A backup only means something if you can actually restore from it.

If your web agency bundles hosting into its management, agree in advance on what form you’ll receive your website files and data in when the contract ends. If this is left blank, you may have to rebuild from scratch when you switch providers.

• Whose name are the hosting contract and payment card under?
• How often are backups made, and how do you restore them?
• What happens if visitors suddenly surge? Are there extra charges?
• Can I get my website files when the contract ends?