 |
When you choose “hosting” for your medical website, use the same company from whom you bought the URL. Try to keep things simple for yourself, no need to add another variable such as an additional vendor. Usually you can buy both the URL and hosting at the same time.
Requirements for a Hosting Company
There are a variety of hosting choices available for you. All you need is “shared hosting.” You need to choose a plan that is; affordable, reliable uptime, 24/7 customer support and can run WordPress.org. These are basic requirements and are provided by most hosting companies.
All other “higher” forms of hosting really differ with respect to handling traffic, security and bandwidth.
Types of Hosting for Your Medical Website
- Free
- Shared Hosting (recommended)
- Virtual
- Dedicated
- Cloud
- Home Server
Free Hosting
There are completely free types of hosting. Two popular, and again, completely free, are;
They function and are indexed as well as any other, but there are limitations to design, functionality and SEO. It may be a good place to get your feet wet, but if you want to do this right, and still very cheaply, then start off with the recommendations below.
Instead of setting up an account on a 3rd party’s server, you have free space on the respective servers here. Simply go to these sites and sign-up.
Instead of the completely free sites, we recommend using anyone of the companies listed below and looking for shared hosting plans.
Shared Hosting (recommended)
Shared hosting is the most popular and affordable form of hosting other than free. For a small business, such as medical practice, this is all you will probably ever need. It offers complete flexibility as your website grows, can accommodate more visitors than you ever hope, and has virtually no requirements for learning how to maintain your site from the IT perspective.
With your shared hosting plans, the many websites are using the same server and the resources are “shared.” At times, this may slow the download speed of your site.
Purchase an account (through our affiliate link please!) and host your site with one of the following companies.
- GoDaddy.com
- Hostgator.com
They all offer:
- the ability to purchase the URL
- different types of hosting
- 24/7 support
- WordPress.org
At this writing, we prefer Bluehost.com for the following reasons;
- terrific 24/7 support
- free email
- comparable costs
- rapid “one-click” installation of WordPress.org
Virtual and Dedicated Hosting
For our purposes, both virtual and dedicated hosting are options that you may consider if your traffic exceeds what normal shared hosting can provide. Unless you have thousands of visitors a day occupying your bandwidth with large file transfers (both unlikely with a medical website) you probably do not need either of these levels.
Also, with virtual and dedicated hosting, you will mostly likely need to be responsible for maintaining your server. Increased cost and increased IT responsibility. Remember, we are doctors.
Cloud Servers
These are the new wave and, for now, might be a better consideration if you mature beyond the needs of shared hosting. Cloud servers offer the advantage of reliable uptime as multiple “copies” of your site are always available and, thus, your site is not affected natural disasters, equipment malfunctions, etc.
Home Server
This situation also requires you to provide your own IT support. With more and more offices equipped with your own servers, this may be a viable option for you. Of course, you must provide your own IT support.