If you want to get started with web hosting in Nigeria and are finding it difficult, worry no more, because this post will show you everything you need to know about web hosting.
You will learn about the types of website hosting plans, the benefits of web hosting, the right hosting company to buy hosting in Nigeria and a lot more.
There are many reasons to start your own website. Whether you are looking to create your own blog, kick off a side hustle or build a portfolio, there is no better time than right now to build an online presence. However, there is plenty more to it than just clicking around and hitting save when you are excited.
Web hosting offers to host users’ websites on their own servers, without the client needing to own the necessary infrastructure required to operate the website. The webmaster (the owner of the website), is now able to create a website that would be hosted and published to the web by the web hosting service.
What is Web Hosting?
A web hosting service is a type of internet hosting service that hosts websites for clients i.e. it offers the facilities required for them to create and maintain a site and make it accessible on the World Wide Web.
Web hosting is an online service that allows you to publish your website files onto the internet, so that anyone who has access to the internet, has access to your website. Practically, it refers to the service that you get from a web hosting provider.
In a nutshell, web hosting is the process of renting or buying space to house a website on the world wide web.
In Nigeria, with every single day that passes, the value and need for the internet increase. More people are using the internet to satisfy their personal needs and the needs of their business enterprises to reach their customers. People use the internet for education, entertainment, research, and so on.
Why you need to get started with web hosting in Nigeria
We already know that the internet cannot exist without websites, and the website cannot exist without hosting. Therefore, the Nigerian market for hosting services is not only large, but it is also rapidly increasing. Nigeria has a population of over 200 million people and thousands of growing businesses.
As your website grows, so do its requirements. That’s why when you look for hosting, you can find a broad range of plans that range from inexpensive to bespoke.
Things you need to get started with web hosting in Nigeria
1. Domain
A website domain refers to the name of your website. Specifically, it is the simplified form of an IP address that you type into a web browser to reach your destination website. However, having a domain name doesn’t necessarily mean you have a website.
A domain name is a string that identifies a realm of administrative autonomy, authority or control within the Internet often used to identify services provided through the Internet, such as websites, email services and more.
The domain is a website address. The domain name must be registered and is unique, something like your home address. The domain is the unique route to access a certain website. It is the address of your website that people type in the browser’s URL bar to visit your browser.
In other words, if your website was a house, then your domain name would be its address.
2. Web hosting company
Hosting is a place where files are stored. Normally a company offers its web hosting services by renting its servers to store the web, making it easier for other users to access it.
Web hosting is the place where all the files of your website live. It is like the actual home of your website!
A good way to think about this is; if the ‘domain name’ was the address of your house, then the web hosting company is the actual house that addresses points to. All websites on the internet need web hosting.
Every website you’ve ever visited lives on a server. Most servers are computers, much like the ones you’re used to, they are only configured from the ground up to display content online and handle web traffic.
When you sign up for web hosting services, you’re essentially renting a server space — or in some cases, the whole computer — from a provider. You can use that space and a limited amount of resources to build and maintain a website that anyone can visit.
Types of web hosting in Nigeria(with their pros and cons)
Perhaps one of the biggest challenges when setting up a website is in deciding what type of web hosting plan to use, because there are a lot of options to pick from, varying widely in price, so you’ll need to be sure in making the right decision.
Choosing the best web hosting plan isn’t just about the cost, though. For example; An e-commerce site will have different needs than a WordPress blog. Selecting a plan that offers you the right level of resources and features is essential, so you can set up your website for success from the start.
Ideally, you’ll want to use a type of plan that fits your specific needs and your budget. Opting for the most expensive hosting plan you can find works, but it’s usually a waste of money unless you have a website that gets massive amounts of traffic every day.
At this juncture, we’ll explain the different types of web hosting plans to choose from, discuss their pros and cons, and help you decide between them. Let’s get right to it!
1. Shared Hosting
Shared hosting plans are the most common choice for website owners. On this type of plan, a single server is shared among multiple users. That means a single computer (a shared server) will host several (or even hundreds of) websites.
Although you’ll share resources with other users, you don’t have access to their files, private information, or any other data. The upside to shared plans is that they tend to be cheap, since hosting providers can divide server upkeep costs among multiple users.
Shared hosting doesn’t always have the best reputation, but the quality of the service you get will depend mainly on your hosting provider. While some shared hosting plans are very limiting, others can handle websites that get decent amounts of traffic.
Pros of shared hosting
It’s easy to find plans at fewer prices. Depending on your service provider, you can get excellent performance on small- to medium-sized sites.
Cons of shared hosting
Shared plans often don’t perform well for websites with heavy traffic. For the best rates, you’ll often have to sign up for a multi-year contract.
Who should use shared hosting: Shared hosting should be your go-to option if this is the first time you’re building a website. With the right provider, you’ll have all the tools you need to get your project going, and plenty of room to scale up over time.
2. Virtual Private Server (VPS) Hosting
Virtual Private Servers (VPSs) are a step above shared plans when it comes to performance and customizability. The way a VPS works is that a single physical server will contain multiple virtually-partitioned sections. Each container, or VPS, acts as a full system devoted just to your site. So you get dedicated resources, and in some cases, access to that server’s configuration.
In practical terms, VPSs provide a higher degree of isolation between users, although you do still share the same physical server. Nevertheless, this can enhance performance and security. Plus, depending on your hosting provider, you might be able to configure your VPS from scratch, so you get precisely the resources you need.
To give you an idea of what you’re looking for, a single-core VPS with 1 GB of RAM is enough to run a simple WordPress website. However, figuring out the number of resources you need for each project can be tricky, which might make a VPS a less attractive option if you’re new to web hosting.
With VPSs, you may not get access to a control panel out of the box. That means you might have to use the command line to configure your server and set up a website. Unless you have experience using the command line, that can be a complicated process.
Since VPSs are all across the board when it comes to resources, prices can vary a lot.
Pros of VPSs
You get fully dedicated resources for your website. Depending on your host, you might be able to configure your VPS to your specific needs.
Cons of VPSs
Calculating the number of resources you need can be challenging. Configuring a VPS often requires some technical know-how.
Who should use a VPS: If you want full control over your server without spending hundreds of dollars on a dedicated plan, consider using a VPS. The high level of customizability on offer with these plans also makes them an attractive option.
3. Dedicated Hosting
So far, we have only talked about hosting plans where you share servers with other users. Servers are expensive, and if you desire a private server all to yourself, you’ll need to pay a premium for it.
With a dedicated server, you’ll get exclusive access to a single server (or sometimes more than one). That means you’ll have full control over its configuration, and the web hosting provider simply houses it for you.
Dedicated servers are basically the top-of-the-line option when it comes to web hosting. At this level, the price is high and prices only go up from there.
If you’re launching a new website as a hobby, a dedicated server would be overkill. This is the kind of hosting solution that only makes sense for businesses and established websites that need access to powerful hardware.
Pros of dedicated hosting
You get a whole server to yourself. In most situations, you can configure your server to your liking. Uncapped bandwidth for Truehost users.
Cons of dedicated hosting
It’s an expensive option.
Who should consider using dedicated hosting: Dedicated hosting is the go-to choice for websites that require the very best when it comes to performance and have the budget for it.
4. Managed Hosting
Managed hosting is a little different. It’s not a type of plan, but a kind of service. With managed hosting, your provider takes care of a lot of the day-to-day maintenance tasks that would otherwise fall on your shoulders. Some of those tasks include backups, security monitoring, software updates, and more.
It’s important to understand that managed hosting plans can come in every flavour. There are managed shared plans, managed VPSs and even managed dedicated servers. In all of these cases, you pay a little extra so you don’t need to worry about the nuts and bolts of hosting, and you get to focus on growing your blog, portfolio or e-commerce website.
Pros of managed hosting
Your provider will take care of basic maintenance tasks for you. Depending on your web host, they might optimize website performance for you.
Cons of managed hosting
It tends to be more expensive than regular hosting plans. You have less direct control over your server’s configuration and your site’s optimization.
Who should consider using managed hosting: The idea behind managed hosting is that it makes your life easier. If you don’t like taking care of website maintenance tasks and don’t mind paying a little extra for white-glove service, consider using managed hosting.
5.WordPress Hosting
To understand the concept of WordPress hosting, it’s crucial to grasp just how enormously popular this particular Content Management System (CMS) is. As a platform, WordPress powers over 30% of the web. The DreamHost blog itself uses WordPress, as do millions of other sites, ranging from giant businesses to hobbyist blogs.
Therefore, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that a lot of web hosting providers offer plans tailored to WordPress users. Usually, WordPress-specific plans include some level of managed service. They often also come with free licenses for premium plugins, themes, or other tools.
Keep in mind — you don’t need to use a WordPress-specific plan to set up a website with the platform. However, these types of plans tend to be optimized to provide better performance and make your life much simpler. If you plan on using WordPress, this type of hosting can be a smart pick.
On top of WordPress-specific plans, there are also entire hosting platforms that only work with this CMS. Often, that means they have WordPress experts on staff as a part of their support team, which can be a nice perk. Best of all, WordPress-specific plans are typically priced about the same as their more generic counterparts.
Pros of WordPress hosting
Often comes with some level of managed service. You get access to WordPress-specific perks, such as free plugin licenses and one-click installations.
Cons of WordPress hosting
It’s only of use to WordPress users and limits your ability to use other platforms.
Who should consider using WordPress hosting: You can set up WordPress on any type of web hosting plan you sign up for. However, if you want to use a plan that’s tailored to the CMS from the ground up, WordPress hosting can be an excellent investment.
Reseller Hosting
If you run a business that revolves around building websites, such as a development or design agency, you’ll probably have to deal with hosting. A lot of clients don’t quite understand how hosting works and could use help getting everything set up and working.
Reseller hosting offers a solution for those types of situations. In a nutshell, you get access to an account that enables you to provide hosting to your clients. Those clients pay you directly, and you’re responsible for managing their accounts.
If you think that sounds like extra work, you’re 100% correct. However, reseller hosting does offer a lot of benefits if you can pull it off. Most web hosts that offer reseller accounts enable you to charge whatever you wish for hosting. This means that if you run a web development agency, you can transform hosting into a source of recurring revenue.
Taking control of client hosting also enables you to take care of their websites’ maintenance, so you can make sure everything’s working as it should. Reseller hosting is not for individual projects or regular users. If all you’re looking for is a type of plan that will enable you to set up a website of your own, then you’ll want to consider another option on this list.
Pros of reseller hosting
You can set up hosting accounts for third-party users and charge them directly. You’re in full control of the hosting experience.
Cons of reseller hosting
You are usually responsible for billing clients, which comes with a lot of work. In most cases, you have to take care of maintenance and support tasks on your own.
Who should consider using reseller hosting: If you run a business that regularly needs to help with web hosting for clients, it can make sense to offer that service in-house. With reseller hosting, you can bill clients directly for hosting and take care of maintenance for them, while having another company provide the infrastructure.
Key features to consider before you buy hosting in Nigeria
Looking at some of the best web hosting companies in Nigeria guides us towards selecting the best web hosting platform for your project. Some of the metrics or features used to decide which web hosting is best in Nigeria include balancing server performance, affordability, ease of payment in Naira and the efficiency of technical support from the Nigerian web hosting companies.
Below are the features to consider in choosing a befitting website hosting for your demands:
1. Server speed
The speed at which your website is served to your visitor is what is meant by server speed. If visitors type your website address into their browser, and they have to wait a few seconds for your website to load, that is not good. A good server speed or page load time is considered to be around 200 milliseconds or less.
Scalability is one of the most eye-catching features of a web hosting company is how quickly they can handle heavy traffic. You want to make sure that your website will be able to grow with time without any hiccups on its end. The best hosting company will offer faster servers with advanced caching so that each page loads in milliseconds.
2. Guaranteed uptime
This is the amount of time your hosting company guarantees that your site will be online. You should not settle for a Nigerian hosting company that promises anything less than 99.99% uptime. These days, hosting companies that use cloud servers can promise 100% uptime.
This means the percentage of uptime for their server and network. You want the company to have a 100% uptime guarantee so that you can rely on them for your business needs without worrying about downtime due to server or network issues.
3. Security for site and server
So that your blog or business website is online for your visitors at all times, your hosting company must be able to guarantee the security of your site. Good web hosting providers apply automatic server patches, to ensure your site is secure. Most of them regularly scan the contents of your website, to ensure malware has not been uploaded.
This is one of the most important factors when it comes to selecting a host. You want them to be PCI compliant which means they follow strict security standards in order to protect customer information.
4. Customer service
Most hosting providers have 24-7 customer support for technical issues. Their billing department tends to be available Monday to Friday only. It is the area of customer service that a web hosting company that is actually based in Nigeria trumps those based abroad. You will be able to speak with a Nigerian hosting company support team, on a local telephone number. They will also be based in the same time zone. If your host is based abroad, the cost of making an international call and the difference in time zone could be a problem. Most of the time, people use a chat app to communicate with their host, this can minimise the need for a telephone call.
Having fast and reliable customer support is crucial when it comes to website hosting companies because there will always be something wrong with your website. A good host has a responsible Customer Support System is responsive and always solves your problems efficiently.
Customer service matters! Some companies offer phone numbers and live chat options all day long while others offer support via email. It’s also important to see how well the customer service department communicates with its customers.
With this 24/7 Access to technical support, they may not be able to fix your site problem for you immediately, but they should have a team of experts on hand 24/hours per day.
5. Backups
Though you should have the contents of your site on your computer, your hosting provider should back it up as well. This is part of the service with most hosting companies, other hosting providers charge an additional fee to back your site up.
6. Web space and bandwidth
Web space, also known as storage space is the amount of storage space you are allowed on the server. Bandwidth is the amount of traffic your site is allowed to use in a given time. The more storage and bandwidth the better. Some hosting companies promise unlimited storage space, but most of the time there is a caveat to this, which translates that you are actually not able to use unlimited web space.
When choosing the best hosting company for yourself, you must consider its storage space. You want enough room for your site’s files and a little extra for some growth
7. Pricing
We Nigerians love things to be cheap. You should know that if you buy cheap web hosting, you will get poor service. That is not to say that all cheap web hosting is bad. You should beware that when anything, including a web hosting service, is too cheap, it is highly unlikely to be of good quality. Companies whose web hosting offerings are too cheap to have been known to go out of business, leaving your website stranded.
Transparent pricing is a big factor to consider when choosing your web hosting company; it will be the determining factor in what type of website you can have hosted with them. There are different packages and prices for each service provider, but most reputable providers offer competitive pricing that allows businesses to get the best features at an affordable price.
8. SSL certificate
If you want your site to be taken seriously, and rank well in search engines, you should ensure it has an SSL certificate. SSL certificate is basically a certificate from an organisation trusted by third parties. An SSL certificate vouches for the identity of your site. Basically saying it is not a fraudulent site. May web hosting providers in Nigeria will give you at least one free SSL certificate, with your hosting package. You can also buy an SSL certificate. If you are technically minded and want to save money on SSL certificates, you can use the Let’s Encrypt certificate, which is a free SSL certificate.
An SSL certificate is needed if you accept payments online or store customer details.
A good Webhosting company will offer a free SSL certificate and the ability to purchase one from an outside vendor at a discounted rate.
9. Network or cloud hosting
Network hosting is the traditional web hosting that has been around forever. Cloud hosting is the more advanced, more recent type of hosting, where your site is hosted on a webspace in the cloud. When choosing a hosting for your website in Nigeria, you should favour cloud hosting over network hosting, as it has a slight edge over network hosting.
When you buy hosting from the best company, that means they’ve already invested in their CDN (Content Delivery Network) which ensures your site loads quickly for users no matter where they’re located.
10. Robust Technology
Another important factor to look out for is the robustness and speed of their technology. You want to find a company that has top-notch servers, fast connection speeds, and server stability so your website runs quickly for all visitors without any disruptions in service or downtime Secure server locations – another important factor to any business is the security of their website. No one wants a breach in security that leaves your site vulnerable to malicious attacks and data breaches. The best hosting company will offer multiple server locations with high levels of encryption so you don’t have to worry about unauthorized access
This feature houses speed, security, and scalability into ‘technology’. As technology upgrades daily, so do these sub-features upgrade together with it.
11. Free website migration
You’ll need time set aside for transferring your site over before your date, and the best hosting company will offer you a free website migration as part of their service.
12. Easy setup process
If the hosting company’s whole service is based on having an easy way to set up and manage websites, then this needn’t be mentioned.
However, if it isn’t, then you should be able to tell from the website how easy it will be and if they offer any “installation” services.
If you are planning to take your business online sooner or later, you don’t want to make the wrong decision of picking the wrong hosting company.
A good hosting company will help you to alleviate a lot of the stress involved in running a small business online.
In a nutshell, A good web hosting company should be reliable, have transparent pricing, and give just-in-time support to their customers.
Benefits of using web hosting in Nigeria
There are two options you can take if you want to engage the services of a web hosting company from Nigeria. You can either subscribe to a global hosting company with affordable hosting plans or use a Nigerian-based web hosting company.
Hosting your websites with a Nigeria-based web hosting company comes with some benefits, but there are some snags you need to be aware of too. Here are the pros of hosting your websites with web hosting Companies in Nigeria.
These are the specific ‘Pros of Hosting with Nigerian’ based web hosting services:
1. Easy payment method
Nigerian Web hosting companies accept Naira payments. This makes things easy especially if you do not have a MasterCard or Visa Card.
You simply go to a designated bank to make your bank deposit, you fill in your payment details online at the web hosting site, and in a matter of hours, your web hosting account will be ready.
Acceptance of Naira payment is a huge selling point for Nigeria-based hosting companies.
2. Low entry cost
You can get web hosting for as low as 750 Naira per year from web hosting companies in Nigeria. However, you need to pay a lot more than that to get a decent web hosting service.
Truehost Nigeria
Truehost Nigeria is among the best Web hosting companies in Nigeria, where you can get affordable hosting in Nigeria. Their hosting pricing starts from N750 per month.
Conclusion
The information in this post has shown you all the necessary information you need to know about web hosting in Nigeria; what you want to do with the information is your responsibility.
However, if you want to host a website, we recommend Truehost Nigeria, where you will get hosting services at affordable prices.
