Bandwidth: The Make Or Break Of Your Website
Is your website running slow? You could be in need of more bandwidth.
We have all heard about the notion of bandwidth and how important it is for our prospective websites, blogs and online shops. In a nutshell, bandwidth is “defined as the amount of data that can be transmitted in a fixed amount of time.” This is so important as it affects how fast your website will load; slow loading websites will turn away any potential visitors before they even get a chance to see your site. Imagine your website is an online shop or a portfolio of your work, full of high quality product images. If they don‘t load quickly, you are committing an online sin. A visitor needs to be able to experience the full potential of your site in the least amount of time possible.
How does bandwidth work?
One way to imagine bandwidth is this: “A pipe with water running through it – the wider the pipe, the greater the volume of water that can flow through it.” Basically, if your web hosting solution has a large bandwidth allowance, it will allow large amounts of data to be transferred to your site visitors in a small amount of time. For some website owners who perhaps don‘t use a lot of visuals or whose websites are quite basic, a shared server web hosting solution works well. But if you have a spectacularly visual and complex website, and are running an online business, this limited shared server bandwidth might not be enough to bring your website to life.
The solution? Dedicated server hosting.
As first impressions do count, you need to be sure that every visitor to your website will have an amazing experience the first time round. This includes images loading instantly, sliders activating, online shops being quick to browse and easy to check out with. Perhaps your website is a complex database providing information to its visitors. Websites which have a lot of data to process and store could benefit greatly from a dedicated server – which is like having your very own power house to run your site.
Having a dedicated hosting service means your business doesn’t share the servers which provide the hosting with anyone else. This in turn means you can have great flexibility when it comes to how you wish to set them up.
Having a dedicated server means all of the bandwidth and storage of your data is yours. Having an extremely high data transfer limit, your data will be streamed in near to real time if needed. And if your storage runs out you can extend, increase and demand at any time.
So how does dedicated server hosting work?
- One thing you do need to know is that once you rent a dedicated server it is basically yours to run. A good web hosting provider will have a great support team on hand to help you with all of your technical needs. You can find out more about dedicated server hosting from UK2 here.
- Be aware of which software you are licensing, and the terms and dates of the licence.
- The all important server operating system (OS): this is the interface between the server and the requests made by the computers connected to the server through a network. The main server OS choices are either Linux or Windows. Which way you choose to go depends on your preferences, however you will need to maintain the server OS yourself. It will require updates, configurations and security checks, and you will also have to install any programming languages and run features whenever you need them.
- The server will require backups and the knowledge to transfer databases manually.
- The installation of a control panel for your server is highly recommended as it makes things easier to navigate at the beginning, and also gives a helpful visual organisation. Which one you choose is again up to personal preference.
- Once you have completed the setup, it is time to install or migrate your new website onto your very own server and be amazed by its performance.