Hosting

How can we help you?


We like to keep things as transparent as possible. After consultation and development of your online marketing strategy we will be an a position to recommend the most suitable and most cost effective hosting options for your requirements.

Hosting

Whether you are just getting started or managing a website that processes millions of orders, we can advise a host to suit your needs.

Scaleable Hosting that will grow with your demands. 

Consultation

After consultation and development of your online marketing strategy we will be an a position to recommend the most suitable and most cost effective hosting options for your requirements.

Configuration

Once your hosting is set up, our tech guys will install our software on your webspace and configure your server, pointing your domain names to the right place and configuring email forwarding.

Website Migration

We can usually develop your new site on your existing space if you have it. Alternatively we can migrate your website to a new hosting provider ensuring there is a seamless switch with no downtime.

Apart from our ‘Starter’ package, we don’t host sites, or domains names ourselves. We like to keep things as transparent as possible. After consultation and development of your online marketing strategy we will be an a position to recommend the most suitable and most cost effective hosting options for your requirements.

WEBSITE HOSTING AND DOMAINS

Before we can design and build your website, you are going to need website hosting and a domain name.

To use an analogy, if you want to build a house, the first thing you need is a plot of land to build it on. In the same way, if you are going to build a website, you need web space to host it on. And to continue the analogy, just as your house needs an address so people know where to find you, so does your website. That is your Domain Name. In our case our domain name is xylos.co.uk


So if it is the first thing you need, why is it the last thing on our list of website services?

switch, pc, computer

Not All Website Hosting is Created Equal

Although hosting your website sounds simple enough, there are lots of options available, and lots of price levels, and lots of hosting technologies and thousands of providers with differences in speed and reliability and different levels of support and to be perfectly honest, it can be a bit of a minefield.

And until we know what you want to achieve, we don’t know what hosting requirements you need.

In our experience most people pay a lot more money for web site hosting than they should. Generally this is due to a combination of being overcharged by a middleman, as well as being oversold on the requirements needed to host the website. Pricing is far from transparent. Go on most hosting providers websites and the price per month they quote is far away from the price you will end up paying. You know the sort of thing to expect, it is the same sales model used for Satellite TV or Mobile Phone contracts. Typically the advertised ‘price per month’ is for the first 3 months and then only when you sign up to a 3 year contract. And then there are the ‘upsells’ on essential services that are not included in the ‘base’ package. Plus VAT. Plus more extras. Furthermore, when you have committed to a company to host your site, you can quickly become ‘locked in’. It isn’t an easy process to move your website and switch providers. A bit like moving house.

“Why are your ‘Starter Sites’ much cheaper to host than the ‘Small Business’, ‘E-commerce’ or ‘Bespoke’ sites?”


Mainly due to hosting costs, overheads, security and maintenance. There is no point in putting on a full set of climbing gear if you just want to go for a walk. A pair of trainers will be just fine. However if your project is to climb a mountain, then you’ll need that climbing gear.


Our ‘Starter’ packages are multi page static HTML websites and they are ideal for businesses that only need to present what they do and have a contact form. To make sure your website works perfectly we don’t need to install any additional software and we don’t really have to worry much about security as that is taken care of for us. We pay a lot of money to host them on Managed Cloud Servers on a super fast high performance CDN (Content Delivery Network). If you don’t like ‘Techno Speak’ – It’s really good, fast, secure hosting We host your site on the same servers and network that Amazon uses, and Hosting doesn’t get much better than that. And if that is all that is required to host your site, that is the best option for your business.


Our ‘Small Business’, ‘Ecommerce’ or ‘Bespoke’ packages offer far more complex websites. Complex e-shops that require user logins, payments & shipping. Or dynamic content websites featuring blogs and that have comments and rating functionality, categories and tags and filtering and sorting. Or applications such as appointment booking systems or Advance Custom Fields.

These websites require a content management system and a database to drive them, which in turn needs its own dedicated hosting server. They also require additional software to be installed and updated and all the additional hosting, installation, managing security, updates, etc. costs more in time and money.


Apart from our ‘Starter’ sites, Xylos does not host sites, or domains names ourselves.


We like to keep things as transparent as possible. After consultation and development of your online marketing strategy we will be an a position to recommend the most suitable and most cost effective hosting options for your requirements. We do have some favoured suppliers and recommended packages start at £4.99 /month – more of them later – but you are welcome to ignore our advice and use any hosting provider you wish as long as the servers use support the software we install to make your website work. Most do, but check with us first.


This gives you some significant benefits. You register your domain name and sign up for the hosting service in your name. You pay directly to the domain name registrar and the hosting company. You own them and cut out any middleman fees or legal ownership disputes. And don’t worry, we can be on hand to fill in all the forms and do the technical bits for you if you need us, but the hosting and domain is all in your name, paid for by you and fully owned by you.

“So why can’t I host my ‘Small Business’, E-commerce’ or ‘Bespoke’ website on Managed Cloud Servers like yours?”

You can. But ‘Entry Level’ starts at £48/month and rises to £144/month for ‘Premium Power’. For that you are getting 8 CPU Cores, 10GB Memory 120GB SSD Space and 5TB Data Transfer. If you need that power, no problem, we can provide it. But you will probably be fine with the £4.99/month package we recommend.

Once your hosting and domain name registration is set up, Xylos can take over. Our tech guys will install our content management software on your web space and configure your server, pointing your domain names to the right place and configuring email. Basically getting it all set up for you.


And then we can start on the fun bit – designing your website!

Who do we recommend for Hosting – and why?


Picking someone to host your site is a very important choice. The two absolute key factors are availability or ‘up-time‘ and speed. But other factors also come into play. Support is a critical one which is often overlooked. Most of the time you will not need it, but when you do encounter a problem, good support pays dividends. And even though you might be relying on us to sort out any issues with your hosting, if we cannot get good support from your hosting provider, we cannot pass it on to you.

We researched hosting providers extensively – if you want to know more details about what to look for and read an in depth article about website hosting, click here to view our Blog Post on how to choose the best partner to host your website.

Two hosting providers come out best in our opinion, by a wide margin, and we explain why in the Blog Post. Both Siteground and Bluehost offer excellent speed, availability and support as well as very important features such as the ability to expand as your website traffic grows, dynamic caching, security and SSL and much, much more.

Both are very good, but there are subtle differences between them which might make one more suitable for your needs than the other.

We think they are the two best out there. Google them yourself, they both have thousands of reviews. Either way, when you sign up it is essential to go for the ‘WordPress’ hosting options. WordPress is the content management software we use to power your site, and needs certain features to run, such as database access. WordPress powers about 35% of the internet with over 455,000,000 websites and both Siteground and Bluehost are recommended hosting providers by WordPress.org.

Your next choice depends on what you expect to achieve with your website. Both of these suppliers offer solutions which can support anything from start up websites to massive enterprise level cloud based hosting – at very different pricing levels – from less than £5 a month to £200+ and beyond. Which brings us around full circle to where we started. We cannot really recommend a hosting solution without knowing what you want your website to do, so talk to us first!

The main options in scale and power are Shared Hosting, Virtual Private Server Hosting, Dedicated Hosting and Cloud Hosting. And the prices go from small to large. And within each of those technologies are sub categories from entry level to power user. If you want to know more, read our Blog Post.

Having said that, most business will be fine with either Sitegrounds ‘Managed WordPress Hosting’ ‘Grow Big’ solution which is currently on offer at £4.95 a month. Alternatively Bluehosts ‘WordPress’ ‘Plus’ account will fulfil most standard requirements and is a available at a similar offer price. For for more demanding websites their WP Pro solutions start at about £16 a month.

Just a final point, we mentioned earlier that pricing is far from transparent in web hosting. Well that includes our two recommended providers. Siteground is the better of the two, but note that the prices they offer (which are really great) revert to the ‘normal’ (not so great) price upon renewal – so to take advantage of it you really want to get the longest term available. Also, if you want to register a domain name, you will have to pay £14.95 and then that fee is a yearly extra.

That is pretty fair, but Bluehost offer you a free domain on for the first year on signup. However the ‘price per month’ they advertise is only if you sign up for 36 months. If you want a shorter term than that, you pay more. Plus throughout the sign up process with Bluehost there are loads of ‘upsells’ which can put up the price considerably. Have a look at them both yourself on the links below to get a feel for the options and prices (and we suggest you try a few dummy sign ups without actually paying so you can see what the actual final price works out at), and then when we know more about what your website aims are we can point you in the right direction.

Click on the links above to visit our recommended Web Hosting Suppliers.

“What if I already have a domain name and hosting webspace?”


We can usually develop your new site on your existing space. The content management software we use to build your site, ‘WordPress’, needs certain features to run, such as a content management system and a database to access, but the good news is nearly all hosting companies support WordPress hosting. It powers about 35% of the internet with over 455,000,000 websites. In order to build your website we do need to have access to your existing hosting account so you will need to provide us with Administrator usernames and passwords for that.


However this may not always be the best or most cost effective option. Unless you are locked in to a long term contract you can probably get better value or performance elsewhere. With the onward advancement of technology, hosting speeds and reliability continue to increase, and costs decrease, but your hosting provider will not generally pass these savings on you.


A bit like swapping your car insurance or utility supplier, companies rarely reward customer loyalty and big savings can be made by switching providers. And the longer you have been with them, the more you are likely to be overpaying. Even more so if you are paying for hosting through a middleman such as a design agency reselling hosting services.


The problem is, moving your website isn’t quite so simple as switching your car insurance, so you can become locked in – and the hosting providers know this. We used an analogy earlier about it being like moving house. So a great time to switch hosting provider might be when you are getting a new website.


We can set up a new hosting account, develop your new website on that whilst your existing one is still live online and when the new site is all up, running and tested we swap over your DNS records to point your domain name to the new website resulting in a seamless switch with no downtime.


So get in touch and let us audit your existing hosting plan as we may be able to advise a better solution.

We would love to hear from you.

Book a FREE consultation

We will generate an appointment for an online consultation via a Zoom video conference for up to 3 people. It is totally free and there are no commitments, just a friendly chat so we can learn about your business and evaluate how Xylos may be able to help you.

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