Website design and hosting services are becoming easier and easier to avail. Creating a website has recently become friendlier than a decade ago. Unlike those days, people no longer need to possess any coding skills to create a professional website. These days, all you need is to find the best website builder, familiarize yourself with it and start building your website in a matter of hours (even if you are a newbie).
Interestingly, most available web builders also offer web hosting services. So, once you build your site with them, you won’t need to look elsewhere for web hosting services, which saves your costs and offers convenience.
But good as the deal sounds, you must be warned that not all website design and hosting service providers will offer you what you need – a professional website at reasonable costs. If you aren’t keen, some website design and hosting providers will exploit you with shoddy services. To avoid such inconveniences, you have to do extensive research and comparison!
Where to begin?
You must consider several things to find the best website design and hosting service providers. For example:
What Hosting Do You Need?
The first thing you need to do is decide what kind of web hosting you want. There are many different types of web hosting services, each with pros and cons. Compare the various options available and go for the one that pleases you.
Think About Your Web Design
Next, you’ll need to figure out what website you want. Do you want a simple blog? A forum? An eCommerce site? Whatever you need, look for a web design that will offer exactly that.
How About the Cost
You want a web design provider who will offer excellent services for an affordable cost. To find such, you must make many comparisons since prices vary from one service provider to another.
What Features Do You Want?
Different website design and hosting service providers offer different features. Some will have all you need, while others might lack certain features, so ensure you make your comparison keenly. Once you decide on the above, choose your website design and hosting provider from the following options.
Let’s compare
Name | Free Plan | Price | Free Domain | Free Trial | Best For |
Cloudways | $12 | 3 days | Good for ecommerce and personal sites | ||
Wix | $16 | 14 days | Best for online stores | ||
Hostinger | $1.99 | Small bloggers (starters) that do not need many features | |||
SiteGround | $3.99 | Good for hosting small sites & personal blogs | |||
Bluehost | $2.95 | Local small businesses, e-commerce, entrepreneurs, and personal site builders | |||
GoDaddy | $0.99 | 30 days | Good for beginners and small-business owners | ||
Hostgator | $2.75 | 45 days | Best for tech-heavy businesses | ||
Squarespace | $16 | 14 days | Smaller sites, blogs, online stores |
Website design and hosting services worth a try
1. Cloudways
 If you are a small business owner looking for reliable and affordable website design and hosting services, Cloudways could be all you need. It presents tremendous opportunities to you, supposing all you need is a little more oomph in your computing power.
| Our Expert Rating: Best Features
|
2. Wix
 Are you a professional photographer? Then you will need a website design and hosting service that offers the best photography-specific themes. Although so many such services exist, not many can outshine Wix.
| Our Expert Rating: Best Features
|
3. Hostinger
 According to the previous users of Hostinger web design services, the provider is best if you want to build a personal website. You will like it the most, particularly if you are looking for a personal website to host your resume.
| Our Expert Rating: Best Features
|
4. SiteGround
 Supposedly, SiteGround is the best ecommerce website design and hosting service provider. The provider is reliable, offering top-notch customer services and quick speeds.
| Our Expert Rating: Best Features
|
5. Bluehost
 Bluehost is one of the oldest website design and hosting companies around. They have been offering reliable services since 2003 and continue to do so today.
| Our Expert Rating: Best Features
|
Disclaimer: Tech-Recipes partners with Bluehost and may earn commission should you make any purchases through this link. Our opinion, however, is based on independent research, testing and honest impressions.
6. GoDaddy
 Most people know Godaddy for their domain registration services but do you know they also offer website design and hosting services? Well, now you do!
| Our Expert Rating: Best Features
|
7. HostGator
 HostGator is another popular hosting provider, hosting more than 10 million domains. According to most users, this website design and hosting service is promising, with 99.99% uptime and 24/7 customer help services.
| Our Expert Rating: Best Features
|
8. SquareSpace
 Squarespace is a website-building platform that makes it easier than ever to create beautiful websites. You don't need any technical experience to get started! Squarespace's drag-and-drop editor lets you build a professional site without knowing how to code.
| Our Expert Rating: Best Features
|
How to design a great website
A great website should have a clear purpose and focus. It should provide information about your company, products, services, etc., and also be a marketing tool.
The site should be designed to attract visitors and convert them into customers. To achieve such a great website, observe the following things when creating it.
- Make sure your site loads fast.
- Keep your content simple and concise.
- Use images and graphics to enhance your message.
- Include links to social media sites.
- Create a mobile version of your site.
- Test your site thoroughly before launching it live.
- Be consistent across all platforms (desktop, tablet, smartphone).
- Don’t forget to add a call to action at the end of each page.
What features to look for in a good website builder?
If you are looking to build a great website, you must work with a good web design company. But how do you tell that the website builder you are about to contract is the best? Well, pay attention to the following features:
Easy to use
A good website should be easy to use. You don’t want to spend hours figuring out how to do something simple. When choosing a website builder go for one providing you with intuitive web design editing tools. Such tools help in easy shaping of your website to make it look the way you want. However, if you’re not sure what you need, just ask! There’s no shame in asking questions.
Customizable
You’ll want to customize your site to fit your business. A website builder will allow you to add custom pages, change colours, and upload images. Therefore, when shopping for a web design provider, look for one that can build a customizable site.
Mobile-friendly
Your web design service provider should build a responsive website. Responsive means that the layout adjusts automatically depending on whether someone views the page on their computer or phone.
Support
Your web design provider should offer a reliable customer service. You’ll want to know if you have any issues with your account and if they can help you fix them.
Security
Make sure your website builder offers good security measures. You’ll want to ensure that your data isn’t stolen or hacked.
Cost
The cost of your web design services should be reasonable. You shouldn’t have to pay thousands of dollars to build a website. Furthermore, website builders also include subscription fees. Therefore, you should consider the initial and long-term costs. Go with a website builder which cost is within your budget.
Design
Your website builder should give you plenty of options for design. You’ll want to choose between templates, drag-and-drop builders, and code editors.
What is the difference between a website builder and a website host?
If you are a new website owner or researching on how to build one you might be confused by what a website builder and website host means. The terms may seem as they mean the same but they are different types of services required on new websites.
Website builders are software applications that allow users to create their websites without coding. A website builder gives you control on the appearance of your site and makes web design easy. What the visitors see when they visit your website, the structure and number of pages on your website is all achieved through a website builder.
While on the other hand, web hosting services are companies that offer web space for your website to live in – you can literally think of it as a “home” for your site. Web hosting ensures the files that make up a website have space they require on a physical server. Unlike a website builder that is optional, a web hosting plan is compulsory for all websites getting online.
How about SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. A website’s SEO is how well optimized it is for search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. A website’s SEO is determined by many factors, including keywords, backlinks, content, page speed, mobile friendliness, social media sharing, and much more.
There are many different ways to optimize a website. Here are some of the most popular ones:
- Keyword Research – Find out what people type into search engines to find your business.
- Backlink Building – Getting links from websites that have authority in their field (like Wikipedia)
- Content Creation – Writing high-quality articles about your products and services
- Social Media Sharing – Posting on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, etc.
- Mobile Friendliness – Making sure your site looks good on mobile devices
- Website Audit – Analysing your website to make sure it meets best practices
- Technical Optimization – Fixing any issues with your website code
- Link Building – Creating backlinks to your website from other sites
- Onsite Optimization – Improving your website’s usability, etc.
Does website design require coding?
To build a website, you’ll need to know some programming languages.
However, you don’t need coding knowledge if you are not designing the website independently. Instead, you’ll need to hire a reliable web design service and let them do everything.
They’ll write your code, set up your web hosting account, and even help you promote your business online.
How to choose the best host for my needs?
With tons of website design and hosting service providers in the market, choosing the best host for your needs may be tricky but not impossible. When choosing the best web hosting services, there are several important things you must consider. Some of them include:
Security
Security is always a concern when choosing your web hosting services. The best website design and host provider you choose should guarantees security. Ensure they offer security features like daily backups, virus scanning, and firewall protection.
Features
Look for a web hosting provider that offers a lot of features. These might include free ecommerce tools, content management systems, blogs, forums, shopping carts, etc.
Support
Make sure your web hosting company provides 24/7 live chat support. Also, look for a company that preferably offers phone support.
Reputation
Check out reviews online. Look for sites that give high ratings. Also, check out their complaints section.
Uptime Guarantee
Uptime is extremely important. You want to ensure that your website will always be available to your prospects. As such, you must look for a web hosting provider who guarantees 99.99%, if not 100%.
Price
You want to pay what you can afford without breaking the bank or borrowing. To ensure that’s the case, look for a good web hosting service that offers all the features you need but at friendlier prices.
Wrapping Up
Choosing the best website design and hosting provider isn’t as simple as you’d want it to be. It proves hard because of the many website hosting and building services available. You must go through all of them to find what’s best for you, which can be lengthy and tedious.
We understand all the challenges you’ll likely encounter, so we shared this guide to give you a breakthrough. Through it, we’ve broken down the most common website design and hosting providers so that you have an easier time choosing. Also, we have discussed other essential information to guide you when choosing the best website design and hosting services. Read keenly and see what would suit your needs the best.
FAQ
Yes! There are several website builders that provide free web design. You can create a beautiful, professional-looking website using any of these services.
• Wix
• Weebly
• Bluehost
• Hostgator
• WordPress
• Jimdo, etc.
The straightforward answer is yes; you can host your website for free. All you have to do is search for free web hosting services and get started.
Supposing you don’t know any free web hosting services, you can find one by quickly searching online. Open your browser and search for “free web hosting service and you will get many options.
Some of the free web hosting services you might discover are:
• WordPress
• Wix
• Weebly
• AwardSpace
• 000webhost
• InfinityFree
• FreeHostia
Although most web design platforms also offers web hosting services, it is possible to build a website with them and not subscribe to their hosting plans. In such cases, however, you will need to look for web hosting services elsewhere.
And if you don’t want to use web hosting services, then you can also host your website using a Linux or Windows machine. You will, however, need a lot of expertise for this option to work. It is not really recommended for complete beginners. However, if you are curious, you can find out more about it.
The cost of creating a good-looking website depends on many factors, such as:
• The type of website you want
• Domain name
• Website maintenance
• Website size
• Web hosting services
• Who’s building your website – a builder or web designer? Etc.
Considering all the above factors, you will find that;
• The average cost of building a website (with a freelancer or an agency) falls between $12,000 and $150,000.
• Building a website with a builder cost $0 to $500 per month.
• The routine website maintenance costs between $400 and 60,000 a year using web designer services. However, if you use a web builder, the cost would be fairly low at $0 to $5400 annually.
Website templates play very many significant roles when designing your website.
They help you to:
• Create websites without having to learn HTML code. You can simply choose a template that suits your business and customize it according to your preferences.
• Save time and money. You don’t need to hire someone to design your website; you can just download a template and start working on it immediately.
• Customize your website. You can change the colour scheme, add images, and edit the text to suit your brand identity.
• Improve your website SEO. Search engines like Google and Bing rank websites based on their content. A well-designed website with a good layout and attractive graphics helps search engine crawlers crawl your site more efficiently.
Of course, you can. Although designing an online store involves many steps (especially when building from scratch), you can simplify things using website builders. They are very helpful to people trying to make a website with no coding knowledge or prior web design experience.
It’s really a great and helpful piece of information. I’m glad that you shared this helpful information with us. Please stay us up to date like this. Thank you for sharing.
You really make it appear really easy along with your presentation however I find this matter to be really one thing which I believe I might by no means understand. It sort of feels too complex and very wide for me. I am having a look forward for your next put up, I will try to get the hold of it!
Great wordpress blog here.. It’s hard to find quality writing like yours these days. I really appreciate people like you! take care