If you are planning to build a blog or website in Nigeria, then you will definitely need a fast and reliable web hosting service to power it, and in this article, I am going to show you how to get cheap web hosting in Nigeria.
To start off, let us get to see the definition of web hosting and why it is very important for your blog or website.
What is web hosting?
Web hosting is simply a process where a website engineer or designer rents or buys a server (space) in cyberspace to house his website.
Website content such as HTML, CSS, and images can never be accessible online if they are not housed in a server.
And so we can say that the purpose of web hosting is to enable a website to be accessible on the internet because without it there is no way people can find your domain in cyberspace.
In every sense of the word, web hosting is the powerhouse of every blog or website; And whatever problems it causes will definitely affect that blog or website.
Thus, I am going to write this article based on my personal experience in using web hosting in Nigeria.
Why I am using a web hosting company based in Nigeria.
I once used an international web hosting provider, but the main problem I faced was a lack of good customer service, ever since I settled for using a web hosting company based here in Nigeria, I am not having that issue, or any other for over 2 years now.
Am saying this because lots of bloggers in Nigeria write against using a web hosting company in Nigeria. But I believe bloggers should not choose web hosting based on its location; but rather on how good and reliable they are experiencing its services.
And having been convinced of the customer service and reliability of the 2 web hosting providers am using in Nigeria, I can perfectly say that I made a good choice in leaving the foreign web hosting company I used before.
Why I abandoned my foreign web hosting company.
When I began my profession as a blogger, I was using a foreign web hosting company; where I hosted like 6 to 7 domains on their unlimited hosting plan.
A year later when my billing cycle was due for payment, the hosting provider had changed their payment method; which made it difficult for me to make payments with my master card as I used to.
I approached them about the issue, and they told me to look for another hosting service provider. And the painful part of it is that it took them like 3 days to give me a response.
While the worst part of it is that they never responded again when I told them to set a payment method that will favor me here in Nigeria.
They refused to chat with me back or reply to my support tickets.
So in desperation; since my service had a few days to expire, I purchased a web hosting plan in Nigeria so I could move my domains, but I was only able to move 3 domains before my service was suspended.
This particular domain was one I was able to move, but the painful part of it is that I was unable to restore the backup I made from the other service.
And as a result of that, I lost all my files and had to install the blog afresh and start blogging all over again.
Why web hosting in Nigeria is good, even though it may seem cheap.
There are several articles online that condemn using a web hosting company in Nigeria, simply because they are cheap.
Many of them claim that the domains hosted on these services are slow. In other words, they are not optimized for speed; and they blame it on the web hosting providers.
But as a web engineer managing so many blogs and sites hosted by a Nigerian web hosting company, I want to let you know that the speed of a blog or website does not necessarily depend on the hosting provider, but on how the particular blog or website is optimized.
There are several measures you need to implement to make your blog or website load as quickly as possible, and also make it mobile-friendly; since a good percentage of traffic is nowadays generated on mobile devices.
So if you are running a blog or website built and managed by someone else where you lack access to the C-Panel where it is hosted; never blame the slowness of your blog on your hosting provider.
Often times most of the caching and backup plugins you are using are slowing your WordPress blog down so horribly.
Types of web hosting.
There are different types of web hosting plans which are existing to enable websites to become accessible based on their business needs.
These include:
- Shared Web Hosting
- Dedicated Web Hosting
- VPS Web Hosting
- Cloud Web Hosting
- Reseller Web Hosting
Let’s move on to check a few details of the most popular web hosting plans.
Shared Web Hosting.
In shared hosting, different websites are hosted on a particular server. In other words, using a shared hosting plan will allow you to share the server with other website owners.
This type of web hosting plan is good for websites that are just starting out and do not have that much traffic.
But it’s always advisable to move on to a bigger server when your traffic begins to reach 200,000 visitors per day at most.
The one good thing about this hosting plan is that it is very cheap and thus affordable.
VPS Hosting
VPS means Virtual Private Servers, and it is also known as Virtual Dedicated Servers.
As the name implies, dedicated servers are assigned to each and every client that buys this hosting plan even though it is actually serving multiple sites.
VPS is always preferred above shared hosting if your website is going to have large contents or files or you are running a big online business.
Dedicated Hosting.
Dedicated hosting which is sometimes called managed hosting or dedicated server is a hosting plan that provides an entire server for clients to rent.
When placed side to side with shared hosting plans, this type of hosting is relatively expensive. It is good for websites that have lots of traffic.
Dedicated hosting will provide you with greater self-service server administration facilities and give you total control over the server with its software and security systems.
Cloud Hosting
A cloud hosting plan is a type of hosting that operates across many web servers that are interconnected.
This type of hosting plan typically offers its users unmetered, reliable bandwidth and infinite disk space that will allow you to host various domains.
Reseller Hosting
Reseller hosting is a type of hosting that allows the account owner to use his allotted hard drive space and bandwidth to host a website for third parties.
The original hosting account belongs to the reseller.
Reseller hosting is very beneficial when there is no requirement for the amount of space you purchase and you can share some of the allocated resources with a third party.
Conclusion.
Finally, I want to recommend; based on the good service I experience daily, the 2 cheap web hosting providers I am using here in Nigeria; and are Domainking NG and TrueHost.
And if you run into any issues using them, feel free to let me know in the comment section below.
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