What Hosting Should I Choose: Shared Hosting or Dedicated Hosting?
The Benefits of Shared Hosting Server
If you are a website owner first think of how much traffic you expect from your website. Your estimates should be based on how old and how popular your website is. Historical data can be useful in drawing accurate estimates.
If your site has medium or low traffic, meaning under 1000 unique visitors a day, then a shared hosting server is enough for your sites.
But if your site has a huge traffic, meaning above 1000 unique visitors per day, then you should think to buy a dedicated server. It's more expensive, but if you intend to develop your online business and generate exponential traffic, then a dedicated server would be a better option for you.
Now if we think of the great mold of medium and low traffic websites, online shops, presentation sites, real estate websites, where traffic estimates do not exceed a thousand per day, then a shared hosting is just perfect. So shared hosting is for both dynamic websites and static websites: dynamic websites - like ecommerce sites or real estate portals - are database driven websites, using PHP, ASP or other web programming languages. Static websites are usually basic presentation sites that use xhtml/css scripts.
All these types of websites can easily be hosted on a shared hosting server, and with a minimum effort from your side. This means that the hosting company provides you with free support and installation script if needed. You have your own cpanel (administration panel) for your hosting with an easy to use GUI, having the ability to update and add other domains or subdomains on the same server.
Besides good technical support, "minimum effort" means you can host your website(s) at reasonable rates, somewhere below $20/month. This does not happen for dedicated servers, which are more costly, the monthly fee being somewhere above $100/month for the lowest package. So do not take into account to buy a dedicated server if you do not have a huge traffic on your website.
A shared hosting server is a very good solution for a website with medium traffic.
How to choose a Good Shared Hosting Provider
After you decide that you want a shared hosting, you must search a bit through mold of offers posted on the web. First of all you must choose a secured server which most of the time is good to use Linux instead of Windows. So search for a Linux hosting shared server.
Step number two would be to choose from among thousands of hosting companies that offer Linux hosting. You will see that many offers have unlimited storage and/or unlimited bandwidth for $4 or even less. This is just a 'sales line' to bring more customers in. You can find more details on this topic choosing a good provider page.
Sometimes hosting providers offer their web design and development services as a package. Make sure you are happy with their webdesign services before you subscribe, so that you turn your project into a deal. Therefore if you plan to create a website or a web application and host it as well, partenering with a company that can offer good quality for the whole package might prove profitable. Most of the time script installation and configuration of the site on their hosting server is free of charge. But in case you are not satisfied by their webdesign services then the whole pack might not prove suitable for you.
After picking your hosting company, decide upon which of their hosting packages best fits your website requirements. Is your site basic html script or does it use databases like MySQL or PostgreSQL? How much storage would you need? How much bandwidth? Please read more about this on hosting packages page.