Combining Website Design and Web Hosting?

There are two schools of thought for this one. Should I let my website designer look after my hosting (some may even bundle the hosting price into their design fees and offer a “free” web hosting service)? Or should I separate my web hosting from my site’s development?

The positives of letting your website designer deal with the hosting is that you don’t have to worry about it and there is also only one account to pay. If you really don’t understand how it all works, this may look like an appealing solution. If you need something done regarding your website, you know you only have one person to speak to who can sort it out.

You may lose some control over everything doing it this way. And considering your email, website and domain name (which your email and website are dependent on) are a very important part of your business, why take unnecessary risks when there are smarter ways of going about it. I must add, there are some businesses combining the two services quite successfully, but they are a minority in the bigger scheme of things.

Web hosting companies can also make your email, domain and website related queries easy for you. This is what they do, work with various web hosting scenarios all day, every day. Whereas a web designer may also know what they are doing, however they don’t always have the necessary control over the hosting side of things and therefore may not be in a position to rectify certain problems immediately. They are, most often, reselling a web hosting service in order to keep their focus primarily on what they do best – web design. If they can give you full control of your email, domain, and website doing it through a reseller, then they are using a good reseller and there should be no problems, however if you have limited access, you should be wary!

This is therefore the basis of why web hosting companies exist, and when I say web hosting, I mean this is their sole focus, to offer a specialised web hosting service. And this is also the reason you may find many web designers who prefer to remain as solely web designers.

The two industries offer complimentary services, and while both industries understand very well what the other industry does (and in most cases even know exactly how they do it), it comes down to offering the best service available. Time is a major issue whereby the correct focus needs to be put on each equally important service. If you are paying hundreds or thousands of dollars on a website, you can see very quickly how much focus will be put on the 20 buck hosting solution. However if your email and site are down, what service is more important to you at that point in time?

If your email is not working, will a web designer really go out of their way to help you sort it out? Or will they be finishing that other website and focusing on that deadline they need to meet. Which service is going to pay them better? Whereas this is what web hosting companies do – fix web hosting related problems! They have enough of these websites to make it worth their while and therefore keep the focus 100% on hosting.

Even though website hosting and web design are so inter-dependant, it can be a very good idea to separate the two services. By separate, I mean use a different web design company to your hosting company. If you have a fallout with your web designer, you can quite easily change your password access to your site (because you have control of it) and find a more suitable designer. Or if you have chosen the wrong hosting company for your needs, which is understandable due to the daunting task of selecting a hosting partner in the first place. You can just as easily ask your web designer to move your site to a new hosting location.

NewSprout Hosting’s MD, Gavin Payne, has been Hosting servers, applications and websites for over 10 years, helping global companies including Telstra, Bidvest, VISA, AVIS, AT&T, Peugeot, BMW, Motorola and many others build their online presence. NewSprout is an Australian company offering website hosting, email services and domain name registrations to business and personal clients. For more information visit https://www.newsprout.com.au/web-hosting