Hosting is a computer that stays switched on so people can see your website. Everything else is a detail, but a few of the details matter.
The main kinds
Shared hosting puts your site on a machine alongside many others. It is cheap, usually $5 to $15 a month, and perfectly adequate for a small business site. The trade-off is that a busy neighbour can slow you down.
Managed hosting is the same thing with someone maintaining it — updates, backups, security. More expensive, $20 to $60 a month, and worth it if the site runs on software that needs regular patching.
Cloud or VPS hosting gives you a dedicated slice of a machine. More control, more responsibility, and more than a brochure site needs.
What "unlimited" means
Nothing. Unlimited bandwidth and unlimited storage are marketing terms, governed by an acceptable use policy that defines the actual limit. For a small business site this does not matter, because you will never approach any limit. Just do not choose a host because of the word.
What actually matters
- Where the server is. Distance costs milliseconds. For a Caribbean business serving Caribbean and US visitors, a US East Coast location is sensible.
- Backups. How often, how far back, and can you restore one yourself without opening a support ticket.
- Free SSL. Standard now. Anyone charging extra for a basic certificate is charging for something free.
- Whether you can leave. Can you download your files and database today, without asking permission.
What matters here specifically
A lot of your visitors are on a phone, on cellular, sometimes with poor signal. That makes page weight far more important than server specifications. A small, well-built site on cheap shared hosting will beat a heavy one on expensive hosting, every time.
Where the server should be if you are here
There is no hosting inside the territory worth using for a public website, so the real choice is which mainland or regional data centre you sit in. For a business on St. Thomas, St. John, or St. Croix serving a mix of local customers and visitors booking from the US, an East Coast location — Ashburn, New York, Miami — is the sensible default.
The difference between a good choice and a poor one is tens of milliseconds, which nobody notices. The difference between a US East server and one in Europe or Asia is enough to feel, particularly on cellular.
What matters far more than the data centre is what the pages weigh, and that is worth repeating because hosting upgrades are frequently sold as the fix for a problem that is actually a 6MB homepage.
What we use, and why
For most small business sites we set clients up on GoDaddy shared hosting with cPanel. That is a preference, not a verdict — there are faster hosts and cheaper ones, and we will happily work with whatever you already have.
The reasons are practical rather than technical:
- You can actually run it. cPanel is the closest thing hosting has to a standard, and the account is in your name with billing you recognise.
- Any developer can pick it up. If we are not around, the next person does not have to learn an unfamiliar platform to help you.
- Support answers the phone. Worth more than a benchmark when something breaks on a Saturday.
- Nothing is locked in. Standard PHP and MySQL, so the site can move elsewhere whenever you want it to.
One caution, and it applies to every large host rather than one in particular: the checkout will offer you a long list of add-ons. Site backup services, security bundles, SEO tools, and premium SSL. You need almost none of it. Take the hosting plan and a free certificate, and add things later if you actually turn out to need them.
Who should hold the account
You. Same as the domain. Your developer can have access; the account and the payment card should be yours.
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