In short, hosting is a server on which your website will work. It is important since it can affect how well your website will work, whether it will be fast, and how well you will rank in SEO. This should not be a quick decision. It would be best to look for what is most suitable for you and your situation since this can affect how many people will see your fantastic website, hopefully bringing you many new customers.
Website hosting can be tricky. There are many different options on the market, and how do we know which to choose?
Website hosting in Latvia
When searching for hosting, you get many different offers from local and international companies, but most offers are technical and complicated, making it difficult to understand what you need.
An important thing to consider is that if you are not a domain and hosting expert, you might need help from the hosting company. However, if you mainly work in Latvia, you might need a “.LV” domain and help setting it up correctly. Things like DMARC and DKIM records can be easily forgotten, and your email will not work as well.
Because you might need local domains, I suggest also going with a local company that understands the process of buying and managing them.
Understanding Web Hosting Basics
Most people want to have the best offer by these criteria:
- Price – so you don't pay too much for what you could get cheaper,
- Performance – so the server can perform well enough, and your website would be fast. Here, you also should consider if you might have “peaks” or times with more visitors to your website than usual. You should keep in mind if the server is easily scalable without having an extended downtime when your website is not available,
- How easy it is to set everything up and maintain it later.
The best offer usually means that it is easy to set everything up, works fast enough, is scalable if you do a marketing campaign or have more visitors “just like that,” and, of course, does not cost too much.
When everything is going well, everyone is happy.
However, we must also consider what will happen if your website stops working. More about that later.
There are different types of web hosting, each catering to various needs.
I will help you understand the basics to help you make an educated decision.
1st category you need to understand is Standard hosting versus Managed hosting.
- Standard hosting usually means you get the server space, but you're responsible for everything else — like maintenance, security, and updates.
- Managed hosting, however, takes the burden off your shoulders. It's like having a team of experts managing your digital property, ensuring it runs smoothly, stays secure, and performs optimally.
The benefits of managed hosting for businesses are immense. You get peace of mind knowing that professionals handle the technical aspects, allowing you to focus on growing your business, not upgrading plugins or PHP versions. Managed hosting often includes proactive monitoring, automatic backups, enhanced security measures, and performance optimizations. It's like having a reliable partner taking care of your online presence, ensuring it's always up and running at its best.
With managed hosting, you ensure that it not only works well when you launch but also keeps working well all the time, and you don't have to learn and do the upkeep yourself.
2nd category is Shared hosting vs. Private server.
- Shared hosting means you don't have your own server but rather an apartment in an apartment building. It is cost-effective, and if the server provider is good, then it should be worry-free.
- Private servers can be Virtual Private servers (VPS) or physical Dedicated servers. It is more like owning your own house. For those with specific and high needs, this is the best choice. You don’t share resources with others and have much more control over the server, but you must pay a much higher price.
Choosing the right web hosting provider is crucial for several reasons. Firstly, it directly impacts your website's performance and user experience. A slow-loading website or frequent downtimes can turn away potential customers and harm your brand's reputation. With the right hosting, you ensure fast load times, seamless navigation, and reliability, creating a positive visitor experience.
Moreover, web hosting plays a significant role in SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). Search engines like Google consider page speed (more in our blog article), uptime, and overall performance when ranking websites. An optimized website hosted on a reliable server is more likely to rank higher in search results, driving organic traffic and boosting visibility.
Choosing the right web hosting provider isn't just about technical details; it's about investing in your online success. It's about ensuring your website is fast, secure, and reliable, providing an excellent experience for your audience and "earning favor" with search engines. So, when considering web hosting in Latvia, prioritize quality and reliability to set your online presence on the path to success.
Factors to Consider When Choosing a Hosting Provider
Most providers offer great servers. Some have their infrastructure on large cloud solutions like Google Cloud, AWS (Amazon Web Services), or Digital Ocean. Some have servers in local data centers. Most of the time, they are well-configured, and there is little to worry about.
With that being said, what you need to take into consideration is – everything else.
- How easy it will be to work with them?
- What is included in their offer, and what services will you pay extra for?
- Will they only set it up and change it if / when you ask for it, or will they monitor your website and ensure it keeps up with the times?
Unfortunately, I have some hosting horror stories to share.
I recently spoke with one of the largest web hosting providers in Latvia. They shared a story about losing all the info on the client’s server. It was an older server, and the client didn’t choose to have backups for it when signing up for the service. Unfortunately, one of the server admins deleted everything, and now they needed to figure out how / if they could restore at least part of the lost data.
With this in mind, consider what you are getting for the price you are paying. Is everything you need included - even if you don’t know how to ask for it? The worst thing you would like to hear is that they lost all your data, and it is your fault since you didn't ask for a specific service and didn't offer it to you to keep the price artificially low.
Many web hosting companies in Latvia and elsewhere also charge too much for additional services like regular website updates.
They might offer hosting for 5-10 EUR but then provide updates for 100+ EUR per month, and other additional services are similarly overpriced.
The total amount for what you need can quickly get out of control.
Most hosting providers will set everything up as you need on the day of the launch but then never do any updates or change it with the mindset of “if it isn’t broken, then don't fix it" or "we do the hosting and the client needs to take care of their website.” The sad truth is that after a while, the websites become slow, have significant security issues, and don’t get optimized for new Google page speed demands to keep ranking the website well.
Unfortunately, most hosting companies care only about their servers.
Even when offering a 99.9% uptime guarantee, they only mean for their servers. If your website stops working, is hacked, or is slow for some reason, that is your problem, and you will need to find someone who can help you.
For these reasons, when choosing web hosting companies in Latvia or elsewhere, I strongly suggest choosing only Managed hosting.
Their services will cost more, but you will save so much on your nerves by having fewer bad surprises in the future.
Of course, not all website hosting providers are bad. Most try to offer a good service, and everything is good. It helps if you know what you need and what you are buying, what is included, and what is not.
That is why our hosting offers include "all that you need,” and we will monitor your website to let you know if something significant arises that requires something additional. For more info, please go and see our hosting offers.
What server details do you need for your website?
WordPress website hosting requires specific parameters to ensure optimal performance and functionality.
Here are the key parameters to consider:
- PHP Version: WordPress recommends using PHP version 7.4 or higher for security and performance reasons. Ensure your hosting provider supports and allows your website’s PHP version or that someone can update the website to bring it to the version supported by the Hosting provider – the newest stable version is preferable.
- MySQL Database: WordPress relies on MySQL databases. Ensure your hosting plan includes MySQL database support and adequate database space. Some hosting providers also limit the number of Databases you can have, but this is fine for most websites.
- Server Uptime: Most web hosting providers in Latvia will offer a 99.9% or higher uptime guarantee for their servers. Make sure that they also offer a guarantee for the website.
- Server Resources: Consider the resources your WordPress site requires, such as CPU, RAM, and storage space. Most people don't know how much they need. I’ll discuss this further later.
- WordPress-optimised server: Look for hosting providers that offer optimized environments for WordPress, including compatibility with WordPress plugins, themes, and updates.
- Security Features: Prioritize hosting providers with robust security measures. SSL certificates are a must-have; all websites should have them by default. The server should also have a firewall. Your website should have DDoS protection—most likely by CDN—and regular WordPress and plugin updates. Last, it should have a good and strong password. Weak passwords are one of the most frequent ways websites are hacked.
- Backup and Restore Options: Choose a hosting plan that includes automatic backups and easy restoration options in case of data loss or website issues.
- Scalability: Opt for hosting solutions that allow scalability. These solutions enable you to upgrade resources as your website grows and experiences increased traffic, or you want to launch a marketing campaign.
- Support for WordPress Updates: Ensure your hosting provider supports timely updates for WordPress core, themes, and plugins to maintain security and performance. I mentioned this in Security Point, but it is important in a long-term website maintenance plan.
- Technical Support: Select a hosting provider with reliable technical support to assist you with WordPress-related issues, updates, and optimizations. It would be perfect if you could find a company that offers support from a real person – not only through a chatbot or Wiki.
Server resources
When considering the server resources needed, most web hosting providers in Latvia have multiple offers with many parameters.
Most of them are good and enough for a standard website.
Server parameters like this or better should be enough for most websites:
- RAM – 2 GB,
- Disk space – 5 GB (although some web host providers offer hundreds of GBs – most websites use less than 5 GB),
- Domain count – most websites have only one domain, so every offer is enough, but if you have more, you need to consider this,
- PHP version – Recommentded PHP version is 8 or higher to maintain security; you should ask a developer to update it if you have an older version. If your website can’t be updated to a newer PHP version, ensure the provider supports the version you need.
For eCommerce web hosting, you might need a more powerful solution with more resources and disk space.
How much is necessary for you depends mostly on how many visitors and products you have.
Email hosting
Most web hosting providers in Latvia offer email hosting with your website hosting plan.
Their offer will be enough if you don’t need much, but you must send a few emails occasionally.
If you are more serious about your emails and need them for work, I strongly suggest not going with the web hosting provider's solution but hosting your emails on Google Workspace.
It will offer best-in-class email infrastructure, and you will also have access to Google Drive, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Sheets, and the rest of Google’s solutions. If you have ever used them on your private account, you know how valuable they are and how much they can help your business grow.
If you have many emails and think you might need a private email server, our experienced DevOps and DBA will gladly help.
In summary
I am glad to see that you have gotten this far!
Choosing the right web hosting in Latvia is critical for your website’s success. Consider price, performance, scalability, and security. Opt for managed hosting for peace of mind and expert management. We at FORGET hosting offer tailored solutions with robust support and security features. Invest wisely for your website’s success. See our website hosting offers, and if you need any help, contact us. We will be glad to help you!
