What does it take to run a business? Hard work, determination, and… a website! If you want to succeed as an animator, you will need a website to attract new clients and legitimize yourself. Unless you’re also a web developer, requiring a website also means needing a website hosting provider.
Website hosting providers help you keep up with maintenance, customer support, email accounts, and many more tools to help you manage and run your website.
You can choose from shared hosting, dedicated hosting, VPS hosting, cloud hosting, and managed hosting. Before purchasing a website hosting plan, make sure that you know what you need from a hosting site and which one is best for your website.
Image by Clement Helardot via Unsplash
Kinds of Web Hosting
1) Shared Hosting
Shared hosting is the least expensive but also the least powerful kind of hosting. All websites of these accounts are in the same drive and use the same web server.
It comes with email, WordPress, and tools to help you efficiently run a website. It is best to use if you’re on a budget or don't have a big project with tons of needs.
A downside to using this hosting is that the more website visitors you have, the slower your website will be, resulting in your website crashing. Be aware of this risk when signing up for shared hosting.
2) Dedicated Server Hosting
Dedicated server hosting has the exclusive use of an entire server and gives you complete control. This means that your website will be speedy, and your chances of crashing are decreased.
Dedicated hosting is a good choice if you want to use your server software, adjust settings, install your operating system, and expect an increase in website traffic.
Take note that this is more expensive than shared hosting. Big businesses are the primary users of this kind of server hosting. Carefully consider if it will be worth the investment before committing.
3) Virtual Private Server (VPS) Hosting
VPS Hosting is a mix of shared hosting and dedicated hosting. In this kind of hosting, you have your physical server and don’t share resources and bandwidth.
You have complete control of the server just like in dedicated server hosting and have more access to server resources. Since VPS accounts have IP addresses, you can add users, turn the server on and off, install software while also enjoying fewer security issues than with shared hosting.
VPS hosting is the best choice if you have a medium-to-large business
4) Cloud Hosting
In cloud hosting, many computers work together and run applications. Cloud technology uses innovative methods to spread files, data, resources, and computing operations among multiple servers connected as one system.
Its users can use as many resources as they want without the maintenance of their computing infrastructure. This reduces the downtime of your website.
It’s also scalable, which means you can easily upgrade or downgrade and pay only for what you need as your website grows over time.
This kind of hosting is best to use if you have a large, high-traffic website but works just as well for smaller sites.
5) Managed Hosting
Managed hosting is a blend of technology and support where hosting providers offer hardware and software setup and maintenance, hardware replacement, technical support, and monitoring.
If you have a significant online audience and want to give your customers the highest quality experience, this kind of hosting is for you.
After purchasing a hosting plan and uploading your files, all of your website files will be stored on your hosting provider’s server. Every time someone goes to your domain name, they will be able to visit your website.
When choosing a hosting plan, make sure you first consider your budget, online audience, and business goals.
Below is a list of website hosting providers that you can use to make your animation website.
Website Hosting Providers
1) HostGator
HostGator is a website hosting provider that has one of the best uptimes compared to other hosting providers. It provides unlimited bandwidth, a free SSL certificate, unlimited storage on several hosting plans at varying prices, and a 45-day money-back guarantee.
HostGator has a good interface and many templates for various categories you can use to create your website. It also has a drag-and-drop builder and free email software that will allow you to send automated emails to your animation clients.
Some other good things about HostGator is that it has WordPress Cloud Hosting Plans that have 2.5x faster load times and increased website speed, free site migration, and free backup.
HostGator also has an excellent Knowledge Base where you can effortlessly search for what you’re looking for. If you have a question that their Knowledge Base can’t answer, you can feel free to chat live with them.
According to HostGator, registering domain names is costly, and extra features are only available on higher plans.
2) GoDaddy
GoDaddy has excellent customer service and tons of plugin apps that you can use and is best for people who want to launch small websites. It helps its users quickly build custom websites with its simple drag-and-drop approach.
GoDaddy has many free domain options and allows you to install more than 200 apps. A con of using this is that there are no month-to-month options, and they have costly renewals.
3) Wix
Wix has well-designed templates and great features. It’s mobile-friendly, has designs that look well on any device, and will make you stand out from other websites. Even if you’re new to creating websites, Wix will be easy to use, primarily because of its 500+ ready-to-go design templates.
It can be costly to use if you don’t want to have ads on your website. Another downside of using it is that after picking a template for your website, you cannot switch to another template without creating a new site. If you want to change it, you will have to start from the beginning.
As far as customer service goes, Wix offers support only during business hours and weekdays. They do not offer live chat support, making running into an issue somewhat of a pain.
4) Hostinger
Hostinger is an affordable website hosting option with a free SSL, domain name, 24/7 support, and fast loading time. It also offers Cloud, email, WordPress, and VPS. It has a fast and secure hosting service as well as a 30-day money-back guarantee.
According to Hosting Tribunal, it’s an excellent plan for beginners and small business sites who need simple website features. Each of its advanced plans gives users a free domain, unlimited add-on domains, unlimited bandwidth, and mySQL databases.
Unfortunately, it has no free domain, and there is limited processing and power available for the lowest plan. Another con to using Hostinger is that they do not offer phone support.
5) Hostwinds
Hostwinds provides many setup options, fully managed servers, and great customer service.
It uses an integrated online interface, custom templates, and instant scalability, allowing you to make your website on any browser. It has SSD Drivers, which increases your server speed and gives you an uptime of 99.99%.
Hostwinds is also flexible when it comes to payments. You can pay from hourly billing and cyclical billing. As for their customer service, they give 24/7 support via phone, chat, or support ticket.
A downside to using Hostwinds is that not every plan has a Windows option.
6) BlueHost
BlueHost offers free domains, SSL, 24/7 customer support (via live chat and email), unlimited disk space, unlimited bandwidth, and a security layer.
It has a fast loading speed, great uptime, and is easy to use. It can also be easily integrated with WordPress, making it a great fit for anyone who already has a WordPress website.
Their hosting places have a 30-day money-back guarantee. You can host more than one website and get unlimited email addresses if you pay for the higher plans.
A downside to using it is that you have to pay if you want to have your website hosted elsewhere, and the minimum amount of time you can pay for a plan is 12 months and not longer than that.
7) 1&1 IONOS
1&1 IONOS is an affordable website hosting provider for those who want a starter package for their website. It has a free domain, SSL certificate, hundreds of available templates, more than 100GB of storage, and 24/7 customer support via phone, email, and live chat.
With its easy-to-use drag-and-drop approach and modern design templates, you can have your website up in just a matter of minutes.
1&1 is also a great website hosting provider to use for your WordPress blog. You can use the WordPress setup wizard to install it quickly Hostinger provides SSD drives, RAM, automatic WordPress updates, and year-round WordPress customer support.
A disadvantage of using 1&1 is that it’s more costly than other web-hosting providers. They do offer a 30-day money-back guarantee if you decide this provider isn’t for you.
8) DreamHost
DreamHost boasts easy-to-understand hosting plans, including SSL, unlimited emails, free domain name, domain privacy, and much more.
It has great uptime, 100GB of block storage per plan, free bandwidth storage, and a 97-day money-back guarantee. If you encounter problems while using DreamHost, you can rely on their quick-response 24/7 live chat and email.
What makes DreamHost different from other website hosting providers is that it offers monthly plans instead of yearly. You’ll like using it for your animation website because it has 24/7 live chat support.
A con to using it is that it has no cPanel that helps users manage their websites using their control panel.
9) InMotion Hosting
InMotion Hosting has many plans that come at different prices and packages, including VPS, servers, and more that can make your website run faster.
You can have a generous 90-day money-back guarantee, free SSD drives, free website transfer, SSD drive storage, and a free SSL certificate.
One downside to inMotion is that it has a slow verification process, slow server speed has higher plans on the pricey level, and doesn’t give you an option to pay monthly.
10) A2 HostingPros
A2 Hosting Pros has a fast loading time compared to other website hosting providers, decent uptime, servers optimized for WordPress, free SSL certificate, free site migration, and free backups.
When it comes to their support, they offer 24/7 live chat support. Their reps are knowledgeable about their services and honestly care about meeting your needs.
All hosting plans come with a money-back guarantee of 30 days.
A downside to using this website hosting provider is that its small plan has limited features and has a slow control panel.
11) WestHost Pros
WestHost Pros is a web hosting provider that has high-quality solutions to website hosting struggles. It has a simple interface, speedy sign-up process, and gives you unlimited email accounts.
It is compatible with WordPress features and plugins.
WestHost gives you a 30-day money-back guarantee and 24/7 customer support via live chat, email, phone, and support tickets.
A downside to using it is that you may have to wait for a few hours to set up your account.
It also has a lower score than other hosting providers in uptime rate and speed. Many users explained they experienced many outages and slow loading times.
Aside from that, it has slow response times when it comes to technical support.
12) SiteGround
SiteGround currently hosts more than 2 million domains and is known for its stable uptime, unlimited emails, free migration, and fast load time.
What makes SiteGround fast is the stable server hardware and the JetPack plug-in to make the images on your website load more quickly.
SiteGround offers 24/7 quick response via live chat, phone support, and helpdesk tickets.
It has monthly plans but has limited affordable plans. The plans have website builders, SSLs, email accounts, daily backups, and come with a money-back guarantee of 30-days.
In Closing
There are so many website hosting providers out there that you can use for your website. Having choices is great, but it can make building your perfect website feel even more daunting.
Before choosing a website hosting provider, make sure that it has the features you’re looking for, such as good customer service, ease of use, reasonable pricing and plans, high uptime, and speed in loading pages.
We hope that this article will help you get started working on your animation website.
If you want to learn more about animation business tips, make sure to join our free masterclass and get your copy of our marketing handbook.
