Choosing the Right Hosting Provider for Your Church Website

Understand the key differences between hosting options and discover what to look for when choosing a reliable, affordable provider for your church.

52 min

Free to watch

What you'll learn

The key differences between shared, VPS, and managed hosting
What to look for in terms of uptime, speed, and support
Why churches often overpay for hosting they do not need
How to evaluate hosting costs against your church budget
ChurchSpring vs. DIY hosting — what makes sense for your church

Notes

A website hosting provider supplies the servers, security and network that make your site available to visitors.
Domain hosting only routes traffic, like a post office with PO boxes, while website hosting stores the files that get displayed.
First factor to weigh: real support, someone you can reach when something breaks.
Second factor: server speed, because site speed affects your Google ranking.
Third factor: your content management system and your host need to work together, not just any CMS on any server.
Bundled services that combine the website platform and hosting can spare non-technical churches from piecing it together.
Some hosts offer email, but it is often worse than free options like Google for nonprofits or Zoho's free plan.
Don't pay for extras your host already includes, such as an SSL security certificate that avoids browser warnings.
Action step: evaluate your current hosting, and if support or speed is poor, move to a more reliable provider.
Demo: the blocks feature, covering text, events, sermons, map and contact form blocks plus colored or video backgrounds.

Companion article

Notes and resources that go with this session

CSL 003 – How to Choose a Hosting Provider for your Church Website →

Transcript

Full transcript of this session

Isabelle (00:56):

Hello there. Welcome to ChurchSpring live episode three. We are excited to have you here today. I see we already have some live viewers. This is awesome. Today we are going to talk about how to select a reliable hosting provider for your church website. So if you just heard that and you’re thinking, what does that even mean? That’s okay. Stay tuned. We are going to unpack a lot today. I am Isabelle with ChurchSpring. I’m on the customer happiness team and with me is the great Rohn Gibson cofounder of ChurchSpring. Our cofounders Mike and Rohn they’re great. We have an amazing, amazing staff here at ChurchSpring. We will love to hear from you. So if you are tuning in right now, drop a comment below, share your name, where you’re from your church.