Bandwidth is usually compared to the different lanes of a highway. Every car that goes by that highway represents the traffic that comes to your website. Getting stuck in overcrowded roads will result in long delays. Likewise, you will also end up getting frustrated. At the same time, having too many lanes is also not possible considering the cost and maintenance involved.

In a similar manner, when it comes to your website, your visitors are going to get frustrated if they are unable to access the webpage they wish to open. So, you will need to find a way to retain your website visitors and also make sure they are happy about your website. This will, in turn, result in your website being successful.

This is the reason why you will need to understand why web hosting bandwidth is important and how much bandwidth your website requires. This article explains what web hosting bandwidth is and its importance to your website.

What Is Web Hosting Bandwidth?

Web hosting bandwidth is the amount of data that websites can deliver to those who visit the website at any given time. This bandwidth shows how soon your website can deliver the content your website visitors requested – even when the traffic is at its peak levels. This is important to increase sales and build your audience. If you have higher bandwidth, you can have more dynamic features on your website. This will make your website more appealing to your visitors.

While bandwidth is generally calculated by gigabytes (GB), some hosting companies offer unlimited bandwidth. While some hosting providers offer unlimited bandwidth, some offer a certain amount of bandwidth where you will be allowed to purchase extra bandwidth if required.

How Much Bandwidth Do I Need?

The more the better. We recommend unlimited bandwidth. However, you will have to pay an additional premium if you would like to get extra bandwidth. If you do not wish to pay for bandwidth, your website may not run as you and your visitors expect.

Though small and personal websites will not consume a lot of bandwidth, large websites like ecommerce websites will need a lot of bandwidth. If your website is a new website, then you can start off with limited bandwidth. Then, you can figure out how much bandwidth your website really needs as you move forward. Here are a few tips to help you calculate how much bandwidth is required.

  • Check for the number of people who visit your website daily
  • The size of pages on your website
  • The number of pages each visitor visits per day on an average
  • Check if there are traffic spikes on certain days
  • You can pull out the above data for a 31-day period
The average will help you understand how much bandwidth your website consumes in a given month. As this result will be in KB, you can convert it to GB to know how much you require. If downloads are involved, the bandwidth usage will be more.

What is Unlimited Bandwidth?

Limited or less bandwidth could result in you losing out on sales and leaving your website visitors disappointed. With the global internet traffic increasing by more than 20 percent every year, many feel that the bandwidth currently available is not sufficient. As a result of this, many hosting providers promise to offer unlimited bandwidth. This could look very appealing and as a very good deal.

However, unlimited bandwidth is just a marketing term and it is not exactly what you think it is. When hosting providers say they offer unlimited bandwidth, it really means that they do not cap the data you can consume every month. But this does not mean your hosting provider will not throttle your bandwidth if there are too many visitors to your website.

You will need to understand that unlimited bandwidth does not mean your transfer speed will be high, but rather it means your website will not be cut off from new visitors after exhausting the available bandwidth.

Best Hosting Providers with Unlimited Bandwidth

While there are a lot of web hosting providers in the market, not all providers offer services at a reasonable price. If your bandwidth is less or limited, your website visitors might have to wait for a long time for your website to load, at peak times, for example, on days when you offer huge discounts, like Black Friday. With limited bandwidth, you may find it close to impossible to keep up. As a result of it, you may lose out on sales, as your visitors are more likely to navigate away from your website.

Click here to know more about hosting providers that offer enough bandwidth at a reasonable price.

Why is Bandwidth Important for a Website?

Page load speeds are important to grow your traffic and to get more people to visit your website. A certain amount of bandwidth is needed to deliver your website to your visitors as soon as a page is requested. According to Google, most people abandon websites that do not load in three to four seconds.

So, when you have more bandwidth, you can include dynamic content on your website and also have a great design. You can allow downloads and more without worrying about bandwidth limits. Having a good amount of bandwidth will help your visitors have a good experience on your website.

How Do I Increase Bandwidth?

If you run out of bandwidth, you may not have new visitors make it to your website. If you would like to prevent this from happening, you need to find ways to increase your bandwidth.

To start with, you can look for ways to increase your bandwidth by trying to reduce the bandwidth usage. Preserving your available bandwidth is the first thing you can do.

Optimize image files for the web so that it takes up lesser bandwidth. Similarly, by compressing JavaScript, HTTP, and CSS, you can save bandwidth. You can use a content delivery network (CDN) that will help your website load faster.

However, your hosting provider will notify you when you run out of bandwidth. Then, you can upgrade to a better plan with more bandwidth.

Wrapping Up

Now that we have come to the end, we hope that you understand what web hosting bandwidth is and how much bandwidth your website might require. The main thing here is to make sure your website has enough bandwidth so that your visitors have a great experience browsing your website!