If you are running a small business, you will no doubt know of the importance of having a strong internet prescence. Failure to have an operational website can be a make or break situation for any young company as more and more customers turn to the internet to find the goods and services that they require.
In order to generate as much income as possible, you will need to find a reliable and reputable business web hosting company who can guarantee you maximum up time for your site as well as offering you a wealth of other features and facilities to make running and controlling your website infinitely easier.
Once you have decided to launch your own website, the next problem is which of the countless small business website hosting providers to choose. Many of them will be offering deals and promotions to new sign ups, and for a novice it can be confusing to compare all the different features and extras that are available. You need to be prepared to make an informed decision by knowing what to look for from the best business website hosting providers.
Speed is Your Key to Business Success
If the pages of your website are slow to load you are going to suffer from a high bounce rate. With all the online stores available to customers these days, shoppers are unlikely to wait around for a slow loading site. If you want to maximise your revenue, you need to keep traffic flowing reliably and swiftly through your site and ensure that your pages load in a reasonably quick time.
Some small business website hosting suppliers will offer you low prices however these may come at the expense of speed. You may not even realise how slow your pages are to load until it is too late, when your website is already launched and you are starting to lose business.
It is therefore important to read reviews to find the best website hosting for small business. Editorial reviews and user experiences will help you to discover the truth behind each business web hosting provider you are considering, and help you to know whether or not they are suitable for your website’s needs.
Support is an Essential Feature of the Best Business Website Hosting
Keeping your website running smoothly is vital to the success of your business. You don’t want to be left in a situation where your website is out of action and you have to wait for technical support to rectify the issue. While many business web hosting providers will boast 24/7 customer support services, in fact this may not be the bonus that it seems. Although helplines may be open 24 hours a day 7 days a week, in fact the support offered may be automated and you may find it very difficult, if not impossible, to speak to a live person. This is obviously not an ideal situation if your income is in jeopardy through a non-functioning website.
Some of the cheapest small business website hosting suppliers will be offering very low monthly rates for their packages, however this could be a warning sign to you that their technical support may not be up to scratch. It is not worth saving a relatively small amount of money on your monthly fee when you cannot get the help you require when you most need it. It is well worth spending a little more and getting a high quality technical team at your fingertips whenever you need it.
It can be hard to know how good a web hosting company’s support team really is, as their websites will only emphasise their strong points. You could check their skills yourself however, not only by reading reviews but also by calling them with queries at different times of day and seeing how satisfied you are with the responses you are given.
Security and Backup Features are Important When Looking for Best Business Web Hosting
Nobody needs to tell a small business owner how important security is to their company’s website. When customers are buying online they want to be reassured that their financial and personal details will be safe and at no risk of being shared or hacked. It therefore makes sense to research the security features of your chosen business web hosting provider before making a commitment.
Some small business website hosting companies try to save money by using outdated equipment and foregoing essential upgrades. It is important that you don’t make the mistake of choosing one of these providers as they are at risk of losing your data. You should always check to see what backup services are included in your package rate and ensure that all backup servers are kept at a different location to the main server hosting your website so that you are at no risk of losing everything in one fell swoop.
Think Long Term When Considering the Best Business Web Hosting for Your Company
When you are starting up a new small business it is very important to keep costs low. If you are trying to lower your start up costs one of the ways you can make savings is to choose a shared web hosting company as these are by far the cheapest option when it comes to web hosting services.
A shared web hosting provider is most likely to be the best website hosting for small business, however you may want to consider any future expansion plans. Is your website likely to require at some future point a greater amount of storage space, a higher volume of web traffic or the facility to stream a lot of video and audio media? If you want to future proof your small business that you think may grow exponentially within a short space of time, you might want to think about using a Virtual Private Server instead.
It is possible to start out with a shared web hosting provider and then change to a VPS server at a later date, however you may want to check how easy your provider will make this for you should it become a necessity.
Beware of Wiping out Your Server
One thing to consider when choosing a business web hosting provider is whether you should host all your web assets with the same company. If, for example, you turn out to have a very popular podcast on the same server as your website, you may find that when the traffic to your podcast becomes very high, the website hosting service closes down your account because it is overwhelming their limited resources and violating the terms of your package. You should check the terms and conditions of any package you are considering before making any commitment and possibly consider using two web hosting providers to spread out your assets.
Make Sure Your Web Hosting Server is Compatible With Your Applications
You should check whether your chosen small business website hosting provider is using a Microsoft or a Linux operating system for their server if you are running applications which require a specific operating system to function. Choosing a Linux operating system server is a mistake if you have applications that are essential to your website that require a Microsoft operating system to work.
If you do your research carefully and weigh up all the pros and cons of the different business web hosting providers you are sure to find the best business web hosting to suit the needs of your small business.